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Originally Posted by Shaun
That was then though, now they have the economy on an even keel. I feel so sorry for all of those people that have mortgages, if the Tory's get in I can see so many repossessions when people are put out of work and interest rates go up. 
Especially all those Michael want to sack from the public services (as waste) can't see them keeping up with their repayments.
I take it you weren't brought up in house where your father couldn't get a job for 8 years and then when he did it wasn't enough to pay the mortgage, even with my mother working nights. If you want to go back there then thats great but please don't drag the rest of us there. |
Isn't this a little like claiming it was inevitable that post 1997, we would return to strikes, high direct tax and VAT rates and a clutch of inefficient, overmanned, nationalised industries?
With the benefit of hindsight it's clear to see that Labour since about 1995 is not the same thing as Labour in the late 1970s. Thank God.
Given that past performance is no guarantee of future performance, I really can't see what evidence you are basing your post on. Clearly you and you family suffered a lot during Thatcher's economic reforms, but being personally hurt by a political party's past actions is not in itself evidence that they are going to do the same again.
In fact, I think it's simplistic to point the finger at the Tories for the hardship your family went through. It's a bit like accusing the doctor that administers your chemotherapy of making your hair fall out. I don't mean in any way to belittle what was obviously a nightmare for you and I can't claim to understand what it was like because my own family didn't suffer in that way. But, I think the painful remedy for the disfunctional state of our economy was necessary because of outrageous, untried social experimentation on the part of previous Labour governments and the failure of previous Conservative governments to deal with it decisively while in power.
Labour has clearly left those days behind it, and I am confident that the Tories are not about to cause unemployment and high interest rates again because the economy does not require the kind of radical amputation surgery that caused so much heartache last time. Labour has not got the economy back on an even keel. You will find it extremely difficult to find any economist who does not subscribe to the consensus that it was Tory policies that got the economy back on an even keel as a result of two decades of structural reform which Labour has reaped the benefit of by not trying to unpick that reform.
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Originally Posted by Diamond
Quite a large swing from Lib Dems on the poll I see
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It's a classic poll pattern. A lot of people think the Lib Dems talk a lot of sense, but as polling say draws closer, they start to consider how their vote might actually be put to best use. The Lib Dems stand no chance of winning in my constituency, so I switched my vote from them to Tory. They used to hold this seat and were in second place in 2001.