To wonder if life was better under a Labour government?

[Wasloafbetter]

Or are people looking back with rose tinted specs?

I started teaching in the Blair years and I found it pretty awful, although how much of that was down to my own lack of experience and how much was down to government policies is hard to say.

I’m wondering if people are looking back nostalgically (have seen this on a thread this morning where apparently the 80s were a great time for freedom of expression with no pressure to conform, which don’t tally with my memories at all) or whether life was better then.

I’m 42, by the way - was 17 when Blair was made PM.

You could get a GP appointment the same day by just turning up and waiting. Education was a priority, and so were social care and the police.
Nurses didn't have to pay for their own training and the NHS was a better place to work.
This wasn't all down to Labour but it's certainly the recent Tories that spoiled it!

Things were much better under the 97-2010 governments. We didn't have rampant homelessness and millions reliant on foodbank for a start. Public services were better funded, support for families, Sure Start, reduction in child poverty etc etc.

It's been getting worse year on year ever since.

Life was great under Labour! They did however spend a huge amount of money, very irresponsibly, and the Iraq war was a mess, but if you were in the UK, life was great. Cost of living was way cheaper, quality of goods was much higher - I remember buying a party silk dress for £30, now you can pay £200 and still get polyester. You could buy a house on one salary, food was much cheaper...

It was a time when lots of politicians in power were ex-lawyers and they were quite competent in both parties. Cameron marked a change to BS politicians who were terribly impressed with themselves but weren’t clever enough to do the job. The ‘austerity’ years were a disaster and then came Brexit and the pandemic and all the extremists on left and right that stress creates, from Extinction Revellion and the Trans activists on the left and the anti-semites and racists of the right- the country is definitely a worse place to live than it was in the 1990s.

Oh for a John Major or Tony Blair… Or even a William Hague or Gordon Brown!

University level Education was free. Food banks were virtually unhead of. You could get GP appointments and the NHS wasn’t so exhausted. There was a network of Surestart clinics offering support to new mothers (and by knock on effect, preventing later addiction, depression and crime with all the knock on social effects of those) Crime against women was much lower. There weren’t fisherman on the beaches trying to prevent lifeboats from launching to rescue people.

😢

I wanna emigrate.

Something's were better some worse during labour years.

Contrary to people's belief only the Tory's sell off NHS with PFIs labour were actively building buildings in private sector paid over many years and many times original cost. when it would have been way cheaper to borrow the money from ECB.

There was also in about 2008 when labour did a convulted tax system that actually made people earning under 20,000 worse off and people over that better off.

@Skysblue

University level Education was free. Food banks were virtually unhead of. You could get GP appointments and the NHS wasn’t so exhausted. There was a network of Surestart clinics offering support to new mothers (and by knock on effect, preventing later addiction, depression and crime with all the knock on social effects of those) Crime against women was much lower. There weren’t fisherman on the beaches trying to prevent lifeboats from launching to rescue people.

😢

I wanna emigrate.

Um it was Labour that brought in tuition fees .

I am in my late forties. I have worked in social work since my early twenties ( so before Labour came into power) until now. Much of this was working with homeless people with drug/alcohol/ mental health issues in a big city.

The difference in service provision and available support for vulnerable adults and children is vast, and I long for a labour government again.

In the late nineties/ early noughties, we had funded hostels including woman only, MH, wet and dry houses, young people, etc, plus soup runs with CPNs who had the time to support the street homeless as needed.

When I moved into child protection, we had protected caseloads and far more support and assistance to offer to families and children in need.

Since the Tories came to power, I have watched these services being decimated, higher caseloads, corporate managers with limited understanding, stagnant pay etc etc.

The difference is palpable and it is the most vulnerable in society - children, older adults, mental health and substance misuse, who are vastly more vulnerable with the current government.

EngTech en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week

I imagine you aren’t either a (legal) immigrant, someone working on MW or is disabled?
The biggest difference has been there imo. (Well at least that’s what touches a big nerve for me - alongside child poverty that drastically increased)

There is also the NHS and selling it to private companies/running it down, students fees (I imagine you didn’t see that either?). Our legal system put under so much pressure that trials are now taking years and years. Reducing legal aid. Less police around so again less crimes actually investigated (as a woman I’m sure you’ve noticed the fact that the rates for Rape trial are the lowest ever). Oh and taxes. The highest they’ve ever been in the last 70 years…

And that’s just a start.

