Why Labour are better than the Tories..

[ComradeDavo]

I see alot of focus on the negative aspects of 'Blairs legacy'....i.e the Labour government since 1997. Whilst this is perfectly understandable, I don't thinbk we should forget about why we got rid of the Tories for Labour in the first place. It hasn't been all bad under Labour.

We've had...

- A war which was justified, i.e. Kosovo

- The introduction of a minimum wage, something the Tories bitterly opposed

- Huge investment in public services such as education and the NHS

- Move of cannibas from class b to class c

- Debt releif for Africa

- Gay civil patnerships

- Giving the Bank Of England operational independance in setting of intrest rates

- An end to 'boom and bust'

Now, i'm not saying the Labour government has been good. What I am saying is that it has been way better than a Tory government would have been. I am dissapointed with New Labour and at them about many things. But i'll never forget just how bad the Tories are at core. None of those things would have been carried out by the Tories (well except maybe Kosovo which they would have probably screwed up) and voters shouldn't forget that.

 

[Mise]

- A more progressive taxation system with a new 10% band to help the poor acquire wealth with fewer hindrances.




Anyway, I've always thought that by and large Labour has done a pretty decent job. I'd be happy with them continuing for another 10 years, if Brown didn't just pull a fast one with the budget...

 

[ComradeDavo]

Well I don't think they've done a good job because since 9/11 they've attacked civil liberties far to much, and I have never liked the whole 'public-private' partnership thing. far too cosying up to big buisness for my liking, not enough socialism. Oh and Afghanistan and Iraq.

But like I say, better job than the Tories would have done....

 

[Brighteye]

I
We've had...

- A war which was justified, i.e. Kosovo

- The introduction of a minimum wage, something the Tories bitterly opposed

- Huge investment in public services such as education and the NHS

- Move of cannibas from class b to class c

- Debt releif for Africa

- Gay civil patnerships

- Giving the Bank Of England operational independance in setting of intrest rates

- An end to 'boom and bust'

Now, i'm not saying the Labour government has been good. What I am saying is that it has been way better than a Tory government would have been. None of those things would have been carried out by the Tories (well except maybe Kosovo which they would have probably screwed up) and voters shouldn't forget that.

Who says that the Tories wouldn't have done these things? Gordon Brown narrowly escaped bust after hitching the economy to the property market, more through luck than any sort of skill. The huge investment in education and the NHS has done precisely nothing, except perhaps to enable them to chase the stupid and meaningless targets that Labour have imposed.

Labour have presided over the period when government started worrying more about presentation of figures than actually helping things improve. TB has been the greatest evil of all in this regard, and no Conservative could have come close. We have target after target, exemplified by the waiting list joke. Hospitals had to cut waiting lists to a certain time, so they simply stopped booking appointments for longer than that period, and put people on a waiting list to be on the waiting list!

That's Labour's achievement in all its glory. Well done Labour. Oh yes, and what happened to voting for a set of policies and then seeing them happen? Isn't that what democracy is about?
Apparently not. Labour is the party that ignore their election manifesto, and snigger to themselves once they've swindled the population into voting for them. Instead they do whatever TB pleases, which seems to be whatever he's been told to do by the last rich man to come visit him.

Hooray! What a superb job they've done: making a total mockery of the notions of democracy, honesty and competence.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

CD, I'd also include devolution, the rescinding of Clause 28 / Section 29, making some progress on the House of Lords, a fairly significant redistribution of wealth, signing up to Kyoto, and the intervention in Sierra Leone.

Brighteye, with the exception of Kosovo and Sierra Leone, the reason we can be fairly sure the Tories wouldn't have done these things is because they had something like 18 years to do them, and they didn't.

A more interesting question might be would the current Cameroons have done some of them ? Well, yes, because the Tories have had to move back significantly to the centre and accept much of what Labour has done (regardless of whether they would admit it) (oh, and it'd be fair to say that the '97 Labour party did the same with much of the previous Conservative government's policies). On the other hand, Cameron wouldn't be there, nor giving the direction he is, had not the Tories suffered (by their standards) quite badly in three successive elections.

