World

The Conservatives Have Run Britain for 14 Years. How Has That Worked Out?

Published

3 days ago

July 4, 2024

The Conservatives Have Run Britain for 14 Years. How Has That Worked Out?

Since Britain’s Conservative Party took power 14 years ago, most things have not gone the way it planned.

The Conservative Party has dramatically reshaped Britain since 2010, orchestrating its exit from the European Union, slashing spending on public services and cutting welfare spending. Time and again, British voters have returned the party to power.

But Britons say their country is worse off now than when the Conservatives took office. Their dissatisfaction emerges on almost every issue they are asked about, from the economy to education to the National Health Service.

With the Conservatives facing the possibility of a crushing defeat in Thursday’s election, we took a look at how Britain has changed since they came to power. To do so, we chose the metrics that voters — and the party itself — say matter the most.

No single measure can capture the Britain of 2024, of course, but taken together, these metrics offer a snapshot of decline.

The Economy Has Stagnated

Average productivity growth has declined since 2010…

Source: Office for National Statistics. Note: 10-year rolling average.

… and average weekly earnings, when adjusted for inflation, are barely higher.

Source: Office for National Statistics

Britain’s economy has been stagnant ever since the 2008 financial crash, and the pandemic also hit it hard. Many of its peers, including Germany and the United States, managed to recapture pre-crisis levels of economic growth, but Britain never regained its momentum.

Productivity, a measure of economic output for every hour worked, was growing at about 2 percent per year in the decade before the financial crash. Since the Conservatives took power, it has grown by only about 0.5 percent per year.

One consequence of stagnant productivity is stagnant wages: The average British worker earns just £20 more per week than 14 years ago, after adjusting for inflation.

Austerity budgets explain a lot of the stagnation.

The new Conservative government, intent on reducing the deficit, cut deep and broad, slashing spending not just on party bugbears like welfare but also on public budgets for investment.

Following the vote to leave the European Union, private investment also ground to a halt amid economic uncertainty. The U.K. has the lowest rates of investment among G7 countries, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research, a think tank based in London.

The Conservatives took power bemoaning the “debt crisis” and saying deep cuts were necessary to reduce the public debt. But even after a decade of austerity, it continued to rise, and then jumped sharply because of the pandemic.

Britain’s debt as a share of G.D.P. has ballooned since 2010

Source: Office for National Statistics

The Conservatives also positioned themselves as a party of low taxation, pledging to reduce taxes in every election manifesto since 2010. The opposite happened.

Taxation as a share of G.D.P. has risen to its highest level in 70 years

Source: Office for Budget Responsibility

More people have been dragged into higher tax brackets, and those at all income levels were hit when the nationwide sales tax was raised to 20 percent from 17.5 percent.

The Conservatives argue that the taxation is needed to reduce debt and cover the cost of measures introduced to counter economic shocks like the pandemic and the energy price crisis tied to the war in Ukraine.

The party did fulfill one of its pledges.

Unemployment has roughly halved since 2010, when the U.K. was just emerging from recession. Conservative policy makers argue that their welfare changes, aimed at making benefits less attractive and employment more rewarding, motivated people to return to the workforce. Some researchers found that the changes did modestly encourage people to work.

Public Services Are Struggling

More than 7.5 million people are now waiting for hospital treatment…

Source: N.H.S. England

… and the share of cancer patients who start treatment within two months is at a record low.

Source: N.H.S. England

The picture the Conservatives painted of Britain in 2010 was of a country living beyond its means. They detailed £6.2 billion, or about $9 billion, of spending cuts within their first two weeks in office, and severe cuts continued for the next decade.

Fourteen years later, despite record debt and the highest tax burden in 70 years, many of Britain’s public services are greatly diminished.

Local councils, which run services like social care, libraries, waste management, and local infrastructure, bore some of the deepest cuts, with their spending power dropping almost 30 percent by 2019.

Even the National Health Service, which was ring-fenced from cuts, has been under intense pressure. Its budgets have not risen in line with the increasing demands of Britain’s aging population, and cuts to the social care sector forced more vulnerable people into hospitals.

