Labour Party Scandals Under Blair/Brown

[RowlingStone]

I was only a teenager in the early naughties and yet I remember so many Labour scandals so I often feel surprised that they never get mentioned here in the political threads.

The ones I remember are David Kelly, weapons of mass destruction/Iraq war generally, A-level results falsely marked down to prevent grade inflation (Estelle Morris took the fall for that), PFI, extensive hospital waiting lists, cash for honours, something to do with Peter Mandelson, Carole Caplin and some dodgy flats, Labour offspring getting into fee paying or selective schools, Two Jags Prescott and lots of sex scandals (Blunkett, Prescott, maybe more).

I suppose it’s always given me this sense that regardless of the colour of their rosettes all politicians are ultimately the same (self-serving hypocrites).

I was curious whether everyone else just had very short term memories or those scandals weren’t as big a deal at the time as some of the current ones.

I will admit I did Google Carole Caplin to remember her surname before I posted here though. And then I just copy and pasted her name rather than type it out.

They really are not every bit as bad.
They're not perfect, but ordinary working people stand a chance under Labour.
Under the Tories, only the elite stand a chance.

Blur and Oasis were pretty much dead in my crowd by the mid 2000s. It was all about Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Foo Fighters. (I did also secretly still listen to Britney though).

Estelle Morris resigned! Can you remember that level of taking responsibility for something. Boris had to be forced out after repeatedly lying. Liz truss had to be basically forced out after crashing the economy. Morris resigned about exams? Lovely. I'd like more of that sort of politics back now please.

Maybe if you hadn't lost interest in politics you'd see that those things in new Labour era pale in insignificance to the corruption of recent years.

I miss when politicians had integrity. It’s probably a case of looking back with rose-tinted glasses though. I think New Labour made mistakes, and a few of them were costly, but they did a lot of good. I don’t think I can name more than 5 things the past 12 years of tory governments has done that has actually benefitted the country. Maybe that’s why labour’s scandals are so overlooked and forgotten about (excluding the Iraq war) - they did a lot of good that arguably outweighs the small scandals. You can’t really say the same for this government.

Btw it wasn’t just “grade inflation”. They had systematically and falsely slashed people’s grades to depress the overall marks. One of my A level subjects (the one I was most competent in) had three exam papers and the results on those papers came back A, A, E. That obviously makes no sense. I ended up retaking the E paper with no revision a year later and got an A. I know overall it pales in significance to some of the other scandals but I knew people who lost their places at uni because of it.

I’ve never heard of the masochism strategy - definitely going to read up on this, thanks. I wish more MPs would still put themselves forward for criticism - whether they genuinely care and have answers or not, I think it would make them better received and seem more down to earth. We never see PMs answering questions from the general public, it’d be really interesting.

For me, the huge but almost forgotten scandal is the bombing of Libya by the UK, we threw that country to ISIS and the criminal gangs that followed, allowing so many 1000s to then drown in the Med, all on our own too (well, the french did a bit) no USA involvement.

Terrible what Cameron did under Labour.

But its all Blair and the Tories bombing Iraq, forgetting the Yanks did 90% of that war & would have invaded whatever the British did.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/18/level-results-2022-university-places-students-clearing/

Students see biggest drop in grades on record

Take any random week in politics in the past 12 Tory years and you’ll find so much corruption and scandal. But, hey, people were already getting misty eyed and wanted to bring back Johnson after 6 weeks, so why are we surprised. Short memories.

I know overall it pales in significance to some of the other scandals but I knew people who lost their places at uni because of it

But at least your uni education was still free or have you conveniently forgotten that little gem?

Extensive hospital waiting lists?

I’m unfortunate enough to need a lot of hospital treatment and surgery. When Labour were in power I’d get given a surgery date the day I saw the consultant. I’m on the waiting list atm, it’s only been 21 months so far,

I’ve got cardiac problems which they needed to do an MRI scan for. I had that done on 18th August. My follow up is 1st September 2023. It was never like that under Labour.

We didn’t have more food banks than we do branches of McDonalds either.

Yes they did some things wrong, of course they did, but they got a hell of a lot right.

@electricdreaming I only heard of it recently - it might have been the Newscast episode where they had Alistair Campbell on, but I looked into it, and it did seem to work. People had more trust in TB because he admitted mistakes/ignorance (to a certain extent). Like you, I can't imagine any politician willingly doing that now. It's kind of counter-intuitive, but I think it was a good way of facing up to difficulties.

7 milllion people waiting lists under Sunak/Tories.

Thank God we don't have to put up with less than 1m under Blair - we are truly blessed now.

I remember a lot of coverage of hospital waiting lists in the Labour era. They made it a target. That's never on the news now. I wonder why.

And yet after 15 years I’m still paying back my student loan.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_Basics_(campaign)

A bit of nostalgia. John Major introduced a ‘Back to Basics’ campaign around, among other things, the traditional nuclear family. It came against a background of strong criticism of single mothers from government ministers.

One by one, the scandals came out. It was a thing of beauty mainly because it exposed the rank hypocrisy of the MPs involved.

Christ almighty that man is a two faced cunt.

He financed the purchase of his parents council house in a very desirable area of Sheffield, whilst campaigning against council houses being sold off.

Twat

Definitely. Very obvious. 🙄

Not sure I believe it’s 7 million, in a population of 70 million. Either there’s a lot of incredibly sick people in the UK, or a lot of people on several lists? If you’re waiting for a consultation and a scan does that count as 1 or 2?

Guys, come on, can you at least pretend I’m not a paid Tory HQ shill? You’re going to get me fired.

@walkinginsunshinekat what do you mean by Terrible what Cameron did under Labour.?

I'm at the idea no one mentioned/mentions Iraq - it comes up endlessly.

'Cash for honours' is just business as usual for the Tories, no one will report that as it is expected.

Having cake on your birthday, or even having an office party during lockdown, was more serious than putting together a dossier containing lies to persuade mps to vote for war? Are you serious?

Oh please, not this minimising shit about cake. It wasn’t the fucking cake that brought Johnson down. It was the lying and corruption.