Not sure what you mean by "hitching the economy to the property market" - handing over control of interest rates to the BofE whilst enforcing an inflation target would seem to me to be the opposite of letting the economy be driven by the needs of the housing market. I thought this approach was (a) exactly what the economy required (rather than the Lamont nonsense of the previous years) and (b) was now widely accepted in the UK as the right thing to have done. No-one, surely, is arguing that interest rate setting power should be handed back to the Chancellor ?

Hey, CD, I don't even disagree with you on the negatives, really (except Afghanistan)! Isn't that a nice surprise ?

 

[ComradeDavo]

Who says that the Tories wouldn't have done these things? Gordon Brown narrowly escaped bust after hitching the economy to the property market, more through luck than any sort of skill. The huge investment in education and the NHS has done precisely nothing, except perhaps to enable them to chase the stupid and meaningless targets that Labour have imposed.

Labour have presided over the period when government started worrying more about presentation of figures than actually helping things improve. TB has been the greatest evil of all in this regard, and no Conservative could have come close. We have target after target, exemplified by the waiting list joke. Hospitals had to cut waiting lists to a certain time, so they simply stopped booking appointments for longer than that period, and put people on a waiting list to be on the waiting list!

That's Labour's achievement in all its glory. Well done Labour. Oh yes, and what happened to voting for a set of policies and then seeing them happen? Isn't that what democracy is about?
Apparently not. Labour is the party that ignore their election manifesto, and snigger to themselves once they've swindled the population into voting for them. Instead they do whatever TB pleases, which seems to be whatever he's been told to do by the last rich man to come visit him.

Hooray! What a superb job they've done: making a total mockery of the notions of democracy, honesty and competence.

Remember section 28? Thats why the Tories would never have brought in Gay Civil Partnerships.

Minimum wage? Tories bitterly opposed it.

Debt relief? Well the Tories had pleanty of years to enact that and they never did. It's a bit to leftie for them.

Downgrading Cannibas? Just go read what Topries like David Davis have to say about drugs.

Bank Of England? Boom and Bust? Public Services? Tories had pleanty of time in government to sort this out, never did. Plus the Tories are fundamentally idelogically opposed to the wealfare state. It is a left wing ideal after all.

I do agree thatr the obsession with targets and waiting lists and so forth has been a really negative thing about the Labour government. This isn't a thread to praise them, it's a thread to remember why the British public chose them over over the Tories in the first place back in 1997, and why we shouldn't elect a Tory government in the elction.

 

[ComradeDavo]

CD, I'd also include devolution, the rescinding of Clause 28 / Section 29, making some progress on the House of Lords, a fairly significant redistribution of wealth, signing up to Kyoto, and the intervention in Sierra Leone.

Brighteye, with the exception of Kosovo and Sierra Leone, the reason we can be fairly sure the Tories wouldn't have done these things is because they had something like 18 years to do them, and they didn't.

A more interesting question might be would the current Cameroons have done some of them ? Well, yes, because the Tories have had to move back significantly to the centre and accept much of what Labour has done (regardless of whether they would admit it) (oh, and it'd be fair to say that the '97 Labour party did the same with much of the previous Conservative government's policies). On the other hand, Cameron wouldn't be there, nor giving the direction he is, had not the Tories suffered (by their standards) quite badly in three successive elections.

Not sure what you mean by "hitching the economy to the property market" - handing over control of interest rates to the BofE whilst enforcing an inflation target would seem to me to be the opposite of letting the economy be driven by the needs of the housing market. I thought this approach was (a) exactly what the economy required (rather than the Lamont nonsense of the previous years) and was now widely accepted in the UK as the right thing to have done. No-one, surely, is arguing that interest rate setting power should be handed back to the Chancellor ?

Hey, CD, I don't even disagree with you on the negatives, really (except Afghanistan)! Isn't that a nice surprise ?

Good point about Sierra Leone and devolution, i'd forgot about those! Section 28 I (in my brain) included in the civil partnerships, but yes it really should have it's own thing.

Glad we agree on the neagtives. Afghanistan I think was a major negative because of the way it was conducted. Very badly thought out, should never have dealt with the Northern Alliance.

 

[Winner]

If I was a British, I'd probably vote for Labour, even though I am liberal and pretty right-wing oriented. Tories are too conservative and eurosceptic and liberal democrats... well, I smell leftist populism there. Anyway, they're not going to matter because your crazy political system won't let them take their rightful share of seats in the parliament.