Britons rank health care as the second-most-pressing issue facing the country. Going into the election, four times as many voters believe Labour is better placed to manage the National Health Service as the Conservatives.

Outside the N.H.S., almost no department was spared from cuts. Troop numbers in the armed forces were reduced by more than 40,000.

Policing was also cut significantly, but during the 2019 election Boris Johnson pledged to stand for the “law abiding majority” and restore the 20,000 police officers that had been lost — a promise he fulfilled.

The number of armed forces personnel has been reduced by 44,000…

Source: House of Commons Library

… but the number of police officers has rebounded, after dropping for a decade.

Source: House of Commons Library

Record Levels of Immigration, Despite Conservative Pledges

The Conservatives vowed to reduce net migration, but it reached a record high.

Source: Home Office

The Conservative party long promised to reduce immigration, and the pledge to “take back control” of Britain’s borders was one of the top reasons many Britons voted to leave the European Union.

But legal immigration has soared in recent years. Net migration — the number of people who moved to Britain minus those who left — reached 764,000 in 2022, almost three times as high as when votes were cast for Brexit.

The migration spike in 2022 was largely driven by specific events, and it has already shown signs of subsiding. Some of the increase was likely migration delayed by the pandemic, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, Hong Kongers and Afghans all fled to Britain on humanitarian visa programs.

Much of the debate around migration is being driven by record numbers of small-boat crossings across the channel, even though they only account for about 2 percent of migration to the U.K.

A huge backlog of unresolved asylum claims has grown under the conservatives. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has promised to send people seeking asylum to Rwanda for resettlement, but those flights have been delayed by court challenges.

The asylum backlog peaked when more than 130,000 people were waiting to have their claim processed.

Source: Home Office

Two-thirds of Britons think immigration is too high, and the disconnect between the Conservatives’ tough talk on immigration and the record levels of migration has opened the party up to attacks from the hard right.

Increases in homelessness, hunger and student debt

The Trussell Trust, a charity, distributed more than 3 million emergency food parcels last year…

Source: Trussell Trust

… and thousands more people are sleeping on the streets than in 2010.

Source: Department for Leveling Up, Housing and Communities

The Conservatives tightened up significant parts of Britain’s welfare system, introducing a two-child limit to child welfare payments, stricter limits for disability benefits and a freeze on working-age benefits for four years.

At the same time, food bank use has skyrocketed. A third of the food parcels distributed by the Trussell Trust last year went to children.

Housing prices have risen dramatically, and an annual survey also found increasing numbers of people sleeping on the streets. Although the number dipped during the pandemic, when the government moved many homeless people into hotels and temporary accommodation, it is now steadily rising toward record levels again.

The problem is stark in many cities now, where the combination of little affordable housing and reduced support services have left many without a safety net.

The cuts have reshaped all aspects of British life, but especially for young people. The Conservatives’ legacy for many of them will be defined by their rising student debt.

The government cut funding for universities and tripled tuition fees to plug the funding gap, meaning the average student now graduates with about £45,000 of student loan debt.

Graduate debt by the time they leave university is three times as high as in 2010…

Source: Student Loans Company

… but more people than ever are attending university.

Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency

The overall crime rate peaked in the mid-90s, driven by increases in violence, vehicle crime and burglary, but it has declined ever since. From 2010 to 2023 it dropped by a further 54 percent.

Despite Mr. Sunak’s recent moves to roll back the reduction of carbon emissions, the country his party leaves behind is greener than the one it inherited: Britain is generating 60 percent less electricity from fossil fuels now than it was in 2010.

Methodology

These metrics represent the issues British voters say are most pressing in polls by YouGov. Data for the entire United Kingdom was used when available. Some metrics apply only to England.

To show how these measures have changed over the Conservatives’ time in office, we calculated the percentage change of each metric between 2010 and the latest available data.

The first chart, which shows all metrics and their percentage change, is plotted on a logarithmic scale. Each metric “improved” or “worsened” compared to what the Conservatives would want, based on the party’s pre-election pledges and average voter sentiment about each issue. For example, two-thirds of Britons believe net migration is too high.

