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Wow how DARE Ed Milliband take on the greedy energy crooks, outrageous.

Miliband was not taking them on, he was posturing & knew full well he would have problems putting a freeze on, it would have had major repurcussions for investment in this country.

£12billion.............................................Yes, that is how much MORE the gold was worth 6 months AFTER he sold it off!

GTW4.....................................The Surestart scheme like the PFI schemes were ill thought out & the financial projections were way off what they really should have been.
I should know, I was then employed by The Buying Agency (Government Procurement) and based on the 5th floor at The Liver Building when Labour introduced these policies.

The PFI scheme has now proved disastrous & for those of you complaining about Consertive governments privatising things, PFI was in effective privatisation of hospital services & property!

Surestart looked brilliant in theory, however in practice it became difficult to manage and was not cost effective in the long term.

Funding cuts since this government came in are entirely down to the prolifigacy of Labour when in power.
Brown & Co continually changed target dates within their fiscal policies to give the appearance they were doing a good job.

Robbing Peter to Pay paul was how the operated & in the end they were caught red handed!

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9. Employment is at its highest level ever. Wrong, it is at highest level ever NOW!

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And you dare to talk about how some figures during Labours tenure have been dressed up in some way. Amazing.


The ONS has all the figures you need on Employment & Unemployment.

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If our economy is doing so well, why are there a record number of people using food banks? 1.4 million people on zero hour contracts? Wages in real terms fallen lower than what they were in 2007 for men & women in full time work?

The richest 1% in Britain own more than 55% of the poorest put together.

The economic growth is only felt by the elitists.

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And there in lies the whole Tory manifesto. It wasn't us, blame Labour.


Sorry, where were you during the 12 years of Labour in control?

I won't even mention the lies about Iraq, ooooops I just have!

Its a sad fact of life, the current Labour crew & those of Blair & Brown have little to do with what Labour originally stood for.
In fact interms of separation, because of their backgrounds, it is difficult to separate the people at the helm of both parties!

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Iraq was a disaster, as were the PFI contracts that Andy Burnham signed (over 220 I believe).

Blair had pros and cons, but he is the lesser of the two evils with regards to Cameron. And regardless of what you think of Brown, debt as a proportion of GDP was lower than any time since the boom that was experienced under Thatcher's privatisation. He also did a better job at trying to rebalance the economy than Osbourne, as well as massively aiding the banking sector (albeit at the expense of the public but something had to be done during this global financial crisis, he couldn't do nothing and watch everything fall apart).

Brown really wasn't as bad as people make him out to be. Whether you agree with how he tackled issues is one thing, but some of the things he did were admirable. Unfortunately due to his cowardice, he will never be given credit for the good things he did do.

So raiding the pension pots was a good thing was it?

I don'thave a lot of time for Cameron, Clegg or Miliband, however I have less time for Brown. He presided over some of the greatest & most calamitous decisions ever taken by any Chancellor.

As for Blair, he was an con man, who was more Tory than the Tories. He completely deserted his Labour principles to get power, derived the electorate & lied to Parliament, yes definitely a man to be admired.
One man who knew the truth had to die in a field in Oxfordshire to protect Blair and his cronies.............

Deceived not derived!

Given that I was born in the 1990's, I was very young at the time of Blair and fairly young during Brown's tenure as well but this is based on the research I've done of the PMs and the discussions I've had.

With regards to Brown, I didn't say I agreed with everything he did. However he saved the UK's economy and having inherited a huge mess from Blair, he did what he could and tried to make the best out of a horrible situation. Some things he did well, some things not so well. But he was still better than Cameron's Conservative Party. I can't believe he let the pressure get to him and gave up when the going was getting a little tough.

As for Blair, when you really think about it, the one major mistake he made which has affected his reputation dramatically (and rightfully so) is the Iraq war in 2003 which was an absolute nightmare. The PFI contracts, top down reorganisation of the NHS (which has been exacerbated under this current government in my opinion) and deregulation of financial institutions within London were poorly-judged albeit not horrific decisions.

He did some good things, though. National minimum wage, sustained economic growth, reduced deficit, improved results for education, increase in employment, introduction of the Freedom of Information Act. The latter parts of his career will be tarnished obviously, but he did bring about some good. Far more good than Cameron.

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With regards to Brown, I didn't say I agreed with everything he did. However he saved the UK's economy and having inherited a huge mess from Blair, he did what he could and tried to make the best out of a horrible situation. Some things he did well, some things not so well. But he was still better than Cameron's Conservative Party. I can't believe he let the pressure get to him and gave up when the going was getting a little tough.

Samir your naivety is really coming through now!

Brown was one of the architects of the mess Labour were in, they inherited an economy which was in good shape in 1997, Brown was very good at obfuscation & his method of masking how his economic plans really were was to ensure no one could see how he was really moving the same money around in a desperate measure to try & make it look as though he was doing a good job.

To be fair, the crash of 2008 was not his doing, that was more to do with the World economy as a whole. However his management of the bank systems in this country was woeful, especially once he was the UNELECTED PM, he oversaw the Northern Rock disaster which ultimately led to other banks being in crisis. Whilst his government did put in hundreds of millions into our banks to avoid total meltdown, it was not a masterstroke as claimed. He had to do it & was advised thus by the IMF & leading credit rating agencies.
Indeed Lloyds was downgraded from A+++ to A, and fortunate to not be lower.

As for sustaining growth, that is also rubbish, the economy was in a dire state in April 2010 & effectively we were very close to being bankrupt as a nation. The best thing Labour did do, was to keep us out of the Euro.

How can you say that PFI was not a horrific situation?

Some hospitals who were given £xxm in exchange for an FM company like Serco for instance to run the hospital facilities for the next 25 years, face having to pay back exorbitant amounts in that time frame.
For instance in most PFI hospitals changing ONE light bulb costs the Trust around £50 a time!

So for say a £25m PFI, the Trust could pay back in that time around £130m.............................

As for the NHS, there were more Management levels created by Labour, more managers employed and more red tape.................................this is one area the NHS could do with less, not more of!

I don't agree that it is necessarily any better under the Conservatives, however it is not any worse. Why? There is little continuity within the NHS in terms of leadership or strategy.

Every few years another new plan/focus is launched to give the impression that things are being addressed, where in reality they are just using these to deflect attention away.

My partner was a GP in Milton Keynes & she could tell some woeful stories about the NHS under both Labour & the Conservatives.

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GTW4....................................................Maybe in her Trust things are not good, remember Stafford?

I am not saying things are perfect within the NHS, however we rarely hear of the good stuff going on, which far outweigh the negative things.

The biggest problem facing any government is that they are trying to turn around the equivalent of an aircraft carrier onthe M1, under current circumstances almost impossible.

Just so you know, more NHS hospitals had to be saved from "bankruptcy" under Labour than ever before.

When senior managers within Trusts for instance are earning more than the Prime Minister & not just Chief Executives either.

In one trust the Facilities Manager was on £155,000 a year!

The key really is to remove some of the management levels, forget about targets & focus on standards of care & hygiene plus training.

I would go even further in that I would force people who go to A&E through self inflicted things to be charged for the service. These would be excess alcohol, drug abuse etc.............................Yes I know some people might not be in a position to pay, but that is another issue entirely.
In my opinion if you can afford to go binge drinking you can afford to pay for treatment!