Crap things that the Labour Government has done in the last 12 years.

[MrsMerryHenry]

As I said in Thread 1: let's have a balanced perspective. So: let it allllll out, people.

Otter you do have to balance investment in schools against the massive national debt. They have been spending money we don't have and they haven't been looking after the economy as well as they could. They have spent everything without a care for how we will pay for it all. Tories will have to make large cuts and it will be very easy for Labour to paint them as the bad guys, but there isn't any money left.

Target culture
Huge levels of beaurocracy in public services
Too much paperwork in front-line public staffing
Waste of money and time on ID cards
Creation of huge, inefficient, nationalised databases
Abolition of 10p tax
Stealth taxes
Dumbing down curriculum

I do worry that they have used the threat of terrorism to turn the UK into more of a police state than ever before.

Things that spring to mind:

Increased powers of stop and search
DNA profiling of everyone who is arrested, regardless of whether they're charged (Eng and Wales only - Scottish law is infintely more sensible on this score)
Lengthy 28 day period during which people can be held without charge under Terrorism Act
Plus of course the fact that we are the most CCTV-watched nation on the face of the planet

Oh-oh-oh there's lots more but I can't recall at the mo - anyone? I should check out the Liberty website for this info, actually. On their own the laws look quite sensible but once you start to add then up it's quite disturbing.

Not content with saddling future generations with the cost of PFI and bailing out the banks, Labour are now selling the family silver (again). There is talk this morning of selling, amongst other things, the Tote. There has been talk about this for a long time. According to the chairman of the Tote, last time they would have got £400m for the sale; this time they will only get £200m. Why do Labour always sell assets at rock bottom prices? (eg see earlier comments about the gold reserve which was a spectacular **up: the price went down because Labour publicised their plans and depressed the market. D'oh).

Interesting debate on Radio 4 (by the Reith lecturer, an American so no British political axe to grind) about the morality or, rather, immorality of one generation having policies which lands the following generation(s) in debt ...

Oooh, Radio 4 is very useful this morning.

Remember that part of the Govt's "rescue" of RBS included paying off Fred the Shred with a pension worth £700,000 a year. And you will recall that when the news broke, everyone in Govt desperately tried to blame each other. Fred said, "I am contractually entitled to the pension" and no-one bothered to check whether this was true, never mind having the balls to say "legally it may be yours, but not morally. I dare you to sue for it".
Unbelievably pathetic and useless (non)negotiating by teamGB. Instead of paying him off, he should have been sacked for gross maladministration and face charges for misfeasance.

fembear - which lecturer was that - was it this year's Reith? So glad the beeb keep their Reith recordings online forever.

Oooh, Radio 4 is very useful this morning.

Remember that part of the Govt's "rescue" of RBS included paying off Fred the Shred with a pension worth £700,000 a year. And you will recall that when the news broke, no-one in Govt would take responsibility and desperately tried to blame each other.
Fred said, "I am contractually entitled to the pension" and no-one bothered to check whether this was true, never mind having the balls to say "legally it may be yours, but not morally. I dare you to sue for it".
Unbelievably pathetic and useless (non)negotiating by teamGB. Instead of paying him off, he should have been sacked for gross maladministration and face charges for misfeasance.

Useless morons.

Yes, MrsMH, it was this year's Reith lecturer Michael Sandel.

Allowed to super-rich to get away with paying around 5% in tax whilst increasing taxes for everyone else. Socialism? Don't make me laugh.

Ooops. sorry for double-post - we just had a mini power cut.

Exactly, DaisymooSteiner. Never has a party been more in thrall to the rich, IMO.

Agree. They are scared of the rich / big business.

School's building programme guaranteed funds have run out. Committed to building programmes & no means of getting them finished, whilst others have been encouraged to take out loans to fund capital building projects that due to lack of funds will financially cripple them. Due to come home to roost in the next year or two.

The release of Abdul Basit Al-magrahi and its effect on international relations. The fact that the British Govt was/wasn't involved with Mandy was doing deals or was Scotland in control or ... ? Total dog's breakfast.

And while we are at it, they have never resolved the West Lothian Question.

One of my gravest concerns has been the governments reaction to terrorism with the introduction of legislation which impacts on privacy, rights to protest etc - the huge collection of data, introduction of ID cards, restrictions re protesting, DNA database, surveillance etc. I find this deeply unsettling.

Quite so. It was announced yesterday that the arrest of Damian Green was "not proportionate" - they used anti-terrorism legislation to arrest him when (a) the details he leaked had nothing to do with terrorism and (b) they didn't need to arrest him, they could have asked him to interview.

So the Police were heavy-handed in their approach and used their powers excessively. If they can do that to an MP and member of the Shadow Cabinet, what protection do the rest of us have?

And again, the arrest was another debacle with the Speaker, Michael Martin, not doing his job in protecting Parliament. Such was Parliament's anger over his ineptitude that Mr Martin, a Labour MP, became the first speaker for 300 years to be forced from office. He also presided over MP's expenses for years, giving them the green light to claim the expenses which are now widely disapproved of. To be slightly fair to him, the situation arose because of GB's inability to resolve the matter of MP's pay (instead of awarding pay rises which might give rise to anger when the public found out about them, they sneaked in inflated expenses which they hoped no-one would notice. Typical Labout smoke&mirrors.)

Economy
House prices
tax and spend
NHS
public transport
Heathrow expansion
education
pensions crime

I'm keeping it local!

sorry crime should have it's own line

most of what missing my wheels said

can we blame them for the rise o the 'chav' culture?

sold off our gold reserves at the lowest price since 1972. Gold has since recovered massively.

Turning unspoiled rural area into industrial sites with windfarms.

The single-handed destruction of the agricultural industry.

The creation of petty laws.

Corruption, sleaze and theft (pensions, expenses etc).

Neglect of unpaid carers.

Being hand in hand with Tesco therefore leading to the demise of many small businesses.

I so agree with you about the stupid windfarms. They seem to generate very little electricity and despoil the countryside. We have a windfarm near us and foolishly I didn't join the campaign against it. Now it's too late and it's ruined a beautiful view. So far as I can tell, it's powering a small number of properties.

abra1d- the enormous tonnage of concrete required to keep them upright, the creation of roads to get them to their destination, the imbalance of the water table they create, the wild birds that they kill- makes them very ungreen in my book.

The electricity is imported and our electricity bills have risen to pay for them. The only people who benefit are the landowners and the multi nationals. They are all jumping on the gravy train and are costing the public millions in public enquiries.

We are more than capable of running this country on hydro-power.

TBH, I would favour a few nuclear power stations. If they work so well in France, why not here? Technology and safety standards have come a long way since we last build them.

This country pretty well invented modern industry. It must be within our technological DNA to do this kind of stuff.