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

I keep meaning to let isitmebut know about this amazing new thing all the cool kidz are into called, I think, 'blogging'.

Apparently you can vent as much as you like on any subject of your choice, on your very own website. 'Mazing, huh?

And the best thing about it is, you no longer have to clutter up MN with long, ranty, tedious posts with tonnes of clicky links that no one ever reads.

Everyone's a winner! Why not give it a try, eh?

See Claig, I do agree with you. Ed to me seems less interested in getting to number 10 as a goal in itself and more interested in affecting real change that he genuinely believes in. I also agree that if he allowed himself to be more the real Ed and less smooth polished political, more people would see this.

Trouble is the public seems to love a smooth talker.

Work does need to pay in this country. To many people rely on benefits even though they work. Take at look at this:

-Raise minimum wage
-Ban exploitative zero hour contracts
-Cut taxes for lower/middle incomes
-Extend free childcare
-Make it illegal for employers undercut wages by exploiting immigrant workers

Work needs to pay. I fully agree.

Sorry for brief posts, I am writing on my phone whilst trying to entertain a toddler.

Yep, they are good policies - Labour ones. Some other parties policies are close to those.

Interestingly the Mail on Sunday has spiked Peter Hitchens' column for the first time in 15 years. He's been censored for urging a vote for Miliband over Cameron, against the Mail's editorial line.

(Although I must admit I'm stunned that Peter Hitchens would write such a column as I've always found him to the right of Ghenghis Khan)

BreakWindandFire, have you got a link to that story, please?

'I must admit I'm stunned that Peter Hitchens would write such a column as I've always found him to the right of Ghenghis Khan'

I'm not surprised, he has never backed the Tories. I like him a lot, but it is difficult to know what his real position is as he always goes against the Tories and yet mostly does not back UKIP either and therefore nearly always ends up by default in some way almost endorsing Labour with whom he disagrees on nearly everything.

Claig - The man himself is on twitter. People asked him this morning why they can't see his column. He said "Because it's not there". He was asked why, and said "No comment. But here's a link to an online article I wrote about why you should not vote Tory" Ahem

Wonder if he's about to have a Peter Obourne moment?

'But here's a link to an online article I wrote about why you should not vote Tory'

Yes, that's his article for not voting Tory in 2010, from five years ago.

'Wonder if he's about to have a Peter Obourne moment?'

No he won't leave the Mail. He has never backedthe Tories ever as far as I know and the Mail must know that. He used to be a Trotskyist when he was young, he is still revolutionary in not towing any party line even now.

His readers on his blog seem to be mainly all voting UKIP rather than Tory and one of them has posted what Hitchens put up on his twitter today where as usual he goes against the Tories and explains why.

It is essentially that the Tories are like Labour but won't admit it i.e. they are all the same.

Which of course is true in that they are all Establishment and the aims of the elite are the same.

In fact, Peter Hitchens, is in some ways similar to the former BBC Radio Today employee, Rod Liddle, whom UKIP and Tory voters like as he rails against political correctness etc but who ended up in the Spectatr recently saying vote Labour.

Is everybody working for the Establishment in our media? Does nobody out there support the People's Army, the only force for change? Are the people on their own in supporting Farage?

Oh Claig, I suppose it's where you envision change coming from.

Change could be brought about from inside by more people becoming involved, voicing their opinions, campaigning and ultimately voting.

Change doesn't need a war. It needs ordinary people to engage.

'It needs ordinary people to engage.'

I think ordinary people have to create new parties because the Establishment parties are filled at the top levels with the same Oxbridge graduates with the same PPE degrees. I think that is why they the Establishment give them a red carpet to the top because they know that they are a safe pair of hands and won't rock the boat. UKIP are different - rocking the boat is what they were formed for.

This is Labour MP Simon Danczuk, who is good

“I do think the party has almost been hijacked by what I’ve described previously as a north London liberal elite. It’s just so disconnected. So it’s not even just about whether we have MPs from a working background, it’s the whole party and travel of direction for the party.'

