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.

Always amazes me when people talk about Labour being bad with the economy … at least we were getting something for our money - the private healthcare Buisness went into decline, due to NHS waiting lists being so low during the last Labour government.
The Tories have completely tanked the economy, we owe more money now than ever, and what are you getting for you money ?? Nothing.

Labour being worse with the economy than the Tories is a complete myth

I've just googled Sure Start it still seems to exist. Whether it is as good as when first introduced I don't know

This thread has been so interesting to read

Does make me wonder if Labour have actually learned from their past mistakes. Depends whether or not they win the GE next year, really wouldn't be surprised if the country voted Tory yet again!

I can't help being old!

Better standard of living but borrowed too much and when ousted left the coffers completely empty .....therefore austerity ever since.
Don't want any of them rejected....shame there is no other credible party.

Oh dear. You fell for it.

There was a global financial crisis. Gordon Brown ensured the banking system didn't collapse. There was no money left - anywhere.

Governments across the western world followed policies to encourage post-crisis growth. The US and EU prospered. The UK followed austerity policies. The UK economy has never recovered.

I don’t think any of the current political parties are capable of learning from their - or anyone else’s - mistakes, sadly.

We need a complete rethink of the party political system. More grown ups involved and more cross-party collaboration. Less populism.

I can imagine a fourfold increase in the number of NHS funded gender reassignment ops if Labour get in again.

The two big things that people remember New Labour for, in a negative way, are the Iraq war and the 2008 crash

I honestly don’t see the outcome of those two things being much different with a Tory government

The Iraq war was basically the UK wanting to suck up to the US. Both of our main parties want to be “best mates” with whoever is in the White House

The crash came from deregulation and allowing the city to run riot for years. Again the Tory’s wouldn’t have stopped that. The only thing that may have been different is that they may have pushed through the Barclays/Lehman’s deal which Brown/Darling did not. That may have impacted what happened, but I doubt it

Saying that the late 90s/early 2000s were a much more positive time and was great to be a young adult then

I know Blair had his faults but under his government i was able to claim enough family tax credit to keep my house and pay off my ex h. I was also working full time but i would never have been able to take over the mortgage payments without this help. I will be forever grateful because it really helped me get my life back together. Im not sure a labour government under Starmer will be as successful but im willing to give him a chance. Cant be much bloody worse can it?!

Have you read the article, yes there was a tradition of leaving a note; but Labour lost power when they were planning 32billion of cuts.

for all those saying services were great under Labour- we never saw what Labour would’ve delivered during a recession. Yes austerity was a bitch- and the Tories got the blame for that- but we would’ve had it under Labour too.

I wonder if things would have been different if David had won. He was definitely more charismatic than Ed.

When judging previous governments it’s good to bear in mind that politics and politicians don’t operate in a vacuum. The government of the day has a large amount of influence and control, but it also reflects the existing society and reacts to societal change. The labour administration of the 70s was very different to the one that came into power in 97 and Starmer’s government will be very different to Blair’s.

I agree with this.

I had a mental breakdown in 2001, when I was in my first year of secondary school, in part because of my miserable time there. Bullies weren’t dealt with like they are now. My dad made numerous appointments to speak to my headteacher about it but they didn’t care. He managed, with great difficulty, to get me into another school but it was too late, the damage was done.

I was taken to the GP and given Prozac. I’ll always remember the GP telling me he’d nearly been in the loony bin himself a few times. It was like a big joke, nothing like it is now when a young teenager presents to a GP with thoughts of killing herself. Eventually I was referred to whatever CAMHS was back then and had to see an awful psychiatrist who should never have been allowed to work with vulnerable people, let alone vulnerable children. I was put on quetiapine for no particular reason. It turned me into a zombie and I slept most of the time.

There were no alternative places of education for people like me, at least not in my area. A tutor visited twice a week for an hour and a half. It was a joke. They didn’t prepare me for GCSEs, GCSEs went out the window. There just wasn’t time or funding for them to teach me, my dad was having kittens over it. No real provisions in place for children with complex MH issues. I slipped through the net and left ‘school’ with nothing. I thought I was useless. I’m now playing massive catch up as a mature student in my 30s.

So, in some ways I’m sure it was great. Just not for people like me. None of that matters now though as we live in a very different world with a very different Labour Party.

I worked in the NHS under both labour and Tory governments and it was just as bad under both. The poor staffing, mistakes being made etc, not enough beds was just as bad in 2001 as it is now.

Education funding showing what happened when Labour came into power in 1997 and when the Tories took over in 2010:

Better than this shit show

The torys spent money because of a world wide pandemic!

Labour removed the breaks from the financial institutions, having a hands off approach to regulation, as did the us. Lehman brothers tanked, and because of the lack of regulation, so almost did many UK lenders. The reason being a heated housing market where lenders would lend to anyone and let them self certify that they would pay the mortgage. Lehman in the UK were southern Pacific mortgages ltd...who saw themselves as facilitators of mortgages and lent to Sub or near prime customers and the next day sold the debt to mainstream lenders...leading the big building societies to have millions in debts of basically unchecked lending.
Labour talked Lloyds bank into buying halifax...which almost tanked lloyds. Labour spent billions bailing out the banks...our money.
So when the Tory came to power there really was nothing left. They had to introduce austerity, which cut services across the public sector. Labour then sat and moaned about it.

Oh and remember the post office horizon scandal. Radio 4 today explained that Blair let it proceed, even though it was flagged as being a mess because he didn't want to upset the Japanese company who were behind the mess

None of that applied to me and life was definitely better.

Yes please to more grown ups and collaborations and less populism. I’d like politics to be a bit boring again too! Im
so tired of having one shocking, depressing and infuriating headline after another!

Labour doesn't know what a woman is and brushes the subject under the carpet. That is really all a woman needs to know about what to expect from Labour.

Labour being worse with the economy than the Tories is a complete myth

Neither have a decent track record.

Labour:

• late 70s winter of discontent through high inflation period
• post financial crisis ballooning of borrowing:GDP ratio for fiscal stimulus

Tories

• 80s Thatcherism and over privatisation, benefitting the few over many (high unemployment)
• 2010s over-austerity slowing recovery compared to other countries
• brexit/Pandemic Labour-like stimulus spending

It was basically the same, but without social media. People were mainly moaning of course. Same old, same old.

I don’t think that graph shows what you think it does.
But I am not sure what you think it shows?