Are labour so bad or is it just Blair?

Question

Should we forget the conservatives took us into Europe, Created long term mass employment (8 million +), squandered the majority of North sea oil revenue, Privatised every industry they could including British rail to finance their term in power, and desolated most of the other industries including coal production and steelwork to name but two. Introduced Poll Tax avolving to council tax. Introduced the CSA .
I don't like Tony Blair in the least, I would like to see him stand trial for the illegal war he sanctioned. However interest rates have stayed low, not as low as they would believe, there isn't 8 million unemployed.

Thanks to all for the responses. There was intention to show bias towards the labour party. Their issues are all current and out there for all to see. However many have forgotton the shortfalls of the consevatives, which is why I selected a few issues.
The 8 million (and it was 8 mllion) unemployed I mention was kept this low by removing 16 and 17 year olds from the figures and introducing slave labour...sorry YTS.
Much of what has been identified is the result of changing policies and successive governments redressing the balance in favour of their supporters which I suppose is how politics works I only wish those in power would set aside their own personal agendas and do what is right for the country. It would be also be nice if the rest of the voting public would take as much of an interest in our political future as those who have taken the time to answer.

Answer 1

And the labour party under the leadership of Mr.Blair continues with the same policies. The only difference this time is that we have a socialist government who does not believe in any socialist policy.

Answer 2

you have almost zero facts in your waffle, and yes labour is just as bad. After all, every labour cabinet has supinely and utterly cravenly backed every illegal, immoral, incompetent and corrupt policy that he has thrust upon the underserving british public, the majority of which never supported Blair. He only got 22% of the electorate to support him at the last election.

Conservatives did take us into Europe, but labour has submitted to the EU totally. and to the USA. ANyone bit the british people in fact. Brown cannot find the money for more jails to accommodate the rises in crime, yet has promised 8 Billion to fund African Schools!

mass employment of 8 million+??? do you mean unemployment? because it was not at 8 million, unless you are counting all the economically inactive people. In which case, unemployment is even higher today. The labour spin machine counts so many different ways of being economically inactive, so that the real unemplyoyed get lost in the statistics. The Tories used to do this too, but not anywhere near to the extent that labour do.

Squandered the majority of North Sea Oil??? they invested it in the Industry and an economic revival that new labour now falsely takes credit for. and according to the latest surveys North Sea Oil will last another 30 years.

Privatisation? ineficient publicly owned monoliths where sold to the public and became more efficient. and provided much better service at reduced cost. Now Labour privatisation means Blair selling things off dirt cheap to his cronies. They have removed the teeth of regulators now so that Offgas and Offwat etc are utterly ineffective now., but do you think that BT is worse now than when it was run by the PO?

More coal miners have been laid off under labour Governments than Tory ones.

I'll give you the poll tax, but at least that was cheaper than the curent council tax, that has been increased by 200% since labour came to power.

Blairs illegal war? I gree with you totally there, he should be tar and feathered too.

Interest rates remained low in spite of the Government not because of it. In fact as soon as Gordon Brown became chancelor he let the Bank of England run the economy, handle the improtant decisions on the value of our curency through the interest rates. ALL Brown has done for the last almost 10 years is tax the profit of UK PLC and badly waste the revenue. Taxes have gone through the roof and public services have got MUCH worse.

In the late '80's you could get a doctor to come out and visit you at home, or get an appointment within a couple of days, or book an advanced routine appointment for any date you like. Hospitals were cleaner than now, with much less MRSA, You could go to college and get a meaningfull and worthwhile degree and not leave with thousands of pounds of debt. Transport was better, defence was better, the home office was better, the streets were safer, gun crime lower. The government treat terrorists as criminals, criminals as criminals and the general public as innocent free people with a mind of their own.

Things where better under the tories.

Answer 3

No, sorry Labour are awful. Blair is only their leader – things won’t get better with Brown. I'm non-political as they’re all awful, but lets get things into perspective.

Firstly a critique of what you said about the Tories:

“The conservatives took us into Europe” – Yeah - in 1973 from which we have benefited economically, like it or not. Look at our top export partners: America 15.1%, Germany 10.5%, France 8.9%, Ireland 7.3%, Netherlands 5.5%, Belgium 5%, Spain 4.4%. not sure if Labour are planning on withdrawing from the EU anytime soon, though.

