A Labour Governments 1997-2010 record in power – lest we forget.

[Isitmebut]

Ed Miliband says today the Conservatives are using the SNP to deflect from Labour’s record in office.

When coming to power in 1997 with over a 160 seat majority, the UK economy was the fastest growing economy in Europe, it had grown for over 20 consecutive quarters and was budgeted balance our tax/spend budget by 2001/2 and we had the best financed private pensions in Europe.

Here is a summary of the Labour policies that followed within their first 10-years, probably the best decade in a century to mould UK society for the better, flush with the once in a century tax receipts of a financial bubble/windfall; YOU decide who ruined the life choices of the poorest in society.

Economy; Ballooned the size/cost of the State, as the private sector (businesses) like Manufacturing suffered, relying too much on the deregulated growth of City profits & taxes = an unbalanced economy likely to crash on the first major economic recession, or worst still, a financial recession leading to an economic one.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1214001/The-cost-quango-Britain-hits-170bn--seven-fold-rise-Labour-came-power.html

Finances; In 19996/7 the National Debt was £403 billion, by 2009/10 it was £1,073 trillion, as the UK were running a deficit/overspend economy in the good times, so when the private sector tax receipts fell away in 2008, the States costs over 50% of our economy, and without tax receipts to pay for it all = £157 billion annual budget deficit/overspend passed to the coalition, the largest figure by far in Europe. The only way the accumulating National Debt could then be reduced, would have been for the Coalition to start slash spending by that amount, from Day One.
www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/

Banking; Labour lighter regulatory approach encouraged UK banks to leverage up their balance sheets to business/consumer loans and mortgages multiplied from 1997, building an economy on asset price rises and private (and government) debt. Once the financial crash began, the closing of the global interbank market (the funding artery of finance) from 2008 - morphed into an economic recession, the worst in the UK for over 80-years.
metro.co.uk/2011/04/11/gordon-brown-i-made-big-mistake-on-banks-before-financial-crisis-650630/

www.theguardian.com/business/2011/dec/12/labour-regulations-city-rbs-collapse

Pensions; A terrible record from their first year in power, offering derisory increases in the State pension (75p in 2000) with much higher inflation than now, and a raid on Private Pensions, previously the best funded in Europe, that was to kill many company Final Salary schemes – and estimated to have cost, in lost returns to non government pension plans, over £260 billion to date.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2613609/Revealed-Labours-stealth-raid-took-118BILLION-pensions-paving-way-end-final-salary-schemes-suddenly-unaffordable.html

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/10698432/Final-salary-pensions-10-times-more-common-in-public-sector.html

Defence; A government in perpetual wars, who took us to war in Iraqi on a ‘dodgy dossier’ on Iraqi WMD’s and sent troops into Afghanistan without enough equipment i.e. bullet proof vests, roadside bomb proof vehicles and helicopters, which cost lives - with the Defence Secretary saying ‘ they might not fire a shot’. With no defence reviews for years, they left power with a defence £38 bil black hole, without a penny down on Trident.

NHS; With the proceeds of the financial bubble Labour more than doubled spending, but only around 30% got to the front line, and hid bad care e.g. Mid Staffs. In 2000 the NHS Act brought in private competition, the excessive government borrowing via the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) was to cripple NHS Trust budgets for decades to come and by 2010 there was to be 13,000 fewer general and acute beds than in 1999 – as our net population grew from economic migration and ‘baby boomers’ got 13-years closer to retirement age.
www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8779598/Private-Finance-Initiative-where-did-all-go-wrong.html

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9356942/Blair-defends-PFI-as-NHS-trusts-face-bankruptcy.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2363808/Labours-NHS-denial-machine-Experts-verdict-ministers-covered-problems-failing-hospitals-thousands-died.html

more

No. You've said you're off. Don't keep coming back.
That's what the kippers keep doing.

Thanks for heads up OP! I totes did not know that! You truly are a font of unbiased information.

Your posts read like a description of property on Rightmove. I keep expecting you to add.... and comes with an ENSUITE.

Maybe you could end your advert with (no pets/dss/disabled/europe)

Ah well I'd love to hang around for more polemic but I am actually off. Night all

That's not how I remember it. I recall it as a blessed relief after Thatcher and Major but by then our industrial base had been destroyed and we were left almost entirely dependant on the service sector.

Paper review over .... I've just seen the 'quality' of the 'debate', with more posts pathetically looking to criticize 'what my posts read like' rather than challenging the qualified facts within my OP, so I'm off too

For the record Labour/Miliband clueless what to do in 2010 otherwise they'd have done something other than raise NI, so for 5-years has criticized and took cheap shots at Conservative policy, usually, as now making it up e.g. blaming the Tories for NHS privatization under them.

Brown/Miliband/Ball decided in 2010, doing nothing to fix their shit and having dropped a few Tory tax traps, if they spend 5-years spewing propaganda talking down every coalition policy - they'd bounce back in 2015 to government. How very brave and statesman like.

