The overtaxed middle starting to get seriously narked...

GeorgeHowell

BobQ wrote: »

To me Blair did a reasonable job. I am not one of those with hindsight who slate him for Iraq. He had to make a decision and he did, it was the right decision (IMO) at the time he made it but not with hindsight. When Blair left office I felt we had repaired the divisiveness,greed and selfishness of Thatcher to a degree and that educational opportunity and effective healthcare services were largely being restored. Blair and Brown did some things I did not like but I think they were more right than wrong.

But you are right that many on the left still fear her "second coming". Personally I would be content with a permanent moderate coalition government elected by PR. But now that the Lib Dems have imploded its difficult to see how this will ever be achieved.

A fair exposition of that point of view. My assessment of Blair/Brown's main debits and credits is as follows (in no particular order) :-

Debits
Selling off the UK's gold at a knock-down price
Raiding private pension schemes, thus perpetrating their demise
Conning us over the rationale for the Iraq war
Implementing the Human Rights Act
Permitting, if not encouraging, health & safety lunacy
Politicising the BBC and the police (especially the Met)
Engendering a culture of welfare dependency among the underclass
Losing control of public finances and national debt
Light touch, tripartite regulation of the financial sector
Removing price regulation of utilities
Entering into Private finance initiatives where the private sector can't lose and the taxpayer can't win
Sucking up to the EU and giving away half the UK rebate for nothing in return
Conducting a foreign policy based largely on obeisance to the USA
Breaking the promise of a Lisbon Treaty referendum
Accelerating the dumbing-down of state education
Prioritising 'management' over healthcare in the NHS
Failing to honour the commitment to revitalise the UK manufacturing sector
Ensuring that the interests of criminals were prioritised over those of victims
Failing to implement a long term energy security strategy
Signing up the European Arrest Warrant agreement without adequate safeguards for UK citizens -- likewise the US extradition treaty
Greatly increasing the number going through higher education without having any idea how to pay for it

Credits
The smoking ban
The civil partnerships act (*)
Actively supporting the London 2012 bid

(*) for the benefit of any homophobes (or -philes) I have no vested interest but consider it the right and fair thing to do

kabayiri

Thrugelmir wrote: »

A concentration of very specific industries. That are grouped for good reason. Expertise.

So not a failure of Government.

I work for some of these specific industries.

I live in the NW but often take work down in London or the S.E.

I am contributing therefore to their profitability by providing the skills they need.

Whilst I am there I also contribute to the local economy by purchasing subsistence needs like accomodation.

Mr McKenzie seems to think that I'm automatically a sponger just because I don't live in the rich counties.

My argument is that he is a simpleton

pqrdef

Thrugelmir wrote: »

A concentration of very specific industries. That are grouped for good reason. Expertise.

Also, the bluffers stick together so nobody finds out they're all bluffers.

grizzly1911

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

grizzly1911 wrote: »

And there was me thinking that you were one of those who is above the playground-type, "No, you are too !" style of debate.

By the way most people supported the Falklands War, whereas most didn't support the Iraq one, especially when they found out we were sold a pup to justify it.

We did support the Falklands but the point is we shouldn't have had to go in the first place. I agree that we should never have gone into Iraq or Afghanistan. I happen to agree with many points you make on these threads..

No party is without blame in presiding over the demise of this nation. Trying to paint one as knight in shining armour is disingenuous.

GeorgeHowell

grizzly1911 wrote: »

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

We did support the Falklands but the point is we shouldn't have had to go in the first place. I agree that we should never have gone into Iraq or Afghanistan. I happen to agree with many points you make on these threads..

No party is without blame in presiding over the demise of this nation. Trying to paint one as knight in shining armour is disingenuous.

I would not disagree with that last paragraph -- we are very poorly governed country indeed. But that's not what I aim to do -- a lot gets distorted in the perception on the internet. In this country most sensible people vote for the least worst option as they see it. Given the track record of each party over my political lifetime one comes out as a substantially less worse option than the other. In my experience the majority of people who vote one way are voting with their heads, living in the real world. Whereas those voting the other way tend to vote with their hearts, living in the world as they would like it to be.

But I can't sit back and let all this ludicrous propaganda to the effect that everything was hunky dory up to May 2010, and then the coalition came in and ruined it all go unchallenged.

grizzly1911

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

I would not disagree with that last paragraph -- we are very poorly governed country indeed. But that's not what I aim to do -- a lot gets distorted in the perception on the internet. In this country most sensible people vote for the least worst option as they see it. Given the track record of each party over my political lifetime one comes out as a substantially less worse option than the other. In my experience the majority of people who vote one way are voting with their heads, living in the real world. Whereas those voting the other way tend to vote with their hearts, living in the world as they would like it to be.

