"Austerity – in which the Lib Dems colluded" - so says Chris Dillow, a socialist economist. Leaving aside that few people born in the UK after the end of rationing know what real austerity is, we should be given credit for preventing tougher 2010/11 budgets than George Osborne actually delivered. If the Conservatives had won an absolute majority in 2010, they would have attempted to wipe out the budget deficit (created by Labour, it should be recalled) over a single parliament. Ironically, major sufferers would have been state pensioners who flocked to the Conservatives in droves in the 2015 general election and to the hard-line Tories in the 2016 referendum. It was the gentler plan drawn up by David Laws (largely) and Vince Cable which was adopted by Osborne - incidentally, £1bn gentler than that proposed by Labour in their 2010 manifesto.
The Conservatives also proposed to stop all pay rises in the public sector. Low though it is, the fact that public servants get any increase is down to Liberal Democrats in government. For a reminder of some other achievements, see Mark Pack's infographic - and count how many of them the Cameron/May governments have been steadily unwinding.
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