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Is Britain a better place since 1997?
- Thread starter Barrel of Fun
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Barrel of Fun
Abort, retry, fail
- Thread starter
- #162
Not if people have voted on personal circumstances, then there is no right ot wrong.
Gully
Monkey in a seagull suit.
Quite right, as it turns out I voted Labour at the last election, not becuase I am a supporter of theirs but because I believe that the local MP is doing a good job and that he was a far better alternative than the Tory. I know that it isn't just about local issues but in a two horse race is was easy to decide which one to back, none of the other parties even get a look in.
Gully
Monkey in a seagull suit.
Not quite algie, I am not a Labour supporter, I just voted for them because there was no other palatable alternative. That is not to say that I don't agree with some of their aims or policies but that I would rather boil my head than vote Tory.
I think most of Britain wanted a change after the awful rule of the Tories,myself included.Now i've had a taste of labour rule i can safely say i will never vote or back them again in my life.
Gully
Monkey in a seagull suit.
I think it largely depends on what you grew up with, I was at school when the Tories came to power in 79, can remember that but not much of what went before it. As a result I developed a loathing of the Tories, particularly the fact that where I grew up in rural West Sussex they could put a monkey with a blue scarf up for election and the blue rinse set would vote it in. I know that the Labour party were making a right mess of things before Thatcher came to power, but as I say I was too young to really remember. I guess now we have a generation who would never vote Labour because they disagree with the way that the country has been run in the last ten years...all things are relative, life and politics tend to go in circles anyway.
Superphil
Dismember
There's an odd one really, I too grew up in rural West Sussex and always had a loathing of the Labour Party and everything I thought it stood for, and to this day I have yet to find any reason to change my mind. I guess as someone said previously, if personal circumstances are involved, there is no right or wrong.
I had my problems with the Tories, but I couldn't imagine anyone else doing it better, and in my opinion I was proved right.
As a tax paying, hard working, home owning, pension paying, NI paying 40 something, I am so much worse off than I was under the Tories. But I am a humanitarian, and if under Labour the poorer, less well off citizens of this country, and those living in deprived areas are better off, then I am delighted. If that was due to the Labour Party, then great, they did something right. But it is far outweighed by the tax increases, poorer public services etc that effect my life.
Sadly, I would struggle to raise a decent flow if a Labour MP was on fire. No-one thought that a political party could be more sleazy, more spun, more self effacing than the last Tory party, and we were wrong.
The current political situation is now so dire that a (ex)friend of mine has joined the BNP, now votes for them and is going to stand for them in the next elections. I have made it clear to him that I want nothing more to do with him, but he has explained his reasons, and it is the fault of successive governments that people like him, normally mild mannered, easy going, a piller of the local society once (Lions Club, Rotary Chairman etc) are taking such drastic steps.
I can't begin to think who I want as an alternative to Labour and Brown, but the behaviour of these politicians is not only turning off the younger members of society, but also the older ones too. It's a sad situation, and until Labour are out of government we are not going to see an improvement. I thought the coalitian Brown was considering with Ashdown could have been a step in the right direction, I guess Ashdown didn't see it that way.
looney
Banned
- Jul 7, 2003
- 15,652
Difficult question to answer, a lot of labour policies are like time bombs. Likley to go off in the future not now.
Scottish Independance, are battle to free ourselves from the EU, Gordon "Robert Maxwell" Brown stealing the pension funds, mass immigration,I could go on.
All will have consequences for different reasons and at different times in the future.
Scottish Independance, are battle to free ourselves from the EU, Gordon "Robert Maxwell" Brown stealing the pension funds, mass immigration,I could go on.
All will have consequences for different reasons and at different times in the future.
I believe that a society gets the politicians it deserves. And I certainly believe that today's Labour 'sleaze' is incomparable to that of the Tories in the 90s, which was much worse.
Whatever the situation is though, I can't see how joining the BNP is a an understandable action.
Freddie Goodwin.
Well-known member
Always nice to see when comments you make stimulate debate. The heading was 'Is britain a better place....since 1997' and does not include 'under a Labour government.
The technology & development in the last 10 years would have taken place whatever government. As yorkie poninted out, it's a bit of a double edged sword in that luxuary goods are now cheap and it's the essentials in life that cost so much.
