Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To wonder what the best goverment you have lived under is?

205 replies

malificent7 · 28/02/2018 14:04

And also the worst? My older family members werent impressed with the socialist goverments they lived under

OP posts:
SnowCats · 01/03/2018 00:23

As a single parent in the 90's New Labour was, without doubt the best Government I have lived under.
Worst was/is the Tories, even more so as I have 2 disabled children.

EnthusiasmIsDisturbed · 01/03/2018 00:32

Cuban8

That’s very true. I don’t like Thatcher but because she herself wasn’t part of any establishment and being the first female PM her leadership gave way to social mobility being seen as a good thing

It’s so at odds with how much damage she also did to the country

hellsbells99 · 01/03/2018 01:32

The early years of Thatcher.
The worst - Blair and Brown - selling off all our gold at rock bottom prices was stupidity, the Iraq war far worse.

BadLad · 01/03/2018 04:27

Early 90s had high interest rates. I remember black Wednesday. Or was it Friday?
Blair came in. Then we had September 11th and things just went down hill.

You missed out the extremely strong economic recovery in the mid-90s.

ShackUp · 01/03/2018 05:21

Born in 1981.

Thatcher was not popular in my household (parents were teachers). I strongly disagree with her ideological destruction of British industry, and its subsequent replacement with financial services.

Major was a disaster (ERM etc - why do Tories always forget that any government is capable of sending the country into recession??). I do agree with his comments on Brexit, though.

Blair did a good job domestically (NMW, SureStart). I attended the anti-war march in 2003, I find it hard to see past his foreign policy blunders.

I liked Brown, plus he saved the economy from the sub-prime crisis by bailing out the banks.

Coalition made some very bad legislation, although I think the LDs helped to counter some of that.

Cameron. Brexit. Austerity.

May. Disastrous.

ShackUp · 01/03/2018 05:25

talbot managed decline was a Thatcherite policy!!! She was going to let Liverpool go into managed decline when Heseltine stopped her!

Christ.

EnidSingsTheBlues · 01/03/2018 06:05

Blair

givemesteel · 01/03/2018 06:56

Too young to really remember Thatcher and Major. But Thatcher is one of my heroes, would love her to negotiate Brexit.

The only reason why Blair /Nu Labour seemed so great is because they borrowed so heavily so as a country we lived beyond our means.

I actually think David Cameron was a good prime minister, it's a shame he resigned.

bertsdinner · 01/03/2018 07:09

I grew up in a very left wing family in the 70s. My grandad and uncle were big into the unions. In our community, women belonged at the kitchen sink and voted how their husbands told them. I was too young to really understand Mrs Thatchers policies, but seeing a woman in power was a massive thing for me.

I cant say I've ever been overly impressed with any government. New Labour were just a con and I stopped voting for a while back then.
Im not impressed with the current lot, nor the opposition.

Elendon · 01/03/2018 07:58

Without a shadow of a doubt the Blair/Brown era. If Brown had not been the chancellor at the time of the banking crisis then things would have been much worse.

Have to give credit to John Major though, despite those in his own party waiting to put the knife in, and he's still managing to make waves regarding Brexit.

ThoughtsLikeButterflys · 01/03/2018 08:03

Whenever I was on benefits the Blair years were ace. I managed a holiday to Florida whilst on income support, it was ridiculous.
Now I'm financially comfortable, I'm swaying more towards the May years. I do shit myself now at the thought of ending up back on benefits though I must admit.

IllustriouslyIllogical · 01/03/2018 08:06

Tail end of the Thatcher era was best for me, early 90's were OK too.

Now I'm fortunate enough to be in the situation that most of the burning MN issues don't affect me at all, so I just bob along happily no matter who is in charge and generally go to make a brew when the news turns to politics....

IllustriouslyIllogical · 01/03/2018 08:08

It’s so at odds with how much damage she also did to the country

It's also the era that Britain was generally considered to be at its strongest & most influential.....

We've slide further & further off stage since her day...

sneezingfit · 01/03/2018 09:34

The salary in my role is pretty much the same as ten years ago.
I’ve watched the public pay in my sector surpass the private sector so much so that now public sector are paid wayyyy more than private.
And that doesn’t even begin to include all the benefits that come with working in the public sector that in many many average workplaces just don’t exist.
So for me I didn’t approve of all the let’s hand money to anyone who fancies not working etc. I worked extremely hard to gain qualifications and have a career. I had no help from anyone in buying a house blah blah. Now where has that left me? On a mediocre salary with much less prospects and absolutely no access to benefits because apparently my husband earns too much.
So whoever decided my personal benefits would be based on my husbands income didn’t stop to think would I rather be treated as an individual in my own right imo is a complete wally. Absolutely forces me to be lower in the pecking order to my husband who is the breadwinner by a long way.

