New Labour, was it worth it?

ubersonic said:
That's actually an interesting allegation given the topic of discussion, considering that any Tory leader of the Blair era would have made the same decisions as Blair based on the "evidence" supplied by Bush.
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Not to mention that the Tories at the time, including one Boris Johnson, almost all voted for it. There was significantly more opposition to the two votes for the Iraq war in the Labour party than in the Tory one, but people forget that.

If you were anti the war you voted Lib Dem as under Charles Kennedy they opposed it.
 
Mint8 said:
Is that actually true though ?

My memory of the whole Brexit run up was that Johnson was pretty quiet on the issue, and sat on the fence until late on in the campaign when he actually decided he was a leaver and came out with the whole NHS bus thing. People like Gove and of course Farage were far more prominent prior to the referendum. Johnson more so once May was in charge and failing to get a deal done etc ??
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He wrote two essays, one in support of Leave and one against, he simply chose the one he felt was more politically advantageous to him. It just took him a bit of time to make up his mind, that's all. In truth I don't think he believes in either.
 
As you get older, you come to realise that the party in power makes very little difference really. Some ideology might bleed out of the top, but generally most departments are run by people who understand the job and very little really changes. We're more led by global influences, circumstance and public opinion.

I think Labour are due a period in power soon - it happens on a regular cycle as a growing majority think that their lives would somehow be more rosy with a different group of wealthy self-serving individuals in charge. Then after a couple of parliaments the realisation that it wasn't and the Tories will be back in again to try to balance the books.
 
Bug One said:
As you get older, you come to realise that the party in power makes very little difference really. Some ideology might bleed out of the top, but generally most departments are run by people who understand the job and very little really changes. We're more led by global influences, circumstance and public opinion.

I think Labour are due a period in power soon - it happens on a regular cycle as a growing majority think that their lives would somehow be more rosy with a different group of wealthy self-serving individuals in charge. Then after a couple of parliaments the realisation that it wasn't and the Tories will be back in again to try to balance the books.
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Well we havent had a left wing government for 43 years, so you comparing centre to right, I feel there is some quite clear differences though, the tories had to be dragged kicking and screaming to give any financial assistance to the most vulnerable, and there is clear differences between the two on the size of the state both in terms of finances and regulation. In context many people try to judge based on the impact on their own lives and those around them, but the differences become quite stark when presented with graphs such as the budget per child in schools and waiting lists in the NHS.
 
chrcoluk said:
Its funny how all these things get forgotten, and other issues like selling of gold and iraq war are considered the bigger issues so get talked about once more.
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Quite.

Bug One said:
As you get older, you come to realise that the party in power makes very little difference really. Some ideology might bleed out of the top, but generally most departments are run by people who understand the job and very little really changes. We're more led by global influences, circumstance and public opinion.
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Again...quite. If I may borrow from "Yes, Minister" for a moment (because why should today be any different?):

Sir Humphrey Appleby said:
I have served 11 governments in the past 30 years. If I'd believed in all their policies, I'd have been passionately committed to keeping out of the Common Market, and passionately committed to joining it. I'd have been utterly convinced of the rightness of nationalising steel and of denationalising it and renationalising it. Capital punishment? I'd have been a fervent retentionist and an ardent abolitionist. I'd have been a Keynesian and a Friedmanite, a grammar school preserver and destroyer, a nationalisation freak and a privatisation maniac, but above all, I would have been a stark-staring raving schizophrenic!
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If any government of any persuasion, left or right, wants to change - really change - something then they have to get around the creative inertia of the people actually in charge :)
 
Bug One said:
As you get older, you come to realise that the party in power makes very little difference really. Some ideology might bleed out of the top, but generally most departments are run by people who understand the job and very little really changes. We're more led by global influences, circumstance and public opinion.

I think Labour are due a period in power soon - it happens on a regular cycle as a growing majority think that their lives would somehow be more rosy with a different group of wealthy self-serving individuals in charge. Then after a couple of parliaments the realisation that it wasn't and the Tories will be back in again to try to balance the books.
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The Tories dont balance the books. They cut services and taxes and hand money to their donors and friends.
 
With regards to labour getting elected, it's not as simple as a cycle, if anything the cycle is that the opposition get fed up and change to get elected.

In the current situation, labour are recovering from the wasted milliband corbyn years.im not sure starmer is enough of a change. He struggles to come over as someone you would let run the country and ultimately that's always what it comes down to.
Theresa May was similar, don't ask me how Boris does it, but he comes across or used to as a competent leader. Cameron struggled for credibility but again the alternative were far less palatable.
The next election is going to be interesting, the campaign will make a lot of difference and Boris is good at that.
 
Bug One said:
It's almost like reducing taxes has some kind of knock on effect with services. I can't think of the word. Some kind of equilibrium....