Yes, i am old enough to remember life before 1997. I'm not a 'political' person in that I don't hold with either left or right being totally right or wrong.
I remember the late 60's where strikes were the order of the day and Unions held great power. i remember Thatchers time when she smashed the Unions and British Industry became a thing of the past. I've suffered 4 redundancies and saw the demise of industry in Brighton. Crowhurst road in hollingbury was once home to thousands of jobs.
Overall I stand by the life being better now than it was 10 years ago....but still a long way from perfect.
The technology & development in the last 10 years would have taken place whatever government. As yorkie poninted out, it's a bit of a double edged sword in that luxuary goods are now cheap and it's the essentials in life that cost so much.
Yes, i am old enough to remember life before 1997. I'm not a 'political' person in that I don't hold with either left or right being totally right or wrong.
I remember the late 60's where strikes were the order of the day and Unions held great power. i remember Thatchers time when she smashed the Unions and British Industry became a thing of the past. I've suffered 4 redundancies and saw the demise of industry in Brighton. Crowhurst road in hollingbury was once home to thousands of jobs.
Overall I stand by the life being better now than it was 10 years ago....but still a long way from perfect.
Superphil
Dismember
Whatever the situation is though, I can't see how joining the BNP is a an understandable action.
I agree totally, but in this instance it has happened, which is really sad.
And you can't ban me for simply telling what has happened!
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FFS. We've been here before. Like I say, I'm not a Labour or Blair supporter per se, but I'm not as entirely anti-them as many on the board. Maybe it'll get across better if I pose my reply as a question:
Can you name a single Conservative Prime Minister (not Tony Blair
), who would introduce a National Minimum Wage, a Human Rights Bill, a Freedom of Information Bill, and make it illegal to descriminate against homosexuals in any way? Please, who?Quite simply - the Conservative party would not have introduced any of those policies. Blair talks very right wing when it comes to law & order etc, but when it comes down to it, he's actually given us some quite left-wing policies.
And just so this has some relevance to the title, as I said before, I think each of those has made this country better. Please pick out which ones have made it worse if you disagree.
Gully
Monkey in a seagull suit.
I would agree with that sentiment, whilst I don't wholeheartedly support Labour there have been many bills passed that I have agreed to, add to your list gay partnerships and handing over the right to set interest rates to the Bank of England. The former was a loophole that needed closing, particularly where pensions, estates and the rights as legal next of kin were concerned...and in the case of the latter, who would want another Tory chancellor like Norman Lament setting interest rates, not me!
No idea how that got in there! Fat fingers obviously!
Superphil
Dismember
The question isn't are YOU better off, it's whether Britain is. As you know, seeing as you wrote it
ROSM
Well-known member
Introduction of the minimum wage and billions pumped into the neglected rail network are good things that would never have happened under the Tories. Britain's less arrogant and greed-based. and Labour's heart is in the right place. Of course the Iraq war is 'the elephant in the room' - but the blame for that is down 90% to B.Liar and his spin doctors, the other 10% being down to the serving Labour MPs who let him push the illegal and immoral invasion through parliament.
Still, an honest man's about to take over. Really expecting Gordon Brown to do great things, or at least do things that are for the moral greater good. Could start with giving the venture capitalists and the buy-to-let fast buck merchants a good kicking IMHO
cant disagree with any of this - the health service was like an oil tanker that has been turned round - okay it's still not as good as when it was set up but it was heading for the rocks and that has been averted.
As for Iraq - I think he would have been dammed if he hadn't gone to war and dammed that he did. The dodgy dossier is the worst part of it all. But dont think for one minute that under the tories, we wouldn't have joined the USofA on the War against Terror.
British Bulldog
The great escape
- Feb 6, 2006
- 10,974
Are there any figures on the waiting time to see a consultant in the first place? From a personal point of view I think the waiting time has increased, As I pointed out to my doctor the other day i've now been waiting over a year for an appointment I was told I would get within 6 months. And on the subject of the NHS where have all the NHS dentists gone over the last 10 years? It's nearly impossible for a person to find a dentist that will treat patients on the NHS these days.
Brighton Breezy
New member
Of course it is.