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My disappointment with the Labour party is not that they have done irreparable damage to the country, but that they have done nothing to repair the damage done by the previous government and in some cases have worsened it.
Voted Labour in 97 with (it turns out) unrealistic optimism, voted Labour in 01 slightly grudgingly and more in response to the Tories shoddy attempt to harness the Alf Garnett vote. Will not vote Labour again until Blair is gone and probably not even then.
That said, it is a British trait to be continually predicting the end of civilisation as we know it. Blair’s government has been dismal, disappointing and in terms of foreign policy, disastrous. But though I take the point about the BNP/UKIP, I still think both those parties have massive credibility problems to overcome with the British people. At various times a right wing/fascist breakthrough has been predicted but it hasn’t happened
Quote: have worsened it.
At various times a right wing/fascist breakthrough has been predicted but it hasn’t happened
<br>Pretty close, with Maggie, don’t you think?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highwaysThere were certainly elements in the Thatcher conservative party that could have happily supported the BNP. But the party as a whole was centre-right.
Don’t you think that is a part of the problem though Aranalde, all of the Far Right parties are in fact socialist philosophically and therefore their support is more likely to come from Labour supporters than Tories. If think thats why a lot of Labour voters supported Thatcher and we see Labour/Conservative swings as being the most important, in terms of outcomes at elections.
For me politics is not about left and right, but more to do with Centre (Pro-centralisation .. Pro-Euro .. Pro-Big Business) and Not Centre (Pro-Free Market). This Labour government is much too centralised for me .. I see no-one has mentioned the Euro for ages.
<br> :biggrin:
Don’t really agree that the Far Right parties are socialist in their philosophy. There is a point where the extremes of the left and right meet in that they both end up requiring essentially a one-party state. But democratic socialism and its long tradition is on the centre left, where the Labour party used to be, the party of trades unions and working people. The centre-right Conservatives historically picked up the vote of those working class people who thought that by voting Tory, that in itself would elevate them above their peers, as well as the workers for whom the Tory party represented King and country.
I would agree that the left/right split isn’t quite adequate to describe the political spectrum. Not quite sure I’d go along with the Centralising/Non-centralising split, but its certainly an interesting one. The problem with centralising is that the more a government tries to do, the more power it tends to gather to itself. The Thatcher adminstration was just the same, particularly over local government.
Your point about Big Business being on the opposite side to the free market had me thinking. I have always felt that the whole idea of the market was flawed. I think you may be on to something there – the idea of a free market is great when you are setting up a business, but as soon as you get established and reach any sort of size, you are looking either to get protection against market forces from the government (manufacturing industry) or to grow so huge that you crush all opposition (Tesco) and create a virtual monopoly.
Thatcherism was a remarkably successful (politically) fusion of radical free market economics and old fashioned Victorian social values. I think, and this is purely a personal view, that Thatcher believed that if you let people make and keep more of their own money, they would wisely save it and perhaps invest it in philanthropic ventures or civic projects, as the Victorian middle-class did. Instead, what most people did was spend it, leading to rampant inflation. But they couldn’t just spend it and enjoy it, they tended to spend it whilst lecturing the rest of the country on the virtue of hard work and moral fibre.
Blair and New Labour made much mileage out of criticising the excesses and mistakes of the Thatcher era, rightly, and then promptly proceeded to absolutely bugger all about addressing them. Consequently we have a country wandering through a post-Thatcher twilight zone.
If I had to pick two things to blame Blair for it would be these:
1. His foreign policy. An early and commendable desire to get personally involved to solve what he thought were important issues (Northern Ireland, Kosova) gave way to a ego-led foreign policy in which the Foreign Office and their decades of experience are permanently ignored. Blair has, over Iraq and the Middle East seemed to take a delight in dismantling his party’s traditional suspicion of Republican Americans and to revel in a fantasy in which he alone can bring America and Europe together. I suspect that because he has no ideology and no political principles, he is always seeking to recapture the sense of purpose that transgressing tradition gives him. Cosying up to George Bush is in the same line as behaviour as abolishing Clause 4. Except this time thousands of people are dead because of it.
