FAO Andy & Joe

[Dedworth]

Labour’s astonishing case of memory loss

From the economy to benefits, house-building to health care, Labour tries to pretend that it has been out of office for a generation

To listen yesterday to Andy Burnham, Labour’s health spokesman, defending the GP contract signed by the last government was to have one’s credulity stretched to breaking point. Mr Burnham rejected the accusation levelled by Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, that “Labour did terrible damage to out-of-hours care”. This cannot be so, said Mr Burnham, because the British Medical Association said the 2004 contract was a good deal. Indeed it was – for its members.

We have often said that, where the debate over the NHS is concerned, there is entirely too much political mudslinging. But Labour simply cannot be allowed to peddle the outright lie that the problems people have in getting access to GPs at evenings and weekends have nothing to do with the way their contract allowed doctors to shed such responsibilities – or, more broadly, to lay every problem with a health service they ran for 13 years at the door of the Coalition.

This is not so much opportunism as outright amnesia. There has been much amusement in Westminster this week over the fact that both Labour and the Tories have deleted inconvenient material, predating the last general election, from their websites. Yet in the case of the Opposition, it is part of a much wider attempt to treat 2010 as though it was Year Zero. On the economy, health, welfare, education and a score of other issues, they imagine voters will forget that this is not just the party that is responsible for so many of the country’s problems, but in many instances the very personnel.

The best example comes in the field of energy. In recent weeks, Ed Miliband has tried to make political capital out of rising electricity and gas bills – blithely ignoring the fact that he was in charge of the sector until April 2010. He now wants to cap prices, reform the market and split suppliers from generators, all of which he could have done while in office. The one thing he is not prepared to suggest – which has been a direct cause of higher prices – is abandoning the green levies that he himself imposed.

The memory loss goes beyond Mr Miliband. Jack Straw, the former home secretary, this week said the party made “a spectacular mistake” in allowing nearly a million Eastern Europeans to come here to work. Ministers here lifted controls on the movement of labour years before other major EU economies – so what did they think was going to happen? Mr Straw, moreover, would have us believe it was just an honest error. Perhaps – but some would argue that it was part of a deliberate policy to bring in cheap workers and tilt the nation’s demography, in the hope that Labour might benefit politically.

Another Labour veteran, David Blunkett, has criticised the way in which Roma settlers in his Sheffield constituency have angered local people. “We have got to be tough and robust in saying to these people: 'You are not living in a downtrodden village or woodlands’,” he said. Had a Tory made such provocative comments, the uproar would have been deafening. Yet Labour politicians appear to have a special dispensation to denounce the impact of their own policies.

One of the week’s other themes has been the reversal of post-war social mobility. The damage was done under both Labour and Tory governments – but nothing was done to address it after 1997, with educational failure becoming entrenched in all too many schools. On welfare, similarly, shadow cabinet members now bemoan the culture of dependency fostered by Gordon Brown. In the diplomatic field, the shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, has been busily denouncing the Government’s failure to boycott a Commonwealth conference in Sri Lanka that his own party committed not just the Prime Minister but also the Prince of Wales to attending.

From the economy to benefits, house-building to health care, Labour tries to pretend that it has been out of office for a generation rather than three years. The Conservatives are not blameless: as the surgery to their website shows, they would dearly like to forget how eagerly they signed up to Labour’s destructive spending and energy plans. But they, at least, have admitted the error of their ways. For Labour, the process of atonement has not even begun.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/t...mory-loss.html

[grahamw48]

I agree.

Labour over 13 years proved that they were a total shower of and a bunch of robbing self-serving hypocrites.

I note that all 5 MPs who were jailed for thieving came from their tawdry ranks.

[KeithD]

Both are as bad as each other once in power. Democracy in the UK means that we have a choice of idiots to run the country who have only known public schools, and have never had a real job.

[SimonH]

Both are as bad as each other once in power. Democracy in the UK means that we have a choice of idiots to run the country who have only known public schools, and have never had a real job.

Very true, we as with all democracies choose which idiot gets to lead us as opposed to communism where they don't get any choice in which idiot leads them

[joebloggs]

don't have time to read it dedworth, got to work but if it's coming from a Tory rag no point in looking at it

[joebloggs]

are there any facts in figures in the article ? or is it just Tory propaganda ?

[Dedworth]

are there any facts in figures in the article ? or is it just Tory propaganda ?

Plenty of facts Joe like Burnham refusing to accept that the 2004 GP Contract (there's a figure for you) wrecked out of hours care.

