1.2 trillion reasons Brown deserves to lose the next election

roger

Yes, many people are missing the point. Look at what's got better - nothing. Education, education, education and the business leaders say the majority of new workers are functionally illiterate. Health, crime, immigration (housing - linked to immigration but many in the mainstream media like to airbrush over it).

The only people who've don better under New Labour are the people who's pay packets have been swelled by all this waste.

james allen

if you ask me, the tories deserved to lose in 1997, not just because of sleaze, corruption, disorder, party in-fighting etc. but also because the nhs and (to a lesser extent) the education services were in disarray. i don't think anybody will forget the huge waiting lists and outright chaos, reported daily by the beeb, which just gave the public the impression that the tories didn't care about the nhs, that they'd starved it of funds etc etc. Labour promised a fresh approach, and that appealed, big time. Personally i don't think the tories have yet answered the question, how do you improve the nhs and have a low tax economy? I think they should be articulating much better the idea of breaking up the nhs, changing the basis upon which it is funded, with the aim of spending money more efficiently. So transparently making it obvious how they can achieve both goods: spending less and improving services. Until they do that, i don't believe the public support for the tories will be long-lasting (or at least my parents will keep getting rubbish healthcare)

Tiberius

Labour governments: to quote Oliver Hardy, "twas ever thus".

idle

Agreed. The extraordinary and long-lasting consensus among political hacks, and those who should know better (remember the poll of economists a couple of years back?) that Brown was, by any standards, a remarkably good chancellor, is unravelling smartish now. Many more folk than Brown have egg on their faces.

MagicAldo

And who did the Sun tells us to vote for in 2001 and 2005? Ask yourself this: why are the changing their tune now?

Ian C

MagicAldo - absolutely right. The Murdoch papers backed Blair and as a result of that and some very clever tactical voting for Lib Dems (and what's now UKIP) in 1997 resulted in what we have now. For The Sun to be revealing this information in anything other than a contrite way is typical of the main media houses as a whole. Their integrity does not exist and is a disgrace that they should learn to be ashamed of.
As Tiberius says, what ever else was to be expected of a Labour Gov't? Why is anyone surprised. We must NEVER let it recur. Have we finally learnt our lesson? Let's hope so.
And yes, The Tories had to fall to defeat in 1997 because the ERM fall out and the consequences of the internal row over Europe meant that they did not have the finances nor credibilty to keep criticsm at bay over the NHS and more importantly educattion. Having dealt with the inustrial problems in the 80's and then they should have moved swiftly onto the state run services - welfar, education, transport and NHS. Had they not burned their bridges and the budget over the ERM they would not have dropped us in the sh*t that we have been in for the past 10 years in spite of K Clarke's efforst psot 1994. For that Major is the main man to blame. But he's gone and we now ahve a new man who seems OK, but we must keep a closer handle on all future leaders - they all try to fly too close to the sun eventually. The Tories were in such disarray 1997-2007 that Blair/Brown did as they pleased, fell out with each other and still survived this long. It needs to end soon and let's hope F Field is right about Brown's impending demise.

Simon Orr

MagicAldo: Because far too many political commentators follow the lazy predominent opinion rather than try to change it.

Ian Westbrook

Britain might not have much to show for that £1.229 trillion, but the consultancy firms have done just _marvellously_, thank you!