Good Riddance To The Worst British Government Of My Lifetime

Fourteen years of Tory scandals, controversies, and excess deaths finally come to an end.

(Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak delivers a speech to announce July 4 as the date of the UK's next general election on May 22, 2024. Photo by HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP via Getty Images)

Goodbye to the Conservative government of the United Kingdom, which looks to be reduced to a humiliating 154 seats in the House of Commons, and replaced by a Labour government that is set to win a landslide victory under Keir Starmer. 

Goodbye, in fact, to five different Conservative governments over 14 years; to five different Tory prime ministers in less than a decade and a half: David Cameron, who gave us austerity and Brexit; Theresa May who gave us the “hostile environment policy”; Liz Truss who gave us the “mini-budget that broke Britain”; Boris Johnson who gave us lies, lies, and more lies; and Rishi Sunak who gave his party its worst result since it was formed in 1834.

Goodbye to seven different Chancellors of the Exchequer since 2010, who all prioritized the cutting of taxes for their millionaire and billionaire donors over lifting the UK’s most vulnerable and marginalized communities out of poverty and squalor.

Goodbye to the awful Conservative Cabinet ministers who embarrassingly lost their own seats in Parliament, such as Justice Secretary Alex Chalk, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan and Defence Secretary Grant Shapps (or is it Michael Green?).

Goodbye to the party that gave us the utter disaster of Brexit. 

Goodbye to the party that made the UK’s poorest people endure lives that, according to a leading UN expert, are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Goodbye to the party that drove 900,000 children into poverty since 2010.

Goodbye to the party that gave us the worst squeeze on UK wages “since Napoleon marched across Europe.”

Goodbye to the party that delivered the “longest unbroken streak of negative GDP per head since comparable records began in 1955.”

Goodbye to the party that starved the National Health Service of funding, which led to an almost tripling of the number of people on NHS waiting lists - a record high. 

Goodbye to the party that made food banks part of everyday life for hundreds of thousands of Britons. 

Goodbye to the party that presided over 300,000 excess deaths from austerity, “with people living in the poorest areas hardest hit.”

Goodbye to the party that partied and got drunk as more than 200,000 people in the UK died from Covid - one of the worst death rates in Europe. 

Goodbye to the party of non-stop scandals and controversies; the party of Windrush, Grenfell Tower, Greensill, ‘Cash for Access,’; the party with MPs accused of rape, groping, watching porn in Parliament, misusing party funds, and betting on the date of the election.

Goodbye to the party that helped unleash shameful levels of racism and hate against both migrants and minorities, with not just Brexit but “Go Home” vans and the Rwanda plan; bigoted rhetoric about “swarms” of migrants and “citizens of nowhere”; Islamophobic attacks on the Muslim mayor of London; and the acceptance of donations from Frank “hate all Black women” Hester. 

Goodbye to the worst British government of my lifetime; goodbye to 14 long, vicious and miserable years of Conservative (mis)rule. 

Goodbye. And good riddance.