Data sources

Food bank use The number of food parcels handed out by The Trussell Trust, the largest food bank operator in Britain. Source: The Trussell Trust. Data covers the United Kingdom.

Graduate debt The average student loan balance at the time of graduation, including interest. Source: Student Loans Company. Data covers England.

Asylum backlog The number of asylum applications awaiting an initial decision. Source: Home Office, Migration Observatory. Data covers the United Kingdom.

Hospital waiting lists The number of people waiting for consultant-led elective care in English hospitals. Source: N.H.S. England. Data covers England.

Homelessness The number of people estimated to be sleeping on the streets on a single night. Source: Department for Leveling Up, Housing and Communities. Data covers England.

Net migration The number of people moving to the U.K. minus the number of people who left. Source: Home Office. Data covers the United Kingdom.

Productivity growth The 10-year trailing average of annual productivity growth. Source: Office for National Statistics. Data covers the United Kingdom.

Local government budgets The median change in spending power, a government estimate of the amount of money that local authorities have available to take decisions. Source: House of Commons Library. Data covers England.

Timely cancer treatment The share of patients starting treatment within 62 days of a referral by their doctor. Source: N.H.S. England. Data covers England.

Knife crime The number of violent and sexual offenses involving a knife or sharp instrument recorded by the police. Source: Office for National Statistics. Data covers England, excluding Greater Manchester.

Government debt The debt of the public sector, excluding public sector banks, as a percentage of G.D.P. Source: Office for National Statistics. Data covers the United Kingdom.

Taxes The percentage of the country’s G.D.P. that is collected in taxes. Source: Office for Budget Responsibility. Data covers the United Kingdom.

Number of troops Number of fully trained full-time personnel in the armed forces. Source: Ministry of Defence via FullFact. Data covers the United Kingdom.

Average weekly earnings The average amount of money that people earn per week, adjusted for inflation. Source: Office for National Statistics. Data covers Great Britain.

Number of police The full-time equivalent number of police officers. Source: House of Commons Library. Data covers the United Kingdom.

University enrollment The number of undergraduate and postgraduate students. Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency. Data covers the United Kingdom.

State pension value The value of the basic state pension, adjusted for inflation. Source: Department for Work and Pensions. Data covers Great Britain.

Unemployment The number of unemployed people in the U.K., aged 16 and over, as measured by the Labor Force Survey. Source: Office for National Statistics. Data covers the United Kingdom.

Crime Includes a range of personal and household crimes such as theft, robbery, and criminal damage. It excludes fraud and computer misuse. Source: Crime Survey of England and Wales. Data covers England and Wales.

Energy from fossil fuels The amount of electricity produced from oil, gas and coal. Source: Our World in Data. Data covers the United Kingdom.

World

To a defiant Biden, the 2024 race is up to the voters, not to Democrats on Capitol Hill

Published

2 hours ago

July 6, 2024

Press Room

To a defiant Biden, the 2024 race is up to the voters, not to Democrats on Capitol Hill

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — To a defiant President Joe Biden, the 2024 election is up to the public — not the Democrats on Capitol Hill. But the chorus of Democratic voices calling for him to step aside is growing, from donors, strategists, lawmakers and their constituents who say he should bow out.

The party has not fallen in line behind him even after the events that were set up as part of a blitz to reset his imperiled campaign and show everyone he wasn’t too old to stay in the job or to do it another four years.

On Saturday, a fifth Democratic lawmaker said openly that Biden should not run again. Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota said that after what she saw and heard in the debate with Republican rival Donald Trump, and Biden’s “lack of a forceful response” afterward, he should step aside “and allow for a new generation of leaders to step forward.”

Craig posted one of the Democrats’ key suburban wins in the 2018 midterms and could be a barometer for districts that were vital for Biden in 2020.

With no public schedule on Saturday, the president and his aides were taking a step back from the fervor over the past few days. But Biden will head out campaigning again on Sunday in Philadelphia. And this coming week, the U.S. is hosting the NATO summit and the president is to hold a news conference.

