I won't paraphrase all Polly Toynbee had to say in the Guardian this morning. She can say it all too well herself, But the message is an important one:
Labour's spending worked. Why don't they defend it?
That's true. Labour made many mistakes. All governments and all people do so let's not be silly about that. But, overall Labour got a great deal right as this report, on which Polly bases her comments, reveals:
This is rigorous, academic stuff. And as they point out:
[Until 2007] national debt levels were lower than when Labour took office.
And (as Polly notes):
90% of social housing was brought up to "decent homes" standard, rescuing estates from chronic disrepair. The gap in infant mortality rates between manual workers and the whole population closed by 10%. Education results improved markedly, with the gap in GCSE results between social classes beginning to narrow.
There were real achievements - and debt was lower until 2007 than it had been under the Tories. It was a global bank collapse starting in the US that brought the economy down, not Labour.
So why won't Labour say that?
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Apparently we are all blue Labour now denying Labours role in improving Hospitals, Schools after 1997. Spend is inevitable to answer Austerity its about making efforts
to get Taxes from Tax avoiders and challenging Tory priorities. Pre distribution needs a determined approach. Growth can be realised we need a Courageous front Bench
not shadows, real alternative creators!
Doug ,
Many of the schools and hospitals which were built were built on PFI .
This was not because PFI was the right way of financing them (it might be for a minority of projects) but because it hid the spending .
Spending money and dumping an oversized bill on the next generation doesn’t seem like anything to be proud about .
Perhaps it’s time for the Govt to adopt proper accruals based accounting standards for expenditure ?
If fiat money is to have any credibility then Govt’s need to be seen to spend it wisely and not just everywhere .
I agree
PFI was a disaster
I want much improved government accountability
Labour won’t point the finger at the bankers, despite their obvious culpability, any more than the Coalition will. You could put this down to infiltration of fifth columns of you will (I would) Labour are Establishment now juat as the other main parties are.
Bill – you are right and we need to especially remember that labour allowed the banking system to run riot ten years ago up to the crash fulfilling Mandelson’s dictum about getting filthy rich under Labour – with much emphasis on the ‘filthy’. I will never forgive them for this.
Mandelson’s a bank chairman now. I assume this is his reward.
Labour guaranteed a banking crisis by reducing bank capital requirements .
For sure the Conservatives would have done the same and possibly the Lib Dem’s too .
The FSA was totally useless and how that Turner guy can seriously be considered for any top job is beyond me .
Today we got news that AIM shares are to become allowable in ISA’s .
As anyone who has had any dealings with the AIM market will know , what it really needed was a course of antibiotics , to cut out the rot , to get it’s house in order and perhaps kick out 30% of the companies listed there .
There are many cases of US or Canadian or Australian based companies listing on AIM because brokers/regulators etc in their home countries would not touch them with a pole – so they come to London .
Instead the treasury has been persuaded that what it really needs is fresh meat in the form of a rush of new gullible investors .
I doubt George Osborne , or Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling before him has ever bought a share himself . No need to with a defined benefit pension .
Here is a classic example of where more regulation (proper regulation , not more red tape) is needed to give investors the confidence to invest in early stage companies .
Striebs is spot on, the FSA and BOE were useless. Northern Rock ended up being allowed to hold less thna 1% capital against its mortgages, most of which had never had the income details checked. And unfortuantely given Labour was in government then, they have to carry the ultimate responsibility too, because they should have recongised the risk and acted, but were too busy crowing that they had eliminated boom and bust. And off course the Tories would have been at least as bad…
I have read (in a reputable publication)that Ed Balls’s younger – and reputedly smarter – brother is a London based partner in Goldman Sachs.
Not true
In the City, yes
So why won’t Labour say that?
Because too many people, for whatever reason, don’t believe it. The ‘Labour messed up the economy’ narrative is still too prevalent. It is simplistic rubbish, but enough people still think it…
Er…..no one seems to mention that Labour was utterly supine in the face of a a bank and speculator led housing bubble which has crippled the poor and paved the way for the bedroom tax, why not? That disgrace alone is enough to damn them not to mention the utter illiteracy and stupendous idiocy of fondly imagining that bank credit could go one and boom and bust cycles were over! So lets not look at the last Labour Government with rose tinted spectacles! They were genuflecting before the alter of neo-liberalism nearly as much as the present evil crew.
That was then, this is now. We can’t change the past but we (Labour) have to find a way to deal with the future. I agree that the Eds et al should stop scrubbing about for policies that may attract the floating voters, and thereby almost ensure they lose the next election, and tell it like it is with a defining statement that Labour will bring back equality and justice – and win the next election.
Simon, there’s no doubt that the last Labour government was supine and deserve criticism for it. But let us also not forget that our Tory chums wanted the country to bend over even further, indeed stated their wishes pretty clearly in Parliament. My question would be why does not Labour remind the population of the Tories’ demonstrable hypocrisy on this (and so many other) issue/s? Why indeed are they not focussing on the many examples that hypocrisy?
I think Labour is trying to deal with the right wing swing of voters to UKIP and the successful Tory demonisation of the poor – it is utterly lost and floundering in the face of this. UKIP is successfully putting itself forward as the saviour of the white working class absurd as this is. The Labour party has nothing to offer in terms of challenging the neo-lib project and our slavery to big finance – their historical significance is over, they must make way for another opposition party.