What The Conservatives Have Pledged To Do

Many of the party's main pledges were in its manifesto, but some were also made later in the election campaign. The party said it would:

Introduce a law guaranteeing no rise in income tax rates, VAT or national insurance before 2020
Invest an extra £8bn a year for the NHS by 2020
Hold a referendum on membership of the EU by 2017
Open 500 more free schools
Extend the right-to-buy scheme to housing association tenants in England
Build 200,000 starter homes
Ensure all people who work 30 hours per week on the minimum wage pay no income tax
Double free childcare allowance for three and four-year-olds to 30 hours
Increase the inheritance tax threshold on family homes to £1m by 2017
Make sure there are no above-inflation rises in rail fares until 2020

Other Pledges:

Achieving full employment by helping businesses create two million extra jobs over the course of the next Parliament
Creating 3 million new apprenticeships
Replacing Jobseeker's Allowance for 18-21 year-olds with a Youth Allowance time-limited to six months. After that, they will have to take an apprenticeship or traineeship or do community work to claim benefits
Requiring 40% of those entitled to take part in strike ballots to vote for a strike before industrial action can be held
Requiring companies with more than 250 employees to publish their gender pay gap - the difference between average pay for male and female employees
Increasing the minimum wage to £6.70 by the autumn and to £8 by the end of the decade
Investing £6.9bn in the UK's research infrastructure up to 2021

Taxation and welfare:

Taking everyone who earns less than £12,500 out of income tax Passing a new law that would mean all those working 30 hours a week and earning the minimum wage will not pay income tax on earnings
Raising the threshold for the 40p rate of tax so that nobody under £50,000 pays the rate
A freeze on working age benefits for two years from April 2016 (exemptions for disability and pensioner benefits)
Lowering the benefit cap from £26,000 to £23,000 (with exemptions for those receiving Disability Living Allowance or the Personal Independence Payment)

Immigration:

Negotiating new EU rules so people will have to be earning in the UK for four years before they can claim tax credits and child benefits
Introducing a four-year residency requirement for social housing for EU migrants
Ending the ability of EU jobseekers to claim any job-seeking benefits
Requiring EU jobseekers who have not found a job within six months to leave
Insisting new EU member states' citizens do not have free movement rights "until their economies have converged much more closely with existing member states"
Cap the level of skilled migration from outside the EU at 20,700
Extend the "deport first, appeal later" principle to cover all immigration appeals and judicial reviews, apart from asylum cases

Pensions and inheritance:

Increasing the inheritance tax threshold for married couples and civil partners to £1m
Continuing to increase the state pension through the triple lock system, meaning it rises by at least 2.5%
Capping charges on residential care
Introducing a single-tier pension

Back during the Hillary-Care mess of the early Clinton years, some wag whose name I've forgotten made a prediction that has stuck with me.

He wrote that if Hillary-Care passed on a party line basis in the 103rd Congress, the GOP would never work to repeal it.

Instead, he predicted the GOP would do as conservatives do in Great Britain; they would campaign on “Vote for us. We'll administer National Socialist Healthcare better than the Liberals.”

Spot on.

Pubbies won't risk their reelection chances just to rid us of monstrous Obamacare.

Note to self but MAINLY TO US CONGRESS:

Immigration:

Negotiating new EU rules so people will have to be earning in the UK for four years before they can claim tax credits and child benefits

Introducing a four-year residency requirement for social housing for EU migrants

Ending the ability of EU jobseekers to claim any job-seeking benefits

Requiring EU jobseekers who have not found a job within six months to leave

Insisting new EU member states' citizens do not have free movement rights "until their economies have converged much more closely with existing member states"

Cap the level of skilled migration from outside the EU at 20,700

Extend the "deport first, appeal later" principle to cover all immigration appeals and judicial reviews, apart from asylum cases

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