I think this government are super shit, but at least they aren’t asking me to keep working so that people who popped kids out as teenagers can go to uni for free one day. The few people who managed to pull themselves out of poverty, well done, but there are 1000’s more who remained on the benefits system rather than make positive changes in a bad situation and wondering why their lifestyle is being changed. In Blair’s time while I was training, I watched my friend pop out three kids and then get to choose a brand new kitchen for her council flat in a nice area whilst I struggled to save a deposit to live in a shit hole.

And I come from a shit background, aborted my first at 21 because I didn’t want to raise a child in such a precarious position as that’s taking responsibility for myself, my unborn child and a positive thing for society as a whole IMO.

I’ve lived in poverty. Most people are in a position to make a change. If you looked at the choices some people made it’s utterly ridiculous that they can complain about how they ended up in their situation. My mum is one such person, always blaming someone else, she sits on her arse complaining but she could go and train in something, anything, she doesn’t want to. She wants handouts and is complaining because this government won’t give her them anymore. I do not include disabled people in my argument though. It’s disgusting what’s happening to them in this system. So all in all I just think we need a new government that represents common sense. And that’s not going to happen is it!

Bluelady · 01/03/2018 09:41

I'm a bit confused by all that. If you think pay and conditions are so much better in the public sector, why don't you go and work there? And are you seriously saying that you should get benefits to bring your income up to the level of your well paid husband's? Do feel free to correct me if I've got that bit wrong.

Believeitornot · 01/03/2018 09:48

@sneezingfit

What is your job? And why not pay people a decent wage. Is it any wonder that people need state top ups when wages are so low.

I work in the public sector and get paid less than private sector colleagues by quite some margin (accountant).

Tanith · 01/03/2018 10:04

Blair/Brown Government was definitely the best, even though I spent a few months out of work with a young child there was a lot of help to get me back on my feet again.

People forget that, yes the Blair Government spent money, but they spent it on improving things for ordinary people. They invested heavily in Education and introduced the Early Years - targeting the very youngest to give them the best start in life. It was Blair’s government that started free nursery education.
They also spent money on improving the public buildings - under Thatcher, I remember being taught in classrooms where buckets were scattered to catch the rain from leaking rooves and plastic sheets were stuffed into cracked and broken windows.
They also started forcing companies who mis-sold financial products in the greedy Yuppy years to compensate their customers.

I don’t agree with everything they did, but it angers me that such a hate job has been done on Blair when he did so much to improve the country as a whole.

The one I clearly remember and hated was Thatcher. In her own way, she was as incompetent as the current shower, she just had a much better team behind her.
She ruined working class communities that are still struggling now, she wrecked the unions so working people no longer had a voice. NHS wards were closed while waiting lists were months, even years long. Elderly people froze to death and Edwina Curry told them to knit themselves hats and scarves.

And don’t dare talk to me about Brown selling gold reserves when Thatcher sold off the country, including North Sea Oil, to bribe her supporters and line their pockets. Something the current Government is still hell-bent on doing.

theduchessstill · 01/03/2018 10:16

Sneezingfit I work in the public sector and my pay is round about the same (but worth less in real terms of course) as people on the same roles, who were then my bosses, were getting when I started out. My workload also far surpasses what theirs was as well. You are making some massive generalisations, you really are.

And I am shocked you think you should receive benefits rather than benefitting from your husband's income - why on earth should the state subsidise you if your husband is on a decent wage.

You sound very angry and bitter.

Youshallnotpass · 01/03/2018 10:29

To be honest I am totally depressed that a significant minority of the UK are against realistic taxation and would rather thousands of our young people have minimal life chances.

That would be a majority of the population, hence the current government.

Also "Realistic taxation" is a very vague term.

CheeseyToast · 01/03/2018 10:37

Right now I'm living in New Zealand with a 37yo pregnant woman as PM - and I bloody love it. The coalition MPs resemble the sorts of people you'd hang with in regular life rather than uppity weirdos.
Pale, stale males are on the out and life. Is. Good.

Feodora · 01/03/2018 11:30

@givemesteel, if you read the figures Blair govt did not borrow more than the Conservatives previously. In fact the first few years of the Blair govt was one of the few time the economy was in surplus. Some argue they should have saved more in the boom times, although still spending less than previous Tory govts, but the country desperately needed infrastructure and public services to be improved after years of underfunding by previous goats.

See attached graph years before Blair country was borrowing more. The sharp increase in 2008-2009 was the bank bail out caused by the global financial crash.

To wonder what the best goverment you have lived under is?
Feodora · 01/03/2018 11:30

Ha, govts not goats!

PoodleDoodleCaboodle · 01/03/2018 11:58

Tony Blair's Labour for me. Children's services, Schools and the Education sector as a whole was well funded and well managed.

Eltonjohnssyrup · 01/03/2018 14:29

If you think pay and conditions are so much better in the public sector, why don't you go and work there?

Yes, because it’s as simple as just turning up and telling them you’re going to work for them. It’s always public sector workers who don’t live in the real world who come out with this trite shit. ‘Just get a job in the public sector’, ‘just go off sick’, ‘just contact your union’.

theduchessstill · 01/03/2018 15:38

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.