Vice President Kamala Harris planned to campaign Saturday in New Orleans.

What to know about the 2024 Election

The president’s ABC interview on Friday night stirred carefully worded expressions of disappointment from the party’s ranks, and worse from those who spoke anonymously. Ten days into the crisis moment of the Biden-Trump debate, Biden is dug in.

With the Democratic convention approaching and just four months to Election Day, neither camp in the party can much afford this internecine drama much longer. But it is bound to drag on until Biden steps aside or Democrats realize he won’t and learn to contain their concerns about the president’s chances against Trump.

Even within the White House there were concerns the ABC interview wasn’t enough to turn the page.

Campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez has been texting lawmakers and administration officials are encouraging them not to go public with their concerns about the race and the president’s electability, according to a Democrat granted anonymity to discuss the situation.

Most Democrats have stayed quieter in recent days, allowing the president’s team the space to show them — and Americans — he is up for the job with the rallies, interview and flurry of public events.

But Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, without breaking with Biden at this point, are pulling together meetings with members in the next few days to discuss options. It was clear that discontent among Democrats on Capitol Hill has not subsided, and privately many would prefer to see the president not run.

Many lawmakers are hearing from constituents at home and fielding questions. One senator was working to get others together to ask him to step aside.

Yet some senior lawmakers were now trying to bring the party behind their presumptive nominee. “Biden is who our country needs,” Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, who had raised questions about Biden in the aftermath of the debate, said after the interview.

Following the interview, a Democratic donor reported that many of the fellow donors he spoke with were furious, particularly because the president declined to acknowledge the effects his aging. Many of those donors are seeking a change in leadership at the top of the ticket, said the person, who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Biden roundly swatted away calls Friday to step away from the race, telling telling voters at a Wisconsin rally, reporters outside Air Force One and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he was not going anywhere.

“Completely ruling that out,” he told reporters the rally.

Biden dismissed those who were calling for his ouster, instead saying he’d spoken with 20 lawmakers and they had all encouraged him to stay in the race.

Concern about Biden’s fitness for another four years has been persistent. In an August 2023 poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, fully 77% of U.S. adults said Biden was too old to be effective for four more years. Not only did 89% of Republicans say that, but so did 69% of Democrats. His approval rating stands at 38%.

Biden has dismissed the polling, citing as evidence his 2020 surge to the nomination and win over Trump, after initially faltering, and the 2022 midterm elections, when polls suggested Republicans would sweep but didn’t, largely in part over the issue of abortion rights.

“I don’t buy that,” when he was reminded that he was behind in the polls. “I don’t think anybody’s more qualified to be president or win this race than me.”

At times, Biden rambled during the interview, which ABC said aired in full and without edits. Asked how he might turn the race around, Biden argued that one key would be large and energetic rallies like the one he held Friday in Wisconsin. When reminded that Trump routinely draws larger crowds, the president laid into his opponent.

“Trump is a pathological liar,” Biden said, accusing Trump of bungling the federal response to the COVID pandemic and failing to create jobs. “You ever see something that Trump did that benefited someone else and not him?”

Republicans, though, are squarely behind their candidate, and support for Trump, who at 78 is three years younger than Biden, has been growing.

And that’s despite Trump’s 34 felony convictions in a hush money trial, that he was found liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, and that his businesses were found to have engaged in fraud.

___

Miller and Mascaro reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Saugatuck, Michigan, and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

World

$20M in gold stolen from Canadian airport likely overseas already, police say

Published

3 hours ago

July 6, 2024

Press Room

$20M in gold stolen from Canadian airport likely overseas already, police say

A police department in Canada believes over 6,500 gold bars have disappeared overseas after being stolen from an airport last year.

The incident, which took place in April 2023 at Toronto’s Pearson International airport, was perhaps the most valuable gold heist in history. Police reported more than CA$20,000,000 worth of gold was stolen in the form of 6,600 serialized bars.

