In 1997, a disillusioned and much maligned UK electorate kicked the Tories out. After 18 years of sleaze, 'Cash for Questions' a destroyed manufacturing workforce, record unemployment, lost generations, communities torn apart, miners strike...etcetera time was up for Thatcher and Major's 'no such thing as society' society.
Labour supporters took to the streets, impromptu parties sprung up, the cheers when Scottish Tories fell at the ballot box could be heard throughout the country, the biggest 'ya beauties' being reserved for Messrs, Rifkind, Forsyth and Lang. The Tories lost 178 seats, Labour won an additional 147, giving them their largest victory ever with a total of 418 seats to the the Tories 165.
Bambi Blair was swept in on a wave of euphoria. Expectation was at a height we wouldn't witness again until the arrival of Super-Obama. Things could only--get better. So where, as the cliché asks, did it all go wrong?
Today Labour are desperately fighting to avoid third place in the UK General Election. Labour MP's in marginal constituencies across the UK are bricking it. That generation of predominantly white men in their mid-fifties are facing serious upheaval in their lives and careers. Once the gravy train stops it's nigh on impossible to get back on. What will they do for a living, have they all sounded out consultancies and lobbyists, will they all prostitute their networks for some cash-in-hand representation? Many have filled their boots with as much public largesse as they could grasp.
The expenses scandal which dominated the European elections last year destroyed the public will to participate. A year later we have a legacy of sound-bites and the three 'main' parties all manfully trying to tip-toe around the scandal whilst adopting suitable chastened postures whenever the subject raises its ugly head. Those MP's facing criminal convictions are used as whipping boys by the boys fervently hoping they are still in with a chance of keeping their jobs.
There's a website titled Labour Watch which I occasionally dip into. It's one of the most dispiriting things you'll ever read. The author has catalogued just about every Labour sleaze and corruption story since 1997. Towards the end of 2008, you can see his or her fervour for spotlighting Labour failings begins to wane, I imagine deciding to compile this list can have serious implications for your well being. The expenses scandal kicked him/her off again. Then I imagine sleaze fatigue kicks in again and there are very few posts in 2010. No doubt the author is a Tory, lots of links to the right wing press, Mail, Express, Telegraph etcetera. However, I defy even the most ardent Labour supporter to spend ten minutes scrolling through the headlines and links and not pause to think, if there's even the remotest possibility that there might just be something in the allegations. Just click and scroll, it's a real eye-opener as to how a supposedly socially democratic, left of centre party can be thirled to the attractions of vested interests, power, wealth, fame and celebrity.
Thanks Labour. No more boom and bust, an end to sleaze. Oh and the astronomical figure that keeps flashing up on the screen comes from the debt bombshell site. A truly horrifying debt accumulator reminiscent of the one Nationwide used to run in the 1970's when Denis Healey was praised for overseeing inflation totter along at 25%.
I guess things didn't get better.
Posts
6 comments:
And I doubt if they will improve for a generation.
Thanks for the super sized type Mark. Makes it a pleasure to read.
Can't disagree with the criticism of Labour for general sleaziness, or being war mongering criminals who are strangers to socialism and privatised more public assets than the witch Thatcher did, and being generally bloody awful.
But it does piss me off that they, and they alone, seem to be blamed for the credit crisis and recession and debt.
What they did wrong was promise no more boom and bust, and continue with the deregulation that the Tories started. But hell they did that because that was what the electorate wanted.
I can just imagine a party standing up and saying sorry folks, no more free money and the value of your house needs to come down because it is a speculative bubble and it's all going to crash - and people voting for them. The words aye and right spring to mind.
The populace got the government they deserved. They should have realised that money doesn't grow on trees and the whole thing was illusory. The blame does not lie entirely with the Labour Party. They gave the people what they wanted and the people couldn't be bothered to read the small print.
There are areas where they are criminal - like Iraq - and deserve to get shot. But as far as the debt goes - no, all the people who lived on free money are culpable as well.
Observer, Labour were more than happy to go along with it and encourage wholesale profligacy.
When you deregulate the banks allowing lower interest rates, cheaper and less stringently checked mortgages, credit cards and even store cards you run the risk of creating a society who think all that's involved in rampant consumerism is a signature and the vague awareness that your bank account balance decreases every month.
Brown tried to build an economy on mortgages and ever increasing property prices it was always unsustainable. The merest glimpse around the world would have told him that, however, like an addicted gambler or an alcoholic, sobering up was always put off for another day.
Manufacturing collapsed by a THIRD under his party. That alone tells you this near TRILLION pound debt will not vanish in the next ten years.
Mark - Brown just carried on where Thatcher left off.
The roots of this crisis lie back in the Reagan/Thatcher years, that is when people started buying their shopping with credit cards instead of money. And of course when home ownership became God.
I have no time for Labour but the fact is they gave people what they wanted.
Labour didn't create a society devoted to rampant consumerism - rampant consumerers created that society and Labour didn't stop it.
Hell is going to slap it into us all now. Because what we are facing is going to be a nightmare. But it's too easy to just blame Labour. That's a get out clause for all the people who bought into the me me me culture that Thatcher pioneered.
And, as usual, it is going to be the most vulnerable who are going to pay the price in the more or less immediate future.
it wasn't Thatcher, Major, Blair or Brown.......IT WAS SUE
'Things can only get worser' has a nice ring to it!
Post a Comment