To remind everyone after the celebrations subside to apply the same level of scrutiny to a Labour Govt as was applied to the last Tory administration?

[Axelfoleyreturns]

As someone who lived through the Blair years it was not a nirvana.

There was a similar amount of cronyism in play, cabinet members who had an odd relationship with the truth (looking at Peter Mandelson here - who was reappointed despite being proven to be very untrustworthy ) and not to mention going to war based upon a document of fiction. Unchecked power, regardless of which party is in charge is never satisfactory.

And at the end of the last Labour reign there was no money left, no bankers held accountable for their stupidity because of Blair’s pandering to the city with ‘light-touch legislation’ (indeed we actually paid them and helped them save themselves) and having handed the keys to the economy to the Bank of England, no gold left because the chancellor had sold it all, and a legacy of funding facilitated by kicking the can down the road for hospitals schools in various guises including PFI. So when there are comments about austerity, the lack of access to benefits including child benefit being limited to 2 children, the closure of sure start centres and a lack of funding for councils we need to remind ourselves how this position of austerity arose - and it is not the sole fault of the Tories as much as we’d love to think. The Tories didn’t introduce tuition fees or open the borders to East Europe - a decision that cost a lot of existing UK skilled workers their jobs. Neither did they stop right to buy or build any significant amount of social housing. Blair left office and promptly became the richest ex-prime minister we’ve ever had and now heads ‘The Tony Blair Institute’ which employs more than 600 people. At least Gordon Brown had the decency to stick to his principles and seems to have lived those principles.

And before a whole load of people post GDP growth etc under the Blair years consider the impact that the world economy has had in that time. Personally I was the richest I ever was under Blair - he was cautious on taxation and I even received child benefit despite being a high earner. No one considered if this was fair under Labour - but was one of the first things to go under the Tory coalition. Maybe had Labour considered this years before it wouldn’t have been necessary to penalise the less well off or limit that benefit to 2 children. They could have introduced that change and lost no votes. No Labour administration at the time wanted to or even attempted to make ‘the rich pay’. There were many, many missed opportunities.

My point is this - scrutiny is now more important than ever as decisions are taken that affect all parts of society. Women’s rights being a key issue. Moving forward and regardless of your politics, be that person who speaks up and continues applying the same pressure for transparency and accountability as was demanded of the last administration. Labour has one chance to get this right before they lose momentum and before the county lurches to the right again.

I bloody hope not. But as you say, no one foresaw the Blair-Bush Bromance either.....

We’re in massive amounts of debt already so obviously austerity didn’t work. We were in massive debt before Covid and before 2016.
It’s like the country barely functions properly, third world services, but we’re still paying huge amounts of tax. We were always being told by the government that there’s no magic money tree, the country can’t afford this or that, mind boggling when we’re the 6th richest nation apparently. So much money floating around but so little to show.

Are @DustyLee123 and @Oldcroneandthreewitches sharing the same crib sheet or something?

That's an odd mistake to make once, never mind twice.

Completely agree with PP who said we always need a higher level of scrutiny than much of the media – rank apologists – applied to the Tories.

Totally agree @Axelfoleyreturns I remember it well and would also include the £10 billion the Blair government spent on Fujitsu IT system for NHS which was abandoned. I’m old enough to remember the Callaghan years too and “Winter of Discontent” - 3 day week, blackouts, strikes, food shortages. That was no picnic either. I hope this Labour government has learnt from history, and will be subject to the same scrutiny as the last government.

If your holding this labour government to the same standard of accountability and transparency as the tories were held to then they're in for an incredibly easy time in office.

As someone who lived through the Blair years it was not a nirvana.

As someone who lived through the Wilson (twice) and Callaghan years, neither were they OP. No government ever is.

do you really think that? Because I cannot think what James O’Brien is going to fill his 3 hours with every day unless he intends to write even more smug books about being right. He isn’t brave enough to get involved in the ‘what is the definition of a woman’ debate either - despite having two daughters of his own. Ditto Newsnight.

I agree but to some on here you’d think it was just brilliant all round. No government ever is, but it does seem that there has been a selective memory issue when applied to this one….!

Apart from 97 onwards, you mean?

Are those that are saying the Blair government did a lot of good delusional? That's when the rot started to set in and this country started to decline! They were responsible for the millions who think living on benefits is a lifestyle choice!

I dunno, cos its all about numbers, and how politics work?

Sore loser OP???
How about you get behind this new government and support them, because we all stand to benefit if they are successful, not just the people who voted for them…

That you Nigel? I thought it was the immigrants spending all our tax money, not the benefit scroungers… I cant keep up…

I'm happy to apply the same scrutiny and standards as I did to the Tory administration. I don't think the press will think the same as me though.

The labour years with Blair were better for most people but then there was a worldwide boom. I’m not convinced it was because of anything Labour did!

Not really. If you’re old enough you’d remember Thatcher’s attacks on single mothers and the like. Millions on benefits are mainly pensioners. You’ll know that Blair started to make it harder for people to claim benefits and not work.

That a previous government gets no to little scrutiny and another does, is how politics
works ?

How many politicians care about the country. It's all about getting into power and then staying there as long as they can

If politicians cared about the country they would make NHS and the environment an all party project that continues beyond each change of leadership. I hope I've put this bit correctly I'm not very good at explaining what I mean

Not a sore loser, just someone pointing out treating a labour govt like it’s the second coming is not the way forward. And no, I won’t get behind any party who insists that women can have a penis and invade spaces and rights my generation and the one before me (and the one before that) fought hard for simply because they are socialists and therefore the only socially acceptable voice.

If you wonder how Brexit happened or how Farage and his gang manage to galvanise such support with a party full of halfwits in such a small amount of time - this is how. Stop trying to silence debate or alternative points of view because you don’t agree with them or want to consider them. From nowhere reform has just garnered the same amount of support as the LibDems and if you aren’t worried by that you should be. Because when KS hasn’t magically stopped the small boats by the end of next week and hasn’t slung all of the asylum seekers out of hotels to appease the gammons it will become the issue Farage continues to hang his hat on. And that affects all of us. We need an open discussion nationally about all things and just shutting down debate is not how that happens.

But they did carry on building an ever more massive debt, and then Covid struck.

They just spent on tax cuts for the wealthy, rather than public services.

Just take a day to breathe. It’s Friday. The Tories are out. There’s opportunity for change. I’m going to enjoy the moment.

Agree. But then the entire discussion about immigration has not been honest. The Brexit debate proves that. So much lying and dishonesty from politicians and the media.

I'm sure we will, but do behave, even for Tories this lot have excelled themselves in all areas of lying, cheating, cronyism and the coffers are well and truly empty now.

PFI schools are the only ones in a decent state of repair after 14 years of the Tories (I don't have experience of hospitals). The government has made money out of the Brown banking rescue and if the self regulation was such a terrible thing, why haven't the Tories taken it back in 14 years?

Because it's about how voters have different values generally depending on their political beliefs.

So Person A has different values and expectations to Person B. These values are not applied equally to all parties as a result of these different priorities.

Person A might value accountability and box ticking and Person B might dislike moralising and hypocrisy.

How these two things clash might be different and lead to different voting patterns because not everyone judges politicians in the same way.