They did nothing to halt the privatisation and deregulation agenda of the Conservative years, though. They did, as many have pointed out, effectively build the bridge that is now allowing the current government to dismantle the NHS.

They didn't start these processes, but they continued them.

So for instance, we now have the government intending to close down the A&E and maternity departments at a massive hospital like Lewisham – because three PFI hospitals in a different hospital trust area are in massive, massive financial trouble almost entirely because of PFI.

On a wider level, we have a mainstream political class that, if not ideologically wedded to neo-liberal extremism, is terrified of upsetting big business and the bulk of a media that supports the supranational corporatocracy and its agenda, and hysterically spreads lies and knee-jerking myth to back that up.

And thus, unfortunately, to larges swathes of the population that swallow this, hook, line and sinker.

Perhaps I ought to have started that sentence with, "Compared to the current government..."

I agree with your comments regarding the political class as a whole, but on balance, I still think Labour are the best of a bad bunch.

The touble is the more people who have the same view as yourself the more likely we are to get another Tory government. My Grandad was a local Labour councilor and one time Mayor in Hindley near Wigan and despite the area being a staunch Labour area he never took the Labour vote for granted. His view was that Tories always vote. There is a core of Tory support that always turns out and this in my opinion is true.

from what you have said I am pretty sure you don't believe the Labour party would continue the thinly disguised assault on the welfare state that has been undertaken under the guise of necessary austerity cuts. If we get another five years of the Tories, especially in a majority government the NHS will be well and truly a thing of the past.

Andy Burnham and his views on what he would do with the NHS is therefore in my view reason enough alone to vote Labour for anyone. The party is far from perfect and as has been pointed out "new labour" was as wedded to neocon politics as any of them but the alternative is even worse IMO.

With the first past the post system we have voting for fringe parties IS a wasted vote. We are stuck with a poor choice but I would have thought the blatant and deliberate dismantling of the welfare state undertaken by the Tories while the Lib Dems sit meekly by is enough to vote them out and the only way to do that us vote Labour.

I've likewise only ever voted Labour or LibDem. My problem is that Labour started the processes which have lead to ridiculous fees for higher education and creeping privatisation of the NHS. They lost my vote when they introduced student fees and they've done nothing since to incline me to reverse that decision. The LibDems are off the agenda for obvious reasons. At the moment I'm left with the Greens as the only palatable alternative and the last time I read one of their manifestos it was a joke.

I look at it this way:

There are two parties that have a realistic shout of securing a majority. If I don't vote for one of these parties, I'm effectively wasting my vote (given that I won't ever vote Lib Dem again). Out of the two, I'll be voting for the one that is less likely to shaft the average man in the street in a bid to make things better for the richest few per cent.

Labour are far, far from perfect, but they're the best choice available if you don't want to see a Tory majority.

Until I moved down here, I'd only ever voted Labour, even when living in Cottingham (staunch tory) but I soon realised that a Labour vote down here really is a wasted vote, so switched to LibDem. The incumbent has managed to scrape through at each of the last three elections and much as I hate the Quisling, bearded, fat bastad that is David Heath, the alternative to him would've been Rees-Mogg's sibling Anunziata and that was unthinkable. So come 2015, Heath will probably get my vote again.

I also imagine there will be increasing numbers in the nation who will vote ABC - Anyone But Cameron

Huge amount of truth in this.

Although at present, I live in one of those areas where you could pin a red/blue/yellow rosette on a monkey and it would get in. So in a way, I have the luxury of being able to vote in a way that does not demand tactical voting. Makes bugger-all difference, though.

Oh aye - I'm aware of the pragmatic position. It might be that come election time I'll put my principles to one side, hold my nose, and vote Labour for the very reasons you outline. I won't be happy about it though. Labour may do less damage in general but by introducing charges for higher education they enabled the current Government to blight an entire generation with a lifetime of debt. Since that includes both of my kids you'll have to forgive me if I take it rather personally.

Likewise in my constituency although we did once have a Labour MP, just for one term, other than that its been a Tory one for the whole of my life until the last two elections when we've had LibDem, at the moment he'll get my vote next time for two reasons, he keeps a Tory MP out, and he loves a beer and fights for small breweries and against large brewery tied leases.

