The Inevitability of Gradualness

David Watkins

"There have been some major acts of decency (the minimum wage, the human rights acts, devolution)"

1)The minimum wage may be decent, but major? Do you Know anyone who is significantly better off because of it? I don't. 2)We have far less legal protection against arbitrary government since the passage of the human rights act - see the movie "Taking Liberties". 3)As for devolution - it is of course very convenient for the Government that it can use Scots MPs at Westminster to impose laws on England and Wales that do not affect anyone in Scotland, but how is it "decent"?

mac

My dictionary defines "decent" as 'conforming to the accepted standards of what is proper'.

This is therefore an inopportune moment for you to to be praising as 'decent' the "achievements" of a government whose very highest fliers are mired in personal sharp practice, weakly defended as being 'within the rules' and conveniently omitting the rider that these are rules which the Commons set itself.

And what David Watkins said.

john problem

The first of these - the minimum wage - was simply a copy of what had been happening in Europe for decades (the French had a minimum wage in the fifties.) The second - the human rights act - came from Brussels. The third is nothing more than an expensive pantomime, with posturing tribes over the borders kept happy with English gold.

Daniel Lionsden

To follow on from David Watkins:
The minimum wage was a good idea but its benefits have been outweighed by Labour's penchant for mass immigration and its effect on keeping pay down. Some members of my family in the building trade have seen their incomes DROP under New Labour to levels of 15 years ago.
Also to be considered is the disproportionate increases in rent and accommodation which has shot up much more than the few pence that the gov puts on the minimum wage each year.
If the gov is serious about helping low paid workers it should deal with these things otherwise the minimu wage is just gesture politics.

seb

And in which category does the imposition of tuition fees on those attending English universities fall? And the relliance by Blair on the votes of MPs from Scotland to carry this out? Decent? Indecent? Blair was one of the most unprincipled and generally ignorant leaders the West has seen in decades. He would not know what decency was if it stepped up and kneed him in the crutch.

Solomon Hughes

Definitely the minimum wage, although I think this was one policy that "Old Labour" managed to impose on "New Labour" as much as a Blairite success - by pressure from the union officialdom, and by more rank and file protests from the conference floors (Labour and TUC).
The Disability Discrimination Act should count in there as a positive as well. Like the minimum wage it was resisted by the Tories , to their embarrassment, and pushed from an important grassroots constituency.
The very significant increases in social spending - on hospitals and schools - did make a postive difference. That infrastructure and those workforces were looking very ragged by the end of the Major years: They are a bit more stable now. I think that the problem here was that Labour made this spending in such a way as they don't get much credit: Too much of the spending was linked to PFI, plus they never fully recovered from ill feeling developed during the "stick to the Tories spending limits for the first two years of government". Had they just tarted up and built hospitals, and schools more quickly and more directly (and named them all the "Clement Attlee Memorial Hospital" or whatever )they may have got more credit.

I see there was a big "New Deal of the Mind" announcement soon - which is something good you can take a personal pride in, I guess. I wonder how much of that the Tories will continue when/if they are elected. It isn't a million miles from some of the "community programme" type stuff of the first Thatcher government, so maybe they will hang on to that in some form.
As to the negatives - the light touch regulation, for which we are all now paying . The rejuvenation of the PFI. The Millenium Dome affair symbolically brought together everything that was bad about New Labour in one place -, and stands as kind of a memorial.
The failure to build more social housing is a tragic missed opportunity. It contributed to the overheating property market, which kept people with modest incomes away from ownership and ultimately contributed to the economic crash. But at the same time the Minister in charge of housing seems to have used that overheating housing market to make a few bob.

2trueblue

Lanour have destroyed more by lowering standards in practically every area of our lives, great on initiatives, terrible on delivery. We live in a poorer and more divided society than before. They used their great majority to push through poor legislation to make our lives less free on every level. You do not improve lives by shackelling your electorate by a raft of laws, spending us into oblivion, and leaving us with no cover for what history will later class as our worst financial nightmare. Fantastic, thank you Labour.

Major Plonquer

How about the trashing of the economy, the stupefication of our children, the destruction of our businesses, the obliteration of England or the criminialisation of our Parliament? I guess these don't count?

Yet again - yet again, once more, yet again in case you haven't caught on, Labour have done a demolition job on the country. But, wait.....

Good dog, minimum wage.

Jon

'minor acts of decency' - if only all of us were brought up to aspire to just this much, real human progress might be possible :)

Richard Abbot

If the light were shined on Harold Wilson's tenure with the same intensity as it shines on this lot now, i doubt there would be much to celebrate.
I dread to speculate upon what we don't know from those days.

Steve.W

David Watkins – You are correct. The second point you make and your reference to the film 'Taking Liberties' is in fact funny/tragic. The Nulabour apologists just don't get it but our major loss of freedoms happened on their watch.

Ian C

Can read what case you are making here. It seems that you had a point to make but realised that you would have to put in some work to make it!

Especially here.....! The Open University and the Human Rights Act (decency???).

Quite a price we've paid for these.

Liz Brown

Indecency - the smoking ban, the hunting ban, ID cards, Terrorism Acts, CRBs, kotowing to extreme Muslim groupes, refusal to hold the Referendum on the Lisob Con/Treaty. Quangoes,, billions of £'s thrown at unreformed NHS, education, trasnport etc etc It seem that they have committed many more indecent acts than decent ones

euSSR GO HOME

And how about the handover of our armed forces to our enemies - the euSSR?

Oh, yes. The Royal Navy now runs task forces in their name - how far advanced the project is remains to be revealed. No time for that, though. We're to busy with scandal; and with reversing the Reformation.

Random

What a load of nonsense. You call the human rights act, devolution and the minimum wage acts of decency and the Iraq War, detention without charge and abolition of the 10% tax band acts of indecency without any attmept to accept that such designation is debatable.

I happen to agree with you on two of these, but in my opinion the rest should each be moved to the other list. However I do not claim that my opinion is undisputed fact. I could put sound arguments up for that opinion, but it is only my awareness that others dispute this, and of their arguments for doing so, that makes me think my arguments are more sound. Like most on the lift you seem unaware that there are arguments against your opinions, so how can you possibly have confidence in those opinions?

Fergus Pickering

Martin, what is 'decent' about devolution? Whatis seems to involve is the English stumpingup yet more cash for the whingeing Caelts. Why is that decent? And what ahs the Human Rights Act to do with Labour? It is an EU measure, nothing to do with them at all.
Which leaves you wity the minimum wage, done in the first five minutes of Blair's first tem. Well done that man? He could have resigned there and then. Would that...