2. Public Services. From transport to the health service, Blair has accelerated the privatisation. The problem is that you can’t really create a market in health care or benefit provision. You have to set up a ‘pretend’ market in which everyone pretends that they are running businesses and which takes thousands of managers to run and maintain. The whole concept of ‘public service’ has been trashed by two successive governments. The public sector is now awash with management speak, business jargon and pretend markets. Meanwhile billions of pounds is diverted from the public sector to the private sector in the form of PFI, consultancy fees and dodgy IT contracts. I could tell some stories here but I’ve gone on long enough. Private Eye keep a good track on some of these goings on.
Anyway, enough of that.
Anyone who thinks that this country is in a good position wants their head testing.<br>We manufacture hardly anything, it doesn’t pay people to employ or work, you can’t get anything done for bureacray and call centre Borg mentality;we are relying on eastern european labour even in racing (not knocking it…glad they are here); the streets are not safe to walk; we have a binge drink culture which has even poisoned racecourses; one in three people is employed in public services therefore do not contibute a penny to thGDP, and our economic strenghth is based on a financial system that is ripping people off left right and centre and stifling real enterprise. It is no good if interest rates are low but every business waiting for money is being charged 29% interest by their banks; that and consumer debt with high interest rates is al that is proppng the country up<br>If it means most of the businesses; particularly rural ones, are treading water and the leeches of financial services are living off their backs. I am not  talking about loan companies; they have been salvation for many people consolidating; I am  talking about high street banks etc
The national Health Service is in a state and education is abysmal. I was a teacher; believe me I know.
But worse of all is what new labour have done to  countryside. They are hated with a venom and what they have done will NEVER be forgotten. Not just the hunting ban but the way foot and mouth was handled. Nobody will ever forget the men in white suits and the funeral pyres.
(Edited by GreenGreenDesert at 11:55 pm on Aug. 20, 2006)
Appreciate the passion with which you write, but I can’t agree that what Blair did to the countryside was the worst of all. The war in Iraq has resulted in thousands of deaths. The banning of fox-hunting doesn’t even begin to compare. And the damage Blair has done to the countryside is as nothing compared to the damage Thatcher did to mining and ship-building communities, which coincidentally is one of the reasons why we no longer manufacture anything.
You can’t get anything done for bureaucracy and Borg call-centre mentality
The two things are seperate. The call centre mentality is a product of the private sector, brought in to cut costs and boost profits. Poorer working conditions, poorer customer service, bigger dividends for shareholders and fatter bonuses for directors.
We have a binge drink culture which has even poisoned racecourses
Britain has had a binge drinking culture for centuries. I am no fan of Blair, as I think I’ve made clear, but you can hardly pin the blame for this on New Labour.
one in three people is employed in public services therefore do not contibute a penny to the GDP
Personally, when I go to hospital, I’m more concerned with being treated than worrying about whether the nurses are contributing to the GDP. Teachers, doctors, nurses, binmen, policemen, firemen, paramedics, the armed services – much rather have them than not. The concept of public service is an important one. It is the last remnant of the bigger ideals of civic duty and responsibility to our fellow citizens that Thatcher and Blair have done their best to destroy. The reason why the NHS is in a mess is because Blair has continued down the road of quasi-privatisaion.
Anyway, I’m starting to repeat myself.
I should also say, welcome to the forum, GreenGreenDesert. Though I disagree with some of your views, I admire the passion with which you speak
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(Edited by Aranalde at 8:14 am on Aug. 21, 2006)
GreenGreenDesert – welcome to the forum.<br>I agree with the sentiments expressed in your post.<br>Aranalde. Re. the coal mining industry in this country. Scargill and his ilk were the major contributors imo to the downfall of large scale coal-mining. Even without Scargill or Thatcher coal mining was on the decline. The NUM having previously held the country to ransom with strikes, could hardly be surprised when, with the arrival of plentiful North Sea Gas, government and industry switched their reliance away from coal. Scargill was a first-class tit and led his union members pied-piper-like to the dole queue. He should be vilified by the coal mining communities rather than Thatcher.
Quite agree that Scargill has his share of the blame and that the coal industry was in decline. But rather than seeking to manage the decline, giving communities time to adjust, Thatcher sought and appeared to relish a confrontation with anything that appeared to represent working class organisation. She took a similar tack with the shipbuilding and steel industries. She rushed the country headlong into a market economy, without any thought as to the short-term social consequences. Monetarism was a massive economic gamble, the product of rigid economic dogma, which required a great deal of short-term pain, pain that was born almost exclusively by the working class. In my opinion, her economic policies led to two recessions and the dramatic degradation of our traditional manufacturing base.
