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.

That ain't art.

I agree that though the Labour party have done shite - don't forget who was Chancellor of the Exchequer during the banks lending spree - they are better than the Tories.

Right now we are struggling big time. dh has taken a pay cut from £8ph to £7.03ph and I lost my job in August. We survive on tax credits. Under the Tories those tax credits would go and we would have to give up our rented 3 bed and get a 2 instead, which means dd, 9 and ds, 5 sharing a room. We'd never get a mortgage.

So yes, things are bad, but they still have the potential to get a whole lot worse, which they will under the Tories.

Unless you're stinking rich of course, in which case you'd be better off and sod the poor people.

I have and always will vote Tory as I can't bring myself to ever contemplate voting Labour. I remember the period before Mrs Thatcher was elected, and I don't want a return to that. I enjoyed the 80s, and I am neither privately educated, thick or a trustafarian.

Labour run on the politics of envy, and are total hypocrites. They disapprove of children being privately educated, but reserve the right to do it for their own kids. Labour MPs have been as equally culpable as any others in their expenses claims. It was Gordon Brown who made the pensions system in this country collapse by his tax raids on pension funds; it was Labour who took away the 10% rate of tax; it was Labour that took a country that had a surplus when Labour came to power and turned it into a deficit. It is Gordon Brown who has consistently and cynically underfunded parts of the public sector like defence and education for the past 12 years. Gordon Brown was the bloody Chancellor for god's sake, and he held the purse strings. He is responsible for the state things are in now because of systems he put in place when he was in No 11. He has royally screwed up and must be called to account for it.

Furthermore, not one person on this thread has moaned about the death of democracy under NuLab. Brown hasn't got a mandate to be PM as there wasn't an election; furthermore he has refused a referendum on Europe and is content to pour even more of the UKs money into the black holes of Strasbourg and Brussels. He needs to go and go soon.

Gosh scaryteacher - that was good and so eloquently put!

In some ways it would be good if Labour got back in - perhaps then finally their electorate will see the real damage done.

Labour have created a client state Ski - and demonise the other parties so much (The Nasty Tories etc), that people vote Labour because they are worried about the alternative.

I cannot bear the thought of yet more Labour damage being done to the UK; more Nanny state rules; more CCTV; more political correctness; the further dumbing down of standards in education; more dishonest tax rises (because technically NI isn't really a tax). Bad cess to the Labour government.

Are you scienceteacher?

Labour brought in the NHS and trains that were cheap enough to use. GPs that visited you in your own home and student grants so that the poor could receive the same education as the rich.

They brought in working family tax credits and paternity leave.

They may be hypocrites and as bad as the rest, but they are saints compared to Eton educated DC and his lot.

No, I'm scaryteacher! We are different.

You may feel that Labour are saints; I beg to differ. The trains were fine to use under the Tories and affordable. Student grants afaik have long since gone, and we now have loans. I got a grant under the Tories when I did my BA, but a loan under Labour for my PGCE.

Paternity leave is only relevant if you happen to work for an organisation that allows you to take it.

Besides selling the UK down the river, they also sold the gold.

What is wrong at being educated at Eton. Tony Blair was educated at Fettes, which is the Scottish equivalent I believe? Furthermore, does your dc chose where s/he is educated? I expect David Cameron went where his parents sent him, same as my lad does. Why have a go at him for the decisions of his parents?

Rhubarb Why so envious of DC's education? Is good education for our children not what all of us want? There are so many mn'ers who send their children to public schools - are they demonised? I don't understand why people are so critical of education - do people want the uneducated in power? Why should DC be penalised because his parents provided for him the best education they should - it's what we all do!

(they should = they could)

Where do you get the impression that Labour have created a 'client state' scaryteacher?

Your profile says you live in Belgium so I'm not sure you'd have anything except the press to rely upon for an impression of the state of the UK.

It was the Tories that introduced SATs and league tables. IMO they have contributed more than anyone else to the 'dumbing down of education' by causing teachers to teach only to pass exams.

The Tories have traditionally been all about the privatisation of public services. They have been about capitalist values and greed. They are more directly responsible for the 'credit crunch' than Labour.

Yes, Thatcher was a strong leader, the effects of her Government are still being felt now. That's why this is relevant. Thatcher's Government is more responsible for the 'credit crunch' and the recession than Labour and Gordon Brown. Brown and Blair were at worst to blame for not changing things Thatcher set in place.

I would like some of the 'uneducated' in power actually. I would like our Government to be representative of the people they Govern. Having communicated with several politicians personally I feel it is very clear that they often have no concept or understanding of the issues they are responsible for managing.

Rhubarb, I've been on more than one thread where you have refered to DC as 'Eton-educated' as though it were a bad thing and others have pointed out, as scaryteacher has done, that Tony Blair (and other Labour politicians) had a private education.

I find your constant reference to it deflects seriously from any argument you are trying to make and you come across as chippy and judgemental.

