General Chat

Don’t quote us on that: Tory pledges

* No big NHS reorganisation

'With the Conservatives there will be no more of the tiresome, meddlesome, top-down restructures that have dominated the last decade of the NHS'

David Cameron, 2009

(Andrew Lansley went on to launch one of the largest reorganisations in NHS history)

* Protecting Sure Start centres from closure

'Sure Start will stay, and we’ll improve it. We will keep flexible working, and extend it'

David Cameron, 2009

(Labour claims more than 400 Sure Start centres have been shut since the Coalition came to power)

* Reforming the lobbying industry

'It is the next big scandal waiting to happen. I’m talking about lobbying. In this party, we believe in competition, not cronyism'

David Cameron, 2010

(The Government’s Lobbying Bill will not tackle in-house lobbyists and/or regulate contacts between special-interest groups, government advisers and most civil servants)

* Becoming the greenest government in history

'There’s increasingly an argument being aired that the public might put up with the green agenda when the going’s good, but not now that the economy is slowing and they’re feeling the pinch. But [that] should make it even more urgent that we act'

George Osborne, 2008

(Tories in government are enthusiastically pushing a “dash for shale gas” as an alternative to what they see as expensive green energy)

* No cuts to child benefit

'I like the child benefit, I wouldn’t change child benefit, I wouldn’t means-test it'

David Cameron, 2010

(The Coalition later abolished the benefit for higher earners and froze it for three years)