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

Of course political parties use their facts and statistics selectively. But voting is about personal values and whether the party's values align with your own. My belief is in equality - the poorest in society receiving help from those more able to afford it. Life chances are not equal. If your parents can afford to put you into private education you stand a much higher chance of becoming a chief executive or equivalent leader. This cannot be right and it's not the politics of envy saying this but the politics of fairness. I don't want health care that leaves the most vulnerable people in our society without adequate protection from illness. My vote is about my personal values - we don't all start on a level playing field but we don't just have to accept that. If you look at my lifestyle, what I earn, the area I live in etc I should be one of those saying "I worked hard to get here and I resent my money being spent on benefits for others", but I simply wasn't raised that way. My values are that we are stronger and more effective as a community that takes care of its more vulnerable members. I don't believe that there is no such thing as society, only individuals. This thought depresses me in the extreme. This is why I identify most closely with Labour.

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

Well if you start measuring from Black Wednesday 1992, logic dictates that the economy must grow. Similarly the world economy has improved since the 2008 crash.

If you are going to start a thread with 'lest we forget' you really should include all the details.

There's an interesting article in the Guardian which talks about the endless pursuit of econonic growth using GDP as a benchmark of success, by all major parties. The article argues that it is impossible to achieve infinite growth on a finite planet. It questions the approach that to service this impossible dream we must work relentlessly, often in jobs that deliver no social utility and cause great harm. It questions who in politics is brave enough to propose that we work less and enjoy life more?

OP, you are wasting your time here because MN is mostly a left wing site made up of intelligent people who can see through a carefully chosen statistic.

merrymouse .... I get your point, but look at the title and I'd suggest that Black Wednesday around the early 1990's (the previous UK and European recession to the 2008/9 one) was not Labour's record, it was a Conservative screw up, trying to keep the Pound within the (then) European Monetary System (with Italy Lire) at too high a rate - I believe was called the 'snake'.

Furthermore, your suggestion that 24 ish quarters of continually growth, beating Europe by 1997 is a consequence of 'what goes down, must come up', if true over so long a period, explains why Labour with all the money, stimulus, and jobs in the public sector - was still showing Ballsian 'growf' by May 2010 - only Labour NEVER recovered the near 7% they LOST from 2008 to early 2009.

As to the rest of the world, if the UK was the fastest growing of all major economies in 2014, created more jobs than the whole of Europe in 5-years and the Eurozone STILL has nearly double our unemployed - I guess we are doing something right.

LittleLionMansMummy .... “Values”; as similar mantras when examining political speak, can only be trusted, when the words match the actions of political parties when in power.

Few can deny that in the UK the economic, financial and social situation (and problems) in 1997 were light years better to a Labour Party coming to power for the first time in 18-years (as possibly the best inheritance for several decades), to what they handed back to the Conservative administration in 2010.

So straight way we are not talking level playing fields here, where both of those governments are free to launch their own political agendas, or ‘values’ if you will.

The 1997 Labour Party with an economy already growing and the UK ‘books’ budgeted by the Conservatives to BALANCE by 2001/2, were free to both plan ahead and INCREASE government spending, as they did from £324 billion a year in 1997, to £686 billion by April 2008 – before the worst of the financial crash began.

The Conservative administration came to power in 2010 with the annually accumulating National Debt double at over £1 trillion and an annual budget deficit/overspend of £157 bil a year - a very different financial environment, needing to balance tax cuts to help businesses/consumers/growth and spending cuts to unreformed services for 13-years having money thrown at them.

My point is, look at Labours record in power with money coming out of their yazoo, and then look at what happened in my OP summary to the poorest and most vulnerable in society by 2010; the pensioners, the homeless, the jobless, those in low paid work already seeing their wages fall in ‘real’ terms (with less job security than now), everyone needing secure energy to light their homes – and then I ask you to confirm that Labour’s record shows those “values” to the needy in society that you are looking for?

And the lack of Labour ‘values’ goes on, as nearly 2-years after the crash, 13-years having managed the UK’s ‘books’ did THEY tell you or any other voter HOW they were going to halve that £157 billion annual overspend from 2010 to 2015 with the unbalanced economy they formed by their own policies?

Well through cynical electoral cunning to limit their MP lost, they never, so hardly a level playing field to judge WHAT Labour would have cut, in desperation, as their unbalanced economy stagnated like the rest of Europe as their annual deficit/overspend rocketed.

March 2010; ”Alistair Darling: we will cut deeper than Margaret Thatcher”
www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/mar/25/alistair-darling-cut-deeper-margaret-thatcher

”Alistair Darling admitted tonight that Labour's planned cuts in public spending will be "deeper and tougher" than Margaret Thatcher's in the 1980s, as the country's leading experts on tax and spending warned that Britain faces "two parliaments of pain" to repair the black hole in the state's finances.”