I know it's not from the Daily Mirror or World Socialist website - there's no big words and shouldn't take you too long to read - you'll see how Labour are trying to distance themselves from 13 years of shambolic rule. It's only recent history after all but then you are fond of going back decades and heaping blame on Mrs Thatcher et all.

[joebloggs]

but you keep on going on about labour, Tories have been in power 3 1/2 yrs and tell me, what is better under the Tories ?

[Dedworth]

but you keep on going on about labour, Tories have been in power 3 1/2 yrs and tell me, what is better under the Tories ?

Immigration cut by a third
2 Islamic Extremists finally deported
Benefits Capped
Deficit cut by a third
Crime down

[grahamw48]

Ayup, it's kicking off again.

VOTE UKIP !!!

[KeithD]

Immigration cut by a third

Based on figures from a unit that has been giving incorrect figures for over 10 years!

2 Islamic Extremists finally deported

Due to the legal system, not government. Regardless of who was in power, they would have gone at some point.

Benefits Capped

Yep. Take off the poor to give to the rich.

Deficit cut by a third

Hasn't the countries debt increased?

Crime down

Fiddled figures as usual, they keep changing the formula, and did so only a few months ago.

....and I voted Tory last time.

VOTE UKIP

[les_taxi]

We were left in the biggest pile of doo doo by Labour how can anyone vote for them again?
Short memories

[grahamw48]

Gang of shisters led by a blinkin schoolboy.

[andy222]

Getting back to the health crisis Torys have had 3 and a half years in power and they dont know how many nurses are on duty..

[andy222]

Based on figures from a unit that has been giving incorrect figures for over 10 years!

Due to the legal system, not government. Regardless of who was in power, they would have gone at some point.

Yep. Take off the poor to give to the rich.

Hasn't the countries debt increased?

Fiddled figures as usual, they keep changing the formula, and did so only a few months ago.

....and I voted Tory last time.

VOTE UKIP

Good points boss and at least you have admitted to being led on by these clowns.

[andy222]

We were left in the biggest pile of doo doo by Labour how can anyone vote for them again?
Short memories

I will.

[joebloggs]

We were left in the biggest pile of doo doo by Labour how can anyone vote for them again?
Short memories

i think you've got selective memory Les , so labour is responsible for the banking crisis ? and the collapse of economies around the world ?

how the Tories mocked Micheal Foot in 1983 when he wanted the Gov to have greater controls of banks maybe we wouldn't have got in this mess were in now. , he also wanted to pull out of the EEC again maybe we would be in the mess were in now

[Dedworth]

i think you've got selective memory Les , so labour is responsible for the banking crisis ? and the collapse of economies around the world ?

how the Tories mocked Micheal Foot in 1983 when he wanted the Gov to have greater controls of banks maybe we wouldn't have got in this mess were in now. , he also wanted to pull out of the EEC again maybe we would be in the mess were in now

Mocking 1983 - 30 years ago Joe Foot was a joke though

Just for the sake of good order please remind us who deregulated the banks and financial sector whilst they cuddled up to the city slickers in 1997

[andy222]

Black wednesday Ded. In the news recently Rolls Royce what a company sold to the Germans by thatcher.

[Dedworth]

Black wednesday Ded. In the news recently Rolls Royce what a company sold to the Germans by thatcher.

I thought Rolls Royce Motors was owned and sold by Vickers Plc in 1998 when Mr Blair was at No 10 - was Mrs Thatcher some sort of major shareholder in Vickers at the time ?

[SimonH]

Actually sold by the Vickers Group to BMW in 1998

[joebloggs]

Mocking 1983 - 30 years ago Joe Foot was a joke though

Just for the sake of good order please remind us who deregulated the banks and financial sector whilst they cuddled up to the city slickers in 1997

foot was a joke , nah dedworth the joke is on you, he was way ahead of his time, he was Honest and respectable, unlike the Mp's we have these days

[andy222]

http://blogs.reuters.com/muniland/20...eform-society/

[KeithD]

My foot can have me hopping mad!

[Dedworth]

foot was a joke , nah dedworth the joke is on you, he was way ahead of his time, he was Honest and respectable, unlike the Mp's we have these days

In the pay of the KGB - a traitor pure & simple

[andy222]

We own nothing thanks to the tories.

[Dedworth]

http://blogs.reuters.com/muniland/20...eform-society/

We own nothing thanks to the tories.

There's a British Company Andy that's quite big in the Aero Engine game

http://www.rolls-royce.com/

[andy222]

And?

[les_taxi]

Joe does the time warp again!

[andy222]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Deutschland