To ask what the country was like under a Labour government?

[user6776]

I'm too young to remember a proper Labour government. I was 12 when the Tories got voted in back in 2010 so that's all I've ever really known.

How much better was it than it is now? Why did Labour lose the election back then anyway?

Interested to hear people's opinions.

It doesn’t even graphically look the same. Clearly that vertical line was incredibly high and dramatically so at the year of the crash

Yours still shows the level of debt consistently higher over the last 13 years. 🤷‍♀️

Food banks get a lot of hate but life was horrendous without them.
This is nonsense @Username2864 Nobody hates food banks. They hate the need for food banks. And people suggesting it’s a positive of this government that there are more (I’ve seen a couple of posts to that effect now - not sure if they were both from you) are either being deliberately obtuse or haven’t thought it through. A government should be creating the conditions whereby nobody needs a food bank. Did some people under Labour? I’m sure they probably did. But the number was tiny compared with now and that’s why charities have responded by opening more. Charities. Not the government.
Food banks are a good thing when people would starve with out them. It’s a government’s job to ensure nobody would starve without them.

I remember New Labour - I was young off to Uni - life was good - whole area midlands industrial had suffered hugely under Thatcher it seemed to pick up.

Banking crisis 2008 marked a downturn in our then area living standard - then area I was in flipped from Labour to conservatives - helped formed collation government mainly it seemed speaking to people based on fears that others had more and that wasn't fair that surprised that included them in the less later- but they've stick conservative since.

So New Labour years look really good in comparison - but they weren't perfect there were still problems PPI was a big one still causing issues.

Problems is New Labour had good economic winds behind them - and plans/vision they were keen to implement - and I don't think next Labour government has any of that. Plus I'm in Wales under a Labour council and government and I see issues every day - so I think expectations of what a next Labour government can do are widely out of kilter with what they've said so far and what is even vaguely realistic.

Oh yes. Food banks. A growth industry in Tory Britain. One of the few areas where demand can't keep up

Interesting comment about the UK needing growth and investment, but a lot of the money that people have in this country is tied up in property, so we need to make property in my opinion, not as attractive and make sure that people are putting their money into businesses and other avenues and not just property

I’m from Wales. I work 8n education. I moved in 2001 and as soon as Tories got in in Westminster I saw the money available in Wales fall, and I saw my friends in England in a worse state in terms of conditions of service. There’s a teacher crisis because of conditions of service. It’s worse in England.
In terms of the NHS, (and everything really) while the Senedd can share out its budget as it likes and so appears to control NHS spending it doesn’t control its own budget. Westminster does. Demographically there are reasons the NHS has issues too - an older population (partly from retirees moving here) many of who worked in heavy industry with concomitant pressures on their health in old age.
Labour keeps getting elected. We must generally like what they are doing, unless you are suggesting the population of Wales is too stupid to understand?

How was it cheaper to go to uni when it was labour who introduced tuition fees?

Cheaper than now. The OP is asking for a comparison with now. Fees have gone up and up.

@cardibach - the Conservatives are hoping to dissolve the people to elect a better group aka Brecht. Wales is wrong!!!

What worries me is that anyone could ever worry about Labour given the absolute shit show that is the conservatives.

People are dying in droves. It literally cant get any worse. But carry on arguing where you think the deck chairs should go as the ship is sinking.

It was always known that fees would go up. Labour opened the floodgates.

You do keep electing Labour. I don’t use the term stupid for any voters.

I’d say that demographics play a big role, grow the lower socioeconomic part of the electorate and Labour has greater chance, that isn’t good overall though as you need the tax burden paid still.

Wales can likely handle it due to higher funding per head of population but really not feasible if extrapolated out.

So permanent Labour no matter what policies or how they perform is not something I’d say is a good idea, due to demographics driving it.

At the start it seemed better, althought it almost felt like they were channelling the Tories from the 80s and 90s. Then like all Governments things started to not work for them and they were voted out.

I don't see Labour winning the next election, I can see the Tories not winning either but I don't think there is enough for Labour to get a majority now the SNP are taking most of the Scottish seats.

I wouldn't be suprised to see a Torie/LimDem partnership again as the only combination that gets a majority.

Also, the opposition must bear responsibility of the people they bring to the party. Labour made the party unelectable with Corbyn and his mob of terrorist sympathisers.

Wow the prediction is that Labour would get a 200 plus majority.

Clown posts get into the sea.

It’ll be a cold day in hell before the Libdems prop the Tories up again @wombat1a, they were nearly wiped out last time. I can see most of Scotland reverting to Labour at the next election.