But even if you don’t share this view of Thatcherism, it is the case that, for one reason or another, our manufacturing base has continued to decline consistently since the 1970s. Much as I loathe Blair, this again is not solely his fault. But the fact that he has done nothing about it, having had three comfortable election wins is a disgrace.
(Edited by Aranalde at 8:46 pm on Aug. 21, 2006)
While I do not agree that Thather was not to blame for the conflict…for that is what it was to many…it certainly wasn’t the fault of farmers; which was my point. The same "meantality" is now being applied to countryside issues.
To treat the source of energy and food with Thatcher economics is just wrong. It lacks vision and sacrifices people and ways of life and our long term independence/security for short term profit.
As for the Health service I would like a question asked if you think it is there for the benefit of patients.
The medical profession has conducted a witch hunt against smoking over the last few years. It may well be bad for your health, though judged on some new, and surpressed research it appears that some diseases like lung cancer may be linked to VIRUSES rather than smoking. If that is confirmed, it will blow the lid off what the medical profession is really about.
Already the AMA have had to remove cervical and stomach cancer off the caused by smoking list; and there are a variety of diseases waiting in the wings.
See the big problem…not just with New labour though they have made an institution out of it…is that the whole empahasis of crime , health and education has been PREVENTION and NOT CURE. It is your OWN fault if you get sick, are a vcotim of crime or are badly educated.
This has been a disaster in all three things, and until we as the "governed" realise what is going on we will continue to fail to address the real problems.
If the medical profession concentrated on cure for example, almost EVERY death from stomach cancer, and EVERY person suffering from stonach ulcer, could be cured. BOTH are caused by helicobactor pylori, a bacteria discovered in the late 19th century but doctors REFUSED to accept existed. Millions of people have died as a result. <br>It was rediscovered in 1987 by Australian scientists, yet doctors in the UK REFUSE to treat it and NOBODY is saying why.<br>I know why. Doctors and pharmacutical companies make fortunes out of prescribing medication for symptoms.<br>They know damn well that it can be cured with a £1 anti biotic. Unless you ask for a test and demand the anti biotic you will suffer for the rest of your life; which may be shoretened hastily. Next to smoking it is far more of a real threat to health and COMPLETELY curable.
That is what a mixture of socialism, petit bourgeois professionals, and profit motive have led us to. A sham of a health service.
The same is true of the Police. they to have concentrated on PREVENTION rather than cure, and if you get burgled or mugged it is somehow the victims fault.<br>What crap. Meanwhile the police force are used as taxmen with truncheons.
The same with teaching and that is why I got out of it.<br>The collusion of teachers, government, private sector  and the petit bourgeois have produced a monster which does not educate. It is merely a baby sitting machine.<br>The fault for failing children is laid at the door of social deprivation instead of an inadequate profession. They blame the kids and their culture for failure; conveniently dodging fault themselves. Why pay teachers to teach if they cannot do it? They cannot do it because ONLY petit bourgois children have the ethic of deferred gratifciation. Working class kids don’t so they do not get it. Therefore they are fed a diet of vocational education; segregating and condemning them to failure. The only real way of educationg is to have a profession educated to teach, and to adapt to teaching a pure academic education. EVERY kid should learn latin. Then they can learn any language. Every kid should learn every discipline so they have the ability for analyising any problem. That could easily be geared towards an immediate gratification culture; instead of this absurd emphasis on "sorting" people and certification . Few other countries have this absurd situation of exam certificates and segregating (also on its way back without the leveller of an 11 plus)<br>Now new labour have put the finishing touches to  a society in which these professional classes, these urban peitit bourgois and their filthy parochial morality , have control of society, instead of the working class and upper class.
And they LEECH off the rest of us and do nothing to improve our lot.<br>Now they prepare to attack the sick by taking their money rather than adress their ills. that is really sick and the ultimate in the thinling of the bureaucrat. IF SOMEONE HAS TWO YEARS ON THE SICK BECAUSE OF A BAD BACK PERHAPS IT MAY BE AN IDEA NOT TO MAKE HIM WAIT TWO YEARS FOR AN OPERATION!!!!!
