Who was PM during the best of times for you?

Brevity was entirely the fault of the politicians of all parties for shoving through their political project (re Maastricht) without bothering to ask the people. Prior to that everyone was happy with the eec and ec as it then was as it was trading relationship which made all countries in it better off financially.

I think putting detail of age or stage of life would have helped understand the responses.
Major because I was at University, fab first job and met DH having the time of my life.

@CandleInTheStorm A very succinct post. I started my first proper job at a RG University in 1994, I actually met Lord Dearing who did the original report on the future of higher education including tuition fees. People forget that Labour introduced tuition fees against his recommendation. I was there during its very last golden years, it’s last hurrah. The changes, the feel, the quality of the students by the time I retired early due to health issues 25 years later it was just dire. The corporate feel, no more ancient Professors shuffling round the dept being wonderfully eccentric and the many things that made it truly quite beautiful. DH is now an ancient Professor, well not quite, he feels quite crushed at times. The hours he works are actually insane. It’s still very competitive jobs wise but I do feel for young academics they really are just grist for the mill.

This is all basically nonsense. Interest rates were slashed from 5.75% in 2008, tuition fees were trebled by the coalition and Thatcher bribed voters through right to buy, thus creating the housing crisis we have today. There are some incredibly faulty memories around here.

Ha ha ha. It will be so memorable for so many. Good Times.

Tory fiscal plans are always thwarted by global issues but Labour's are all down to Brown.
No commentary on the giant black hole that is Brexit - a project designed to sort out the Tory eurosceptics which has only led to the reduction of GDP, years of political instability and the opportunity to use Imperial measurements.
Amazing that they think they can have it both ways - and claim the last 13 years have proved them fiscally responsible.
Do we feel future proofed?

Selfishly it was Boris, I have a ds with ASD. Lockdown meant he had a break from the world, loved learning at home, loved having me on furlough, loved the sunny walks. He was so happy and content. It was a shit time for many though and I'd never want to go back to that, but for a few months my ds was a different child.

Most of the problems now have their origins in the Blair/Brown government and their decisions. Eg high house prices (interest rates too low, growing the population without increasing house supply, letting people borrow too much), tuition fees (increasing graduates so that now you have to have a degree to do a basic level job), wars creating refugees, pensions ruined. They spent alot but not on longlasting infrastructure such as decent public transport and housing but just on short term buying of votes. For me Thatcher/Major were far superior, I was young then and could afford a house and almost free education (small loan).

Boris Johnson. He made me laugh so much. You know when you're all down as a country down in the pits struggling and then he comes along and it's either laugh or cry, well I laughed very hard miserably!

Also with Tony Blair, I was educated in state school in the 90s in London and the curriculum is so much more advanced today. There was more money in education but I don't think it was better than today. Also the NHS was struggling back then as well.

I think for me personally Cameron before the Brexit referendum. I don't know what it is but our pm's start ok and then act possessed towards the end just like with Blair and his decision to join the Iraq war.

pissing on the poor

The Tories have been blaming their disasterous fiscal policies on ‘global events’ since I was born.

Blair/Brown was pretty much the only government who invested in education, health and public services in my lifetime. It was the only period of genuine hope and prosperity in my lifetime. Otherwise, it’s been wall to wall Tory governments pushing on the poor and blaming everyone else for their cock ups.

For fuck sake, have we forgotten Truss? It was only yesterday and we are still recovering from that shitshow.

No, there was no money left after it was all spent bailing the bankers out to save the economy crashing completely. It would have been entirely sustainable without the crash that started in the US.

@Blossomtoes the shit we are in now is entirely tied to 2008. There should have been a reset then. Instead we carried on spending the credit and now look where we are. Literally don't even own the energy produced here, corrupt and bankrupt public services. I have no time for any of them to be honest and think we have had a succession of inept government. The whole thing is a ponzi scheme and its coming down.

There was literally no money left when the global financial crises came along. That's not a country living in a way that's sustainable.

Blair/Brown/Cameron era reminds me of being young and relatively carefree.

However the happiest time of my personal life was all under Boris, COVID aside. Moved to the area I wanted to live in, got married, got a new job, got promoted to another new job!

Is he sure it was under Wilson? We had so many changes of government in the 70s it’s hard to keep track of who was in power when.

That isn’t true. The investment in high quality public services was entirely sustainable until a global financial crisis came along. And Brown’s swift, effective and hugely unpopular action saved the UK from the worst of it.

As for the Islington matés reference, did you type that with a straight face? Have you seen where vast swathes of our money’s gone in the last three years?

Tony Blair/Gordon Brown

Tony Blair.

My DH remembers a wage freeze and living on bread pudding to afford the rent when Wilson was pm in the 70s. Funny how ideology trumps reality

I agree that those years were great. Sadly they weren't sustainable and even if labour had stayed in power then the fairground mentality could not have continued. The money was all gone. Mostly into the hands of the islington crew.

It's a rubbish situation because if it went back to how it was, it would go back to every Tom Dick and Harry doing ridiculous courses again, which was simply unaffordable. So it's a catch 22.

Wasn’t it Cameron and Clegg who tripled fees?

And that is why tax credits are shit.

"It only made things harder for those who genuinely need a degree for their career as they now get charged £££s to do one."

What have the Conservatives done in the last 13 years to tackle escalating fees?

Exactly, it only made it more difficult in the long run for those fields that genuinely require a degree level of education. The mickey mouse courses are not such a thing now like they were in the 00s because people are put off pissing about at uni for 3 years at the expense of £££s debt. But with my generation, it was certainly encouraged to go to uni to do courses that were ridiculous to go on and work in jobs which previous generations had just happily worked their way up in. It was never a good thing and genuinely cheapened a degrees worth.