The overall success of the UK versus the rest of Europe speaks for itself, so looking at Labour's past administration when there is little difference to what they are proposing now, is something Labour supporters should be either proud of or concerned about.

Frankly, if the Conservatives had that 1997 to 2010 record, with a huge non pressured opportunity (for the first decade) to help the poorest in society and so totally screw up - if that was how they 'helped' the poorest then and saying they are going to 'help' them again - I'd be thinking no thanks and voting with my feet, not making excuses and posting deflecting abuse.

But clearly Labour could take everyones first born if they said it'll keep the Conservatives out, and the faithful would say 'yes please'. Marvellous.

Bye! Thanks for stopping in.

"Claig, Claig, you there?

Come talk to me about the Establishment please."

What would you like to know about them?

Morning Claig! While we profoundly disagree on everything I enjoy chatting with you.

Actually scrap that about disagreeing about everything. I think you actually quite respect Ed Miliband as a person, while you'll never agree with him politically. So we have some common ground.

Is there any way I can convince you that Will Scobie, who is running for Labour in Thanet against St Nige, would be the best MP? Born and brought up locally, and long track record of doing thankless stuff to make the local community better. Would make a really good MP. Should Mr Farage fail on Thursday , I hope you'd see him as non-establishment solid representative of the community.

Hi BreakWindandFire,

I enjoy chatting with you too.

I like Ed and there is an outside chance that he just may have the courage to actually change the country for the better by tackling housing etc, but it is only a slim chance. But as he is not a Blairite, there is a possibility that he may change things. If Labour became Labour peer, Lord Glasman's, "blue Labour" and lost a lot of their right-on metropolitan political correctness, I would have lots of common ground with them and prefer them to the Tories.

No one can take on St Nige. He has the courage to tell the truth. But if Nige does not make it due to a possible devious Establishment plot or other then Scobie would be better than that Tory kictchen sink thrower.

The Daily Mail and some newspapers cruelly mocked Ed for tripping up when he left the recent debate. Quentin Letts who is very clever and funny, but also over cruel at times, compared Ed to Norman Wisdom.

If Ed broke free from his teenage advisers who tell him to ask every questioner their name before answering as they want to project an image of sincerity, then Ed would start to be more genuine.

The BBC have a brilliant comedy W1A and the previous one they did on the Olympics. It satirises the political correctness that rules our metropolitan elite Establishment class. If they could break free from their chains, the country would be sorted. If they could break the groupthink, things would get better

There is only one person who can do it - St Nige.

If they sent him into the BBC office of W1A, he would sort the lot of them out by bringing back a bit of common sense.

"W1A, BBC2, 9pm

Satire this may be, but if we could spy on real BBC meetings with all the agonising they do over political correctness and troops of compliance police, there’d probably be just as much hilarity."

www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-previews/hugh-bonneville-sarah-parish-help-5565328

All is not lost if Ed wins the election. If he hires St Nige as his SPAD, then everything would be sorted and the Establishment would be back on the right path again.No more political correctness, just common sense.

The reason t is imporan that Nigel wins in South Thanet is that he will break the groupthink that W1A portrays, the exact same groupthink that is shared by our entire political class, our Establishment class - the ones who are told to ask questioners names or to get "lively" and show some "passion".

"the determination of every employee not to take any kind of decision which will leave them exposed; the terror of causing any kind of public offence and then receiving hostile media attention; the obsession with ratings; coffee in all its manifestations; the obsession with ratings; the simultaneous fear of, and contempt for, members of the public outside their own charmed circle; the aversion to any display of the individuality – of opinion or character – which is so antithetical to corporate life.

This smiling, timorous group-think is all around us in quangos, in Whitehall and in business, but no organisation is quite so comprehensively in its grip as the subject of W1A. The BBC matters. It is an extraordinary institution, and the way it is run affects not only our culture and entertainment but also the political life of the nation"
...
Perhaps powerful organisations like the BBC might consider another learning opportunity. It is that individuality matters more than safety-first group values. If people are offended by an opinion or a programme, it quite often means that a worthwhile point has been made.

There will be no complaints about W1A. We agree that fearful, jargon-infested bureaucracies should be mocked, that celebrities should not take themselves too seriously."

www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-bbc-might-be-laughing-at-itself-in-w1a-but-that-doesnt-get-it-off-the-hook-9208381.html

The reason UKIP will save the country is because Farage is the antithesis of W1A. The People's Army will mock the "fearful, jargon-infested bureaucracies" and the groupthink Establishment class, and that will free the nation, reinvigorate it and allow for real democratic change.

'The ex postman and the ex ships bar steward'?

I'm no Labour fan myself but that's showing your true colours a bit, OP. The Tories used to be proud, once upon a time, of having cabinet members from all walks of life (David Davies, John Major) but Cameron has surrounded himself with people like him, from his world - he's probably the least in-touch with working people PM we've ever had.

