General Election 2015: 50 promises the Conservatives have broken since they came to power

• 6 May 2015
• By Jack Blanchard
• From balancing the books, to reducing immigration and from improving living standards to protecting the poor here are the broken promises that litter their 5 year term

Tories: Broken promises 

David Cameron came to power vowing to balance the books, protect the NHS and look after working people.

Here are 50 promises he has broken in five years of failure in Downing Street:

1. We will balance the books by 2015 
   THE TRUTH: Britain still has a budget deficit of £90billion
2. We will pay down Britain’s debts 
   THE TRUTH: George Osborne has borrowed over £500billion in five years - more than Labour did in 13
3. We will get net immigration down to the tens of thousands 
   THE TRUTH: Net immigration is almost 300,000 per year
4. No more top-down reorganisations of the NHS 
   THE TRUTH: £3billion wasted on the biggest reorganisation in NHS history
5. We will improve your living standards 
   THE TRUTH: Families £1,600-a-year worse off than in 2010
6. We will deport more foreign criminals 
   THE TRUTH: The number of foreign crooks on our streets soars 20%
7. We will keep our nation’s defences strong 
   THE TRUTH: Army hacked back by 20,000 troops to its lowest level since the Napoleonic wars
8. We will not raise VAT 
   THE TRUTH: VAT hiked to 20%, costing the average family £450-a-year
9. We will protect the vulnerable from the cuts 
   THE TRUTH: Cruel welfare sanctions force one million people to use food banks
10. We’re all in it together 
    THE TRUTH: Millionaires get a £100,000-a-year tax cut - the poor get the £15-a-week Bedroom Tax
    
11. GP access promised 12 hours a day, seven days a week 
    THE TRUTH: Patients face a 10-day wait to see their family doctor
12. We will get tough on illegal immigrants 
    THE TRUTH: Home Office loses track of 174,000 illegal immigrants
13. We will get tough on tax avoidance 
    THE TRUTH: The Treasury is still missing out on an estimated £34billion a year
14. We will stop the closure of A&E and maternity wards 
    THE TRUTH: Dozens closed or downgraded since 2010
15. We will cut the number of MPs by 10% 
    THE TRUTH: Not a single MP has been cut
16. We will get Britain building again 
    THE TRUTH: Lowest level of house-building since the war
17. We will have more small schools with smaller class sizes 
    THE TRUTH: Number of infants in oversized classes up 200%
18. We will protect front-line policing 
    THE TRUTH: 17,000 cops get the boot
19. We will support families through the tax and benefits system 
    THE TRUTH: The average family loses £1,100 through tax and benefit changes
20. We will be the Greenest Government Ever 
    THE TRUTH: Cameron tells his Ministers to “cut the green cr*p”
21. We will work towards ending child poverty by 2020 
    THE TRUTH: 300,000 more kids plunged into poverty
22. We will enhance the status of teachers 
    THE TRUTH: Teachers’ pay cut in real terms year after year and their status publicly attacked from Michael Gove
23. We will revolutionise cancer care 
    THE TRUTH: The key cancer treatment waiting time target missed for the past four quarters
24. We will cut the number of highly-paid special advisers in Government 
    THE TRUTH: Number of special advisers soars by 50%
25. We will support and improve Sure Start 
    THE TRUTH: 763 Sure Start centres are closed and many more scaled down
26. We will break down barriers between health and social care 
    THE TRUTH: Social care funding slashed by £3.5billion as part of attack on town hall budgets
27. We will restore trust in politics 
    THE TRUTH: The Tories trouser £30million in donations from hedge funds – which were given a huge tax cut in 2013
28. We will protect our NHS 
    THE TRUTH: 40% of NHS contracts handed to private health firms
29. We will revolutionise prisoner rehab 
    THE TRUTH: Prison escapes, assaults and suicides all soar as inmates are locked in overcrowded cells for 23 hours a day
30. We will increase spending on vital flood defences 
    THE TRUTH: Flood defence spending cut by £247million – and thousands of homes are flooded
31. We will fight for the union 
    THE TRUTH: Cameron talks up the SNP to punish Labour and unveils plans to downgrade Scottish MPs at Westminster
32. We will tackle inequality 
    THE TRUTH: The richest 1% of Britons now own the same amount of wealth as 54% of the population.
33. We will treat white collar crime as seriously as other crimes 
    THE TRUTH: 90% of cyber-crime is allowed to go undetected
34. No more winter crises in hospital 
    THE TRUTH: A&E departments in meltdown with one in five patients not seen within the four hour target.
35. We will invest in our schools 
    THE TRUTH: Plans to build more than 700 new schools across Britain brutally axed
36. We will help the disabled into suitable jobs 
    THE TRUTH: Remploy factories shut down and disabled people subjected to cruel Atos tests
37. We will make our borders more secure 
    THE TRUTH: Customs checks for dangerous drugs and weapons scaled back dramatically
38. We will keep supporting our young people 
    THE TRUTH: More than 2,000 youth workers axed and at least 350 youth centres closed
39. We will create security for British businesses 
    THE TRUTH: HSBC is amongst a raft of UK firms unsettled by Cameron’s EU referendum pledge.
40. We will not means-test child benefit 
    THE TRUTH: Child benefit means-tested and then cut for better-off families
    
41. We have no plans to get rid of the Education Maintenance Allowance 
    THE TRUTH: Six months later it is axed completely
42. We have no plans to get rid of Labour’s Future Jobs Fund 
    THE TRUTH: Six months later it is axed completely
43. We will improve Britain’s productivity 
    THE TRUTH: Productivity is 21% lower than the G7 average
44. We will deal with long-term unemployment with our ‘Work Programme’ 
    THE TRUTH: More than 650,000 people are left off work for more than a year.
45. We will bring in 3,000 more midwives 
    THE TRUTH: Cameron misses his target by almost a third
46. We will create the “right sort of jobs” to spread prosperity “for the many not the few” 
    THE TRUTH: 1.7million zero hours contracts handed out in Cameron’s low-pay Britain
47. No-one will be made homeless by our welfare cuts 
    THE TRUTH: Rough sleeping up 55% since 2010
48. We will not allow cuts to front-line services 
    THE TRUTH: Services are cut across the board, from nearly 500 public libraries to over 1,000 lollipop ladies
49. We will not cut the NHS 
    THE TRUTH: The NHS is forced to find £5billion of ‘efficiency savings’ – cuts by any other name
50. We will have head-to-head TV debates like in 2010 
    THE TRUTH: Cameron was too chicken to take part

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