So in ‘values’ or even value for money, WHERE did it all the money go from 2000 to 2008, if it did not get to help the poorest in society?

Look at where employment has increased though - estate agency and part-time jobs.

To be honest you could be making the same argument for labour and I would still tell you it was cherry picking with the benefit of hindsight.

You don't want a government to completely mess things up, but I think most economic factors are beyond their control.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf
Re your rather lame Labour clichés ” the conservatives have a visionary vision of economic growth.” AND ”They are all there to raid the cupboard and sell off the country to their mates”

Again looking at the facts, like a Labour government has never handed back an economy better than the one they inherited since around 1930, we can dismiss their short or long term plans as every being competent.

Next lets look at a few ‘sell offs’ as not always what they seem;
Take Gordon Brown’s brother Andrews appointment to EDF of France in 2005, Blair’s ‘rush for nuclear’ policy in 2005, Brown’s sell of Westinghouse (the UK’s only nuclear reactor builder) in 2006 and then Gordon Brown’s awarding/contracting of our entire nuclear programme to EDF – now that could easily be misunderstood as ‘matey’.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5293459/Who-is-Andrew-Brown-Profile-of-Gordon-Browns-brother-MPs-expenses.html

news.sky.com/story/405200/bnfl-sells-westinghouse-to-toshiba

www.nnl.co.uk/news-media-centre/news-archive/industry-news-edf-to-buy-british-energy.aspx

How about the Royal Mail as it appears the main reason Labour did not sell off any of the Royal Mail, was they didn’t want to ensure the pension rights of the postal workers – via a funding deficit that was getting worse annually, and wasn’t going to go away – and made Royal mails books at best, ‘insolvent’.

(Labour's) Peter Mandelson abandons plan for part-privatisation of Royal Mail
• Business secretary blames poor market conditions
• Trouble looms over £10bn pension deficit
www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/jul/01/royal-mail-mandelson-part-privatisation?guni=Article:in%20body%20link

“As part of the deal, the government had been planning to take on the £10bn pension fund deficit, as well as to change regulation.”

“But now Mandelson has put himself on a collision course with Royal Mail, its pension trustees and unions by refusing to bail out the postal company's estimated pension deficit.”

“The trustees are expected to revise their estimate of the shortfall from the current figure of £3.3bn to at least £10bn in the next few weeks. This would require Royal Mail to more than double its annual payments to plug the deficit, which would bankrupt the company.”

Therefore it was Osborne that by taking over those workers pension rights, as a result made the Royal Mail viable as a going concern.

Finally the Labour type ‘mates’ as told in a few paragraphs by the BBC’s Robert Peston, a sorry tale of a Blair/Brown suck up to Private Equity companies etc and watch for the overlap of those awarded contracts by Labour and the ‘cash for peerages’ malarkey - when the police were called into Downing Street to investigate a Labour Prime Minister. No 'the few' lectures there please.

'Who Runs (Labour's) Britain?' by Robert Peston
www.socialismtoday.org/122/peston.html

Isitme you helpfully cite Robert Peston. For a more balanced, objective analysis of the economy, including that under Thatcher, Google 'Robert Peston: Did Labour over-spend?' His conclusion is slightly less, ahem, conclusive than yours...

merrymouse ... please think and do not believe all Labour recovery 'talk down' propaganda, the net 2 million of new jobs since 2010 is actually a lot more, a lot of 'fat' in Labour's non front line work force has been cut, that rose by around 1 million from 1997 to 2010 - so to say all these jobs are either part time, zero hours or MW disingenuous at best, as those and the figures of those in full time employment, just don't stack up.

Labour had no plan OTHER than to keep adding to public sector jobs, having lost 1 million private sector jobs PAYING for them - if Labour had cut the government fat from 2008 and used the money to stimulate businesses and give tax cuts to help those from 2008 seeing 'real' cuts in pay AS OTHER COUNTRIES DID - the recovery would have come faster, as the Conservative coalition had to start it in 2010.

BrillBrilloPads ... I have been following global markets/economies for decades, and this country will be in deep do-doos from Friday, if a Labour administration - as UK businesses KNOW that Labour will reverse the help they have received (as part of "the few") from the Coalition and will contract based on Labour's manifesto alone.

And those funding our current £1,500,000,000,000 (£1.5 tril) of National Debt have to get the jitter bugs, as our ability to repay that debt, reduces from that day on.

I don't listen to either Labour or Conservative propaganda. I do listen religiously to 'More or Less' on Radio 4.

and this country will be in deep do-doos from Friday, if a Labour administration

Rubbish. We will eventually get some sort of coalition and things will carry on more or less the same.

