Who broke Britain?

[User32459]

Who do you most blame for our downfall as a nation?

A) Tony Blair and New Labour (97-2010)

B) The Tories (2010-2024)

C) The current Labour government

D) Brexit and Nigel Farage's lies

I think the answer is all of the above and the current government are an absolute disaster, but to be fair to them they've come in at the end when the damage is done. It's not 1997 anymore when they can get away with Blairite policies.

Labour have a lot to answer for but i'd probably go B. The Tories just about got everything wrong. Did they do anything good at all? And ultimately their shocking governance led to Brexit as well.

And the failures of the lot of them will need to Nigel Farage as Prime Minister.

They need to pay tax and they need to acknowledge that their £1.50. They paid in stamp back in 1973 is not covering their £250 per week state pension.

I also think the British public need to carry the blame for this. The current government was elected on a mandate that didn’t make sense- that taxes won’t be raised and they will secure growth, without any credible growth plans. They public cries in horror at any attempt to tinker with the NHS or welfare related. But we are all in denial if we fail to recognise the need for very significant structural change so that the welfare state remains affordable and does not collapse. The public want everything- low tax but generous benefits and healthcare free at the point of use. It’s not sustainable.

It can’t work because the people who want the generous benefits aren’t the ones paying the tax, for the most part. Our country has become a very expensive life support system for those with various ‘needs’ who fight tooth and nail not to have anything changed or reformed, whilst simultaneously protesting how awful the current system is.

We’re too civilised in a nutshell. We’ve settled for spending on contingencies, solving the ills of the public, hand holding, safety nets and not enough on actual living and quality of life. We’re just so incredibly bogged down with ‘fixing’ and ‘supporting’ that we’ve massively neglected everything that makes a country enjoyable to live in.

The thing is the ‘they’ is us in reality as time passes. So whatever people are asking for will be their reality as they age.

Some good ideas below, but agree with pp who said they would be hard to get through. Also means testing pensions - you’d really have to consider impact on behaviour (economically speaking).

Mn goes strong on tax more, for other people

Everyone wants someone r we law to pay

But I agree there isn’t more there. Labour will have to find another way, it’s due to the earlier NI tax after all.

I don't actually have a huge issue with the principles of employers paying more NI. Again this is what happens in many other European countries where they have better funded pensions, healthcare & benefits. Yet somehow many still manage to pay better wages vs here!

...and you do? judging by what you post, you don't at all.

Plenty of people have more than enough money, 33m in work, average wage 37k, wages outstripping inflation.

Pubs around me doing food, are super busy and i'm in a so called poor part of the country.

Stop pretending we all have nothing and talking the country down.

The thing is the ‘they’ is us in reality as time passes. So whatever people are asking for will be their reality as they age.

Why can't there be fluidity though? The triple lock was a good idea at the time but then it ran away from its intentions. So stop it now but acknowledge we may have to revisit it again. Upcoming pensioners do not necessarily have the same wealth as current ones, as I said more will be renting so policy will have to change.
Either way no upcoming pensioners are going to be getting what current pensioners get.

37k 😆

Plenty of people have more than enough money, 33m in work, average wage 37k, wages outstripping inflation.

Wages have recently outstripped inflation. 37k is akin to 20k in the early 00s so hardly a great wage.

Pubs around me doing food, are super busy and i'm in a so called poor part of the country.

This definitely means people can pay more tax 🙄

Sorry but that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all week. People go to pubs so therefore they’re rich? 37k is a great salary when the average house price is something like 10 times that amount?

Please can you confirm what your own circumstances are? I’m an average earner with a mortgage and child in nursery.

Please can you confirm what your own circumstances are?

Who bets they are a pensioner?!

I just wanted to acknowledge this, they seem to be interesting ideas. Whether they’d end as May’s did is the issue as you say.

I’ve never seen such a lack of self awareness on this website, than that post.

I think that's a fair shout.

I was reluctant to put Thatcher in because for me Britain wasn't broke in the 1990s. Yes there were some bad things Thatcher did but Labour had 13 years to roll back on them and didn't. The Tories then had 14 years to roll back the messes of New Labour and didn't.

But if you trace the decline back to the start of neoliberalism then that did ultimately start with Thatcher. Blair in a lot of ways continued her legacy. The absolute mess of immigration though - all roads lead back to Blair ultimately.

Agree with you and pp

And more tax for what? To house, feed, clothe and bankroll the never ending flow of illegal migrants?

People have had enough.

Nuts, isn’t it?

This. And so many of those shiny new schools and hospitals, built on the cheap, need flattening and rebuilding. They leak, are structurally unsound or their inhabitants cook during the summer.

Blair's 'Cool Britannia' was little more than poor quality governmental bling, at vast cost.

Completely agree with you. “But they paid in” rhetoric, they did but so are younger people now and there will be no pension to speak of by the time we get to 65!

This triple lock entitlement ‘but but buy they paid they can’t work now, younger people can…’ the older people benefiting from their pension contributions are very lucky as they were also the ones who benefited from the council hosue sell off and were born in a time where cheap housing were easy to come by. That generation have had it better than any generation that followed and I’m sick of hearing how hard it is for them 🙄 Try being a young person the days, I bet they wouldn’t swap!

Thatcher. No question.

Followed by Cameron being a fucking idiot and allowing the Brexit vote because he was scared of UKIP. Now the Tories are UKIP, and Reform have overtaken them on the right by some way.

My only hope is that Farage doesn't actually want to be PM because it's quite hard work, and will create some drama/row within Reform before the next election so that he leaves. I don't think they'd win without him.

Then he'll create a new racist party and go back to being a rabble-rowsing shyster.

People go to pubs to get drunk and block out reality.

Absolutely Thatcher. If anything she exacerbated the North South divide. Always remember the Harry Enfield loadsamoney character was a cockney 😂, so the south flourished and the North died. This imbalance led directly to Brexit.

Murdock and his right wing propaganda. Only people to blame for a Reform government are the folk that are taken in by the factually distorted stuff in his rags who end up voting for them.

Blair and the monetisation of the university system.
Cameron and Osbourne. Cutting millions from the North to funnel into London and the South East. How come poorer northern towns were hit hardest by their austerity ?

This is just another immigrant/left bashing thread under the guise of political discussion.

Gordon Brown handing out tax credits to virtually everyone. You could even own a second home and claim tax credits if earnings were low. You could work very part time in some silly hobby job and claim top ups. It made everyone dependent on benefits / normalized them and now we end up where we are.

The free movement of EU people across most countries of the EU has been a disaster on every level. They all seemed to head to the UK.

You’re blaming it all on the endless flow of immigrants but the rot started decades ago. So disingenuous @Op. At least Starmer is listening about immigration and doing something but he’ll never be the sainted Nigel for you I guess. Labour could reduce it to nil. You wouldn’t be happy.