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.

@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.

I was a headteacher when Blair came to power, having spent all my career under the Tories until then.

Schools were starved of funding under the Tories; we were actually properly funded under Labour.

Not sure why you think it was worse...

@ParsleySageRosemary

That was my experience too. I am a bit older than you but we had worked so hard for every penny, played by the rules and I think the frivolous nature of public spending that was dangled into peoples faces to show they were mugs for working in boring 9-5s, that’s the kind of thing that shakes your confidence in knowing what is really going on and who to trust. Every seemed to jump into teaching for the pensions and many just pushed the really genuine teachers put, imv.

I used to see schools with a huge number of very busy and self important support staff and yet the most basic of things were overlooked and some very vulnerable children missed the small but crucial input they needed on a daily basis (that well placed and conscientious support staff were desperately trying to do).

@teaandbiscuitsforme

OP You need to go and spend a week in a school. The difference will be apparent very quickly!! Teaching is nothing like it was pre-2010, primary education is nothing like it was pre-2010. It makes me so sad for those kids (including my own DC!)

Holidays and maternity leave aside, I’ve spent every week in a school since 2002!

I don’t think you can compare things like freedom of expression as that isn’t really determined by political views but by society as a whole. We have come a long way as far as equality etc since the 80 which still has a long way to go. However I think in general labour are far more aware of social inequality. Additionally not sure if Blair is a good example as he instigated new labour with similar values to the Tories.

How different would we be now if John Smith RIP had been PM?

I don’t know.

We have a Labour government in Wales. Huge waiting lists for NHS, no carers for people, everything just as shit but it’s fine because we are Welsh in Wales.

It was so much better. I remember the sheer relief when Blair got in. I had a top up of family credit of £75 a week under the tories I had nothing.

The way it is at the moment I would take anyone rather than the infant.

It was so much better than this shit show - domestically anyway.

Minimum wage, 2 million out of poverty, winter fuel allowance, all the new schools and hospitals, fox hunting ban, right to roam, smoking ban, independence for the Bank of England, devolution, billions in to public services.

I’d go back to Blair being PM tomorrow. I watched the Blair Brown documentary recently and actually cried at the end.

They responded robustly to the global financial meltdown, terror attacks, foot and mouth, the death of Diana, and other huge challenges. Until Iraq all the foreign policy interventions seemed the right thing to do and worked well too.

Today’s Labour Party is a joke in comparison, and don’t get me started on the havoc the Tories have managed to wreak in just eleven years. Heart breaking.

If only Gordon had won that election. What might’ve been.

There have already been various more intelligent comments about education through New Labour. Labour always claims to be better on education, but I think it's an area that's best developed over time using practice gained at the coal face rather than jumping for the latest fads, whether they come from 'progressives' or not. Both for teachers and students! The much maligned rote learning works, practice and more practice works, and believing students know everything does not. You need to know the rules of how things work, and understand them, before you can use them creatively. Maths education is only now beginning to get going again, stressing meaning and understanding.

@Choirgirl2021 - A lot of the things that came in didn’t really seem designed to solve problems but rather pacify people and create jobs...I remember feeling as though someone was having a party in my house, eating my food and playing my music but they had locked me out and every time I tried to get in they made it harder.

Beautifully put. It felt to me as if they were desperately papering over cracks in the walls with ever more fancy wallpaper, and pretending they'd fixed the cracks.

Life in the 70s , Labour, was pretty dire.
Bodies stacked up, ripped bin bags in every street due to no in collections, endless strikes, loads of blackouts.
Thatcher halted the union power but her reign saw endless pit /steel/shipyard closures. It was a good thing as she ended the era of Mike putting a bolt in but Arnold, who tightened the bolt, went on his fag/tea break and so Mike wasn't allowed to tighten the bolt in Arthur's place due to union rules. So production kept stopping.

Let's not forget those car workers who demanded to be allowed to work nights, with their sleeping bags despite production being halted as people weren't buying their cars.

Yes a lot needed to happen but she put nothing in place for those communities, just told people to get on their bikes to London.

Blair just pussyfooted until he left.

I wanna emigrate

Skysblue where would you like to emigrate to?

@ParsleySageRosemary

There have already been various more intelligent comments about education through New Labour. Labour always claims to be better on education, but I think it's an area that's best developed over time using practice gained at the coal face rather than jumping for the latest fads, whether they come from 'progressives' or not. Both for teachers and students! The much maligned rote learning works, practice and more practice works, and believing students know everything does not. You need to know the rules of how things work, and understand them, before you can use them creatively. Maths education is only now beginning to get going again, stressing meaning and understanding.

@Choirgirl2021 - A lot of the things that came in didn’t really seem designed to solve problems but rather pacify people and create jobs...I remember feeling as though someone was having a party in my house, eating my food and playing my music but they had locked me out and every time I tried to get in they made it harder.

Beautifully put. It felt to me as if they were desperately papering over cracks in the walls with ever more fancy wallpaper, and pretending they'd fixed the cracks.

