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.

For Professional and higher earning people it was better:
Taxes were lower relative to the cost of living.
Everyone got child benefit regardless of income.
There was no loss of the tax free allowance and no 45% tax bracket
Although we had an influx of new EU country nationals, they were largely hard working and often ran small businesses that meant it became much more affordable to have bespoke carpentry etc
The pound was strong and the new budget airlines had some crazily low prices, so you could go on very cheap weekend breaks.

There was a positive vibe.

If you go back to the late 90s there was no identity politics and no one was eating themselves up about colonialism centuries ago. Cool Britannia was culturally influential.

The major visible down side was house prices going up so fast that estate agents changed the prices in the pictures day by day. However, behind the scenes, Blair and Brown were busy unpicking our constitution, creating unanswerable quangos and an appointed House of Lords that has resulted in a vast kleptocracy that undermines democracy. No elected government can do anything that these bodies disagree with. It’s paved the way for subsequent Tory leaders excusing themselves for their failings because it is out of their hands. They had an 80 seat majority. They could have addressed this and restored democratic accountability.

The other big issue is that Blair created a lot of public-private partnerships that resulted in things like fancy new facilities for the NHS 20 years ago, but which had stings in their tails and have virtually bankrupted some NHS trusts. We are still feeling the fallout if that, though it is nothing compared with the impact that covid measures have had on waiting lists and loss of staff.

The next Labour government won’t be like the last one. It won’t help create prosperity. It won’t return taxes tv where they were relative to the cost of living, it won’t be able to rescue the NHS however much money it throws at it because the NHS is under insurmountable strain and it will almost certainly continue Brown’s undemocratic constitutional reforms.

In short, both the Conservative and Labour are unelectable, but there is no impressive alternative.

For me, life was much better.
Sure start was a god send and I was able to complete a degree which was funded and meant I could turn my life around as a vulnerable young adult.
it wasn’t without faults but on the whole life felt less bleak

Exactly. They left zero money and loads of debt ( and a war)

The impact of the pension changes is long term and only just coming home to roost. It will result in more elderly people living on the breadline.

The basic rate of income tax was the same in 1996 as now so that’s clearly untrue. On the other hand

https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/faced-highest-tax-burden-70-years-budget-fails-put-britain-path-prosperity

I see the myth continues. It’s a persistent bugger.

They did, which is exactly what Sunak is leaving. All those years of austerity measures undone in a wave of his wand in 2020 when he shut down the entire economy, created the biggest national debt in our history, then proceeded to borrow even more milo net to send billions to Ukraine. Labour world have done the same. Starmer wanted longer, harder lockdowns. Neither party are interested in balancing the books, apart from when it comes to denying the public any kind of relief from the highest taxation our country has ever had.

I grew up in a low income family in social housing. There was no housing crisis, if you needed assistance you would get it. I don’t think I ever knew anyone who rented privately until I was an adult and I grew up in an inner city - you either owned or had a social home. I spent my childhood at youth and other free clubs, almost fully funded with amazing trips to theme parks etc - it cost maybe 50p a day for entry. I never actually felt ‘poor’. You could afford your rent, bills and clothe your kids without struggling.

This is a good summary...

Generally the standards of integrity in politics was better overall. The way Boris Johnson, Suellen Braverman, Michelle Mone, even Rishi Sunak (with his wife's dodgy financial stuff etc) have behaved would have seen them automatically out of govt 20 years ago.

Exactly.

Liam Byrne left that note as a joke, it clearly backfired! No one would say that with any seriousness FFS! Yet it's seized upon as being a sign that Labour fucked the economy.

No. Financial industry criminals fucked it, first and foremost. And that's why I hate Rishi Sunak - a hedge fund manager - being PM.

Oh and Brown sold off the nation’s gold at rock bottom prices. To some extent, like public private partnership, I think this allowed for that pleasant feeling of ‘jam today’ when we were really enjoying an illusion that we would pay for later.

Yep. PPP was just delaying the bill. The spending part is always more fun than paying it back later.

The global boom helped too on the upward bit, but that FS risk exposure hit hard during the crash.

The biggest impact I’ve felt is the 2008 recession and lockdowns, which I’ve mostly blocked out as awful. People were keen on all that spending though, even if tax later was obvious.

Policy wise, New Labour were further to the right than the Tories are at the moment. This isn’t the first time though. In the 70s Margaret Thatcher, in a Tory government under Edward Heath, closed more grammar schools than all Labour governments put together. For me, the problem with the grammar system is not grammar schools themselves, but (a) the need to ensure an excess of spaces so all children who will benefit from a grammar school education can get one without any stress, and (b) a failure to invest in the secondary moderns and make them a fabulous and desirable alternative. Instead of improving education itself, the Blair government spent vast sums on fancy shiny things (like flat screen monitors when they were really expensive). Academies were introduced to take schools out of local authority control, then academy trusts created these vast public-private chains of schools that siphon money away from classrooms. It’s been continued by the Tories.