LittleLionMansMummy ... the question for all economic scribblers deciding whether Labour's spending was excessive depends on several assumptions; like was Labour running a lean government, was welfare/benefits under control, were we paying off debt in the good times, was the private sector growing more than the public sector over 13-years, did the banks explosion of credit to anyone with a pulse sustainable etc etc etc.

The main problem is if economists look at Debt-to-GDP (and looking at what constitutes GDP), any profligate government and businesses/consumers gorging on debt, will BOOST GDP, the problem is it is NOT sustainable.

If you want a 'balanced' comment of Labour's record, I 'd suggest that you read this (below), especially the conclusions.

www.economicshelp.org/blog/5509/economics/government-spending-under-labour/

The FACT remains, the money WAS THERE build infrastructure, homes and a sustainable vibrant private sector to provide future SUSTAINABLE growth and it wasn't spent wisely at all, never mind help the poor.

And the constant tax rises e.g. Council Tax, drained everyone, funny enough other than the most wealthy i.e. 'only' a 40% top tax rate and a Capital Gains Tax low for the likes of private Equity companies, of 10% if held the assets for a few years.

And the constant tax rises e.g. Council Tax, drained everyone

What constant Council Tax rises?

funny enough other than the most wealthy i.e. 'only' a 40% top tax rate

Oh yes, remember when the higher rate of tax was 40%, wasn't that awful! And then to add insult to injury Labour took away child benefit for higher rate tax payers!!! - Oh, hang on...

I'd like to depart for a moment from your obssessive interest of global markets and economies isitme (I am in no doubt that you're an intelligent, articulate person who knows a lot about macro economics) in the hope that I can continue to make my point about parties' respective values. My local Conservative MP has voted as follows, apparently on my behalf:

• Very strongly against equal gay rights
• Very strongly against allowing marriage between two people of the same sex
• Very strongly against laws to promote equality and human rights
• Strongly for use of UK military forces in combat operations overseas (whilst also voting very strongly for an investigation into the Iraq war)
• Very strongly for reducing housing benefit for social tenants deemed to have excess bedrooms
• Very strongly against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices
• Very strongly against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability (a party colleague of his once stated that an elderly disabled person could have beaten him to a fiver if it were lying on the floor)
• Very strongly against spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people
• Strongly against a banker's bonus tax
• Very Strongly against restricting the provision of services to private patients by the NHS
• Very strongly for ending financial support for some 16-19 year olds in training and further education
• Very strongly for university tuition fees
• Has never voted on a transparent parliament
• Moderately against removing hereditary peers
• Strongly against slowing the rise in rail fares
• Very strongly for selling England's state owned forests
• Very strongly for the privatisation of the Royal Mail
• Moderately against financial incentives for low carbon emission electricity generation methods
• Strongly for restricting the scope of legal aid
• Very Strongly against restrictions on fees charged to tenants by letting agents

Now I accept your point that values must be adequately backed by a financial plan. But doesn't this voting record speak volumes about the values his is and is not prepared to support financially? 'Strongly against equal rights; strongly against laws to promote equality and human rights'? He certainly doesn't speak for me. He'll find the money to give bankers their bonuses and to fund overseas wars though.

Merrymouse .... I see you didn't focus on the TRUE "millionaires tax" Capital Gains Tax under Labour, and chose to focus on their little 'the few' trap after 12 years 11 months in power - here is the Council Tax hike under the last Labour administration for a small property - what did inflation (and state pensions) rise by over 13-years?

Council Tax increases Band D from 1997/8 to 2009/10

North East……...£782 to £1,479 an increase of 89%
North West…......£798 to £1,441 an increase of 81%
East Midlands…..£705 to £1,454 an increase of 106%
West Midlands…..£701 to £1,388 an increase of 98%
Yorks/Humber…..£710 to £1,380 an increase of 99%
London………..…£651 to £1,308 an increase of 101%
East of England...£639 to £1,450 an increase of 127%
South East……...£641 to £1,437 an increase of 124%
South West……..£667 to £1,1462 an increase of 119%

merrymouse …. One thing you have to know about me is I look at FACTS, and the UK election uncertainty is already affecting the cost of new government debt (see link below), or roll over costs of old maturing government bonds (known as Gilts) – in an already volatile global interest rate market.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-06/global-bond-selloff-adds-to-pressure-on-gilts-as-election-looms
”In the week of a general election that looks set to produce no clear winner, a global selloff in government bonds was the last thing U.K. bondholders needed.”

”Yields on benchmark 10-year gilts exceeded 2 percent for the first time this year on Wednesday before stabilizing, joining this month’s tumble in bonds from Europe to the U.S. With polls indicating neither Labour nor the Conservatives will win the overall majority of seats they need to govern alone after Thursday’s vote, traders are braced for more volatility.”