It's not about where your parents decided to send you to school, but what you do with the education you were given.

I find this English obsession with where politicians were educated to be very distasteful and it seems to cloud people's judgements at every turn.

I get bored of hearing how much we are taxed

In the mid 90s it was becoming increasingly clear that as the Tories cut tax and cut tax and cut tax that we were going to have to be responsible for our own healthcare among other things

My mother, who was by no means well off, took the decision to pay up to £70 a time to private consultants in order to jump the NHS queue when her dh was ill - waiting lists were so ridiculously long and with cancer they just did not have that time to wait

it was financially very difficult to do but the only choice

if the NHS is cut to the bone once more then people who previously never thought of it before will have to take out private medical insurance

but of course that's not a 'tax' so that's fine

personally I would rather have a strong welfare state and pay a bit more tax than have to shell out for everything personally

Thatcher didn't break society because there was no such thing.

Curiosity - I live in Belgium - so? I'll be voting in the next general election - my mum has the proxy votes for both my husband and I.

Just because I live in another EU country doesn't mean that I'm not a Brit. My husband is employed by HM Government, and so I have a view, (informed by frequent visits back to the UK to look at my property; by talking to my friends and family; by talking to my visitors from the UK, etc) on what this current government has cocked up on. This view is also informed by having lived in the UK for 40 years before we were posted abroad in 2006. I think I might just know a bit about it, and a bit more than you. I was casting my first vote in an election the year you were born, assuming the age on your profile is correct. I have also lived through several more changes of governments than you. If you are in your mid 20s, then you were 5 when Mrs Thatcher left office - I was 24, and can vividly remember what went before her government - Red Robbo; overpowerful unions, the winter of discontent etc. That's what you need to compare it with to get an accurate picture.

Labour have created a client state by increasing dependence on benefits; by rapidly over expanding the public sector (look at the quangos; look at the useless and needless databases being set up and needing people to input the data, and administer the databases; look at the MoD, it employs 85,730 civil servants. Not necessary.) As the tax take is now less than the bill for benefits, I think that speaks for itself as to a client state.

I taught from 2000-2006, under a Labour govt. I was educated for the most part under a Tory one. Education has been dumbed down by Labour - a quote from the new specs for one of the RE GCSEs which is being taught from last month. 'We have taken out the topics your students found difficult'. That's raising the bar is it?

Remind me please who has been in power since 1997? Labour? So, if SATS were shit and standards so low, why didn't they do something about it? A decade plus two years is long enough surely? Gordon Brown was Chancellor for an awfully long time, and chose not to put money away to see us through the cyclical downturn that occurs every so often.

Read what I posted above. You don't answer ANY of those charges. I note that Labour haven't reversed any of the legislation which broke the power of the unions - why is that then? Brown was Chancellor for an awfully long time, and inherited an excellent set of books. He then proceeded to piss the whole lot away. People have lost their pensions as a direct result of his raid on the pension schemes.

'Brown and Blair were at worst to blame for not changing things Thatcher set in place.' Therefore by default, they agreed with what the Tories had done (and Thatcher incidentally went in 1990, so there were other Tories as well who retained power for another 7 years), and Tory policies can be judged accordingly as successful as Labour adopted them by not reversing them.

Labour has been about waste, nanny state-ism, the willingness to ignore democracy, the running down of the Armed Forces, the underfunding in non Labour areas of education, the impoverishment of the UK via raids on pension funds, selling gold, selling out to Europe on the rebate that Mrs Thatcher won (and for bog all reform of the CAP that I can see), intrusion into everyday life with a heavy regulatory hand, ignoring the rural population as they are basically an urban party who sees the countryside as quaint, the destruction of the rural post office network....I could go on and on and on.

I do get pissed off with comments like 'politics of envy' though.
I'm not saying I'm envious of the rich (perhaps I'm just envious of the comfortably off?).
Take a look at how we live (it's not a slum by any means, in fact it's quite a nice flat in a reasonable, easily accessible by public transport area). There are three of us in a one bedroomed flat. DD sleeps in a cupboard (it's a box room with no window which is barely big enough for a 5'5" bed and a set of shelves). We don't earn anywhere near enough to get a mortgage to buy a 2-bed round here and won't consider moving out because we've got jobs locally (being able to walk or a 10 min bus ride) and dd is at an excellent school. There are families with 3 children in 1-bed flats round here so we know we're not a priority for a 2-bed. So I would challenge anyone to say that, IF we are envious, that we would be wrong to be so!

Actually, what I'm envious of, and what makes me spitting mad, is the large number of 2-beds round here which are privately owned, and/or rented out privately (charging the same price we pay in a month, per week).

That is Thatcher's legacy of course!

The Labour politicians do work from the politics of envy. They are intent on taking away freedom of choice from the electorate, but retaining it for themselves; education being the obvious example.

