Back in February 2010 I wrote an article detailing the parameters I would judge the new government by. This was in response to a series of 8 benchmarks published by Osborne telling us how we should judge the record of any Conservative government. At the time I commented that it was for us to judge the government by our own criteria, not those set out by the people in the job, because somehow I get the feeling if we let them set the criteria, they’ll also complete the assessment.

Here are my eight benchmarks as stated at the time, and my assessment of each today. I have made no allowances for the fact that it turned out to be a hung parliament, if the Tories couldn’t beat one of the worst governments in the history of this country then that’s their bloody fault.

1- I’ll make the first one easy, shall I? Call in the civil service heads of department and find out what they actually know about the areas they are responsible for. If they ‘errrrm’, ‘arrrrrr’, ‘get back to you on that’ or ‘don’t know’ then get rid of them. Then get rid of the layer below them, and probably the next 2 layers below that. I know for a fact that higher/middle senior civil service management keep their very high management in the dark, lest they find out the awful truth. The senior managers haven’t figured this out yet. Get shot of the lot of them.

Well, there was the whole Brodie Clark affair, wasn’t there? The bureaucracy rumbles on unfettered, unchanged, unthinking. Fail.

2- Destroy the quango’s. Lay waste to them. There’s a huge saving right there, you needn’t touch the police, schools or hospitals and still save shitloads.

A few superficial cuts in the early days, but still we’re saddled with ridiculous entities hoovering vast lakes of cash at a time when borrowing has never been higher. Fail.

3- But do touch the police, schools or hospitals. Waste is endemic. Make them account for every single penny if they value their continued employment. Make them feel that every penny is coming out of their own personal pocket. Forbid them from cutting front line services. In fact, make them expand front line services. If they fail, no pay-off, no pension, just the sack. Make the police arrest proper bad people, no more community this, and outreach that. The police are for catching criminals. Make schools teach pupils, no more social work or community engineering, forget these endless tests, most teachers aren’t idiots and know which pupils are outstanding, which pupils aren’t so hot and which pupils need a kick up the arse to perform. Let headteachers discipline badly behaved kids, the rights of the kids that want to learn trump those of kids who don’t. Let doctors make people better, no smoking or drinking questioning, if they’re ill, then cure it. Give Matron control over blocks of four to six wards, make her responsible for the cleaning and bed/theatre management. Matron rocks and knows much better than the Health Secretary, she certainly knows better than the doctors. Give her the staff and authority.

Police and teachers continue to be social workers and indoctrination agents. The old bill stood by helplessly while London burned. We still see reports of coppers and plastic plods stopping people from taking photos on the street, picking low hanging fruit, being obsessed  with and paralysed by the socio-political considerations of cases, trends and profiles rather than asking the simple question ‘is he a villain?’ We also see that at the top they are criminals and far too cosy with the press. However I will give credit for the implementation of elected police chiefs. Kids are still tested to the limit and the position of the schools on the league table is more important than the education the kids are getting – they are coached to pass exams, not given an education. Heads have marginally more control over their schools, but this seems to me to be superficial at best. I will say in the Tories’ defence that the free schools programme is excellent, so credit there. Hospitals and the NHS are still mired in administration, infections continue to kill people who went in to be made better. The new plan that has been in the news much of late is still being seen in terms of government vs. practitioners, still no mention of the patients as I entreated the other day, and doesn’t alter the ethos of a service which doesn’t actually seem that good at serving the people that have paid for it. – Fail with credit.

4- Once you’ve cut the spending, cut the taxes. Bring back the lower band for lower earners. Give people coming off benefits one year tax free to establish themselves. Get them out of that trap. Reward them for getting off their arses, don’t reward them for wandering into the labyrinth.

No, not even close. Taxes continue with the 50p tax band and so forth. This government taxes more and spends more than the one that went before. Epic fail.

5- Reduce the duty on petrol. It’s a fucking joke. You’re crippling workers and businesses. Outside the cities, public transport is not up to the job of people moving around. It can get better, but in the short term people need help. This amounts to a tax on going to work. It sucks.

Oh dear. This is raising its ugly head again. This is an incredibly pernicious form of taxation, penalising manufacturing, retail and Joe Public going to work, etc. Don’t expect credit for not putting it up. It needs cutting, slashing, and it needs doing now. I don’t think even a freeze on the duty in the forthcoming budget will lend credibility to Tory claims of being business friendly. How are we supposed to recover when the government penalises us for moving us and our stuff around? Epic fail.

6- Give us the referendum on the Lisbon treaty like you promised. At least. Better still, give us the big one. If the majority of people want to come out of Europe, then accept it. You will be there to represent our wishes, not to impose yours on us. Remember that.

Not only did you fail to give us the referendum you promised, when we forced your hand you wheeled out the whips and made rebels of the MPs who actually represent your own members’ views. Nice one. You talk to us as if we’re children and tell us our opinion is worthless. I won’t forget that, I suspect many Tory voters and members won’t either. Catastrophic fail of gargantuan and epic proportions.

7- If our military really have to play silly buggers over the world. Then give them the kit to do the job. Give them proper healthcare and proper housing. Exempt them from tax. Give them the support to shoot back at people who shoot at them until they are all dead. Give them the power to sink pirates’ boats, if the pirates are on those boats at the time, all the better. If they are aboard our boats, then maroon them. Act like a pirate, die like a pirate. Engage in piracy or attack our troops, then it’s all good.

Armed forces cut in number, the whole fighter/aircraft carrier fiasco. At least we’re out of Iraq and the ‘stan is set to follow. However I look nervously towards Iran. Fail with a sliver of credit.

8- Get your noses out of our lives. Stop measuring, watching, tracking, investigating, following, recording, monitoring and nannying us. It pisses us off and we’ve done nothing wrong.

Again, after a promising start with the removal of ID cards and HIPs in the first couple of days, it swiftly dissolved into nothing as all the measures implemented by Labour remain in place and in use. Not good enough. Fail.

So, two years on, I am unable to report any significant improvement in any category, in the main there has been no progress at all, and in a couple of cases things have gone backwards.

You’ve a long way to go boys and girls, but from where I’m sitting, you’ll be able to count yourself damn lucky to get a second bite of the cherry, and should fall to your knees and thank God for the existence of Miliband and Clegg, because they are the only people that will keep you in your current position, it certainly won’t be because you’re any good.