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.

Good post monkeybird.

Umm, what would have been your solution then, Senora

Oh, OK, I will go on...

...the tories:

took away free school milk (Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher); reduced entitlements to free school meals; introduced means testing for benefits for low-income families; introduce policies for local authorities' education assets that meant they had to sell off school paying fields; slashed funding in healthcare, schools and universities, damaging both services, staffing and the infrastructure of buildings that they are STILL recovering from; prison population in England/Wales in 1992 was just over 40,000, by 1997, it was 70,000...

Do you want more?

Thing is Desi your post could be pretty much summed up by "You can't make an omelette without breaking egss"

Which is fine if you like omelettes, and you aren't an egg.....

Barnstaple - spot on!! I was at uni in Glasgow in the late 80s and clearly remember the uproar when she said " Glasgow, Where's Glasgow?" days before an election!!!! How much I hated her then!! BUT as someone who has spent the last 12 years working in education, I have to agree that labour have wasted and meddled so much. They don't seem to have the principles I used to think old labour (John Smith) had - now with the aftermath of the 'Tony n Cherie Show' I can't see any other nation (apart from George Dubbya) taking us seriously. Coming from Scotland in the 80s, I should hate her passionately (and I did) but can now see the emptiness and wastefulnss of labour. Worrying thing is now that (NOT)DH has just left me and 2 dc's, I will have to lean on labours WFTC system and see if after paying into the system for 20 odd years I will get anything like new immigrants get!!!! BUt hey!! That's a whole new discussion!! Under Mrs T we had no problem with open borders and immigrants BUT I would now be a scourge on society all beacuse my husband doesn't want family life any more!!! AAARGCCHH!!!

Think they're all as bad as each other!

Cod for PM!!! Start up the Mumsnet party - pr is that too uch like the Take a Break thing??!!!!

yes monkeybird, go on...

labour aren't the tories, isn't that enough? jeffrey archer, norman tebbit, jonathan aitken..bleugh..people have such short memories..

I can't remember Callaghan actually but I have read about the problems. we did need to spend less as a country, but you can spend less without being brutally divisive.

and the falklands war was completely predicatble, and completely preventable.

Yes, there were riots, and it was retracted.

We're paying more in council tax, though.

She closed the coal mines. Sure. They wouldn't be allowed now, though. Too many greenhouse gases.

Visionary? 'Cos I haven't noticed too many opening up again under the Labour administration.

The 70s/80s were the last gasp of the Victorian Industrial age. What Thatcher did was to sweep it away vigorously, rather than oversee decades of decline.

She was the archetypal housewife with the dustpan and brush. Nobody likes a stiff dousing, but you're all reaping the benefits now.

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so what about blunkett and prescott, lots of action there.

and as for sleeze that is mandleson... had to resign twice!

This discussion just leaves me feeling more confused than ever.

md you are def taking tg too seriously. it is a comic for weekend only, although i do like stella mag. and hilary alexander. and the letters.

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I liked Cameron's response on here about special schools.

The current plan is to close my son's wonderful school. Which would be a fucking disaster.

Cameron has said (one here) he would put a halt to all special school closures to allow a review of special education.

Enough to get my vote.

Eve, Blunkett and Prescott were not, actually, preaching to the nation about how we'd all be better off if women would just get back to being mummies and everyone would just buckle down to good Christian values (while they were boffing their secretaries...)

Monkeybird, how many school playing fields have Labour sold off?

Particularly when bearing in mind that competitive sport is not really a Labour thing?

You're living in the past. Your resentments can all be counter-argued, to the nth degree.

I was a child when Calaghan was in power. Inflation was ridiculous. Every item on a shop's shelf had about twenty stickers on it, because things went up on a daily basis.

Everyone went on strike at the drop of a hat, so the streets were filled with rubbish that wasn't collected for weeks on end, and there were constant power cuts ... almost every day in the summer/winter before Thatcher came to power.

It was shit.

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Yes, I've noticed you're impressed with Cameron, Yurt .. and tbh, I think with good reason.

At least you're thinking about the present day and what can be achieved.

Did you notice that he promised to attend NeedMoreCoffee's SN group in Bristol? I'm sure he will, too.

Desi, but what happened in the 1970s (actually, if we're honest, just like in the 1980s) was not just about who was in power, was it?

The oil price shocks in the early 70s did for most British manufacturing industries and the major economic consequences of this impacted on wages, public services etc.

In the same way, much of what is claimed of Thatcher's successes (economic growth, the property explosion - and crash of course) was also a product of global economics.

I also remember the previous Labour govt. Yes, it was shit but we've been asked by moondog whether now is better than under Thatcher. Quite a different question.

i remember people's march for jobs in 1981/3 and how bloody miserable we all were. unemployed people being sent off to dig out ponds, like hard labour. the seeds set for punitive measures which this government have done a fair bit to alleviate.

it was horrible and although i do not like this new fangled labour party it is x1000 better than the tories.

and i read daily telegraph too.

But it's an impossible question to answer.

We now have the internet, mobile phones, so many things that didn't exist then.

People felt more deeply about things in the 70s and early 80s. Now, we are a mile wide and an inch deep.

I know that people will argue about Thatcher for a good hundred years to come, but she really did have to happen.

She wasn't evil. Millions of people voted her in, time after time. My parents thought she was the dogs bollocks, as I do.

Is she a personable woman? Not remotely, but great politicians don't need to be ... in fact, they probably can't afford to be. The cult of personality (which Blair embraced) is not something a country wants to foster in its leader.

And you're engaging a bit in folk memory Desi and conflating Callaghan's winter of discontent (78/79), when there was a public sector pay freeze and rubbish wasn't collected, and the 3-day week/power cuts of 74, which were of course, overseen by TORIES!

Did he? Desi. I missed that. TBH shutting ds1's school would be such an utter disaster for us that I'll vote for any part who says they'll stop special school closures.

Our local labour MP is a wet kipper as well. She's been bloody useless when I've contacted her - so will be a pleasure to vote against her. (The other neighbouring labour MP is good as is the neighbouring tory MP)

but desid don't you think the thatcher era has had more than a little do to with that?

yes technology would have us here regardless, but how we behaved on the journey could have been very different.

i think the selfish / thatcherist model has a lot to answer for.