We left the Uk just after Labour won the election in 97 so were abroad for the first four years. Returned to the Uk at the end of 2001 with two small children and nothing much else ( broke ) ! Within a couple of months we both had jobs and within six months were able to buy a four bedroom house for £99k, prices started to rise hugely just after we bought. My whole circle of friends form schooldays managed to buy their own homes easily even on mediocre earnings.
Things for kids seemed to be good although I don't remember ever stepping foot in a sure start centre or there being one close by. Tax credits were extremely generous even with us both working- we had come from a country where I didn't even get paid any maternity pay whilst I was off and had to return to work when my baby was four months old, so the benefits back here seemed very generous. We still struggled for money a bit but had holidays, season tickets to a local theme park etc. There were adequate pre-school places and kids got 15 hours free at aged 3.
I worked in the NHS Nursing and it was dire, so short staffed, mistakes being made all over the place, I nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to work on a busy ward and being in a state of anxiety constantly. Nursing colleagues were going off sick with stress, due to workload as they always have under labour or Tory's.

I worked in the NHS Nursing and it was dire, so short staffed, mistakes being made all over the place, I nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to work on a busy ward and being in a state of anxiety constantly.

The NHS was in the best shape it’s ever been then so you must have worked for a real outlier. The hospital I worked in was nothing like that.

It was awful sadly. Usually 2/3 staff to 20 often very ill cancer patients having chemotherapy, blood, platelets, neutropenic sepsis etc. Never worked anywhere quite so bad in 30 years of Nursing. It did get a lot better when I moved to a hospice but then that was privately funded ( mostly ) anyway.

It depends which way you looked. Junior doctors working in excess of 100 hours a week was normal. And they got paid overtime for it. Then the EU working hours directive was introduced and, if you filled in an accurate time sheet, HR would return it to you and ask you to amend it to avoid the hospital being fined. So overtime became free, which made doctors less inclined to do it.

We were encouraged to buy diesel cars (a bit like we are electric now), education system was full of leftie do-gooders (‘if you want to do some work today, the worksheets are in the drawer, help yourself’ said my teacher) and competitive sports in schools were abolished, and couldn’t get a doctors appointment then either!

Mixed bag from different Labour governments, the biggest change was dropping Clause 4 and so produced New Labour in the 1990s, now known as Labour.

But it's their turn now, coz we live in a democracy innit, and in my 60 odd years of existence, that's pretty much how it goes, the rest are pressure groups that affect the policies the Big 2 make. Simples. And a very courteous way of governing, taking turns, despite any vitriol, with scandals being par for the course.

My son was born in 1998. For the first two years I didn’t work and my DH was in an entry-level NHS job. We got tax credits, I was able to stay at home with the baby and everything was manageable. We bought our first home with 0% deposit and a 100% mortgage which was affordable on one wage. Can you imagine that now? My single, childless friend applied for a was given a council flat within 6 months just because she wanted one. Parents of young children felt valued and supported. Nobody used food banks, they didn’t need to exist. Hardly any homeless people on the streets compared to now. Anyone could register with and see an NHS dentist within a couple of days. GP appointments were easy to get and doctors would come to your house if you weren’t well enough to go to them - I remember mine coming when I had flu, and tonsillitis. Hospital waiting lists were tiny, loads of beds. The overall sense that working people were valued, and people took pride in lower paid jobs because they weren’t slaving away just to keep from starving. It can’t be stated firmly enough how different that made society compared to now. Crime was lower as a result, people didn’t resent each other. People were happier. All of this contributed, for very obvious reasons, for much fewer mental health issues. I look at the absolute state of the country now and honestly want to scream at the thought of anyone considering voting these cunts we have now back in again.

The labour government only got in in 1997.

You can't possibly think that in 1997 when they got in, that everything was a shit show, but by 1998 when your ds was born, the country had been made wonderful by labour, can you? It sounds very much like how the country was at that time was actually a product of years and years of conservative rule, rather than labour having been in office for 5 mins and waved a magic wand.

What I remember about 1998 was my brother going to university and getting clobbered for tuition fees. I'd gone to university in 1996 and had it all for free (rather like everything sounds in your OP). And prior to the election, when I was a student, I got a leaflet from labour, specifically meant for students, saying that if labour got in, there wouldn't be any tuition fees!! Fantastical lie, delivered straight to me. Stopped me ever voting for them.

That said, I didn't vote conservative either.

Oh yes, and I bought a diesel car in about 2006, having been lied to by the labour govt!!

This. Labour like to spend, spend, spend….but don’t be fooled into thinking they just take from the super rich, they take from anyone who works.

The basic rate of income tax was the same in 1996 as now so that’s clearly untrue. On the other hand

https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/faced-highest-tax-burden-70-years-budget-fails-put-britain-path-prosperity

It doesn't matter what happened because we're not living in 1997 and everything Blair's Labour did, both good and bad, was done in the pre GFC period.

People need to realise that the UK economy has been on life support since 2008 and Brexit has put the UK even further behind the eight ball as our post 1970s, low wage, post industrial, rentier economy was built on the premise of our membership of the European market.

Unless Starmer is prepared to do the unpopular in regards to this, the current situation will continue to worsen.

The only other option is a politically suicidal free trade arrangement with North America and that means no more big daddy welfare state or national health service.