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General Election 2015: 7 charts that show why it is hard to trust David Cameron's manifesto pledges

PM outlined a number of very similar promises he has broken over the last five years, so will voters believe him this time around?

Matt Dathan,Adam Withnall
Tuesday 14 April 2015 19:45 BST
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David Cameron was forced to defend the Conservatives’ latest proposal to cut tax on inherited wealth
David Cameron was forced to defend the Conservatives’ latest proposal to cut tax on inherited wealth

A pledge to eliminate the deficit, no rise in VAT, immigration cut to the tens of thousands – the Conservative manifesto launch sounded very familiar.

Why? Because many of the pledges announced by David Cameron are very similar – and some are identical – to those he made before the 2010 election.

And why has he had to repeat the same promises? Because he broke them over the past five years. Looking at the eight charts below, it is easy to see why voters might not believe Mr Cameron's latest set of pledges.

It now stands at 298,000 - not exactly the "tens of thousands" he was hoping for. This time around the Conservatives have dumbed down their language and have replaced the "target" with an "ambition" of "delivering annual net migration in the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands".

In 2010, the Tories pledged to "eliminate" the nation's annual deficit by the end of the Parliament, another broken promise.

The Coalition has managed to cut it by around 40 per cent, but it still stands at £90.6 billion and is adding to our overall national debt of £1.5 trillion.

The Tories have again pledged to eliminate the deficit - this time within three years and has promised to run a budget surplus by 2018-19.

It is even more ambitious and will require a sharper fall than over the last five years.

Just two weeks before the 2010 election, Cameron ruled out a rise in VAT. In an interview with Jeremy Paxman, he said: "We have absolutely no plans to raise VAT. Our first Budget is all about recognising we need to get spending under control rather than putting up tax."

And what happened in George Osborne's first budget, less than two months later? VAT was hiked up from 17.5 per cent to a record high of 20 per cent.

David Cameron has promised that everyone in England will be able to see their GP between 8am and 8pm, seven days a week, by 2020.

But while in 2010 the Tories pledged something similar as part of their bid to "deliver better value for money" on the NHS, Government figures show the number of GP practices receiving extra money as part of the "extended hours" scheme is down - as is the total number of surgeries.

Labour made much of these numbers last week - but the Tories pointed out they do not include figures for GP surgeries offering extra opening hours under a new scheme, the Prime Minister's Challenge Fund. The change to this scheme under the Coalition has made it very difficult to compare like-for-like figures.

Back in 2010, the Tories promised "smaller schools with smaller class sizes and teachers who know the children's names".

But according to Ed Miliband, the Coalition is to blame for a trebling in the number of classes with more than 30 pupils from 31,265 in 2010 to 93,345 in 2014 as a result of opening free schools in areas where new schools are not needed.

The average class sizes at the start of the last year had risen only slightly to 27.4, however, and it is worth pointing out that one of the reasons class sizes are growing is because there are simply now more primary-aged children in Britain.

Today, David Cameron pledged to fund the NHS with an extra £8 billion a year by 2020.

But since 2010, when he "spelled out his priorities in three letters - NHS", the Prime Minister has overseen the closure or downgrading of 14 accident and emergency departments and many more face the threat of closure.

In January this year it was revealed that A&E waiting times had recorded their worst ever performance. The Royal COllege of Nursing said the figures were indicative of a "crisis in A&E" and accused the Government of failing to provide proper funding.

The Conservative manifesto said today that the party would create "jobs for all", including two million new positions to achieve "full employment".

But what kind of jobs? In 2010 the Tories promised to "get Britain working again" and reduce unemployment, yet according to Labour that has been fuelled by a dramatic rise in zero hour contracts.

The Conservatives counter that just 1 in 50 jobs or only 2.3 per cent of workers are on zero hours - and statisticians say the rise could at least in part be due to increased awareness.

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