Don't they all, or have we forgotten all about Quangos?
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Yes you are right but they also leave us with an increased debt sell off all the silverware and run down services that then cost more when Labour get back in and try to get them back to a near decent service than if they just maintained them in the first place.
Boris does it, but he comes across or used to as a competent leader
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lol what?
 
chrcoluk said:
Its funny how all these things get forgotten, and other issues like selling of gold and iraq war are considered the bigger issues so get talked about once more.
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only lost 4 billion on the gold according to what I read somewhere.
tories lost like 50bn with covid...
 
arknor said:
only lost 4 billion on the gold according to what I read somewhere.
tories lost like 50bn with covid...
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The Tories certainly wasted a huge amount of money on track and trace, but I don't think your comparison above is being fair.

Selling gold was a choice (sensible at the time) whereas with the pandemic, the tories had to be reactionary. I do think the Furlough scheme was a good idea, but they needed more checks and balances there and they hemorrhaged money on poor PPE deals.

That's why the fairer comparison, that I've already mentioned, is Rishi Sunak losing £11 billion by not insuring against interest rate rises on debt. That's almost 3x times as much taxpayer money wasted, if you don't adjust for inflation.

How can people bang on about Gold over 20 years later, but give that a pass?
 
Did everyone lose their memory of what was happening during the Covid outbreak with their heavy criticism of PPE? They were literally being screamed at in all directions to do whatever it takes to get the NHS as much PPE as possible, they basically did that at whatever the cost because it looked at the time like we could be facing potentially millions of dead people and an NHS collapsing due to too many sick and/or dead Nurses and Doctors. That was the actual reality. I don't give a **** if they wasted money, it was basically wartime spending and to hell with costs and proper checks, we simply needed PPE. Period. *Fortunately* Covid didn't kill as many people as we thought it might, and now they're being criticised for doing what they were being criticised at the time for not doing.
 
bainbridge said:
Now I'm old and weathered, and know that it doesn't really matter what a political party stands for, or what's in their manifesto, because as soon as they get a sniff of power they'll soon change their tune.
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I learned this in 1974 when i was a Michelin Apprentice listening to all the old blokes arguing and therefore I've never voted because they are all in it for themselves.
I have to laugh at people who vote thinking they're making a change.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
I learned this in 1974 when i was a Michelin Apprentice listening to all the old blokes arguing and therefore I've never voted because they are all in it for themselves.
I have to laugh at people who vote thinking they're making a change.
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I mean we can clearly see the difference a Tory government makes after a Labour one has been in and built up all the public services.
 
Tony Edwards said:
I mean we can clearly see the difference a Tory government makes after a Labour one has been in and built up all the public services.
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I don't vote for anybody but I lost two jobs under Labour and I remember Labour getting rid of 32,000 hospital beds and my Mum not being able to get treatment.
They are all scum and people keep falling for it.
 
Bug One said:
As you get older, you come to realise that the party in power makes very little difference really. Some ideology might bleed out of the top, but generally most departments are run by people who understand the job and very little really changes. We're more led by global influences, circumstance and public opinion.

I think Labour are due a period in power soon - it happens on a regular cycle as a growing majority think that their lives would somehow be more rosy with a different group of wealthy self-serving individuals in charge. Then after a couple of parliaments the realisation that it wasn't and the Tories will be back in again to try to balance the books.
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Pretty much this. The 90's till the financial crash were great times for all of the west. Doesn't matter who you had. We still haven't recovered from 08 and the next 5 to ten years are going to hit hard. All these WFH jobs will be made redundant and shipped out overseas when the companies start to twig. Labour will win the next general as people have had enough of all the scandals. The sad reality is that a career in politics is just not worth it these days. You can earn just as much if not more doing something far less stressful so the quality in parliament has degraded massively over the past decades.

Will we see the like of the mid 90's to the mid 00's again? I very much doubt it.
 
Bug One said:
It's almost like reducing taxes has some kind of knock on effect with services. I can't think of the word. Some kind of equilibrium....

Don't they all, or have we forgotten all about Quangos?
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The Tories havent reduced taxes either. Unless you pretend NI and income tax are our only taxes.
 
VincentHanna said:
The Tories certainly wasted a huge amount of money on track and trace, but I don't think your comparison above is being fair.

Selling gold was a choice (sensible at the time) whereas with the pandemic, the tories had to be reactionary. I do think the Furlough scheme was a good idea, but they needed more checks and balances there and they hemorrhaged money on poor PPE deals.

That's why the fairer comparison, that I've already mentioned, is Rishi Sunak losing £11 billion by not insuring against interest rate rises on debt. That's almost 3x times as much taxpayer money wasted, if you don't adjust for inflation.

How can people bang on about Gold over 20 years later, but give that a pass?
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Labour it was the gold sell off.

Tories we have the covid business loan fraud which was written off.
PPE supplier fraud.
Plus the 11 billion you mentioned.
Plus the big one, we losing circa 20 billion a year because of thatcher's decision to cancel social house building and replace it with right to buy. This trumps all of them. There will be a untold impact on the economy as well from the reduced ability to spend of consumers living in private rentals.
 
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