Tory government from 2010 to 2024 worse than any other in postwar history, says study by leading experts As John Stevens reports in a story for the Daily Mirror today, Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, was complaining at a private Tory dinner earlier this year about the electorate’s “total failure to appreciate our superb record since 2010”. But just how good is the Conservative party’s record in government over the past 14 years? Thankfully, we now have what is as close as we’re going to get to the authoritative, official verdict. Sir Anthony Seldon, arguably Britain’s leading contemporary political historian, is publishing a collection of essays written by prominent academics and other experts and they have analysed the record of the Conservative government from 2010 to 2024, looking at what it has achieved in every area of policy. It is called The Conservative Effect 2010-2024: 14 Wasted Years? and it is published by Cambridge University Press. And its conclusion is damning. It describes this as the worst government in postwar history. Here is the conclusion of the final chapter, written by Seldon and his co-editor Tom Egerton, which sums up the overall verdict. In comparison to the earlier four periods of one-party dominance post-1945, it is hard to see the years since 2010 as anything but disappointing. By 2024, Britain’s standing in the world was lower, the union was less strong, the country less equal, the population less well protected, growth more sluggish with the outlook poor, public services underperforming and largely unreformed, while respect for the institutions of the British state, including the civil service, judiciary and the police, was lower, as it was for external bodies, including the universities and the BBC, repeatedly attacked not least by government, ministers and right-wing commentators. Do the unusually high number of external shocks to some extent let the governments off the hook? One above all – Brexit – was entirely of its own making and will be seen in history as the defining decision of these years. In 2024, the verdict on Brexit is almost entirely negative, with those who are suffering the most from it, as sceptics at the time predicted, the most vulnerable. The nation was certainly difficult to rule in these fourteen years, the Conservative party still more so. Longstanding problems certainly contributed to the difficulties the prime minister faced in providing clear strategic policy, including the 24-hour news cycle, the rise of social media and AI, and the frequency of scandals and crises. But it was the decision of the prime minister to choose to be distracted by the short term, rather than focusing on the strategic and the long term. The prime minister has agency: the incumbents often overlooked it. Overall, it is hard to find a comparable period in history of a Conservative, or other, government which achieved so little, or which left the country at its conclusion in a more troubling state. In their concluding essay, Seldon and Egerton argue that poor leadership was one of the main problems with the 14-year administration. They say that Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were “not up to the job” of being prime minister, and they have a low opinion of most of the other leading figures who have been in government. They say: Very few cabinet ministers from 2010 to 2024 could hold a candle to the team who served under Clement Attlee – which included Ernest Bevin, Nye Bevan, Stafford Cripps, Hugh Gaitskell and Herbert Morrison. Or the teams who served under Wilson, Thatcher or Blair. Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt and Philip Hammond were rare examples of ministers of quality after 2010 … A strong and capable prime minister is essential to governmental success in the British system. The earlier four periods saw two historic and landmark prime ministers, ie Churchill and Thatcher, with a succession of others who were capable if not agenda-changing PMs, including Macmillan, Wilson, Major and Blair. Since 2010, only Cameron came close to that level, with Sunak the best of the rest. Policy virtually stopped under May as Brexit consumed almost all the machine’s time, while serious policymaking ground to a halt under Johnson’s inept leadership, the worst in modern premiership, and the hapless Truss. Continuity of policy was not helped by each incoming prime minister despising their predecessor, with Truss’s admiration for Johnson the only exception. Thus they took next no time to understand what it was their predecessors were trying to do, and how to build on it rather than destroy it. Seldon’s first book, published 40 years ago, was about Churchill’s postwar administration, and he has been editing similar collections of essays studying the record of administrations since Margaret Thatcher’s. He is a fair judge, and not given to making criticisms like this lightly. The book is officially being published next week, and I’m quoting from a proof copy. In this version, the subtitle still has a question mark after 14 Wasted Years? Judging by the conclusion, that does not seem necessary. Afternoon summary John Swinney has doubled down on the Scottish National party’s core commitment to independence, telling voters that the general election is an opportunity to “intensify the pressure” on Westminster for a referendum. A police officer working as part of the prime minister’s close protection team has been suspended and later arrested over alleged bets about the timing of the general