BIossomtoes
Yours still shows the level of debt consistently higher over the last 13 years

That's because Labour already maxed-out the credit card. Your chart doesn't include Labour's PFI debt either - 'off the books'.

Just like 'failed asylum seekers' - also 'off the books' -

19 July 2006

The 450,000 failed asylum seekers still in Britain

Home Secretary John Reid was plunged into another crisis as it emerged official figures have vastly underestimated the number still in the UK despite having their cases turned down.

Home Office officials had previously vigorously disputed National Audit Office estimates of 285,000 failed asylum seekers living in the UK. They put the figure at 235,000.

But a trawl through the mountain of boxes piled up in the IND yesterday revealed as many as 450,000 cases.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-396443/The-450-000-failed-asylum-seekers-Britain.html

Feb 2010
Ministers decided in 2006 to "set aside" 450,000 outstanding legacy asylum cases so that a fresh start could be made on new applications.

this special five-year backlog ­clearance exercise is not making as much progress as hoped.

while considerable progress has been made in resolving 235,000 of the legacy of older cases there are unlikely to clear up the rest by the target date of summer 2011.

this ­problem remains despite ministers changing the rules to allow anyone to stay who has already been here six to eight years rather than the publicly advertised 10 to 12 years.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/feb/26/immigration

Whatever Clav. Keep denying reality.

Sorry that makes no sense. I literally have no idea what you are trying to say.

Wow the prediction is that Labour would get a 200 plus majority.

Given the polls I'd be very surprised if next government was not Labour.

However I think expectations will prove to be a mill stone around their necks as will demographics - we are an aging society and social care problems has always been kicked down the road which is one of many problems that's been loaming for arguable decades - another is housing.

I do think they are a better bet for NHS reform and funding than conservatives but I'm not sure that will prove popular with electorate so worry it will be more fudging and spin and dodging problems and kicking them down the road.

I was a young mum during the Labour government and it was so much better than now. There was money to help you stay healthy in pregnancy. There were Children's centres which provided cheap activities for all and could be a bit of a one stop shop doing baby weighing and breast feeding support. They also ran courses and did a lot of our reach work. They also provided activities for older children in the holidays. As soon as the Conservatives got in they weren't happy until they'd destroyed our local children's centre. It was such a community hub and there was so much protest when they first tried to close it. I was devestated when they suceeded.

Children were all given a savings account with some money going to be paid at different intervals. Conservatives got rid of that. They've destroyed education and the NHS. What they have done is just unforgivable.

Every person in this country, and every other country for that matter, deserves to be well fed, and to have access to decent nutritional sources, and healthcare. Who on earth are you to suggest that people don't need good food, they just need to get outdoors?

Did I say people don't need a good diet and they just need to get outside more? No of course I didn't. I said people need to get outside to increase their Vit d levels as that is not only the best way to get vit D, but it is free. Vit D is only found in small number of foods (source NHS website).

I also suggested a cheap way to get dietary vit D was supplementation or cod liver oil.

Yes, I am suggesting your body store Vit d for 6 months because it does. It then gradually uses it up until you have more sun/take a supplement/eat something containing vit D.

Google this research paper if you don't believe me:

Vitamin D Stored in Fat Tissue During a 5-Year Intervention Affects Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Levels the Following Year

The pertinent line being 'In the vitamin D group, adipose tissue vitamin D levels decreased by 52% over 12 months'

There are other papers but that is a good start.

For some reason you are grandstanding against me about vitamin d and trying to imply I said people don't need a good diet. Of course people need a good diet I don't understand why you think I believe they don't.

These are not certainties of course. But conservative commentators are talking about what the Conservatives need to do to win. They are significantly behind and it pays to consider things as they are, not how we would wish, if we would seek to change it.

That applies to any political party

They've shut down all the children's centres round here too.

There are no youth clubs or anything like that any more either, which is bound to contribute to increased antisocial behaviour with bored teens roaming the streets. And rural crime (this area is largely rural) has increased massively without absolutely nothing done about it. Literally no point calling the police if your shed is broken into and all your tools nicked because you won't even get a visit.

Plus the councils are so short of money that our roads are 90% pothole, the parks are a mess, there's litter everywhere etc etc.

And that's before we get onto the state of our rivers and seas, the NHS, schools, worst pension/benefits in Europe, and a broken economy.

We moaned about New Labour at the time, and of course the Iraq Was was a shitstorm (not that the Tories weren't all for it) but looking back, the late 90s and early 00s seem like a Golden Age.