I’m more worried you think it wasn’t that different with Labour tbf.

This insistence that the three day week and the Winter of Discontent happened under a Labour Government is, in my opinion, a perfect example of how the media successfully manipulates a historical narrative.

@x2boys, I thought it was the Conservatives alongside the LD???

@Skysblue are you saying that the current government did NOT spend money irresponsibly?

Actually you’re right. They haven’t. They’ve just given it to their cronies instead……

The Tories were pretty much entirely behind the war in Iraq too, so I don’t think it’s very honest to lay the blame entirely with TB.

There were more police on the streets too, and less open xenophobia and insularity than today. It was probably still there but less out in the open.

Tuition fees were there, but not nearly so crippling.

Our international reputation wasn’t in the gutter like it is now. Countries and governments respected and trusted us then.

Labour didn’t try to control the media anywhere near the current level, the BBC were far less up the governments arse and Channel 4 could operate without threats against it.

Labour also didn’t try to re write the law (to its advantage) in the way this current mob attempt to almost weekly. We’re about to make it illegal to hold any protests or demonstrations- the suffragettes would have all been locked up under the bill that’s going through now- scary thought.

@crackofdoom

Winter of discontent?

Labour was in power during the tech boom which started in the 1990s then continued in the 2000s - loads of new jobs, loads of money. Also the banking boom continued through the 2000s - the mortgages for everyone (particularly in the US) - until the bubble burst. Lehmann brothers and Royal Bank of Scotland - redundancies etc Apparently Gordon Brown did something to save the World Economy but we are still suffering from the banking crash.

@couchparsnip

You could get a GP appointment the same day by just turning up and waiting. Education was a priority, and so were social care and the police. Nurses didn't have to pay for their own training and the NHS was a better place to work. This wasn't all down to Labour but it's certainly the recent Tories that spoiled it!

Getting a same day GP appointment was never a possibility under Labour for some people. The time I spent working in the NHS during that period showed me it was on its knees. I can't think of anything that was better from that time.

The Tories were pretty much entirely behind the war in Iraq too, so I don’t think it’s very honest to lay the blame entirely with TB.

Whether they supported it or not Tony Blair and the labour party were in power at the time.

I'm no Tory supporter but trying to blame to the Tory's for it is a joke.

[quote LostForIdeas]@x2boys, I thought it was the Conservatives alongside the LD???[/quote]
Nope they were introduced under the Labour government in 1998

Gordon brown would have been probably a good prime minister but he was tainted with Tony.

Labour had 13 years in power, could never figure out why all the Utility Companies and the railways were not nationalised 😳😳

Longer term I mean.

It's possibly easiest to look backwards by looking at what we don't have now that we did:

We had more than 800 more libraries even in 2010 than we do now (we lost more than 1/5 in 10 years). That is a huge difference for people studying without being able to afford books, or needing a quiet or warm place which doesn't involve buying anything.

We had 500 more Sure Start Centres. And the few that remain are running on 1/3 of their original budgets.

We had hundreds more public toilets back then (we lost almost 20% in the last 6 years - because of all the cuts to council funding).

We had ambulances that came on time, rather than leaving pensioners on cold pavements for hours because we had more NHS staff and beds (this is not a criticism of the NHS at all - the staff are having to work so much harder because of all the cuts and lack of investment/staff).

1/3 of councils had double the money to spend on local services than they do now.

We had more than 3,000 bus services that are no longer here now, and fares were affordable back then.

We have increased food banks. In 2008/9 just 25,899 people needed to use a foodbank.
Now it's more than two and a half million.

If you can afford private healthcare/education/transport/have no mortgage then things may not have affected you much yet, but it's about what kind of country you want to live in, and if you want to know that people are unnecessarily suffering around you.

I'm no Tory supporter but trying to blame to the Tory's for it is a joke

I’m not trying to “blame” the Tories.
I’m pointing out the fact that it would have happened under a Tory government too.

Ok EngTech, we are both 50% right and 50% wrong, and conflated two 1979s crises. The “Winter of Discontent” happened under a Labour Government, while the miners’ strikes and the Government imposed 3 Day Week happened under Ted Heath’s Conservative Government.

Labour introduces the fees, capped at £1,000, then raised it to £3,000 plus inflation.

The coalition government removed the cap, so the current very high cost of tuition fees is at the door of the Tories.