“Created long term mass employment (8 million +)”: I think you mean 8 percent not 8 million? Nevertheless the high unemployment was because the old heavy manufacturing industries were being propped up - soviet-style - and massively unprofitable. They would have gone bankrupt eventually. Its was a painful transition but needed to be done eventually.

“squandered the majority of North sea oil revenue”: True, they used it to fund tax cuts, which let inflation rise. Stupid.

“Privatised every industry they could including British rail to finance their term in power”:
Do you *remember* British Telecom before privatisation? 6 months to get a phone installed. It also wasn’t to finance their time in power, it was to reduce the hundreds of millions of pounds of deficit created by the failure of the previous Labour administration’s economic policies. Am I the only on who remembers the UK going cap in hand to the IMF in 1976 to prevent the economy collapsing? I also note that Labour carried on privatising (including finishing off the rail privatisation) and has had significantly less success than the Tories record – London Underground, anyone? The CAA?

“Introduced Poll Tax evolving to council tax”: Council tax is no worse or better than the old-style rates and the Poll Tax was Thatcher’s personal mission – she had gone slightly mad at the point. They needed booting out by this point (even though they carried on until 1997) but now its time for Labour to get booted out. Why?

Education: Education for all! We are all entitled to a university education. Sound great, eh? Well, as long as you can afford tuition fees. Labour also scrapped the grants at the same time. Nice, eh? £3,000 per year, set to go a lot higher when caps are removed. Oh its OK, you only have to pay it back once you start working, but I for one would not have gone to university if I’d known I was gonna have 30 grand to pay back at the end. Degrees are hardly worth the paper they’re written on now anyway.

Health service: Billions of £££ poured in! Great! Except the obsession with targets has been a failure and wasted millions. MRSA infection is the highest in Europe and consultants roam the corridors, closing A&E departments. Still, they did say 2006 was the "best year ever" for the Health Service, so its all OK, then.

A few other great Labour things which spring to mind:
>ID cards – yeah, they’ll stop terrorism, for sure.
>Iraq War – illegal or not, £2 billion pounds cost and rising.
>Cash for peerages scandal
>Numerous Home Office disasters (criminal immigrants slipping though the net (etc etc)
>Disgraced ministers refusing to resign and/or returning after 6 months (Byers, Blunkett, Mandelson, Clarke & Prescott to name a few)
>Browns 'economic miracle' which is riding high on a self-created house price bubble which will eventually burst.

Nope, sorry you’re not gonna tell me the Tories could do any worse than Labour. Not that I'd vote Tory, obviously. That would be crazy.

Answer 4

Oh what a fool you are, Labour is always bad news look at theAttlee/ wilson/callaghan years, strikes strikes and more strikes,the ruination of the motor industry, SCARGILL! THE VERY NAME MAKES ME SHUDDER,red robbo, then the winter of discontent, terrible power cuts,bodies unburied, rubbish uncollected for weeks,rats everywhere. I was looking after 30 patients with a kelly lamp in one hand. The reason for 8 million unemployed was that because of labours policy of nationalisation every industry was massively overmanned, so maggie had to cut the dead wood out and as a result instead of "the sick man of europe" we became prosperous again, leaving the legacy that gordon brown revels in and is now squandering.

Answer 5

You seem to slag the tories off and name a few of what you believe to be bad policies. I will now list a few New Labour Policies. I have used this to previously answer a question, but I think it illustrates a point of why Labour and TB are so poor.