“Gilts have handed investors a 1.2 percent loss this year, the worst performance after Greece among 31 sovereign markets tracked by Bloomberg World Bond Indexes.”

If you don’t think a coalition of a Labour Party and their Scottish Brown ‘prudent’ record telling us ‘he’d ended booms and busts’ before giving up the biggest of both – and a Scottish SNP who with the Barnett Formula has never managed an open economy and if Independent, would have been in deep financial trouble by now – you and left wing BBC, are smoking something.

”UK’s jobs boom would not survive a Left-wing war on business”
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/11546792/UKs-jobs-boom-would-not-survive-a-Left-wing-war-on-business.html

”By making the economy less competitive and discouraging firms from spending, job creation, Britain’s greatest economic achievement, would be dealt a devastating blow”

I was paying council tax under labour in Greater London between 1997 and 2010. It didn't rise noticeably at all.

Even looking at your figures and ignoring the effect of inflation, an increase of £800 over 12 years isn't a huge amount - less than £100 a year. Certainly it is very little compared to benefit reductions (including those that affect all tax payers) and taking into account the quid pro quo of higher council tax enabling better council services.

Really, its all a bit meh.

I am assuming you are saying that Labour helped millionaires by keeping capital gains tax low? Maybe they did, maybe they didn't - most people never pay capital gains tax. It is certainly true that successive Conservative and Labour governments have fiddled with capital gains tax rules to incentivise business investment. Entrepreneur's relief was introduced by Labour and continued by the Conservatives.

LittleLionsMansMummy .... an interesting list not taking account Labour's previous abysmal record on most e.g. 5 million needing social homes by 2010, and without the explanations or policies that followed;

So your local Conservative MP seems to be an enlightened soul, who saw Blair monetarising peerages was a mistake, controlling Assad/ISIS in Syria from the air would mean several million less refugees, worked out Royal mail was bankrupt, understands bankers and their bonuses contribute around £80-90 bil to our economy annually and if you screw with private rental markets WITHOUT a plan to build should they sell up - Labour 2010 housing crisis legacy, would get worse etc etc etc.

Hmm - see you can't see find an upside to

"- Very strongly against equal gay rights

• Very strongly against allowing marriage between two people of the same sex"

"who saw Blair monetarising peerages was a mistake"

But full marks for trying on hereditary peers

merrymouse ... I won't answer your last post as factually incorrect on probably all accounts - including Osborne NOT putting Capiital Gains Tax up, which Labour had offered a low of !0% to the wealthy, but left office in 2010 with it at a flat 18% rate - which the Conservative coalition raised the rate to the wealthiest, up to 28%.

FYI more millionaires pay CGT than those that earn a salary that qualifies for a 50p income tax rate, that the IFS has said by raising it (together with non doms tax) is likely to COST the Exchequer rather than raise money.

So take another class driven red meat attack on Hedge Funds, Miliband dishonestly said Osborne lowered taxes for recently - if they and the non doms sod off, and those earning big money and stay legally protect it via tax planning - Labour inheriting a £87 bil deficit, will be DOWN £££several billion fairly quickly, needing more spending cuts or tax RISES to the rest of us, IF they ever really plan to balance our UK books.

merrymouse .... on a few hundred year rule 'it it ain't broke, don't fix it', Labour's 'heredity peers' cull,'change', whatever assumed that they were going to replace them with an 'upgrade' that somehow rose above party politics e.g. Labour's attempt to get 90-day lock ups without trial, when the police had not asked for it, the Lords refused.

Here below is a paragraph from Peston article mentioned above, as reflects Labour type 'changes' to parliament;

"This was how the cash for honours scandal unfolded because it was alleged that some donors were promised seats in the House of Lords in return for these ‘loans’. Sir Gulum Noon had previously donated money and had been knighted in 2002. He lent £250,000 in 2005. Noon had been consulted by Blair in 1997 over the implementation of the European working time directive. Noon argued that the limit on working hours would damage his ready-made meals business."

Which along with the Expenses Scandal on their watch - where those 'gatekeepers' controlling them were run over, and the Labour Speaker of the House promoting expenses abuse (Mick Martin) was both asked to step down (the first since god knows when) and got a nice title for his 'services' - shows Labour's contempt of parliament is pretty clear.

merrymouse .... re your following;
"Hmm - see you can't see find an upside to"

"- Very strongly against equal gay rights
- Very strongly against allowing marriage between two people of the same sex.

Not the way I personally swing, but didn't Cameron insist those policies went through, and taking a huge hit with many Conservatives tearing up their Memberships along the way, as HE believed it was right?

No one has to agree with everything a local MP votes on, as long as they have the leadership and policies to get the big (and sometimes smaller in affect to all) decisions right.