Who was the last government you were happy with?

[WhiteTilesWhiteGrout]

Following on from another thread, it seems that whenever it comes to UK parties, nobody is ever happy. Even those who are siding with - say - the Tories or Labour, are not very happy with them.

So if the party you are planning to vote for in the next elections wins, will you actually be happy with what they'll do? When was the last time you were happy with the party in power?

Because it seems that no matter who's running the country, people are never happy.

Even George Osborne now admits that austerity was a crock of shite. Yet we have to put up with the unelected David Cameron in the current cabinet.

I don’t think any government has done anything else but sell off property and take ownership out of the publics hands and placed it in the hands of shareholders & private companies(last 50 years)!

Margaret Thatcher.

I've no idea who to vote for any more. They're all so mediocre and none seem particularly trustworthy or inspire any confidence.

Most of the idiots in the Tory party are in thrall to her free market on steroids philosophy, just even more extremely.

If only they were. A true free market economy would have given PPI to the cheapest bidder. Not the most expensive because they're polo pals with the minister. It's a unholy perversion of free marketeering - as bad as communism really.

She sold off our public services with her deranged economics. That's why our rivers are pumped full of sewage and the energy companies take the piss and pass on the costs to the customer.

Only reason she didn't go the way of Truss was because of north sea oil - money pissed up the wall.

Tony Blair's best ever
Gordon Brown - pretty great

It's hard not to just talk about the PM in isolation, but we must remember that it's the whole government and their policies we vote for.

I wish we all voted by going through a policy questionnaire first, so you can see which party aligns with your values.

I also want to see politics taught properly in state schools. So many women I've chatted to lately (people coming to the house to care for me as I've been ill, and women with the lower paid jobs during my hospital stay) told me they didn't vote. It's because they've been taught that they aren't clever enough to understand politics. I really want to do something to help these women find their voice and feel confident using it.

Sorry - wandered off topic a bit!

@WrenNatsworthy I don't think that's really common in lower paid jobs . I do get an annoyed with that old cliche of " They're all the same."🙄

That's not what I meant, it was about these two women in particular. Sorry - let's not infight, I apologise for the language I used that inferred snobbery.

@WrenNatsworthy Sure I wasn't upset 😊.

1997-2001

Working families tax credit was brought in in 1999.

Houses were dirt cheap, no deposit, minimum wage workers could buy decent flats in nice areas.

Lots of council houses.

Got rid of hereditary HOL.

Ban on fox hunting.

Rape laws updated.

Freedom of information.

Devolution.

Blair

😆😂😆😂

New Labour 1997 - mid noughties. I work in the NHS and those were our best years.

There were many people needing housing in 1998-8 in London boroughs.

Nope. We had a whole department made redundant/tuped as the ward was closed. They stopped employing new staff so the old staff kept quitting as the workload and shift pattern was unsustainable, until they had no one left, couldn’t run the sept so just closed it.

they also closed Guy’s poisons unit around that time which used to save the NHS ££££££££. With the loss of years of expertise.

lots of shutting down and contracting out to PFI’s.

Perhaps I should have been more specific. Those were the best years for my speciality and pay grade.

The problem with new labour and Blair was that everything became much more short term, and we are still living with the consequences of that

Brown / Blair pretty much destroyed private sector final salary pension schemes, knowing that the impact of that tax grab wouldn’t be felt until later. And they were right - it took 20 years for the impact to start to be felt. The billions they taxed improved things in the short term, but we now spend multiples of that on pension credit and other benefits to the elderly who, pre their raids, would have had better pensions

Their cynical use of PFI, again showing savings in the short term that could be spent on things that made them look good, hobbled Health and Eduction for decades. We’re only just coming out of the other side of many of these, but the damage has been done and because of the nature good them there was no quick fix.

Their over reliance on spin not substance massively accelerated people’s distrust of politicians. Politicians of all colours are a shadow of the ones we had in the ‘70s / ‘80s and even ‘90s when, whether you agreed or disagreed with their position, it was clear that more of them were in politics because of genuine conviction that they could make a difference, and had a vision of what that would be. Unlike today’s chancers.

Then of course there were the lies and the war. That’s unforgivable.

At a personal level, we lived outside the UK for a good chunk of Blair’s time in power, and it seemed as if our influence around the world was declining. But, I think that would have happened whoever was in power.

Hardly think the Tories are taking a long term view. They seem to just be in it for themselves.

Least under Blair/ brown it was hopeful. And life certainly felt better.

Austerity was a crock of shit and unnecessary.

Am I right/wrong in saying, after so many replies, that it's therefore not just a case of getting the Tories out? Because it seems people weren't that keen on the last labour government either.

It's probably a case of choosing the lesser of two evils. But then why the many, many posts, attacking the Tories as if the other options would be a great solution? I'm not happy with any option but I don't go after the Tories as if they were doing a much worse job that the others would. It seems nobody could do a good enough job to make people happy. Am I wrong?

Yes you are wrong.

This government has behaved so appallingly, in too many ways to count, treating the people with utter contempt, that if we voted them back in, it would be “validating” their behaviour, and setting the precedent for future governments to do likewise.

Yes, it’s a choice between professional liars, and professional liars. But voting is the closest thing we have to democracy, so giving this government a bloody nose is the only way we can show our disgust.

I’m unimpressed by Labour, but I don’t see how this country’s infrastructure could survive another term of Tory rule. There’s no doubt in my mind that the Tories have to go - I just wish that the alternatives were more inspiring.

64 -70
97 - 01
Apparently 45 - 51 was the best. NHS set up etc. But I can't remember obviously.

Nope.
I have never voted Conservative in my entire life. I can moan about Labour. I'm still going to vote for them.