But I can't sit back and let all this ludicrous propaganda to the effect that everything was hunky dory up to May 2010, and then the coalition came in and ruined it all go unchallenged.

I think their is a balance to be had between the two paths which we never seem to get. It becomes more distorted when parties have long runs at it, because they lose their way. The pendulum swings too far each time.

I think coastline posted a link that suggested George O was looking to meet all/most of Labour spending pledges back in 2007. Had Labour not been in power I doubt another administration would not have ridden that wave much differently. Conservatives starve elements of the public sector and Labour over feed them.

The GFC but would have derailed the Conservatives too. Perhaps they would have handled immigration and the EU a little differently but it is largely out of any of their control. The only reason they are being looked at now is because of public opinion.

The underlying weaknesses in our economy have, would and will continue to be left unresolved.

Zero_Sum

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

A fair exposition of that point of view. My assessment of Blair/Brown's main debits and credits is as follows (in no particular order) :-

Debits
Selling off the UK's gold at a knock-down price

The gold was sold at the market value of the time.

CLAPTON

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

A fair exposition of that point of view. My assessment of Blair/Brown's main debits and credits is as follows (in no particular order) :-

Red are comments on 1980-1997 years
Equally meaningless of course but just as fair minded.

Debits
Selling off the UK's gold at a knock-down price
Selling off North Sea oil and gas at knock-down prices


Raiding private pension schemes, thus perpetrating their demise
Raiding final salary schemes by stopping employer contributions to gather more tax so perpetuating their demise

Deregulating pensions and causing massive mis-selling
Creating an entire financial industry dedicated to cheating and stealing

Conning us over the rationale for the Iraq war
Causing the Falklands war by running down UK navy and withdrawing the support ships

Implementing the Human Rights Act

Permitting, if not encouraging, health & safety lunacy
Massively increased H&S legislation in the 80s and 90s

Politicising the BBC and the police (especially the Met)

Engendering a culture of welfare dependency among the underclass
Increased unemployment from 1 million to 3 million

Losing control of public finances and national debt
Government debt in 1997 was about the same as 2007 just before the financial meltdown

Light touch, tripartite regulation of the financial sector
Degegulation of the financial services and introducing no-touch regulation

Removing price regulation of utilities
Privatising utilities

Entering into Private finance initiatives where the private sector can't lose and the taxpayer can't win
Inventing PFI to create massive profits for their mates

Sucking up to the EU and giving away half the UK rebate for nothing in return
Implementinmg massive amounts of EU legislation

Conducting a foreign policy based largely on obeisance to the USA
Not notably against US foreign policy

Breaking the promise of a Lisbon Treaty referendum
The current lot haven't kept their promises either

Accelerating the dumbing-down of state education
Smashing the O/Ls and introducing the meaningles GCSEs

Converting polys etc to third rate Unis

Prioritising 'management' over healthcare in the NHS
Running down the NHS and creating massive waiting times

Failing to honour the commitment to revitalise the UK manufacturing sector
Destroying the manufacturing industry by the selling off oil and gas and creating a high exchange rate that devastated UK manufacturing exports

Ensuring that the interests of criminals were prioritised over those of victims
Were the criminals

Failing to implement a long term energy security strategy
Energy strategy was to pump North Sea oil and gas as quickly as possible to disguise their disasterous economic policies and pay for 3 million unemployed.

Signing up the European Arrest Warrant agreement without adequate safeguards for UK citizens -- likewise the US extradition treaty
Greatly increasing the number going through higher education without having any idea how to pay for it
Created the third rate UNIs and abandoned engineering education

Credits
The smoking ban
The civil partnerships act (*)
Actively supporting the London 2012 bid

(*) for the benefit of any homophobes (or -philes) I have no vested interest but consider it the right and fair thing to do

a little light relief

Fella

Zero_Sum wrote: »

The gold was sold at the market value of the time.

No actually Gordon Brown, against all convention & common-sense, announced the sale well in advance, sending the spot price of gold down to a 20-year-low. He also chose to sell by auction, ensuring the sale raised even less.

As well as being a deeply unpleasant control-freak he was a moron. He simply surrounded himself with people too scared to point that out.

Moby

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

It is fairly typical of Labour supporter thinking in my experience.

Margaret Thatcher still causes them great trauma, as a right wing person who won over the country for a decade. They are terrified of someone else like that coming along.

Blair is still a closet hero to many, if not most of them, because he kept them in government for so long, and they can thus forgive almost any of his many misdemeanours (don't mention the Iraq war). Labour politics is very tribal and being in office for its own sake is what drives them. They can't conceive that the worst Labour government could fail to be infinitely better than the best Conservative one.

Ah............. excuse me I seem to remember the Tories voted with him re. the Iraq war! The opposition came from the Lib Dems and Labour left!
Blair is tainted by Iraq but take that away and his record was very good....relatively!