When they first came to power I put my head in my hands. "This is the Unison revolution" I said. I knew then B*****x (as in saxon priest who tried to teach the celts about chritsianity) that was coming. I used to work with these people and know what little moral fascists they are.<br>At the TUC congress last year they discussed for hours the BANNING of stilletoes in the workplace. Don’t laugh; it’s coming. A report was commissioned and the results showed that they cause accidents in the workplace. <br>B*****s. The real reason is that all the petit bourgeois women are ugly and do not wear stilletoes. Women that do offend the morality of these fascists; as it means they are up on their hocks and attracting sexual attention. That is the real reason.<br>How many doctors teachers lawyers buraucrats etc do<br>you see at the Waterloo Cup? It is for miners and toffs. how many do you see smoking? It is for miners and toffs. How many do you see wearing make up and stilletoes? Its for miners and toffs. New Labour are about petit bourgeois control of the rest of us. They are no more sympathetic to other cultures either. Despite their sham of multiculturalism they do not tolerate the real deal…seal hunting by the Inuit, female circumcision in Africa, the wearing of yashmaks ect; halal meat….they are all in for it.<br>And thus the morality becomes Imperialistic. Blair as the Moral guardian of Western (petit bourgois) morals. To the simple americans it is about oil and stability in the middle east, and they are genuinely shocked at the two fingers thrown up by the Arab world to their enteratinment and mcdoanlds/coke economic imperialism.<br>But Blair’s is a lot darker. Democracy to most Arab countries is a dirty word because they KNOW that it will be used for one culture to opress another. We accept it. Well some of us do. Until now. <br>If you do not realise the fires of fermenting hatred in the countryside growing against this government; you will eventually. When top jumps owners  and the Banwen Miners Hunt are talking about civil war do not underestimate that.
Meanwhile we have a diet of lowest common denominator ehtertainment and a celeb culture where real achievement is ignored, and any questioning discouraged. The booze culture is symptomatic of that.
The town centres are stripped of shops and the countryside built over with out of town shopping centres selling endless mass produced imported rubbish for which the forests of scandinavia and valuable habitats the world over have been raped for consumption by the drones. The town centres are then seas of crappy pubs, as no small quality shops can remain burdened by high rates and a public educated to know the price of everything and the value of nothing; with rubbish chemical fuelled drinks (rather than quality beers and wines) inducing a sad booze culture which leaves my Russian and Bangladeshi  friends open mouthed at our cultural decay.
And that is why so many people have left the country for France and Spain and even eastern europe. As many of us have gone there as they have come here; people forget that.
House prices dropped ropped last month. Get ready. It is all about to crumble. Hallelujah to that. that is whay the Tories did not try to win the last election.
I wouldn’t leave gordon Brown in charge of a market stall for 10 minutes and we have let him run the economy. Blair has all these big ideas for the middle east and yet how can he apply his morality to countries  into coursing foxes with saluki and halal meat and their women being covered? Looked okay in Afghanistan for a bit until they realised we were not going to let them grow poppies or buy their karakul (unborn black lamb fur …used to be their main export) …now it starts to fall apart there too.
So it starts to crumble now; we need a new and tolerant culture, one not stifled by bureacracy  to opress the 3000 laws they have passed on us while the countryside burns and the streets aren’t safe to walk for criminals they do not have the will to deal with.
Do you not remember last time? I will remind you of the Jam when they were good:
What you trying to say that you havent tried to say before?<br>You’re just another red ballon with a lot of hot gas <br>why don’t you F*** off?
And you think you got it worked out<br>and you think that were brainwashed<br>(HA! no Way!)<br>And you try to play the hero<br>but you never walk home in the dark
I think it’s time for truth and the truth is you lost<br>Uncle jimmy (Callaghan)<br>Adnit your failure and decline with honour while you can
And you think you got it sussed out<br>And you think that we’re branwashed<br>And you’re trying for a Police state<br>So you can rule our bodeis and minds
What ever happened to the Great Empire?<br>You b*******s just turned it into manure<br>Time for young to stick together now
I bet you sleep at night with silk sheets and a clean mind<br>While killers roam the streets in numbers, dressed in blue
And you’re trying to hide it from us<br>But you know what I mean<br>Bring forward those six pigs <br>I wanna see them swing so high.
Well substitsute Callaghan for Blair and that sums it up really. Blair’s police state where the police can shoot someone in the head and get away with it; they opress the law abiding among us with superb efficiency on <br>petty traffic offences but do nothing to criminals and threaten us with ID cards and all transactions over a grand suspicion of money laundering for terroritsts.
They threaten to lock up people for hunting and yet kill tens of thousands of Iraquis with bombs. What a twisted morality it is.