I think icsharr the same thoughts. I look bsck and think it felt like life was better, people having a good life, good job and a sense of you can make it. But I cant really pinpoint anything more substantive to back that feeling up.

I was brought up during Blair and I don't remember things being great.
Before the 2010 election labour were also saying austerity policies were coming same as the conservatives.
The town I live in doesn't have a fully hospital anymore because of a contract/policy Gordon Brown introduced. He murdered NHS services in my area all for some private investment.
Gordon brown sold the national gold reserves.
The financial crisis - yes it was global but the high borrowing in the preceeding years did not help. It is quite easy to spend spend spend when borrowing. Unfortunately ypu can't borrow forever.
Conservatives are nit perfect either but I definitely don't look back on the Blair years thinking all was fabulous.

New Labour brought cuts in along with the funding - they forced 'efficiency savings' first, which could not be taken from anywhere but the staff thanks to ring-fenced funding, and then started closing services or forcing them into the voluntary sector. It was 2006 in my area when places started closing. Too many seem to think it all happened after 2008. Too many are prey, now, to the propaganda-driven media circus, that was formed in the Blair years. 'Post-information' and 'post-truth' came into being thanks to New Labour political-correctness that was already turning into outright lies and misinformation.

Personally, life was better for me. My DS was young and there was so much support. We had a lovely Children's centre. Lots going on, groups, courses etc. There was a great breastfeeding group. Rates of breastfeeding actually increased in our area. The Centre did so much outreach work as well it was so valuable. Every school holiday there was a brilliant timetable of activities for school children. As soon as the Tories got in they started trying to shut it down. We fought and fought but eventually they got their way. I don't know that there are any Children's centres in our town anymore. There were other ways life was better too but that was a big one.

@DroopyClematis

Life in the 70s , Labour, was pretty dire. Bodies stacked up, ripped bin bags in every street due to no in collections, endless strikes, loads of blackouts. Thatcher halted the union power but her reign saw endless pit /steel/shipyard closures. It was a good thing as she ended the era of Mike putting a bolt in but Arnold, who tightened the bolt, went on his fag/tea break and so Mike wasn't allowed to tighten the bolt in Arthur's place due to union rules. So production kept stopping.

Let's not forget those car workers who demanded to be allowed to work nights, with their sleeping bags despite production being halted as people weren't buying their cars.

Yes a lot needed to happen but she put nothing in place for those communities, just told people to get on their bikes to London.

Blair just pussyfooted until he left.

She did what needed to be done. Someone had to take the thought decisions. Yes, she didn’t focus enough attention on left behind areas, but she course corrected the economy to have at least some chance of keeping up with the changes coming down the line. The hard left Marxists would still be fighting to keep the mines open today. Imagine that.

@daimbarsatemydogsbone

Final salary pensions went from fully funded to underfunded practically overnight in 2005 when the new funding regime came in. A new way of valuing schemes.... using dividend income. With a 20% reduction in return.....

Some might not forgive Blair for Iraq, I'll never forgive Cameron for Brexit which led to Johnson and the shit show we have now.

I usually vote for Labour and would do now if there was a GE.

But I don't think things would improve massively if they got in now. That's because I think Covid and Brexit have made the UK pretty unfixable in the short term (ie 100 years) - so I think any government is going to struggle to make any difference.

The sleaze, lies, gaslighting and all the other shit the Tories do every minute of every day is just background wallpaper.

The UK is heading for the dustbin though - if we're not there already. We'll have no NHS. No state education system to speak of soon. In 10 years time I think education and the NHS will be totally trashed.

Our reputation and trading across the world - yes Tories are trashing that too.

Actually Labour could do better because nobody could do worse. And actually keeping things in equilibrium now would be better than the deliberate trashing the Tories seem to be intent on inflicting on this country.

So, in answer to your question OP - things would be better under Labour now. Alot.

@daimbarsatemydogsbone

No Labour government in history has been even slightly as shit as the current shower of cunts.

This!!!! My life was much better as a single parent when Labour got in in 1997…I got funding for an access course and then undertook a degree, I also was re housed to a council house.

@Railk do you really think things are that bad ?

Perhaps I’ve had my head buried. I was in Europe during the 2008 crash. Things were so much worse there. We may downgrade but we are still preferable to lots of other, closer places. It’s often only apparent when you live there.

Blair is a tory. He is controlled opposition. As is Starmer.

The country would be so much better under a true Labour government.

@RainbowsAndSequins

Blair is a tory. He is controlled opposition. As is Starmer.

The country would be so much better under a true Labour government.

True Labour government? Is that the crackpot Corbyn type party with momentum extremists backing him? That worked out well in 2019.

It was better for the poor.

Life’s generally pretty good if you’re wealthy, irrespective of which party is in charge. It’s also pretty good if you’re just financially comfortable, a home owner, graduate, generally middle class.

It’s always shit for anyone else.