Again, with housing, Labour have had the opportunity to fund the building of more Local Authority Housing. They haven't done so. We own our house in the UK, and it is rented out whilst we are abroad, as I will need somewhere to live when we come back. Home ownership was around before Mrs Thatcher - my parents owned their own place under the Wilson government.

"I note that Labour haven't reversed any of the legislation which broke the power of the unions - why is that then? "

what about the Employment Relations Bill?

"to establish a framework to allow Trade Union Recognition to be achieved by voluntary agreement,
and where that is not achieved a Statutory Procedure that will apply to organisations employing
more than 20 employees, and which allows for:
· a ballot of workers (with twin tests of a simple majority and least 40% of those eligible to
vote)
· or an automatic route where more than 50% of workers in the bargaining unit are union
members"

certainly a couple of years after Labour came to power we were having NUJ meetings in our newspaper office for the first time in my careeer

As it says in the document, most of this was already in place under existing Tory legislation from 92 and 96. We certainly had union meetings (not NUJ) in my office from 1990-2000 before I left to teach.

maybe it was a seachange then

it felt possible to do it. Before it categorically was not

I think 'Eton educated' does have a bearing though, even though I realise that TB et al were privately educated too. I think it has a bearing on their attitudes too.

I think it's the sense of entitlement that is found in the likes of DC. It just strikes me he's no brighter than an awful lot of people but because of his background and education he is where he is, not through any particular talent or anything else really.

The same could be said for a lot of the Labour party too. It doesn't make it right though.

As for the politics of envy. It depends on whether one only cares about oneself or whether one cares about those less well off than oneself. I should be an absolute archetypal Tory voter as far as income/education/where I live, but I will not be voting Tory. I can't bear the way they ruled before and I certainly can't see them being any different this time round.

I worked for a Tory controlled Local Authority and they never had a problem with it.

I don't care where any of them were educated, for the record

I am deeply suspicious of some of the Tory ideas about benefits

there was a thread on here a while back about the Tories' floating an idea about cutting all disability benefits for parents with disabled children, replacing it with whatever social services felt appropriate

as an intelligent professional woman with a disabled child who has dealt with social services, the thought sends shivers down my spine

as a family we deserve some dignity, rather than patronising people turning up deciding what help we need

no offence to social workers in general btw; I know most of them work hard and don't generally make you feel as if you are banging your head against a wall

scaryteacher - it does make a difference actually. Because DC and his like have absolutely no idea how the rest of us live. They make decisions on our state schools without ever having set foot in one. They take our benefits away without ever having been dependant on them. They've never experienced unemployment or pay cuts. They've never had to wait years for a council house or had to pick up broken glass from the play area before letting their children play there.

He's cut off from reality.

I would not send my kids to a private school even if I could afford it, because that's not real life and no matter how horrid real life might be, they have to experience it because they are going to have to live in it.

Labour are no saints as I said and I actually agree with some Tory policies, like cutting benefits for scroungers who are no part of the working class at all. They embarrass honest working folk.

I think they should come down hard on offenders and criminals - the softly softly approach around here sees teenager thugs make a mockery of the police.

But as a working class person whose dh has seen a pay cut to just above the minimum wage, who lost her job in Autumn, who is living in rented accommodation at 37 years old and whose family are already experiencing sacrificies and cutbacks, I dread the Tories getting in. Because they love the bankers and the bankers love them. Their policies are to allow the rich to get richer and provide funding for their party. They couldn't give a toss about people like me.

Not that I have faith that the Labour party gives a toss either, but there are people who are part of the labour party who actually do, people who have come from working backgrounds, people who send their kids to state schools and receive NHS treatment.

"Brown hasn't got a mandate to be PM as there wasn't an election"

This is nonsense, when the opposition leader changes no one starts talking about calling an election because the public might prefer him or her. In this country we do not elect the PM nor do we elect the HoS. Brown was elected by his constituency and as the leader of his party he is now PM. Suck it up, that's how the UK parliament works, no mandate is required. This mandate business is a party political tool that Cameron focused on and the media ran with and it's nonsense in the context of our political system.

GO sends his children to a local authority school in London. And I am sure DC's disabled son was mostly treated for his condition by the NHS, so to say they are out of touch with reality is unfair.
Also, considering their education they could have gone into the private sector and earn't a hell of a lot more money than they do in politics.
I think just because they haven't been on a council waiting list, doesn't mean they can't emphathise and understand the struggle and stress of the situation.
Could I just quickly remind all your Thatcher bashers, that for all her faults, she stood up for what she believed in and was prepared to take on her own party and fight for it, unlike most politicians today, and that it was Regan and Thatcher that brokered an end to the cold war.
I was too young to fully appreciate the impact of her policies as Prime Minister as I lived abroad as a child, but she did teach me that your background and sex wasn't a barrier to progresing into whichever profession to chose to go into, and if you wanted it enough there was a chance you could achieve it.
She inspired me to believe in me, no matter what others may sometimes think. Can GB or DC say they will inspire our children in the same way?