You're right that Labour screwed up a lot and don't really deserve to get back into power yet, but frankly anyone but the Tories (or UKIP) has got to be an improvement.

Have you ever actually lived through an election campaign before OP?

Campaigning is a combination of promoting your own party and criticising the other ones

You obviously think it's fine for DC to launch various personal attacks on EM but it's not ok for labour to say they want the conservatives out?

If they didn't want the conservatives out they wouldn't exist as a political party

"If the Labour Party spent less time trying to demonize the Conservatives"

Four times, I had to tab my laptop screen down to get past your OP demonizing Labour...

And you still haven't actually replied to the very first query, wot was me.

...I was challenging a fact in your OP, and you ignored me, and then I see you've complained about people not addressing the facts? Smooth work.

Ah Claig! Morning!

Whilst I vehemently disagree with all of your views, you are infinitely better than this load of tripe. At least you do debate and concede occasionally.

Give us your views on housing Claig actually. Tell me what you think of pre and post 1997 and how each government has had an impact on social housing and how that has affected the private housing market.

I don't mind Thatcher's policy of selling council homes to tenants because I believe in a stakeholder society where people can own their own property as this benefits both them and society. But I think Thatcher should also have built more council properties to compensate for the loss of public housing.

This country is in a bad way because ordinary people are losing the belief that hard work will have any reward as young people can't afford to own their own homes etc and are placed in huge debt due to tuition fees etc The system (this corrupt Establishment with all its coverups and scandals) has a duty to offer the people a good future, it has a contract with the people and has to address the decline in living standards and the decline in hope of millions of people.

To solve this will take huge courage and the ability to challenge orthodoxy. The Tories are not up to it because they support the status quo. Ed Miliband is possibly up to it because even though he is another Establishment Oxford PPE, he nevertheless is not a Blairite and is not in politics for the money or advantage as far as I can see. He seems to have a sense of duty. Whether he can take the Establishment and the status quo on and change things for the better remains to be seen.

I think Farage has the necessary courage, he is frightened by the Establishment's groupthink, their W1A political correctness, but whether he will have the vision to change what has to be changed and put the people first remains to be seen.

The country will vote for change and hopefully we will get a PR voting system and that will end the Establishment's cosy clique rule of our society and give voice to the people's demands which will lead to real change and a better life for millions of people.

Sorry, should have been

he is not frightened by the Establishment's groupthink, their W1A political correctness

The coalition has almost doubled the national debt in 5 years to where it is now £1.5 trillion and apart from bailing out the banks, what have we got for it?

New house builds are at a lower level than the last year of Labour's rule.

I think we should invest in new technology and prefab technology so that we can build new houses at a cheaper cost, complete them quicker and create them on an industrial scale. I think we should scrap HS2 and spend teh billions on housebuilding instead.

Countries like Nepal now need a huge amount of help to rebuild homes. If we can spend £100 billion on trident, surely we can invent ways of creating cheap prefab homes that can be exported to help people all over the world as well as people here.

claig have you seen this?

paintwithnigelfarage.com

I posted that in a lighthearted way.

I utterly disagree with your assessment of ukip but value your posts

thanks

No I haven't seen that

But what it really shows is Farage's appeal. Farage is a laugh, the People's Army taking on the Establishment is fun.

People are fed up of the smooth talking Establishment spinners who never laugh, never say what they think, never smoke, never drink or be real - the W1A phoney political class

"the determination of every employee not to take any kind of decision which will leave them exposed; the terror of causing any kind of public offence and then receiving hostile media attention; the obsession with ratings; coffee in all its manifestations; the obsession with ratings; the simultaneous fear of, and contempt for, members of the public outside their own charmed circle; the aversion to any display of the individuality – of opinion or character – which is so antithetical to corporate life.

This smiling, timorous group-think is all around us in quangos, in Whitehall and in business"

This 3D printer housebuilding technology is incredible. Why aren't we at the forefront of this, investing billions in this type of thing which will help people and earn us huge rewards?

"They may look like your average building sites, but these houses were created with nothing more than a 3D printer.

The houses, one of which is five storeys high, were created in an industrial park in China's Jiangsu province using new 3D printing technology.

The incredible engineering, by Shanghai WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co., was pioneered ten months ago when the company printed ten buildings - costing just £3,100 - entirely out of concrete using a giant printer."

...

The display site also featured a single-story house pre-ordered by the Egyptian government, which will soon be shipped to its owner.

Mr Ma said: 'This house was printed within a single day, and is part of a total order of 20,000 units.'

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2917025/The-villas-created-using-3D-printers-100-000-five-storey-homes-using-construction-waste-China.html

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2917025/The-villas-created-using-3D-printers-100-000-five-storey-homes-using-construction-waste-China.html#ixzz3Z4hhzREM
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