1. Council Tax - don't even bring up the Poll Tax - I amongst many others would be paying far less with the Poll tax, and now the council want to walk around my house and see if I have a conservatory and loft conversion to see if I am eligible to pay for more.
2. Tax by Stealth - Gordon Brown has introduced over 50 taxes (very quietly).
3. War monger Blair - he has sent troops to Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afganistan and Iraq, spent Billions on War which nobody felt would benefit this country, yet let Mugabe get away with Murder. Yet while he sends the Troops away, he does not equip them properly.
4. Millions marched against the war, and even more marched against the hunting act - he ignores his voters and refuses to compromise.
5.The NHS - despite the fact that billions have been invested in the NHS, we now face redundancies and ward closures, which to be fair we did under the tories. So if we are facing redundacies and closures where has this money gone? Squandered the lot of it, on worthless image consultants, computers and yet more managers. What a waste of money - your money, my money! The NHS spent over £250 000 on their Christmas do at the weekend. Thats money well spent in my book, especially when they are closing wards and making staff redundant.
6.Education - Instaed of raising the standards they have instead lowered them and then claimed that the state of the Education system is better because more people are passing. What a load of crap. he also makes students pay for their education (which they never did under the Tories) now leaving students thousands in debt when they leave Uni. Well done Labour. Milk snatcher Thatcher. Alot of you people have selective memories. MIlk from kids or leaving millions of students thousands in debt. I would choose milk form kids any day.
7.Scandels - Cash for Peerages, Cash for Passports, Questions for Cash, Mandelson, Two Jags, Livingstone, Ministers looking for gay sex on Clapham common, Tessa Jowell, it goes on and on. Again the Tories do it and then Labour take it off the scale.
8. Business. More Red Tape, more minimum wages. More people are going out of business since the global recession of the 80's.
9. Asylum and Immigration - I konw lets let in anyone, regardless of who they are, whether they have criminal records or not, whether they are NHS tourists and have diseases such as Hepititas, Aids etc..., jobs, housing. Lets not worry whether we have enough housing for them, or infrastructure and how much it is going to pay Mr and Mrs Taxpayer. Forget the 'lets travel to the nearsest country to claim asylum', lets get some organised crime syndicate to exploit us and get us to the U.K.
10. More stabbings, gun crime, re offenders released early to reoffend, lets not even put burglers and drug dealers inside, because they have had an oppressed child hood and deserve a hug. While we are at it, the drug addicts who are in prison - lets give them £2 or £3k because they have had a hard time doing cold turkey.
11.Multi Cultralism- I am not even going there.
12. British born terroists. Speaks for itself.
13.Human rights, lets give those who commit crimes as much rights as those who have been victims of crime.
14. The police. Spend millions on more officers, who get more and more paper work. ASBO's - don't work - these are now a status symbol. What a waste of resouces and money setting them up.
15.George Bush, well done Tony, keeping following him.
16.Big Brother.
17.Broken the family unit up, leaving kids with no respect for elders and each other. Education starts at home.
18. Sold Britian down the river to Europe.
19.Welfare no work. Work harder those on benefits depend on you!!!
20. Civil Servents earning thousands in pensions which are paid for by the public and now the public cannot afford private
pensions because they are paying for the civil servants.
21. Political Correctness.
22. Spent billions on image consultants and quango's to help British services run better and gets zero results. Can you imagine if The rail and gas and electric services were still run by the Government, we would be paying twice as much now. Thank goodness the poorly run services were sold to try and put some competitiveness back into them

Some good answers from others.

Answer 6

I think New Labour IS Blairism, Blair goes and we'll get Brownism just as we had Thatcherism. I agree with your comments regarding the last Conservative government but feel that times have rolled on and any new Tory government would be far removed from Thatcherism. Incidentally, I'm beginning to think Blair has turned completely into Thatcher - his inability to accept his party want him to quit is very reminiscent of Mrs T.

Answer 7

Labour has never been good in Government. It serves the county better by being an effective opposition which it always has been. The Tories are useless in opposition and always have been, except perhaps under Margaret Thatcher.

Answer 8

Both as bad as it each other. Do you really think that after 10 years of taxing the middle income earners for everything he can whilst making the Labour supporters and those on the dole richer he will make everyone rich when he becomes 'PM'. I dread the day that happens, I really do!

Answer 9

Yes they are bad. They have all become morally void in the pursuit of their own agendas. They are like spots and you just want to squeeze the rotten puss out of them.

Answer 10

blairs not bad, neither are labour or conservative for that matter. whenever anyone is in power they do things we dont all agree with, they are just tryin to run a country...