what exactly did the labour government do for the UK 1997-2010?, page 3

a reply to: crazyewok

In my opinion, New Labour was basically the death of the political left in this nation. I am generally a little leftist on nearly everything, and very leftist on some particularly important things. There are a few small exceptions, but that's buy the buy, and far too granular a path to tread in this thread.

I have been utterly without a representative I can get my self behind, for my entire adult life. For my entire adult life, the Labour Party has not been representing Labour values. It has not been looking out for those who have worked hard, those who want to, or those who have found themselves unable to. It has spent its entire time pandering to the right, compromising where solidity was necessary, and being unrelenting when flexibility was sensible. It has distanced itself entirely from the values and methodology that I believe in, for getting this country sorted out, once and for all.

However, just recently I believe there may have been a SMALL glimmer of hope. I will bide my time before counting on it though, of that you may rest assured.

Now, I know you sit somewhat right of centre on many issues personally, but I think you and I can agree, for different reasons, that New Labour was a box of arse, bound for Arseville, sent by Arsemail to Arse End, the deepest, least accessible region of the land of Arse. Where you saw them, I would imagine, as the least thrifty, least sensible, most destructive leadership this country has seen in decades, perhaps longer, I saw them as all that and more.

For me, they took my whole political outlook, and urinated all over it. When I was a little boy, a very little boy, my Grandad used to let me sit with him when he was up in his study doing work. He would work on letters from old workmates to their MPs, letters from local people to their MP, as well as doing stuff for the Labour Party itself in his spare time too. My grandather used to be a Shop Steward at Fords in Dagenham, not to mention being active in workers rights groups all the way through his post war life (was also on Destroyers during WWII), spending great amounts of time helping at grass roots, to bring about the dream of a fairer Britain, where poverty would start to reduce, where everyone could get healthcare, where everyone had some rights worth a crap, to live better than dogs in the street. Much of what I know, and how I apply rationality to things, came from that man, and I love him, and his memory deeply. I also respect what he helped bring about.

But New Labour did not. When they came to power, I was still only a lad, but I was happy for a while, because that milk thieving cow and her pet proxy gimp, Mr Major, had been defeated finally. Perhaps now, I told myself, perhaps now the work could be completed? Perhaps now will be the time, that it is truly made possible for a person with nothing, to live despite their poverty, in a way which does not cause them to live less, just to cause them to live differently. Perhaps now, poverty as we knew it will finally cease to exist! Perhaps a way might be found for everyone who needs a job, to have one, all at the same time!

But no. Blair unzipped his fly, invited Brown to do the same, and both unleashed a dizzying torrent of effluent all over the efforts of my grandfathers generation, and every politician that came after, either undoing most of the hardest work in a few short years, or making those gains on the part of the working poor utterly irrelevant by driving up the cost of everything from a pint, to taking a dump in the morning, and THEN taking us into several ill advised and utterly spurious wars, based on nothing but Blairs wide mouthed smile, and a dossier that was so full of lies that the paper it was printed on, was worth more than the intelligence data that was displayed on it.

I hate those Red Tories with such a passion. They wasted so much time and money, lives, not to mention one generation of the life of the population, caused so much sadness for so many...they are FILTH!

edit on 29-2-2016 by TrueBrit because: Grammatical error removed