Boris Johnson: 'Net closing in' on PM claims David Maddox
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Boris Johnson won the Conservative’s a landslide victory in 2019 but three years later, the nation has been left wary of the Prime Minister’s ability to deliver on his promises – and to conduct himself properly in office. The Prime Minister will host a Cabinet meeting later today where he is expected to order ministers to “do everything possible” to help mitigate the rising living costs, as he attempts to move the agenda away from the ongoing partygate scandal that is blighting his leadership.
Mr Johnson is expected to tell his Cabinet they must “continue” what they are doing by “promoting the support that is available but not widely taken up”.
But while it seems like the Prime Minister is taking charge of the key issues hitting voters’ pockets ahead of next month’s May 5 local elections, it seems Mr Johnson might not have done enough.
The Tory Government promised to unleash the potential of Brexit Britain with a slew of policies relating to everything from taxes to foreign aid to the NHS.
But at least a dozen promises made in 2021 have failed to materialise, with some key policies still not expected to be laws by the time of the next Queen’s Speech on May 10.
A Government source said it was “absolutely insane” that 22 out of the 33 bills are delayed, which include laws on:
making children safe online
strengthening rights of victims of crime
overhauling the planning system
Northern Ireland “legacy legislation”
The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill is also affected, as well as the Procurement Bill and Animals Abroad Bill.
And on top of that, five of the Tory party’s key manifesto pledges from back in 2019 have also not been met.
National Insurance
A direct pledge from the 2019 Tory manifesto not to raise any form of tax over the next five years was broken when Rishi Sunak announced earlier this year that National Insurance would be hiked by 1.25 percentage points for British workers.
When announcing the u-turn, the Government said it will help the NHS recover from the Coronvirus pandemic and fund social care in England – dubbed the Health and Social Care levy.
The Government has pledged the rate will go back down in 2023, but this remains to be seen.
Triple lock
The triple lock for state pensions would usually rise in line with CPI inflation, wage growth or 2.5 percent.
But this was also scrapped by Mr Johnson’s Government after wages were inflated due to pandemic schemes like furlough, meaning pensioners would have received an eight percent rise in their pension.
The Government has pledged the triple lock will return for the 2023/2024 tax year.
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Foreign aid
The Tories had pledged in 2019 to continue spending 0.7 percent of gross national income of foreign aid.
Instead, the foreign aid budget was cut to 0.5 percent in 2021, despite dire warnings from charities over what impact the £4 billion cut would have on poorer nations.
Northern powerhouse
Mr Johnson directly pledged to “I am going to deliver on my commitment to that vision with a pledge to fund the Leeds to Manchester route.”
But many will remember that the HS2 link between the two cities was scrapped last year.
Local leaders branded Mr Johnson’s huge about turn as the “great Northern rail betrayal”.
40 new hospitals
One of Mr Johnson’s most repeated promises in 2019 was to build 40 new hospitals across the UK.
Three years and one international pandemic later, this has not materialised.
As ministers have since admitted, a severely watered-down plan for hospitals actually only involves rebuilding some existing hospitals and creating other plans to build new ones over the coming decades.
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