Is life really worse under Labour or am I taking the Torygraph (essential reading chez Moondog) too seriously? Particularly interested in what you old gimmers who remember thatcher have to say.

[moondog]

Thanking yew.

Do you mean Thatcher, Thatcher, Milk Snatcher?

I can only compare how my dad, DH and brother suffered during the miners strike, so am in no position to really comment with an unclouded view.

Oh bloody hell, that must have been awful. (I was made ot remove my 'Support the miners' badge in boarding school.

I would say in both regimes it depends what your position is

Frankly I hate both of them

Weeeellllll

Labour have done some good things I think. Hmm, off the top of my head:

Working families tax credit
childcare tax relief

but just went to look it up to see what they say, and here you go, Lavour's 50 achievements although I realise it's COMPLETELY biased!

I'm from around Middlesborough. Remember the pictures of her standing in her shiny shoes, with her shiny handbag in the middle of complete deindustrialised devastation and telling everyone it was really OK? There was a tower block and not one person living there had a job. Everyone I knew left the area aged 18 because there were NO JOBS!

My local NHS is miles better, local public transport is much better (Ken for Mayor - again!) and the streets do feel safer. We keep getting mounted police doing patrol which is nice but a bit odd. Having said that I don't have Northern Rock shares and I currently have a job. And education is completely and utterly cr*p and we've had to go private.

does that help?

and bloody hell, what are you doing reading the Torygraph, it's a terrible paper imo!

Course things are worse now. have you not noticed your disposable income dropping like a stone in the last couple of years?

OTOH, war in Iraq, id cards...

I've noticed a significant improvement under labour (initially). NHS has far more funding than before (still not enough as it has become far bigger). Benefits increased, minimum wage etc.

However plenty not improved: lack of social housing, investment in social care etc.

we don't have 3 million unemployed any more
and interest rates in double figures
is that the sort of thing?
I don't think life is worse now, but then it's hard to judge in some ways- I was just a child then and not having to earn a living etc
seems harder to be a student these days...I was one of the last to get a full grant, student loans came in in my second year.
but overall, I guess tories have to talk up the fact that life is supposedly so awful now...it's in their interests to do so.
I don't think I am doing badly compared to my parents.
Houses definitely more expensive-but am not sure the government is to blame for that.

I have always voted Labour but I am now heartily sick of the layers and layers and layers upon layers of bureaucracy that we now have in every aspect of our lives (and that we are paying for). I think they had such good intentions in 1997 but they have been lost along the way in a glossy brochure

This Labour govt oligarchy is the most hypocritical yet

We are worse off financially...but in London Red Ken has achieved a lot for us in terms of better public transport, and for us Southerners the nearest equivalent we had to the devastation that woman wreaked on the miners was the demise of the GLC, and also of ILEA, which did a far better federated/collective job of running inner city comps than the local boroughs have managed on their own since. I think I will pop with fury if Boris Johnson [ugh puke emoticon] is elected on the back of a general feeling of need for change at City Hall.
So, despite some of the imbecilities of the Labour regime I do think we as a society are better off.
We don't have a Prime Minister who describes men over 30 on public transport as losers, for a start

Whichever political party you vote for, due to Thatchers legacy (and I don't mean that respectfully), they will put the interests of big business before the interests of the common man. That is due to the way our political parties are funded.
Interesting that WWW brought up ID cards, these are a huge mistake but, most people seem untroubled by them which I find most worrying. What do you suppose will happen if we end up in the same position as Germany before the Second world war and we end up voting in a dictorial government? Do people actually realise that they would inherit the vast amount of information collected by this government?

Double cringe here Moondog - I wore an old NUM duffle coat at Uni.

Trying to put a bit of perspective on things though, I think Labour have failed dismally with Education; have improved NHS in some areas (waiting lists) but failed in others (Maternity services, Infection rates). Have imposed far too many stealth taxes, made a complete cock-up of the child tax credit/Working family credits, done bugger all on serious crime. But, hurray for longer maternity leave/ better benefits.

I don't think GB will see another term in office though, But Cameron is a wet lettuce in my opinion.

it's true some things are just as bad, and the war in Iraq was a terrible idea (but the Tories would have done that too).

..but..

-working families tax credits etc
-more allowances for pensioners
-tax rates are lower for individuals (and I don't know about companies. )
-there is much less of what I would call "hate politics" - you know, blaming single mothers for everything and such. sadly it hasn't been eradicated though.
-nurses and teachers get paid more, and there is proportionately more money going into schools and hospitals

now, the cost of living has gone up a bit lately, but that's to do with the cost of oil. not really the government's fault, and nothing like the suffering caused by the really high interest rates of the late 80s.

oh.. tricky. Thatcher really was awful, hard to explain how bad..eg she called Mandela a terrorist? does that help? 'there's no such tning as society, only individual men and women and their families'?...it's things like that that chill the blood, and no matter how much I hate what Blair has done, somehow it will never get to me the same. Maybe just because I'm older now? Plus, think of civil partnerships and what a good thing they are. Maybe we shouldn't give TB credit for that, I don't know.

Madlentileater, that horrific "no such thing as society" line was actually Keith Joseph but she bought into it, and as others have said, her legacy is a lasting and pernicious one on so many fronts

schools look a lot better to me, gb. quality of teaching is more consistent, there are more classroom assitants etc. and what are the stealth taxes exactly? if you mean council tax, I think most people have saved in income tax what they've spent on cb in the last 10 years.

for me its the red tape...as Zog said layers and layers of bureaucracy!

too many people in Labour organisations telling us how to live our lives, what to drive, what to eat, how much to drink, where to go on holiday........

Its death by 1000 tax increases....and they have buggered all our pensions as well.

Where has all the extra money gone??? Into layers and layers and layers of red tape!

actually bloody hell of course life's not worse under labour
thatcher was appalling, I hated her, really hated her and what she was doing to the country
and all the news reports back then seemed to be about factories and businesses closing down, and job losses, it was all so depressing
miserable wages for teachers and nurses
single mothers the curse of the nation
and the delights of Section 28
etc etc etc

cameron is wetter than a lettuce, and he's infected with PR to boot.

paying for more health visitors by raiding the sure start budget indeed.