Has Labour totally wrecked the United Kingdom?

[JoshPerkins]

Think about it. Recycling bin chips, the yobs, charging fees, the NHS crisis, etc. What do you think of Labour?
Post your views here.
In my opinion, I now prefer Conservitives (Sp?)

[tell-me-more]

To answer the question, no, I don' t think Labour has totally wrecked the UK.

I think, unfortunately, they've had to become New Labour in order to get elected, which for me is still far preferable to a Conservative government.

For me, the greater problem is our supposed democracy. It's far too distant, and the attempts to devolve power have not been thought through. Not only do we have the West Lothian question - whereby MPs with Scottish Constituencies can vote on legislation which solely affects England, and therefore they're not held accountable for - but now we have Ruth Kelly talking about further devolution of power to local/parish councils. Without the money to back up these proposals, I suspect this might just be a case of devolution of responsibility, rather than power.

First past the post also encourages apathy, as does the lack of any formal way to show disapproval of all candidates for a constituency.

[Loosehead]

Haven't got the time to go to into as much detail so let me add to or enhance a few of sp's points about Labour's "acheivments":

- Abolished section 28 so that gay propaganda can be forced into our children
- Devolved power, ie 1000's of new freeloaders with no power but snouts in trough, nice one Tony
- 600,000 new town hall posts, great we all have our own 5 a day coordinators and diversity consultants on 40k a year
- Banned fox hunting, that'll sort out the hooray henry's
- Adopted the HR act thereby making it possible for prisoners to sue the governement if they haven't got there own sky tv package or they don't like the wallpaper
- Surrendered to the IRA and invited them to westminster on exes of course
- Use the parliament act to force through the legalisation of gay sex at 16, nice one again Tony, not sure if that is the intended use if the act but hey when you can help out your friends....
- Surrendered most of our rebate so we can pay even more of our dosh to the EU to squander on thier corruption.
I could go on

I think what we mostly miss is that the governement is mainly Scott and as such the destruction of England is the aim.

[admarlow]

Here here Loosehead

[youngmafbog]

Dont forget the stealth taxes looshead including a raid on all our pension funds, streams of immigrants an integration experiment that has failed miseralby.

You know I cant be bothered, the list is just endless, if not wrecked the UK then they have certainly wrecked most peoples lives - or will do in the future when they come to collect their pension

[admarlow]

I don't remember and Muslim suiside bombers under the Tories

[WaldoMcFroog]

That's a rather specious argument, not only because the 'common enemy' under the Tories was the pesky Ruskies not the pesky Muslims and it was a completely different situation, and especially so given that the Tories have stated they would have done exactly as Blair did and gone into an illegal war on the same flimsy evidence...

[admarlow]

Waldo you site the war with Iraq as a cause of the bombings, well the Tories were in power during Desert Storm and no bombings then. I blame Labours home policies and not foreign policy.

[sp1814]

Loosehead:

You wrote:

- Abolished section 28 so that gay propaganda can be forced into our children

And we can see the horrific effects of this policy every day down our high streets...young lads prancing about listening to Kylie on their headphones and drinking diet sodas.

It's a disgrace (and so forth).

C'mon...the abolition of Clause 28 allowed schools and local authorties to act sensitively when dealing with gay issues.

If it means one less gay teenager hanging him/herself because they think they're all along and have no-one to turn to for advice, then I say that the repeal was a darned good thing.

[sp1814]

Loosehead

Also, don't you think that the signing of the Good Friday agreement - and to be honest, the work that the Major government did to progress that, was a good thing?

I mean...peace in Northern Ireland...good thing? I think so!!

[sp1814]

Loosehead:

- Use the parliament act to force through the legalisation of gay sex at 16, nice one again Tony, not sure if that is the intended use if the act but hey when you can help out your friends....

Nasty comment mate...very nasty.

Equalising the age of consent seems like common sense to me.

I honestly can't think of a reason why there should be different ages of consent between a heterosexual couple, a gay (male) couple and a gay (female) couple...as there was beforehand.

However, I would suggest that the age not be equalised at 16...it should be raised to 25.

