The best: Blair - New Labour
I remember the feeling of optimism, the investment in education, services, families. I wasn’t well off, indeed I was young and poor. There was enough support for me to be able to better myself.
People always make a point out of benefits and how if people live to well or to easily on benefits there would be no motivation to work. I could have stayed on benefits and survived quite well but as it was easy enough to take the opportunity to better myself and improve my situation so I did. Due to this I didn’t have to rely on benefits for very long at all because there was no benefits trap. Before long I had a full time job that paid enough to live off without any other aides and a place to live fully funded by me. That simply would not be possible now. If I was in a situation where I had to rely on benefits now I think I would be in a constant state of stress and anxiety and no doubt a whole lot less motivated and employable because of it!
There are always going to be people who would rather claim than work regardless of whether benefits are generous or not. I also think that punishing those who rely on benefits with barely enough to survive on coupled with the added stress of sanctions and silly (expensive) hoops to jump through improves anyone’s mental state and just ends up costing more in the long run.
The worst government: the current one!
I really fear for my children’s future. We live in a country divided and it all feels so bleak. I worry about the long lasting and far reaching effects of the current austerity measures. I worry about the state of things for when they are to become adults. Will they have job security or be stuffed with zero hours contracts, will we be able to afford higher education or university...will it indeed even be worth the debt incurred if so. That’s all before even thinking about home ownership or what might happen to us in our old age.
The mess this country is in right now I don’t see us ever having another optimistic era of progress, funding and investment. Indeed I’m glad I’m old enough to have lived it, I fear perhaps my children never will.