Ummm, really? Do you really believe that Britain would be in a better state had the Conservatives won in 1997 and not Labour? Or even if they'd won in 2001?
When did I say that? I never said that.
The Tories were in a complete mess after a few years of Major, who was a Major bugger up - the political cycle had come to stare it's horrid gaze upon the Tories in the mid-90s, and it was their time to leave office and be replaced by Labour.
Fortunately though, the Tories had actually fixed the recession of the beginning of the 90s (which my family personally suffered greatly from - and we're still Conservative voters) and left the public purse in good order when Labour took over.
Then Gordon Brown (who himself said 'I'm not very good at maths') came along and destroyed the balance sheet (as well as conveniently removing a variety of items from the list which would usually be measured to assess our standing - plus changing how inflation was covered, not using constant spend items like Council Tax etc, but by using rare purchase items like televisions - RPI and CPI if memory serves).
A core principle of Conservative policy is financial responsibility, and spending within your means (something Labour doesn't share - they're all about spending, regardless of value for money - their track record over the last 12 years illustrates this point abundantly).
Under Labour, council tax has continuously risen year-on-year thoughout an economic "boom". In the boom years taxes should go down, not fucking UP! Plus - areas like Manchester (Labour) have consistently had lower tax rises than the Shires (Tory), which have had huge increases (my family can personally attest to the ludicrous rise in council tax, and the complete lack of any visible leap in our area that such a huge increase would buy - all it's buying is red tape and bureaucracy).
So yes, under a Tory government we would have been in a far better financial position, they simply don't believe in rinsing the tax payer for every penny they've got so they can "invest" it in quangos and other waste - the same waste which is what the Tories want to cut out when/if they get into office - aka the "spending cuts", that Labour are desperately trying to paint as damaging the services - which is a flat-out lie, the Tories have already laid out what they won't be touching, including front-line services. What they want shot of is the waste and red tape - which is actually making the services worse (again, my family and I can personally attest to this decrease in public service quality).
So yes, they would have saved money "for a rainy day", because you're actually braindead if you (not you specifically, "you" as in "they") think you can have year-on-year growth forever. Fact is, you have to have expansion, followed by contraction, followed by expansion and so-on in a cycle. The idea is to make the sea as calm as possible - not like Labour who have made the boom years so (apparently) good (we saw fuck all of it, thanks in part to our huge council tax rises), which sets us all up for an even worse recession than you would have had even with only slightly sensible policy in use - the worst recession for decades upon decades, and more money borrowed than all the governments put together for three centuries (300 years, if memory serves - at the least it's the ballpark figure) - and yes, that is correct (terrifyingly).
No, I don't think that Britain would have been any better off to be honest. I don't think the Conservatives would have done anything that different. Can you imagine the Cons not going into an un-necessary war in 2003? Can you imagine them not clamping down on civil liberties after 7/7? Can you imagine them putting something by "for a rainy day", lest the world economy went belly up? Can you imagine them being less corrupt than the current Labour bunch. Knowing the Conservatives past attitude to public services, can you imagine that the likes of the NHS would be in better shape?
I don't blame Labour-at-large or any of our governments-at-large for going into Iraq - if anyone's to blame for the misinformation, it's the ones right at the top - in our case, the Labour Cabinet of the time, who spread the misinformation ... although whether they thought it was misinformation at the time of going to war, who knows? I kinda think that perhaps Saddam himself thought he had WMDs, but no longer had them (they have a shelf life methinks), and nobody was willing to tell him for fear of being strung up or worse.
I do think however that going to war in Iraq, when you'd already kicked off in Afghanistan, was a poor choice for all governments involved. Plus, I also think that Saddam should have been ousted in the first Gulf War.
The Tories have been in existence, in one form or another, for hundreds of years - put simply, they are at the heart of Britain, and as such they have a far greater respect for important, historical, civil liberties.
The Tories had their corruption back in Major's years (which were bad years anyway), but Labour take the absolute cake.
The first Lords to be booted out (Labour Lords too) for centuries, the first speaker to be forced out for 300+ years, the McBride fuss, trying to make information leaks to the PUBLIC (we have a right to know) a criminal issue (when NO national security was at risk) - they even tried to do it again when "expenses gate" was about to happen, but didn't. Shit, £5 million was wasted on Labour attempting to find prosecution in the no criminal offence committed case of Damien Green (ironically Gordon Brown himself benefitted a lot from similar information leaks - so even worse, he's an epic hypocrite).
Speaking of hypocrisy, Labour have been riddled with it over the years like a timber ravaged by termites - the first which comes to mind is Two Jags Prescott (Mr "common man" who was on holiday when he shouldn't, playing croquet on a mansion's lawn  ) bitching out Major for having an affair - and yet, unsurprisingly, Prescott is caught with his cock inside someone who looks shockingly unlike his wife - yep, an affair from he who condemned those who have had them. The tip of Labour hypocrisy ice berg.
The Conservatives don't oppose the NHS - and nor do I, it should be a public service, damn straight - they oppose the wasteful mismanagement of it - something which is literally costing lives (again - my family has personally and painfully seen this).
Plus, with Cameron - the Tory leader - having used the NHS a lot more than the average British punter out there, because of his now tragically dead son (who was, for the uninitiated Americans reading, severely disabled) - it would be retarded to think the Conservative Party of today would seek to damage the NHS - they want to fix it to make it a better public service.
Labour say "we've made this, that and the other better" - but saying is nothing, they've said plenty, but fuck all happens. They think if they say it, then it's done - they get the tabloid headline and they kick the idea into a bin. Throwing money wastefully at a problem solves nothing - less money with proper ideas and methods will actually bring about far better value for money, and a far better public service.
...
I'll finish by saying that the Conservative Party of today is not like that of before, just like the Labour Party of today is not like that of before. Each party has their core, enduring principles and style of government, but as the years pass by and the faces change, so does the party.
Labour a tired out and dying, the Conservatives are fresh-faced and eager.
"Government of the Living Dead"? No thanks.
|
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Tricky
Bookmarks