There...that should annoy the teenagers...

[WaldoMcFroog]

Even 'your' side are now acknowledging there's a connection. You fly in the face of the opinions of people like Sir Richard Dannatt, head of the army, and the recent joint intelligence committee report in the US if you sincerely believe there's no connection.

Besides which, again, you're not comparing like with like. The first Gulf War was almost exclusively justified as being against a secular despot. The second was (in part) justfied as being against a despot who colluded with Islamic terrorists (conveniently forgetting the secular nature of his regime) thereby, together with the rest of the War of Terror (is this correct?) creating a casus belli.

[admarlow]

So Iraq has only been an Islamic state for about 6 years?

[Loosehead]

SP - to take your 3 points:

Section 28 did not stop gay issues being addressed it did not stop teachers dealing with gay issues, it did not stop sex education in that area. It was introduced to stop right on gay propaganda it's removal was not necessary unless you need to restart the propaganda.

Peace in Northern Ireland would be good yes, and it's great that they are no longer bombing the mainland, but ask someone who live there whether they like the "peace". The ira are now running organised crime and sectarian violence, although not reported very much, has not abated. It's better than it was but really the situation is analogous with Alfred and the Danes.

The Lords are intended as a saftey cushion to stop an errant governement. The parliament act is designed as a safety cushion to override an unduly obstructive lords. The act should not be used on such trivia. The fact that the lords block the age of consent bill 3 times should, on a matter like this at least, make the government question itself. I just think using the act this way devalues its purpose. Why is it a nasty comment? It's true isn't it?

[youngmafbog]

On the parliament Act , surely the issue here is the abuse of an Act meant for something far more important than dear old Tony using it to apease the gay community.

[robbo82]

The fact that you can't even spell Conservatives suggests to me that you are out of your depth when it comes to political debate.

However 'wrecked' you think the UK now is, it's nowhere near as bad as it got in the 80s under Thatcher and the Tories. It's a fact of politics that whoever's currently in power willl always get criticised for their policies, but I can assure that Britain in 2006 is a much better place than Britain in 1997. Now I hope you're enjoying your half term and have fun back at school next week.

[Bazile]

Given the electoral system there is only going to be a choice between the main two parties .
Judging by the foregoing postings and other postings relating to other topics , one thing is evident ... in the main people seems to have deeply entrenched opinions for one or the other .

Isn't it great that we live in a democracy where we can express our opinions without fear of being rounded up for a 'private chat' by the authorities

Personally I can only judge either party according to how I have been affected over the years by their policies - and under the tories I was worse off than than I am now under labour

Going forward , I see that the tories seems to be saying that they have the answers to all of our problems ..... how many times have the opposition parties over the years made these claims in order to get into power? - only to find out once they are in that this island we are on has and will always be influenced by the outside world

Personally , I cannot see that If the tories get into power that we will all end up in utopia or any where near to it , as they are promising .

I now anticipate a barrage of disagreement by the tory faithful ... but that is my opinion , which I am also entitled to express.

[WaldoMcFroog]

The ruling ba'ath party was secular, Iraq is not a theocracy, therefore it is not an Islamic state. It's citizens may well be Islamic but that is not the same thing.

It's a matter of public record that Iraq was despised by organisations such as al Qaeda for not being an Islamic state.

[sp1814]

Loosehead

Clause 28 stated that a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship"

The clause was a woolly load of Conservative nonsense. What does 'promote' actually mean? It meant that as a society we could treat gay partnerships as 'something less'.

It also meant that if a gay teenager turned to a teacher for information, advice etc...they would be turned away. That was the effect of this nasty piece of legislation.

Seriously...do you really want to live in a society where gays and bisexuals are legislated against?

Would you want the civil partnership bill scrapped?

I'm frankly proud of the way that people in this country saw the scrapping of Clause 28, and the introduction of the Civil Partnership Act without batting an eyelid.

The British public should be patted on the back for that.

[sp1814]

The reason it was a nasty comment is because it supports the idea of the predatory gay male lusting after 16 year old boys.

It's just a hoary bit of modern fiction.