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.

@BloodyHellKen yeah, I'm probably focusing on where you stated this nugget:

Vitamin D is freely available to anyone who spends time outside from March - September. If anything it's a disease of spending too much time indoors.

Let's be honest, it was never about Vitamin D. You were judging how the 'peasants' don't live properly, and don't live the lifestyle they 'should'. And how in short, poverty is the fault of those who experience it.

An axe to grind? No. But I don't like to think of working families in this country relying on food banks, or not being able to find safe and habitable homes, or not be able to afford a weeks shopping without invoking the judgement of someone telling them to 'just get outside'. I don't like to think of children in one of the biggest economies in the world freezing at home while their parents wonder whether they can afford to put their heating on over the winter.

I don't like to think of anyone in this country not having anywhere to turn for support because some dippy govt has dismantled everything which we have worked for over the last century or longer, depending on said service.

I don't like to think of anyone not being to access something so basic as a dentist, and suspect that's soon going to extend to GPs and hospital care, as well as state schooling and affordable social homes.

I hope with every fibre of my being that Labour win this next election. I pray for it. Because this country is a mess and people deserve better. Change can't come quickly enough.

Regards, a prior Lib Dem voter.

They did pretty well post 1945.

Shame they didn't in 79 and 2010 though. I'm happy to be proved wrong this time though, third time lucky!

Cos Tories are doing so well…..

Yup, add to that:

-Rubbish not collected for months
-Dead bodies not being buried
-Roads and streets not cleaned or maintained.
-Public servants, including teachers, constantly on strike (I was at school then, well sometimes - for those of us in our exam year, the live-in caretakers kindly ran the school for us when teachers weren't there)
-Bus drivers, train drivers and many factory workers constantly on strike.
-Empty shelves in shops as factories and drivers were on strike.

All of this went on for about 5 years until 1979 when we had the Winter of Discontent. Trust me that was the worst winter that I can remember, when the weather was appalling, nothing or nobody seemed to want to make things work and it truly felt like we were living in a third world country. Grim 😒

Thatcher, Major and May were decent people from normal backgrounds (circus excepted!) but, arguably, only one was a success as PM as traditionally defined. And it pains me to say the conservatives have a far better track record on diversity than the resolutely white middle aged middle class labour leaders.

I am genuinely astonished and disappointed that Starmer is the best that Labour could come up with...fortunately it will (should) be a slam dunk, but that's because of the disarray in the conservatives not any clear strengths convictions from KS. In a closer run contest I just don't think he has what it takes...

But hopefully once they win the labour party will elect a more capable and charismatic leader. Recent history shows that the uncharismatic (Brown, Major, May) seldom resonate with the electorate, even if two of those three were reasonably competent. Brown believed his own rhetoric after so many years as chancellor that he was a poor PM all round, and was only there because of a dodgy backroom deal with Blair and the party. That did the labour party a huge disservice, and Brown let his ego ruin labours chances of remaining in power by acceding to someone else. Which just goes to show, ultimately most politicians are all in in for themselves

Pre-Covid (not sure about now), the picture was mixed, despite the reporting that suggested that the NHS in Wales was a disaster.

Wales had chosen to protect Social Care funding more than England had, and while funding for the NHS was higher than England, the population is poorer, older and in worse health so more demand for treatment. In some areas we were doing better than England, in others the reverse was true.

I agree, this scares me, although if this government continued under it's current leadership, I don't see how things are going to improve any time soon. They really have lost the plot, not helped by unstable leadership.😞

They weren’t elected in 2010.

I'm not conservative but I do think we need to be careful not to confuse a failing government with a failing world. The credit crunch financial crisis is word wide, not just because a particular party it or isn't running our country.

Both Labour and Conservative have pluses and minuses and I wish we could choose the best of both!

Bombed Yugoslavia and Iraq.

Positive if you approve of killing foreign unarmed civilians.

The Iraq war was supported by the Tories. Howard was clear he’d have done exactly what Blair did.

Doesn't exactly exonerate Labour of their war crimes, does it?

It kind of does when all but two Tories voted for it.

I was referring to how they left the country for the next government.

This time around, they'll inherit a terrible state, so I'll be interested to see how they try to build it up again, which was my original point.

Amazing reasoning. It's ok if Jeff rapes Ann, because Ann would have got raped by Paul if Paul had been holding the knife. In fact, Paul helped Jeff commit the rape. So Jeff is blameless.

I know. Which is why I pointed out how well they did in 1945. 🤷‍♀️

Rubbish analogy. Every MP who voted for the Iraq war is culpable. It’s called collective responsibility.

Not exactly what Blair did;

"If I had honestly held the opinion that it was legal to go to war, I would have taken the same action but I would have told the truth about it and I would have had a plan."

Howard's cabinet may not have agreed with him if all the facts (or lack of) had been laid bare;

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/may/03/politics.conservatives

Well yes, but they voted on it based on the Blair case presented to the House. But as we subsequently found out, much of that case was either exaggerated or plain made up. So I don't think that's the rebuttal you think it is... If given the facts rather than the lies, none of us know how the House would have voted.

And part that over reliance on spin to achieve results is what means the legacy of that labour Government is not what they did, but how they did it, and has, arguably, resulted in the permanent diminution in the public's trust in politics, culminating in the pinnacle of spin (so far...) Boris.

On the plus side, the Blair / Brown experience towards the second half / Brown only part of their leadership put many of those (including me) who switched to Labour off ever voting for them again, until Boris shifted that position!

Well yes, but they voted on it based on the Blair case presented to the House. But as we subsequently found out, much of that case was either exaggerated or plain made up. So I don't think that's the rebuttal you think it is... If given the facts rather than the lies, none of us know how the House would have voted.

We know what Howard would have done because he told us.

https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/howard-under-fire-over-iraq-7247839.html

Infant mortality dropped under the last Labour government, it’s gone up under the Conservative government, child deaths have risen by 8% in the last 12 months.

There is progress here. You are admitting "responsibility" now. Before you were arguing that Labour were "kind of" exonerated.

There is absolutely no difference between Labour and the Conversatives on this. Masters of war.

Labour opened the doors to immigration from Eastern Europe. Th expected 13,000 and got close to half a million. They weren't prepared for the huge numbers but wouldn't admit there was any problem. Some communities, villages, towns' demographics changed forever very quickly with no warning. If anyone raised any concerns about the speed of change, they were branded a racist. (Similar to now when women who try to raise concerns about men taking over women's spaces art labelled transphobic).

Not all of the populace was delighted with the speed of change, but were not listened to. This led in no small part to the Brexit result.

The population of the UK grew by 10 million between 1950 and 2004, over a timespan of 50 years. It's now pushing 70 million, so that change has happened in just over just 20 years. Investment in infrastructure didn't happen under Labour who refused to admit it was needed, and hasn't happened under the Tories because, well, Tories.

(As an aside, I was amused to see David Cameron has been given the role of Foreign Secretary. I hope the mess left by his Brexit stares him in the face every minute of every day.)

It's now pushing 70 million, an increase of another 10 million in just 20 years