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.

I can only relate this on a personal level life under the Tory Government was for me and dh awful. We had bought a property, nothing fancy just a started home in a relatively cheap town (we both had to move away form the area we had lived because we just couldnt afford to live there) and both worked fulltime in well paid jobs but we struggled to pay our mortgage every month. We couldn't afford to go out, buy clothes, etc every penny we earn went on mortgage and basic bills (only 1 car, no children and no chance of having any because neither of us could afford not to work overtime. ) I also had a p/t evening job.

Things under a labour government definately improved for us, thankfully.

The current Labour party are past masters at spin. You won't realise what a mess they have made of things until they are out of power and not able to do cover-up lies any more.
It took this supine country 10 years to realise what havoc one of Gordon's sneaky little stealth taxes caused to the pension industry. There will be plenty more chickens coming home to roost.

Bread and circuses.

Labour are probably bigger hypocrites than the tories and terrible control freaks. The last tory government tried to introduce id cards and privatise the post office but the old guard understood the threat to civil liberties and the importance of local services and fought off the proposals. Labour also seem to be pretty incompetent at everything they try. Preschool vouchers are great but forcing parents of pre-school parents in poorly paid work while using cheap childcare is not a good plan.

But Margaret Thatcher's attitude to the economic reforms - callous, brutal, no thought to the long term social consequences of ripping down traditional industries - have left us with terrible social problems now. Her policy on selling council houses and refusing to let councils build more was shameful and is a huge reason behind our current houses crisis. And the push to liberalise financial services enabling people (and backs haha) to get into debt they could never manage has been proved grossly irresponsible.

Too youmg to remember Thatcher's reign, but my God the layers of red tape and all the farking means testing. labout would tax us and means test us on breathing fresh air if they could.

both lots have their faults, imo.

Oh swc, so blinded by the shining light of entrepreneurialism...

our (for which read vaguely socialist?) fantastic public sector? Have you Tories opted out completely then? Oh, goody. More room for the rest of us.

Oh no, I forgot, you'll still be using the roads, health service, schools or at least teacher training, police, local authorities, blah blah blah.

Do you think David Cameron would really be interested in the closure of special schools etc if he didnt have a child with profound disabilities?? I think the boy would probably be down for Eton by now if not. That was the worse thing about the Tories, the 'I'm alright Jack' attitude with no interest in those less well off, educated, deprived. Having said that, it is obviously a good thing that he is taking up the cause for those in the same position as him (without the benefit of nannies etc to help out..) it won't do any harm.

You know what swc, I don't actually disagree with you on either of your last posts. And that is precisely why things are much better under this Labour govt than they were under the Tories: because, for all their failings, they have shown that it IS possible to have wealth creation alongside responsible centrist social democracy and public services.

What I don't like is the delusion that Thatcherism was the best thing that ever happened to us: have a look at my previous posts for the long list of reasons why it wasn't.

" By Cammelia on Tue 25-Mar-08 21:16:29
I would say in both regimes it depends what your position is

Frankly I hate both of them "

Sums up my position too. I suspect the "old gimmers" who remember Thatcher are better off under Labour. But young people are utterly screwed. New Labour have presided over hyper inflation in house prices, erosion of social housing and the "short assured tenancy" meaning you can't hope for security if renting privately. House prices have trebled while they were in power and Labour politicians responded by investing in "second homes" for themselves!

upwind, you clear ARE too young to remember the previous housing crisis of the early 90s when many many more people were in a worse predicament than they are now, inflation was nearer 4%, interest rates were 15%, people were in massive negative equity and really struggling.

A bit of history wouldn't go amiss here either: house prices have risen and risen the whole 20th century, bar a few economic blips. On the whole, it is the Tories who have promoted policies to stoke this process, including in 1984, the deregulation of the financial services industry which made it much easier to get a mortgage from any old Tom, Dick or Harry. THIS is what created the housing crisis in the 1990s.

The crisis now is problematic but it is much worse in the papers than it is in real life. I doubt that owners of second homes are more represented within Labour voters than Tories TBH. By quite a long way. I can probably find the real evidence for you if you like.

anyone who thinks we are worse off under labour is a crazy person. apart from anything else. the torys had been in power too long and were complacent, corrupt and generally unpleasant. labour has turned away from its socialist principles but that is is because no one wanted socialism, they had all been scarred by the 4 day working week and soaring inflation. when thatcher was in power people were probably having the same discussion in reverse and deciding they were better off under thatcher.

new labour - as odious and pernicious as it appears to be to some - gave the voters choice and they have governed the country with a steady hand. ok iraq was the horrendous mistake of a messianic leader but apart from that i take my hat off to them.

i grew up in northern ireland in the 80's and if john major had had some back bone instead of cosying up with the unionists to save his political arse there would a few more folk alive. the energy that new labour put into solving northern ireland has made a huge difference to lives there.

In what way, swc, have they 'squandered the proceeds of growth'? It sounds like a soundbite to me, I'd be grateful for more evidence.

Hmm, a global economic crisis engendered by speculators in a monetarist banking system? Labour policy? Puhleese...

The city of london are losing the grip now though and I think we are about to really see what labour are about because we are about to hit turbulence and they haven't really had that before as we have been riding the credit wave for years and living it up Now we will see what they are really made of

Monkeybird - what makes you think interest rates will stay low? That is not something that is completely within the control of government, and given how much higher mortgages are relative to incomes there could be dreadful problems if they do have to keep going up.

Nobody can prevent a bubble bursting. That is why it is a responsibility of government to work to prevent hyper inflation and unsustainable booms. New Labour did nothing about it. In fact, they made things worse - they continued deregulation of the financial industry, splitting the role of FSA and Bank of England so neither could be held accountable for the current crisis. In the 90s the 125% mortgages of 6 x income were unheard of. The current crisis has just begun, we don't know yet how it will play out but I hope you are right that it is really not as serious as it seems.

Can you find evidence of the Labour politicians vested interests in property? That would be fascinating.

Anyone who's spent time in Hackney, or the untrendy parts of Bow and Bethnal Green, knows that City wealth largely stays in its own pockets.

We may be the fourth richest country in the world or whatever but Thatcher's 'greed is good' philosophy means that the top echelons get to keep the money and that service sector employment simply gets closer to wage slavery.

Her 'achievement' was to make that seem thoroughly unavoidable and to make the collection of private wealth appear to be the major national good. New Labour have bought into that, with a different and probably more hypocritical emphasis.

well said allegrageller

New Labour have also presided over an unprecedented transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich - by facilitating the boom in house prices which effectively transfers money from those who don't own property to those who do.

I've been a repeated NHS user for the first time in my life for the last 6 years. And I have seen it get far far far worse in that time. The tories can't be blamed for that.

Things are not perfect now, but I remember the Thatcher days and would never ever want to go back to them.