election, Chris Mason from the BBC is reporting. A study of the record of the Tory government over the past 14 years has concluded “it is hard to find a comparable period in history of a Conservative, or other, government which achieved so little, or which left the country at its conclusion in a more troubling state.” (See 1.51pm.) “Red wall” Conservatives candidates are becoming increasingly dismayed and disillusioned with the central party for in effect cutting them adrift, as the Tory campaign focuses instead on defending safer seats in the south of England. Three MRP polls have been published this afternoon, all suggesting Labour is on course to win by a landslide, but offering very different figures for what its majority might be. More in Common has it on course to win with a majority of 162, YouGov suggests a majority of 200, and Savanta says the majority could be 382. (See 5.36pm.) Three MRP polls published, suggesting Labour on course for majority of 162, or 382, or 200 There is better news for the Conservative party from YouGov. They have also published an MRP poll this afternoon (their second of the campaign), and it suggests Labour is on course for a majority of 200 (up from 194 when it published its last one). Savanta has Labour getting a majority of 382. (See 5.23pm) The More in Common one, also out this afternoon, has Labour heading for a majority of 162. (See 4.26pm.) This is what YouGov says in its summary of its poll. Labour – 425 seats: The most seats in the party’s history; Labour is poised to win the most seats in each area of Great Britain Conservatives – 108 seats: 14 ministers who attend cabinet set to lose their seats including Jeremy Hunt, Penny Mordaunt, Mel Stride, Alex Chalk, and Mark Harper Liberal Democrats – 67 seats: Party set to comfortably overtake Conservatives in South West SNP – 20 seats: Party set to lose half its seats but leader Stephen Flynn set to be returned to Westminster Reform – 5 seats: Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, Lee Anderson, Stephen Conlay and Rupert Lowe all projected to win Plaid Cymru– 4 seats: Including beating Government Chief Whip Simon Hart in Caerfyrddin Green – 2 seats: Party set to hold Brighton Pavilion and gain Bristol Central from Labour Labour projected to beat Jeremy Corbyn in close-fought contest in Islington North This morning the Daily Telegraph splashed on a story about the UK having cancer survival rates 20 years behind those in other European countries. The next most prominent story on the front page was about the Conservatives attacking Labour on the grounds that they are not as committed as Rishi Sunak is to lower taxes. If anyone at the paper could spot a possible link between the two stories, it was not immediately obvious. This afternoon the paper has an even greater shock for its Tory-inclined readers. It reports the results of new MRP polling by Savanta suggesting the Conservatives are on course to be left with just 53 MPs after the election – and that they won’t include Rishi Sunak, because he will lose his seat. At least five organisations have published MRP polls during the campaign. All of them suggest Labour will win by a landslide, but none of the others have suggested that the Conservatives will lose as badly as this. In his write-up Ben Riley-Smith says: The Conservatives are also on track to slump to just 53 seats, with around three-quarters of the Cabinet voted out, a major opinion poll for The Telegraph has revealed. The Liberal Democrats are on course to be just behind the Tories on 50 MPs, according to the Savanta and Electoral Calculus polling analysis, leaving them in touching distance of becoming the official opposition. Labour is forecast to have 516 seats and an estimated House of Commons majority of 382 – double that won by Sir Tony Blair in 1997 - as Sir Keir Starmer becomes prime minister. Meanwhile Reform, despite a surge in the polls, is predicted to get zero seats. For Nigel Farage, the recently returned Reform leader, it would mean an eighth defeat as a parliamentary candidate in a row. On its website the Telegraph is running an enormous banner headline saying: “Tory wipeout.” And these Telegraph charts illustrate the Savanta figures. The Workers Party of Britain, which is led by George Galloway, has published its manifesto. It proposes a referendum on withdrawal from Nato and, launching the document in Manchester, near Rochdale where Galloway is standing for re-election, Galloway said: We are potentially headed to Armageddon and if we don’t get out of this death spiral, then none of this will have been worth arguing over at all. If Keir Starmer becomes the prime minister, within six months, Britain will be at war. I mean an actual war with British troops deployed. Don’t arm these dangerous people with a super-majority in parliament. Zia Yusuf, an entrepreneur who co-founded the luxury concierge app Velocity Black, has given hundreds of thousands to Reform UK, the Telegraph reports. He told the paper: My parents came here legally [from Sri Lanka in the 1980s]. When I talk to my friends they are as affronted as anyone by illegal Channel crossings, which are an affront to all hard-working British people but not least the migrants who played by the rules and came legally. I think Britain can be an amazing country, it’s the country of Dyson and DeepMind, but we have completely lost control of our borders, that is just factually correct. The Telegraph does not say exactly how much Yusuf has donated, although all donations have to be disclosed