“We believe a large portion has gone overseas to markets that are flush with gold,” lead investigator Det. Sgt. Mike Mavity said at a June 21 meeting of the Peel Police Service Board, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

CANADIAN POLICE SAY 9 PEOPLE WILL BE CHARGED AFTER $20 MILLION WORTH OF GOLD WAS STOLEN LAST YEAR FROM AIRPORT

Police officers open the back of a recovered truck during a press conference regarding Project 24K — a joint investigation into the theft of gold from Pearson International Airport, in Brampton, Ontario. (Arlyn McAdorey/The Canadian Press via AP)

He continued, “That would be Dubai, or India, where you can take gold with serial numbers on it, and they will still honor it and melt it down.”

Mavity said he believes the gold was handed over to another party and melted down very shortly after the heist.

Suspects in the case include a jewelry store owner, a former Air Canada manager, and a warehouse employee. A total of nine individuals have been arrested in connection with the case.

TORONTO AIRPORT HEIST: $15M CONTAINER OF GOLD, VALUABLE ITEMS STOLEN FROM CARGO FACILITY

Canada Gold Heist Toronto Pearson Airport

A photo of the falsified seafood order that was used to gain access to the Air Canada warehouse is displayed on a monitor. Peel Regional Police and the US Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau announced details and arrests made concerning the theft of 20 million dollars in gold from Pearson International Airport. (Richard Lautens/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

The suspects reportedly used a completed bill for a seafood pick-up to forge paperwork that was given to a warehouse attendant.

Authorities believe a small amount of precious metal was melted down in the basement of a Mississauga jewelry store immediately following the heist. Only CA$90,000 has been recovered from the heist.

Police have attempted to draw connections between the stolen gold and cross-border gun trafficking, citing dozens of firearms seized from suspects in the investigation.

Sgt Mike Mavity of the Peel police, a lead investigator in the case, speaks to the media with the sum total of the gold so far recovered projected beside him. (Richard Lautens/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Two fully automatic weapons and several untraceable firearms were recovered, but authorities have not yet offered substantial evidence of connections to the illegal gun trade.

Timothy Nerozzi is a writer for Fox News Digital. You can follow him on Twitter @timothynerozzi and can email him at timothy.nerozzi@fox.com

World

France overseas residents begin voting in second-round of elections

Published

3 hours ago

July 6, 2024

Press Room

France overseas residents begin voting in second-round of elections

Sunday’s legislative elections in mainland France will be decisive, with parties fighting to steal votes from a strong far-right force.

Voters in France’s overseas territories and living abroad started casting ballots Saturday in parliamentary run-off elections that could hand an unprecedented victory to the nationalist far right.

Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration party National Rally came out on top of first-round voting last Sunday, followed by a coalition of centre-left, hard-left and Greens parties – and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance in a distant third.

The first polling stations opened in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon at noon Paris time this Saturday. In the territory’s only constituency, Stéphane Lenormand, who came well ahead of the others on the right, will face Frédéric Beaumont of the Socialist Party.

Elsewhere, residents of French Guiana, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Polynesia and French citizens living on the American continent will start voting in the afternoon. The second round in New Caledonia will start at 10 p.m. Paris time. French citizens living abroad were also able to vote by Internet on Wednesday and Thursday.

The elections wrap up Sunday in mainland France. Initial polling projections are expected when the final voting stations close at 8 p.m. Paris time, with early official results expected late Sunday and early Monday.

Macron called the snap legislative vote after the National Rally won the most votes in France in European Parliament elections last month.

The party, which blames immigration for many of France’s problems, has seen its support climb steadily over the past decade and is hoping to obtain an absolute majority in the second round. That would allow National Rally leader Jordan Bardella to become prime minister and form a government that would be at odds with Macron’s policies on Ukraine, police powers and other issues.

Preelection polls suggest that the party may win the most seats in the National Assembly but fall short of an absolute majority of 289 seats. That could result in a hung parliament.

Macron has said he won’t step down and will stay president until his term ends in 2027, but is expected to be weakened regardless of the result.