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.

We're a very open economy so given the international issues that have occurred since 2007-8 I think we would have needed a truly exceptional set of politicians to bring us through unscathed.

Sadly these were not on offer.

I guess I meant more lack of morals and an entitled society I am not religious myself but religion seems to have common themes. Can you understand what I mean though?

Thatcher.

Blair, Bojo, Brexit etc kept up the momentum of making CoL unaffordable for ordinary families.

I wasn’t clear, I didn’t mean folk didn’t want to work, I meant hardworking people were working full time hours, but the wages were that shit that they needed the tax credits to top their earnings up. I wasn’t blaming the people on them I was blaming the system or the government.

Tax credit did make it harder for people to take more house though. Whilst that wasn’t the intention, it meant that they couldn’t take extra hours at work because they’d lose the tax credits so that’s what I meant when I said they became reliant.

Thatcher started it. Selling off public utilities especially social housing. Then it was carried on by other meatheads and look where we are with the water industry.

Time for worldwide population control.

What does that actually look like?

Yeah I can understand what you mean and there are so lovely aspects of religion

No it definitely started with Thatcher: privatising all the services and utility industries, selling off council housing so rentals soared, allowing mortgage prices to go unchecked, saying 'There's no such thing as society' and encouraging selfishness as if it were a virtue. She's the rot. After her we needed a true labour government to offset her impact. Which Blair was not.

A & C

Mandatory euthanasia at 75 coupled with forced birth 🤷🏻‍♀️

I definitely can understand what you mean and there are some nice aspects of religion I agree.

B and mix of D

I do t blame the current government they were handed a situation which is awful but I don’t think they’ve done anything to make it better.

But I was a child when Blair was in power, a student when the tories got in, so I didn’t really follow politics then, so apart from the Iraq war stuff I don’t actually know much about Blair. So my response is probably biased.

E: Margarite Thatcher and her privatisation of N. Sea Oil, instead of a Norway style investment fund, she handed it out in tax cuts and privatisations.

She then destroyed Unions, which then led to lower and lower wages and bigger and bigger profits for companies.

At least Blair invested some money into the country, we ended up with a functioning NHS, now its totally normal to wait for 12/24hrs for an Ambulance for a stroke victim..... with many people driving heir relatives to hospital themselves..... 3rd World healthcare.

Look at the public spirit we had in 2012 and the Olympics? just 2 years into a Tory Govt, they then sucked that optimism out of us within a few years because of their Austerity and we'll never catch back up again.

The Tories then fucked Labour by cutting NI by 4%, thats costing the Govt over 11 billion to fund each year and its rising with wage increases....which why they cannot improve much... it needs reversing but that will finish them electorally, which is why Hunt/Sunak did it....

And pensions are a huge cost when the demographics are changing. Not just the state pension but the cost to healthcare, increased disability, unsuitable housing etc.

I'm sure I already posted this but we have 5 workers to 1 pensioner in the 60s, we are 3:1 now but will be 2:1 in the next decade or so.

We will have to increase taxes & cut services just to stabilise national debt. And more of those taxes will go funded older people.

Mandatory euthanasia at 75 coupled with forced birth

economically that makes sense but pretty dystopian!

Yup. More that 50% of the benefits bill is spent on pensioners and just Uber 50% of the healthcare bill - they currently make up around 25% of the population. They are the biggest drain.

NIGEL FARAGE UKIP & REFORM UK are breaking the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. @User32459

Yes. Our workers are diminishing. They cannot fund this welfare state. You either tax them to try to do that or you cut those benefits.

Labour has tried and failed to manage disability benefits. It has failed. It will not have the appetite to engage with pensions or age dependent spending. A tougher government will do that, I think.

More that 50% of the benefits bill is spent on pensioners and just Uber 50% of the healthcare bill - they currently make up around 25% of the population. They are the biggest drain.

But we need to be able to acknowledge this without it being seen as an attack on older people.

A tougher government will do that, I think.

but who will vote for them?

As a child in the 80s I remember travelling in antiquated train carriages from the days of steam. Train disasters were considerably more common and lethal. The railway system was over 100 years old, cobbled back together after WW2 and it showed. Is it a slick, user-friendly system now? No, but it is better invested in since privatisation as imperfect as it is.

Post-war de-industrialisation was a harsh, lengthy process. I've worked in pit towns and seen the lingering social effects. It wasn't just employment, it was purpose, the social networks and that's the ongoing legacy. But the reality was that the heyday of the pit towns was long passed and overall the UK had a head srart on Europe on establishing a strong financial sector that gave the UK economic strength in the 90s and 00s and is still of major importance today.

These are global issues that we feel locally. The UK is not unique. Japan's economy has stagnated without major boom for decades and a lot of western Europe is following that trend, also North America with politics in the USA being a respose to parallel issues.

Brexit was voted for as a rejection of globalisation and losing influence to the wider world. It was a symptom of problems that had been ignored by the ruling classes for a prolonged period.

It's complex. It's long term. It's bigger than the politician of the day. Some issues such as the transfer of wealth from middle classes and governments to coporations and individual billionaires need international strategy to addess. Some issues are within the remit of personal responsibility. People acting as local communities to enhance their areas can go a long way. The government/ state can not solve everything.

I could go on but I might take all day

OAPs are costly. But they did generally contribute through their lives. We now have mumpers and dole bludgers reaching old age and who haven’t paid in.

It's complex. It's long term. It's bigger than the politician of the day. Some issues such as the transfer of wealth from middle classes and governments to coporations and individual billionaires need international strategy to addess

Agree

What are the realistic options for that age group though? What would you want to see happen

Obviously the tougher government will lie through its teeth and say things like; you need a different system of healthcare, migrants shouldn’t get benefits etc to get elected. They will present themselves as radicals.

Pensioners are quite wealthy in many cases. They have capital tied up their homes. Business would like it. Cutting welfare benefits is one was to force that money out of property and into circulation. If you privatize in effect the needs of the elderly that money will be released. In an ageing society this seems inevitable because that’s, rather grimly, the growth area.