to the Electoral Commission which publishes the figures in due course. Last week Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, would be “very, very at home” with the Liberal Democrats. Today, campaigning in Godalming and Ash, where Hunt is facing a very tough challenge from the Liberal Democrats, Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, said Hunt absolutely would not be welcome in her party. She said: The fact of the matter is that Jeremy Hunt has endorsed the plans of Liz Truss. He said that he’s been trying to pursue more of her policies. So, absolutely not, the Liberal Democrats are trying to beat Jeremy Hunt in this election because he and his party have been responsible for an appalling cost-of-living crisis and for sending people’s mortgage bills spiralling and for food prices being sky high. The More in Common MRP poll published this afternoon, which is one of the MRP polls most favourable to the Tories, has Hunt on course to lose to the Lib Dems. Rishi Sunak has accused the SNP of focusing on “constitutional wrangling”. Responding to the publication of the SNP manifesto, he said: All the SNP do is focus on constitutional wrangling. They’re the ones that aren’t focused on what people care about day to day. They have already made Scotland the highest tax capital of the UK, and if Labour are elected, they would just do the same, hike up everyone’s taxes, just like the SNP have done. A vote for anyone who’s not a Conservative candidate at this election is just a vote for higher taxes. I don’t want to see that happen. That’s not how you deliver financial security. Here is Libby Brooks’ story about the SNP manifesto launch. The Conservatives are in a “deep hole”, a pollster has said after a survey of more than 10,000 people suggested the party would hold just 155 seats, PA Media reports. The MRP poll by More In Common projected a Labour majority of 162, just shy of its 1997 and 2001 landslides, with the Conservatives slumping to their worst seat total since 1906. High-profile casualties forecast in the More In Common projection include chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who would lose his Godalming and Ash seat to the Liberal Democrats, and defence secretary Grant Shapps, who would lose Welwyn Hatfield to Labour. The results are the most favourable for the Conservatives of recent large-scale polls, after a similar study by Ipsos on Tuesday projected the party would hold 115 seats with Labour securing a majority of 256. The poll suggested Labour would make gains across the North of England and the Midlands, while becoming the largest party in Scotland and winning much of Wales. It also forecast the Conservatives being almost wiped out in London, holding on to only a handful of constituencies on the fringe of the capital and neck-and-neck with either Labour or the Liberal Democrats in constituencies such as Romford, Bexley and Old Sidcup, and Carshalton and Wallington. Full details of the poll are available here. Under the projection, Labour would win 406 seats, the Conservatives 155, the Liberal Democrats 49 and the SNP 18. Luke Tryl, executive director of More In Common UK, said: The fact that this projection showing the Conservatives barely holding 150 seats is one of the most favourable to the Conservatives shows how deep a hole the party finds itself in – with barely two weeks to go for them to change the dial. Far from the narrowing in the polls many expected to see by now the Conservatives position instead appears to be getting worse and only a small move away from them could see them reduced to 107 seats. Labour on the other hand look set to inherit a historic majority while still remaining largely undefined in the eyes of the electorate. While creating such a broad electoral coalition, that will span from Blue Wall Worthing to Blyth in the “red wall” is a good problem to have in the short term, it points to potential difficulties in creating a governing agenda that unites such disparate tribes - especially when electoral cynicism is so high. The Ipsos MRP published yesterday suggested Labour was on course for a majority of 256. Max Kendix from the Times has some interesting statistics on the constituencies that Rishi Sunak has been visiting. Rishi Sunak’s hyper-defensive election strategy in numbers: * The prime minister has spent the election campaign visiting seats with an average majority of 11,894 * Over the past 10 days that average has increased to **14,317** * One in five of the seats he has visited have majorities of more than 20,000 * Just under half of his visit are to seats with 15,000 majorities IFS says it is reasonable for SNP to say rejoining EU could eventually boost government revenue by £30bn per year The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published its assessment of the SNP’s manifesto. It says what the SNP is proposing would amount to a “genuinely significant funding boost” for the NHS. The IFS says, to pay for this, taxes in England would rise for higher earners. And it also says it is reasonable for the SNP to assume that rejoining the EU could eventually increase government revenues by £30bn a year. Here is an extract from the analysis, written by David Phillips, an associate director at the IFS. The SNP propose a range of tax rises at the UK level. The biggest would be big income tax increases for higher-income individuals to match Scotland’s system, raising an estimated £16.5bn in 2028-29. This would see income tax for someone in England, Wales and Northern Ireland earning £50,000 a year rise by £1,600, while those earning £125,000 would see an increase of £5,200. By far the biggest revenue-raiser, though, is the proposal that the UK rejoin the EU. The SNP assumes that the resulting boost to economic growth would increase revenues by £30bn a year. In the seemingly unlikely event that the UK did rejoin the EU within the next parliament, this would not be an unreasonably high figure for the eventual boost to revenues. Reform UK says a poll in Clacton, where its leader Nigel Farage is the party’s candidate, suggests he is on course to beat the Conservative’s Giles Watling by 42% to 27%. The poll was carried out by Survation, who surved 506 people between 11 and 13 June. Damian Lyons Lowe, the Survation chief executive, said: The projected swing in Clacton from the Conservative party to the Reform UK party is 43.5%. This is considerably larger than many significant historical swings. The swing currently projected in Clacton, from a 72% Conservative vote share in 2019 to a 42% vote share for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in 2024, would indeed be unprecedented in modern UK electoral history. Sunak and Starmer both condemn Just Stop Oil paint attack on Stonehenge Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have both condemned the Just Stop Oil after activists who targeted Stonehenge with orange powder paint. Sunak said: This is a disgraceful act of vandalism to one of the UK’s and the world’s oldest and most important monuments. Just Stop Oil should be ashamed of their activists, and they and anyone associated with them, including a certain Labour party donor, should issue a condemnation of this shameful act immediately. Sunak was referring to Dale Vince, who contributed to Just Stop Oil in the past but gave up doing so last year. And Starmer said: The damage done to Stonehenge is outrageous. Just Stop Oil are pathetic. Those responsible must face the full force of the law. Two people have been arrested in connection with the incident. Alexander Stafford, the Tory candidate in Rother Valley, posted this on X today. It’s one thing betraying your principles, but another to throw your friends under a bus. The population of the Ninth Circle has increased today. According to Geri Scott from the Times, Stafford is referring to Natalie Elphicke, the rightwing Tory who defected to Labour, and a letter she sent to voters. Understand this is in reference to a letter delivered in constituencies from Natalie Elphicke trashing the Rwanda scheme, criticising Rishi Sunak, and describing Keir Starmer as a “patriot” Sunak claims Starmer would face frosty reception at Nato summit days after election due to his defence spending plans Rishi Sunak was in Suffolk this morning, where he visited the Sizewell B nuclear power station. Here are some of the points he made when he spoke to reporters. Sunak claimed Labour wanted to “whack taxes up for everyone”. He said: This election is about the future, I want to build on this economic foundation that we now have and I want to keep cutting people’s taxes at every stage in their lives. In contrast, Labour would reverse the progress that we’ve made and just whack taxes up for everyone, and I don’t want to see that happen. He claimed today’s meeting between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un highlighted why Labour was a threat to national security. He said, while the Tories were committed to raising defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, Labour has not matched that promise. He went on: I made the decisions to increase investment in defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, because we’re living in the most dangerous and uncertain time that our country has known since the end of the cold war. Just from the conversations I’ve been having at the G7, and the Ukraine peace summit, that is a view that is shared widely across the world, that’s why it’s the right thing to do to invest more in our defence, to keep everybody safe. Keir Starmer has not matched that pledge and that deeply concerns me ’cause the first duty of government is to protect the country. If Keir Starmer is elected, one of the first things he will do is head off to a Nato summit having cut British defence spending from the planned increases that I’ve announced, and I think that sends exactly the wrong message, both to our allies, where we want to lead so that they invest more in their defence as well, but also to our adversaries, like Putin, and like the North Koreans, and actually we need to deter them with strength. The Nato summit starts in Washington on Tuesday July, in the week after the general election on Thursday 4 July. Sunak said he was “pretty confident” that the decision by former Tory donor John Caudwell to start backing Labour was not something that voters would raise with him. “I’m pretty confident not a single person is going to talk to me about that,” he said. Johnson and Sunak should retain Covid convictions, says Starmer Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak should not have their convictions removed for breaking Covid rules, Keir Starmer has said, amid calls from Conservative former cabinet ministers to nullify criminal convictions for Covid rule-breakers. Jessica Elgot has the story. Labour says the latest small boat arrival figures (see 10.27am) show that Rishi Sunak’s policy is not working. Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, said: Far from stopping the boats, Rishi Sunak is presiding over the worst year our country has ever seen for Channel crossings, with an arrivals total yesterday higher than any day in the last 18 months. While he has focused all his efforts on trying to get 300 migrants sent to Rwanda, 40 times that many people have crossed the Channel already this year, the trafficking gangs have got ever richer and the amount the government is spending on hotels for asylum seekers remains stuck at £8m a day. Tory government from 2010 to 2024 worse than any other in postwar history, says study by leading experts As John Stevens reports in a story for the Daily Mirror today, Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, was complaining at a private Tory dinner earlier this year about the electorate’s “total failure to appreciate our superb record since 2010”. But just how good is the Conservative party’s record in government over the past 14 years? Thankfully, we now have what is as close as we’re going to get to the authoritative, official verdict. Sir Anthony Seldon, arguably Britain’s leading contemporary political historian, is publishing a collection of essays written by prominent academics and other experts and they have analysed the record of the Conservative government from 2010 to 2024, looking at what it has achieved in every area of policy. It is called The Conservative Effect 2010-2024: 14 Wasted Years? and it is published by Cambridge University Press. And its conclusion is damning. It describes this as the worst government in postwar history. Here is the conclusion of the final chapter, written by Seldon and his co-editor Tom Egerton, which sums up the overall verdict. In comparison to the earlier four periods of one-party dominance post-1945, it is hard to see the years since 2010 as anything but disappointing. By 2024, Britain’s standing in the world was lower, the union was less strong, the country less equal, the population less well protected, growth more sluggish with the outlook poor, public services underperforming and largely unreformed, while respect for the institutions of the British state, including the civil service, judiciary and the police, was lower, as it was for external bodies, including the universities and the BBC, repeatedly attacked not least by government, ministers and right-wing commentators. Do the unusually high number of external shocks to some extent let the governments off the hook? One above all – Brexit – was entirely of its own making and will be seen in history as the defining decision of these years. In 2024, the verdict on Brexit is almost entirely negative, with those who are suffering the most from it, as sceptics at the time predicted, the most vulnerable. The nation was certainly difficult to rule in these fourteen years, the Conservative party still more so. Longstanding problems certainly contributed to the difficulties the prime minister faced in providing clear strategic policy, including the 24-hour news cycle, the rise of social media and AI, and the frequency of scandals and crises. But it was the decision of the prime minister to choose to be distracted by the short term, rather than focusing on the strategic and the long term. The prime minister has agency: the incumbents often overlooked it. Overall, it is hard to find a comparable period in history of a Conservative, or other, government which achieved so little, or which left the country at its conclusion in a more troubling state. In their concluding essay, Seldon and Egerton argue that poor leadership was one of the main problems with the 14-year administration. They say that Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were “not up to the job” of being prime minister, and they have a low opinion of most of the other leading figures who have been in government. They say: Very few cabinet ministers from 2010 to 2024 could hold a candle to the team who served under Clement Attlee – which included Ernest Bevin, Nye Bevan, Stafford Cripps, Hugh Gaitskell and Herbert Morrison. Or the teams who served under Wilson, Thatcher or Blair. Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt and Philip Hammond were rare examples of ministers of quality after 2010 … A strong and capable prime minister is essential to governmental success in the British system. The earlier four periods saw two historic and landmark prime ministers, ie Churchill and Thatcher, with a succession of others who were capable if not agenda-changing PMs, including Macmillan, Wilson, Major and Blair. Since 2010, only Cameron came close to that level, with Sunak the best of the rest. Policy virtually stopped under May as Brexit consumed almost all the machine’s time, while serious policymaking ground to a halt under Johnson’s inept leadership, the worst in modern premiership, and the hapless Truss. Continuity of policy was not helped by each incoming prime minister despising their predecessor, with Truss’s admiration for Johnson the only exception. Thus they took next no time to understand what it was their predecessors were trying to do, and how to build on it rather than destroy it. Seldon’s first book, published 40 years ago, was about Churchill’s postwar administration, and he has been editing similar collections of essays studying the record of administrations since Margaret Thatcher’s. He is a fair judge, and not given to making criticisms like this lightly. The book is officially being published next week, and I’m quoting from a proof copy. In this version, the subtitle still has a question mark after 14 Wasted Years? Judging by the conclusion, that does not seem necessary.