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/exclusive-labour-mp-says-public-think-ed-miliband-aloof-and-more-toff-cameron

The Labour Party was once a force for working people. But the Establishment hijacked it and put its Oxbridge public schoolboys in at the top and now even its Northern heartlands are abandoning them.

Fettes public schoolboy and Oxford PPE, Blair, and Oxford PPE Mandelson started the decline. Ed is better than them but that is not saying much.

Do you think a way to reclaim the party for the working people would be for more working people to get involved though?

Become a voice from inside that overpowers?

Do we need a new party to do that? I'm not so sure, even if I do agree with a lot of what you said above.

Yes, I think even the Establishment now realise that they are losing the people. They nearly lost Scotland after 300 years of Union. That is how unrepresentative and useless they are.

So I think that the Establishment will tell their parties to start changing their leaderships and allowing more ordinary people in at the top in order to keep the people onside. So things will improve and things will get better as the Establishment accept that they can't have it all their own way anymore and that they will have to grant the people a voice.

We will soon see how much power the Establishment are prepared to give to the people when the voting shows how unrepresentative the FPTP voting system is. If Ed is told to start talking about PR voting then we will know that the Establishment has decided to grant the people some power.

The Establishment are made up of the same people from the same universities. That is why they are W1A and can't help how out of touch they are. Only if the W1A mindset can be broken, can things really change for the better.

Yes the advent of social media has made it harder to control the vote. The press still has a huge amount of power and I long for a politically unbiased media in this country.

Thank god for places like here where we can all have a good old debate.

Thank god for places like here where we can all have a good old debate

Yep, I love that we can have a civilized direct debate, without it being filtered by the media.

I read an entertaining account of the election from the New York Times tonight, as it's always interesting to see how outsiders view it.

Apparently it's "the red-cheeked toff who went to Eton and belonged to snooty clubs" verses "the gawky, adenoidal, agnostic son of a Marxist Jewish refugee and historian".

ElectaCute ... I'm nearly 60-years old (not 16) who saw the mess Labour left the economy in back in 1979 (look up 'Winter of Discontent' folks, when the unions took on Labour) as well as this one - and as Labour for 5-years have irresponsibly opposed everything in parliament while supposedly putting Conservative policies under a microscope, forgets to mention WHY those policies were needed.

Those Conservative policies were due to Labour's legacy e.g. thousands of posts on Mumsnet about 'the bedroom tax', but how many posts questioning WHY Labour left 5 million of the poorest people THEY CONSTANTLY TELL US THEY REPRESENT, desperate for social housing - without even trying to free up the 800,000 or so council/social bedrooms not being used.

One post of the truth, has to be worth more than a thousand of Labour's propaganda, trying to deflect from their (housing) record - especially on a board looking to INFORM women of the political truths. No?

Tory troll.

Control, Alt, Delete...

Claig .... you spend so much time spouting anti Tory policies (UKIP are so close to e.g. an EU Referendum), yet also sound like an old Soviet Union anti class warrior - but supporting to the hilt an ex City Commodities dealer leader in Farage. Hmmm

You and every UKIP voter needs to stop worrying about Peter Hichens rollocks and worry which political ideology and party record looks best for this country from May 8th - as UKIP votes just ensure the pro EU etc Labour/SNP will run the country for the next 5-years.

For years you have talked a political earthquake due to UKIP, well they will cause just that, and no one will thank Farage selfishly looking to get a Westminster seat at the 7th(?) time of trying, for causing that constitutional crisis - with policies so far removed from UKIPs.

I repeat a quote from the 'Conservative - UKIP coalition, how?' link on the News page;

UKIP currently polling 12% to 15%, inflicted huge electoral damage on the Conservatives in 2010, with just 3% on the General Election votes, with post election analysis showing that around 26,000 UKIP votes across around 20 odd key marginals, made the difference between a Conservative government and a Coalition, each fighting their own political corner.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/7693877/General-Election-2010-Ukip-challenge-cost-Tories-a-Commons-majority.html

Iflyaway ... Labour's record, but I'm the troll showing it, rather than the gangs trying to shut me up?