Oh for a Britain with white picket fences and hedgehogs and bowler hats and rabbit stew and bank managers who were not Borg drones. A britain of foxhunting and no rape seed : and smoking wherever you wanted, where women wore basques and suspenders and cheeky kids got a clip round the ear. A Britian where people said good morning and we fought wars against racism not for racism. A Britain where working class kids could play football in the street and the Cup meant the Waterloo .<br>A Britain which it was safe to leave your door open and hospitals were as clean as miners faces were dirty but the beer wasn’t full of chemicals when they went out in their crombies and tilted their hats to ladies. A Britain where the wife didn’t get red paint thrown at her for wearing fur and yet we had a land full of stoats and great crested newst and songbirds. A Britain where crimplene was laughed at and polyester a dirty word, and kids wore trainers only for sport. A Britain where <br>music would get angry with government when it was wrong instead of being neutered by compliance with political correctness. A Britain where kids had animal tracks on the bottom of their shoes, and a compass concealed within, and a frog and a catapult in their pocket, and dreams of becoming a train driver or astronaut, and the name of Persain War meant the heroics of the 300 Spartans or the mighty mighty racehorse ;instead of a pocketful of crack cociane and the vain hope they may win the lottery or gain celebrity through big brother twat antics; and hero worship of shallow pop stars.
Better off now than ever? Whoever said that must be very young or been brought up elsewhere. Keep your satellite tv with its hundreds of dross channels and give me the old Britain back. <br>What kind of Britain (I am in Wales) do we live in where Rhoddri Morgan praises the contribution of a Big Brother contestant to the greater good of Wales , when I have never heard him speak Carl Llewelyn or Hywel davies’ or Evan Williams’ name, lets alone the welsh soldiers dying in Iraq .
The New Traditionalism is coming to a pub philosopher near you. Do yourself a favour and listen!
Sorry…rant over!
PS BRING BACK THE DRY STONE WALL IN THE GRAND NATIONAL, and give us back becher’s brook and ban the RSPCA for the sensless killing of tens of thousands of animals very year  TOO !!!
Sorry; I really do not like it when people say we have never had it so good!
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(Edited by GreenGreenDesert at 11:56 pm on Aug. 21, 2006)
Sorry Jilly; I did try to make it humorous…but address some very serious concerns. <br>I could have just said the emperor is wearing no clothes and neither are any of the people who work for the state but then I would have been asked to qualify what I meant.
(Edited by GreenGreenDesert at 12:14 am on Aug. 22, 2006)
No need to apologise to me,GGD.I would have preferred the abridged version but i do have a low boredom threshold.;)
Hello and goodnight to you.:)
Well GGD, this drone would like to congratulate you on a splendid post.
Toffs and (ex) miners in abundance at York this aft, though I prefer the time-honoured term dukes and dustmen.
I’ll be there, snorting Wilson’s Irish High Toast No.22, in a vain effort to be accepted as one of the toffee-nosed.
BTW re: smoking. There’s more than anecdotal evidence that nicotine may help prevent Alzheimer’s. So lungs *******, brain intact; a FAR better way to end your days than ‘tother way round.
There’s more than anecdotal evidence that nicotine may help prevent Alzheimer’s. So lungs *******, brain intact; a FAR better way to end your days than ‘tother way round.
Gasping for breath, in constant pain from secondary cancers, loss of mobility and enduring the indignities of loosing ones independance whilst fully aware of these facts………..
………or……………
incontinent, dependant totally on others without the slightest idea of who you are or what is going on.
Seems to me theres less suffering in the latter!
<br>GGD. Your ideas on the NHS fall far short of my experiences. I neither asked or demanded to be cured of helicobacter but my nice doctor diagnosed and cured all the same.<br>Saying it is of far more a real threat to health than smoking is a gross over statement. Around 10000 people die each year from either gastric ulcers or stomach cancers.(80% of which are estimated to be attributable to the bacteria) <br>Compare that with 27000 lung cancer deaths (obviously not all attributable to smoking), far more numbers of heart disease deaths, strokes, circulatory diseases and other cancers linked with smoking and your statement makes me laugh.
And people who complain about lack of liberty in not being able light up where they want but expect me and others like me to finance their heart bypass, stroke rehabilitation or childs asthma all caused through smoking make my blood boil!
Rant over. But seriously, have we ever had it so good?;)
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