to be annoyed by a party talking about mending the society they broke?

[tatt]

without any apparent recognition that it was their revered leader (Thatcher for anyone too young to remember) who was a major cause of the breakdown? I know it's an improvement on there is no such thing as society but it still annoys me.

quite. But Labour should have made more progress in undoing her horrific legacy.

Amazing chutzpah for the Tories to claim they want to get people off sickness benefits - they invented the ruse of moving people from unemployment to incapacity to keep the figures down, leaving a generation 'on the sick'.

wow! strong words hullygully. And tatt, what are you basing your statement on? How exactly did Thatcher break society?

Totally agree with edam.
And hullygully

Thatcher? erm what did she not break should be the question.

They are all idiots, there must be another way than all this bullshit.

what about labour leaving us in so much debt my daughter will be paying for it?

And i have to say, i agree with MMM. There are no obvious choices in this country for leading this country out of the mess we are in.

I do agree with you. However Labour had plenty of tme and plenty of opportunity to fix it (and I am a labour supporter).

Oh labour have been quite flaccid, but it's not as simple as "Tories bad, so Labout MUST be good" is it?
Why does everyone assume that if you criticize the Conservatives it follows that you are a Labour supporter? Can we just pierce that assumption right now? It's narrow.

David Cameron was on Breakfast News, he said public spending went up when Mrs Thatcher came to power in 1979, but didn't elaborate. I can only think he means the expenses on using the police to cope with the miners strike before the privatisation of railways, etc, etc.

70s rock star Tom Robinson said in the Guardian he hated the regime at the time, but now we have a more economically vibrant society (this was a couple of years ago though....). ??

Concerned about the comments about getting people off Incapacity Benefit, I have friends and family with mental illness and they can't work.

Actually to be fair Labour have done a heck of a lot to fix the mess that Thatcher left us in. Ok so they've shot themselves in every foot on the way, but I think people either forget or are too young to remember just how bad things were under the Tories. I was a kid (albeit a pretty clued-up one politically), but I know that as a career woman and mother my life is better under this government than my mother's was.

I'm with Gibbon's comment.

I do wonder at the collective short memory displayed by some. Staunch supporters of either party blindly blame the other for the current political and economical climate and in doing so try to reduced the debate down to a polarised oversimplification of 21st century politics.

The right thing to do is to vote for the party that has the best chance of improving the country at this moment in time and that party is... well, it's the, er...

It's the La La Magic Wand Party.

Can I ask if anyone has any ideas with regard to what we can actually DO?

My friend is really fired up about explaining what it was really like in the 80s and the whole gamut of repression and scare tactics Thatcher used to create an atmosphere of class division and to demonise gay people, single parents etc etc..

I used to dread putting the Today programme on every morning to discover what other outrage against decency I had committed over night by merely breathing.

(I'm fired up too but I've got the flu!!)

So where do we go for inspiration and leadership?

YES Labour have left us in loads of debt but we are in the middle of the biggest financial crisis for 100 years and most of us have barely noticed!!! If the Tories were in charge they would, I assume, have let the banks go the wall and let the mortgage and insurance industries collapse. Which would you prefer?

Thatcher didn't recognise any such thing as society. She promoted the culture of greed -and lack of responsibilty - which has got us to where we are now.

I am unlikely to vote for the Labour party, who I agree should have done more to deal with the Thatcher legacy. However I rather doubt many of the bankers responsible for the current mess are or ever were Labour party supporters.

The Conservatives just annoy me anyway. I seem to be fundamentally incapable of believing a word that they say (and I do blame Thatcher for that) I don't actually enjoy being so closeminded about them but I grew up in the 80's (teenage years) and it's going to take an awful lot to wipe that from my memory. I honestly can't see myself ever voting for them.

I'll vote La La Magic Wand. Sounds like the best bet for inspiration and leadership that Earthymama's looking for.

Well saying "All our fault, it's a fair cop" isn't going to get them elected, is it?

They are a political party. They are trying to win an election. I think your expectations are unreasonable.

I don't believe a word Gordon Brown says but I don't find it annoying that he bothers to say it.

serenity...I said exactly that to DH last night.

They're all a load of rubbish. And why on earth look for leadership??? Lead yourself. But if one must choose, at least under Labour playgroups get five pence rather than all the parents sent to prison for reckless procreating.

Well said morningpaper!

(I don't plan to post anything constructive on this thread, morely comment on other posts )

Morningpaper, I agree labour were right to not let the banks and insurance companies fall.

There was a shocking rise in homelessness in the 1980s

My first job in 1981 was for the Benefits Agency, I was very busy.

MP for PM, eh? What larks!