Priceless.

(Although I must admit I'm stunned that Peter Hitchens would write such a column as I've always found him to the right of Ghenghis Khan)

You shouldn't be. He started his political life as a member of the Trotskyist International Socialists then juddered rightwards via the Labour Party as he got older. He is now merely on his way back…...

In 2010 Labour passing over a £157 bil annual overspend, said the Conservatives were irresponsible ‘ring fencing’ the then NHS Budget – and the Conservatives not only did that, they increased spending by £7 billion a year.

And based on their proven ability to keep the Business/Investment grow going, far stronger than the rest of Europe, the Conservatives have said they’ll add a further £8 billion a year, as requested by the current NHS boss Simon Stevens, to also help implement HIS overall care reforms

Yet next Fridays Prime Minister, nay World Statesman, is still spreading Conservative/NHS lies like cheap peanut butter.

Ed Miliband: “£2billion NHS black hole means nurses face axe at 66% of hospitals under Tories”
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ed-miliband-2billion-nhs-black-5637119

Apparently despite Labour/Burnham passing over in 2010 a huge influx of demand from the previous 5-years to a Conservative administration without the capacity to treat them, there are few excuses to that inheritance , even when a new government hog-tied by unprecedented debt, still fails to meet our NHS waiting time commitments.

But what possible excuse can a soon to be Labour government have to spread those lies, when they screwed up when MONEY WAS NO OBJECT?

“Blair's legacy: Health”
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4555344.stm

“No government has ever invested more in the health service than Labour under Blair and yet the NHS is mired in deficits with patients taking to the streets to prevent the closure of their local hospitals.”

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

March 2007: “Doctors' training system 'a shambles'”
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1544307/Doctors-training-system-a-shambles.html

“As much as £2 billion has been spent on the training of up to 8,000 doctors who find themselves without a new job under a Government initiative.”

'Disastrous' £11.4bn NHS IT programme to be abandoned
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/8780566/Disastrous-11.4bn-NHS-IT-programme-to-be-abandoned.html

”A multi-billion pound IT project started by Labour to link all parts of the NHS is to be abandoned.”

Labour had 13-years, clearly in times of £££ plenty to get the NHS to that state, so ‘we can do better’, as can’t do worse - so why don’t we see what another party can achieve after 10-years?

As on Labour’s NHS and Economic record, combined with a current inability to work with nation wide small, medium and large businesses currently paying our public services and welfare bills – it can easily get a lot worse under Miliband, as the money/borrowing REALLY runs out.

I'm with you OP. I don't understand why anyone would want a Labour government again.

Lest we forget - Not only was Labour in favour of lighter regulation, once George Osbourne was too.

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2940311/Personal-view-We-promise-simpler-taxation-the-right-regulations-and-good-infrastructure.html

The problems with pensions started back in the 1980s when the Conservative Government decided to tax businesses if the company’s pension fund had accrued a surplus of more than 5% over it’s future liabilities.

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/10343130/Who-will-end-this-pension-scandal.html

Factual claims aren’t always what they seem to be. Political parties and the media use statistics selectively making important claims based on research and analysis without making that analysis public. Claims about record numbers are pretty meaningless without knowing the baseline. For example, although manufacturing jobs were lost under the last Labour Government there has been a downwards trend since the 1960s.

Full Facts General Election Report makes available independent analysis from leading research organisations.

fullfact.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/full_fact_general_election_factcheck_2015.pdf

“There’s nothing in any of the parties’ proposals that we think will help the good functioning of the economy” Paul Johnston, Director, IFS

“With significant deficit reduction still to come, households can expect the tax and benefit changes implemented over the next parliament to reduce their incomes, on average” Taxes And Benefits, IFS

www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/publications/bns/BN172_executive_summary.pdf

Economist Paul Krugman says Conservative and the Labour parties are “in effect promising a new round of austerity that might well hold back a recovery” after election.

www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/apr/29/the-austerity-delusion