 

[ComradeDavo]

If I was a British, I'd probably vote for Labour, even though I am liberal and pretty right-wing oriented. Tories are too conservative and eurosceptic and liberal democrats... well, I smell leftist populism there. Anyway, they're not going to matter because your crazy political system won't let them take their rightful share of seats in the parliament.

Ah yes, the anti-Europe ideals of the Tories are yet another reason why I prefer Labour over them.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

There is no doubt the Tories were right for Britain in the 70s & 80s during which time they killed off old Labour and moved Britain from being a (virtual) 3rd world country back into the 1st world.

There is also no doubt also that New Labour was right for Britain in ’97; the Tories had been in power for too long and, having got Britain back to work, were not the right party to utilise the wealth they and subsequently Labour generated for Britain in a more sharing way.

New Labour would not have existed without the Tories; and likewise it appears that the ‘new’ Tories would not now exist if it wasn’t for New Labour.

Here is a list of “What has the Government ever done for me”

http://www.swherts.labour.co.uk/ViewPage.cfm?Page=7162

 

[ComradeDavo]

NewTories? Who are they? Cameron and Obsborne? Thats 2 out of the whole party. Davis, Hague...those 2 are both old Tories with prominent posistions in the party.

 

[CCA]

Labour=lesser of two evils

 

[Mega Tsunami]

NewTories? Who are they? Cameron and Obsborne? Thats 2 out of the whole party. Davis, Hague...those 2 are both old Tories with prominent posistions in the party.

Cameron and Osborne were also ‘old’ Tories for that matter.

But then Blair and Brown were originally old Labour too and subsequently changed. Take the one recent example of Nuclear weapons - Blair & Brown were both unelectable CND supporting lefty loonies way back in the 80s but they saw the error of their ways.
Did you see the clip recently of a greasy haired Brown talking in the 1980s about the evils of Nukes and how the money should be spent on the poor instead?
Well I saw the clip several times a couple of weeks ago - on the day Labour voted for £20bn to be spent on Trident 2!

Likewise the Tories needed to get away from the ‘nasty party’ image and show how they have become a new sharing, caring, liberal Conservative party – the ‘new’ Tories as I called them. A need for change, that is, if they wanted to get back into power.

And of course they do it because it is what the people want. If you don’t want to get into to power you have ant-Nukes, anti-Monarchy or anti-pound (to name but 3) policies. Power hungry parties appreciate this - it’s called democracy. The ‘nasty party’ was unelectable just like the old Labour ‘loony’ party was. Cos it’s what we want.

After all, haven’t the LibDems dropped their no-coalition-without-PR stance; and the 50% tax level? They’ll do anything for a few extra votes or a bit of power sharing, huh?

And what are the chances of the current Tories becoming the new sharing, caring Tories? I don’t know but many didn’t think that Labour would put Nukes ahead of the poor.

 

[ComradeDavo]

After all, haven’t the LibDems dropped their no-coalition-without-PR stance; and the 50% tax level? They’ll do anything for a few extra votes or a bit of power sharing, huh?

Actually if you'd have paid attention you'd have seen that the Lib Dems have not dropped there PR stance and that the spokesman who said they had has resigned (which is shame, he should just have said he screwed up and move don). The 50% tax level was dropped in favour of a green tax system, which is fair enough given the threat that global warming poses.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

Actually if you'd have paid attention you'd have seen that the Lib Dems have not dropped there PR stance and that the spokesman who said they had has resigned (which is shame, he should just have said he screwed up and move don).

Especially since all he did wrong was reveal a ‘secret’ prematurely; there is no way he would make it up out of the blue.

After all it is madness to have PR as a pre-requisite to coalition because neither Labour nor the Tories would ever actually agree to it and in the process commit political suicide forever. They would rather call another election, they would rather spend another 5 years in opposition indeed they would rather form a coalition together than give in to PR. (ie like never).

 

[Brighteye]

Brighteye, with the exception of Kosovo and Sierra Leone, the reason we can be fairly sure the Tories wouldn't have done these things is because they had something like 18 years to do them, and they didn't.

A more interesting question might be would the current Cameroons have done some of them ? Well, yes...

Not sure what you mean by "hitching the economy to the property market" - ...

