Can't blame them for the 2008 financial crisis, or even for Covid, though... and don't worry, the opposition is not better, judging by their plans (or lack thereof...). They'll most likely be in government by the end of this year, though. Fun times ahead.
Edit: The bulk of the 2008 crisis was handled by the previous, Labour government and the conservatives inherited the debts to deal with. I'm not saying that handling of Covid was good, but looking at other countries it was certainly in the average (and the UK government decisively intervened to secure a domestic vaccine).
The thing is that they've been in government for very long so have run out of talents and are obviously being blamed for everything. Many young people have never known anything else so of course they are the bad guys (on top of young people being on average more to the left). This is an eternal cycle and the same will eventually happen to the next Labour majority.
Now, that's the issue Labour have: They have it easy at the moment, it's all the Tories' fault, the Tories are incompetent, etc. Fine, but at some point they will need an actual plan if only because, again, they'll most likely be in charge within months.
Even Brexit is not exclusively the Conservatives' "fault": The Labour party and electorate were also highly divided on the issue and it was the Labour government of the time that decided against all restrictions to East European immigration in 2004. And I remember how popular they were when they obediently followed the US in Iraq...
Labour even had a good shot as being elected earlier but made themselves unelectable by going far left, and they are still grappling with that.
No but I can blame them for profiteering during covid.
Michelle Mone clearly wasn't the only one punting over-priced, poor quality PPE via the special Tory VIP system.
Cumulatively, how much have Tory VIPs taken out of the economy since they came to power?
Even Sunak seems to be in on it. Like the wink-wink "you outsource your IT services to Infosys and we give you new sweetheart oil contracts" deal that BP and Shell got.
I think we have a right to be angry about this. It's corruption.
The Michelle Mone story is insane. Her husband sold illegal tax schemes to IT contractors and escaped without serious repercussions.
UK government is outsourcing everything and it's not just Infosys. They set low salary levels and flooded the market with offshore devs in the last few years.
Neither the Labour govt of the time or the Conservative ones we've had since 2010 were immediately responsible. But the austerity policy pursued by the Tories since 2010 has put the country in an economic death spiral. Pre-gfc levels of education, health and social care, law and order, infrastructure and defence provision are now basically impossible for the country to sustain. I don't see any way back from this in a timescale that doesn't condem my children's generation to poverty and disadvantage.
(And if the gfc was caused by a failure of regulation then every uk government since 1979 bears some culpability for its failure to supervise a major financial market centre.)
> Can't blame them for the 2008 financial crisis, or even for Covid
There is plenty of blame on the current UK government for how they handled the COVID crisis. It even forced out a Prime Minister, albeit for reasons of clandestine office parties, not over casualty rates or PPE corruption scandals.
> Can't blame them for the 2008 financial crisis, or even for Covid, though
For their mere existence? No. But they absolutely deserve blame them for how they handled these things, given they affected almost every nation on the planet, many of whom handled each rather better.
Edit: The bulk of the 2008 crisis was handled by the previous, Labour government and the conservatives inherited the debts to deal with. I'm not saying that handling of Covid was good, but looking at other countries it was certainly in the average (and the UK government decisively intervened to secure a domestic vaccine).
The thing is that they've been in government for very long so have run out of talents and are obviously being blamed for everything. Many young people have never known anything else so of course they are the bad guys (on top of young people being on average more to the left). This is an eternal cycle and the same will eventually happen to the next Labour majority.
Now, that's the issue Labour have: They have it easy at the moment, it's all the Tories' fault, the Tories are incompetent, etc. Fine, but at some point they will need an actual plan if only because, again, they'll most likely be in charge within months.
Even Brexit is not exclusively the Conservatives' "fault": The Labour party and electorate were also highly divided on the issue and it was the Labour government of the time that decided against all restrictions to East European immigration in 2004. And I remember how popular they were when they obediently followed the US in Iraq...
Labour even had a good shot as being elected earlier but made themselves unelectable by going far left, and they are still grappling with that.