I see your point about Labour having 'started the ball rolling', but it was the Tories/Lib Dems who raised the fees to such a ludicrous level. One could argue that the fees were manageable under the Labour system (though I am very much of the opinion that higher education should be entirely state funded), and that it's unfair to blame them for the Tories tripling the levels of debt most students are likely to leave university with. And I reckon the Tories would have found a way to introduce the fees without Labour having laid the groundwork.

Labour broke with the principle of free higher education. It was entirely predictable that fees were only ever going to rise. Moreover, in order to do so they started the stereotyping of privileged students being funded by the underprivileged masses. If they had done neither of these things it would have been hugely more difficult for the coalition to have introduced fees, let alone at the current ridiculous levels. It also made it impossible for them to mount an effective counter-campaign when the fees were increased, as they had started the ball rolling themselves.

I don't think people realise the long-term damage that the current system is doing to this country. And Labour started it.

It was, but I don't think it's reasonable to say that the rise the Tories introduced could have been foreseen at the time Labour introduced fees. The Tories have opportunistically utilised the financial crash as justification for the rise (and for most of their other abhorrent policies), and, since few people predicted the crash, even fewer could have predicted the tuition fee rises that were later blamed upon it.



They did, but there's only so much blame they can take for that. If the Tories abolished the 22p tax rate, would you blame Labour for having abolished the 10p rate first?

The biggest damage is that the huge increase in school leavers going onto university has lead to large gaps at the bottom end of the employment market, and also a steep rise in youth unemployment due to over qualified people leaving university with totally inappropriate qualifications for the modern day jobs market.

There is nothing wrong with encouraging youngsters to make the best of themselves, but logic tells you that not everybody can be a highly paid doctor or executive.

Also, the huge increase in university numbers could never have been funded 100% by the taxpayer.....30 or 40 years ago when only the cream went there, then maybe, but in these days of every Tom, Dick and Harry going there, then it made common sense to bring in some sort of fees system.

It's easy........... Honest!
At 47 I can still bare to look at my face in the mirror after declining to vote for either Kinnock or Blair.

No the rise in youth unemployment is due to there not being enough jobs.

Its not like there are loads of vacancies going unfilled because they can't get the staff.

If there had been a steady increase in youth unemployment in line with the increase in school leavers going to university then I would have agreed with you, but youth unemployment was lower during most of the 2000s (the period of large increase in university uptake) than it was in the 1980s and 1990s. It has only gone back up (and still not to the levels seen under Thatcher and Major) in the past three years since the financial crisis.

I'd go a bit further, maybe the take- up in university places, despite the cost in future debt, is because a degree and debt is more attractive than being unemployed.
If more jobs were available, more would be thinking that they might as well be earning.

I agree. A mate of mine is going to university after a year of being unemployed. It's not for a specific degree in a particular field. He simply doesn't know what else to do.

The quality of HE is dependent on the money that goes in, and quality was going to suffer without fees of some kind, or a vast increase in taxpayer input. Labour made the call that more University places should be available and offset some of the cost with fees. These were noble sentiments but there were two crucial factors they overlooked IMO. 1. economic slow down (recession anyone?) that would result in less public money and potentially more students trying to get an advantage in a dwindling youth employment market. This has resulted in the absolutely inevitable increase in fees - and it's going to get worse.
2. Fees will eventually result in a two tier system where only the rich can get the best education and the rest end up with a uselss piece of paper from a converted sixth form college and a debt that crushes them until middle age. This could have been avoided. When fees were introduced there should have been a scolarship scheme introduced that guaranteed the top performing students (5-10%) were exempt from fees and received some form of maintanance grant. The object of HE (again IMO) is a chance for the country to invest in it's resources (people), and higher fees will lead to large numbers of talented, bright kids from less well off backgrounds (even the middle classes must look at fees and uni debt with horror - I know I do) will be lost to the system. What a waste. Exactly what grants and free HE was intended to put right - just like it did for me.

The system is f*****d now. Un-fixable IMO, debts are here to stay. When/if my kids go to Uni they will have to go to the right one, do the right degree or not bother.

I would argue that the removal of free HE was started when the Tories decided to get rid of maintenance grants in the late 80s.