Fair enough.
About the property market, I understood that through various devious economic means (which I have forgotten, not being an economist), our economy had been buoyed by the property market, supporting it through a poor period. But given the number of people who foresaw a housing crash, this wasn't a sensible move, and whoever made it was taking a big risk.

 

[Brighteye]

Oh yes, I'd like to add that Labour are terrible, and certainly the worse party. I'd rather be poorer but get what I vote for than have a party that ignores its manifesto and concentrates solely on meaningless statistics.

We should keep on kicking the parties out until we find one that sticks. New Labour have had 10 years to do it right, and they haven't, and their only excuse is to recite all the things the Tories did wrong 15 years ago.
It's definitely time to kick them out, and if you can't stand the idea of voting for the Conservatives, no matter how new or reformed they are, I'm sure that other parties will take your vote.

All those stats in the 50 things they've done are simply numbers, with little or no worth otherwise.
http://www.swherts.labour.co.uk/ViewPage.cfm?Page=7162
For example, numbers 17/48/20: less unemployment.
Actually, the government changed the definition so that disabled people who cannot work do not count towards the numbers. People on training also do not count any more, and job companies strangely manage to have lots of the people on their rolls on courses for the week each month that statistics are collected.
Helping people into jobs, or off the unemployment list, does not mean that they'll stay that way, or that their lives are better.
Or number 12:
Brought back matrons. Now that's a good idea, but I don't see any effect. For various reasons I visit a couple of hospitals a lot, and I have yet to see any change in the quality of the ward care. Matrons sounded good, but either they've only brought back two, or they just don't work.
Number 7: Best ever results?! Could that mean that they've introduced more primary school testing, adding stress to primary teachers, extra work, and giving an inferior education as for yet another year of their lives children are worked apon solely to pass an exam and become a good statistic, rather than being taught?
It'd be better to say that there were no longer any results for primary schools.

 

[ComradeDavo]

Especially since all he did wrong was reveal a ‘secret’ prematurely; there is no way he would make it up out of the blue.

After all it is madness to have PR as a pre-requisite to coalition because neither Labour nor the Tories would ever actually agree to it and in the process commit political suicide forever. They would rather call another election, they would rather spend another 5 years in opposition indeed they would rather form a coalition together than give in to PR. (ie like never).

You seem to be ignoring the pro-voting reform movemant in the Labour party.

I think Labour and the Lib Dems could come to a deal on an alternative voting system....not exactly PR but better than we have now, and one which would help both parties against the Tories,

 

[Brighteye]

Why exactly do we want to help both parties at the Tories' expense? Is that sort of political self-interest really a good reason for pushing through something as important as PR?

 

[Lambert Simnel]

About the property market, I understood that through various devious economic means (which I have forgotten, not being an economist), our economy had been buoyed by the property market, supporting it through a poor period. But given the number of people who foresaw a housing crash, this wasn't a sensible move, and whoever made it was taking a big risk.

Our economy is indeed impacted by the irrepressible boom in property prices, both in positive and negative ways (I'd argue there are far more negative ways, personally). And we're very vulnerable to a collapse in confidence in property, especially since there are so many more people treating them purely as an investment (and are therefore able to just run out of the market) compared to 30 years ago.

But where I don't agree with you is that someone is "taking a big risk" on this. This is not something than chancellors of either hue have had much control over other than via interest rates (at least since Lawson gave warning that he would be abolishing the multiple MIRAS per property, creating an awful artificial boom and subsequent crash). Given that interest rates should be set on the basis of the state of the overall economy, I don't think Brown has been choosing to let the housing market behave as it has (nor would have any other Chancellor). He has to try and deal with the consequences, sure, and the BofE take house price behaviour into account when setting interest rates, but no-one has been basing their economic strategy on the false feeling of wealth gained by having house prices at unaffordable levels.

On the numbers game within the NHS, schools and employment, it's going to be hard to convince you. For example, I sincerely believe that the greater amount of money invested in the NHS has resulted in better services, and I believe this on the basis of stats, personal experiences, and the experiences of others. But our expectations are always rising, along with the cost of treatment, and the age of the population. I'd suggest the NHS would be entirely on its knees if the government hadn't pumped the extra cash in that it has, but, frankly, there is so much newsworthiness in any health issue (such as MRSA) that the media portrayal of the NHS is pretty much unremittingly negative. It thus doesn't surprise me that the government doesn't get credit for the investment it has made.