There was nothing inevitable about it. The amount the government was spending on the teaching grant with fees at their previous levels was a tiny proportion of the overall tax take. The move was purely political and the idea it was inevitable due to cost is rubbish. If you think that you have fallen for government propaganda.



A scholarship scheme is not the answer to participation from the less ell off. Well off parents will simply employ tutors and will be able to devote the time to endure their kids qualify for the scholarships.

I got fees paid and a grant when I went to Uni. I went to Aberystwyth with middling A level grades. No way was I scholarship material. In fact I didn't get the grades and only went because the prof wrote to me offering a place based on my interview. I walked out with a 2:1 in Computer Science, have never been unemployed in the last 32 years (so have paid a small fortune in tax) and I also work part time for the OU teaching 3rd year Computer Science students myself. I am one of the best examples you can find of the benefits of free higher education. I can say for certain under the current scheme I would not have been able to go. My son is at Uni now in his first year (same place, same department funnily enough) and even with a loan for course fees and a loan for substance which will leave in £56K in debt by the end of the course we still have to subsidise him to a degree my own parents never would have been able to afford.

If any coalition politician ever tried to justify their fee policy to my face they would regret it.

I'd put it earlier, when they started cutting grants for 'vocational' courses earlier that decade.

I see that Call Me Dave has been caught out lying through his teeth during his speech on the economy yesterday: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21714549

I see that Call Me Dave has been caught out lying through his teeth during his speech on the economy yesterday: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21714549

Again?

He's not even a competent liar.

Quote ="Kosh"I see that Call Me Dave has been caught out lying through his teeth during his speech on the economy yesterday: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21714549'" So from the article above we go from here: [iHe said the OBR had made it clear that growth had been depressed by the legacy of the 2008 financial crisis, instability in the eurozone and a sharp rise in oil prices between 2010 and 2011. The watchdog, he added, was "absolutely clear that the deficit reduction plan is not responsible, in fact, quite the opposite".[/i To this response from the OBR - a direct contradiction [i"To summarise, we believe that fiscal consolidation measures have reduced economic growth over the past couple of years."[/i To here: [iA Downing Street spokesman said the OBR had pinpointed "external inflation shocks, the eurozone and financial sector difficulties as the reasons why their forecasts have come in lower than expected". "That is precisely the point the prime minister was underlining," he added. [/i No he wasn't! While the OBR acknowledges several factors besides austerity measures have contributed to the state of the economy they are quite categorical that deficit reduction was a factor and Cameron was saying they said the exact opposite. That was his point. So not only do we have Cameron telling porkies we have "A Downing Street spokesman" doing the same. Who are these "Downing Street spokesmen" anyway? Civil servants? If so they ought not be defending government policy. That is up to the government not them. If they are civel servants then they have been politicised.

Quote ="Kosh"I see that Call Me Dave has been caught out lying through his teeth during his speech on the economy yesterday: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21714549'" So from the article above we go from here: [iHe said the OBR had made it clear that growth had been depressed by the legacy of the 2008 financial crisis, instability in the eurozone and a sharp rise in oil prices between 2010 and 2011. The watchdog, he added, was "absolutely clear that the deficit reduction plan is not responsible, in fact, quite the opposite".[/i To this response from the OBR - a direct contradiction [i"To summarise, we believe that fiscal consolidation measures have reduced economic growth over the past couple of years."[/i To here: [iA Downing Street spokesman said the OBR had pinpointed "external inflation shocks, the eurozone and financial sector difficulties as the reasons why their forecasts have come in lower than expected". "That is precisely the point the prime minister was underlining," he added. [/i No he wasn't! While the OBR acknowledges several factors besides austerity measures have contributed to the state of the economy they are quite categorical that deficit reduction was a factor and Cameron was saying they said the exact opposite. That was his point. So not only do we have Cameron telling porkies we have "A Downing Street spokesman" doing the same. Who are these "Downing Street spokesmen" anyway? Civil servants? If so they ought not be defending government policy. That is up to the government not them. If they are civel servants then they have been politicised.

Never mind a triple A rating. I went to the bank for a loan. The manager didn't speak, he just laughed and gave me a double V rating.