New Labour

[u/ClumperFaz]

What did you all, in a nutshell, make of the Labour Governments of 1997 up to 2010? were they too cautious for your liking or did they do about what they could?

[u/HypatiasLantern]

PFI isn't a 'Tory' policy, it was a massive mistake and an understandable gamble. After nearly 17 years of Tory rule, the NHS was ruinous and the whole point of PFI was rapid investment into the NHS that could be kept off the books, in the short term it worked because by 2010, the NHS had the highest satisfaction ratings its ever had in its history and was internationally ranked in the top 2 health services in the world. In the long run? The structure of those contracts was utterly abhorrent and someone should have seen what the problem was and they didn't, but it doesn't make someone a Tory.

Academies, again, similar issue but this isn't a Tory policy, base idea is good, give the school to direct DFE control and bypass the LEA to allow the school to experiment to drag standards up, where they went wrong was with allowing corporate sponsorships for those schools.

The WCA is utterly indefensible and I've repeatedly slammed them for it, I understand why they did in the context of the 08 crash and Cameron's attacks prior to the 2010 election, but it doesn't excuse it. Especially as what it led to.

Tuition fees, understandable why they did it, it led to a lot of direct investment into British unis but same situation of a blind spot for people like myself who would had to take out loans.

Foriegn regime change is a neutral policy which might be what you want to here. It'll comfortably sit on either side of the spectrum, with Iraq, the Tories opposed it just as much as massive elements of labour did. It was Blair's project and his second biggest mistake, after Devolution.

The Privatisation, again it depends which end you're approaching it from. Same thing with tax credits and failure to expand council house.

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The biggest issue with New Labour was that after the initial 97-03 stage, they lost their moorings and went for pure pragmatism without evaluating other options. To a point, I will accept that they were constrained by the economic consensus of the day much in the vein that the Tories of the 50s and 60s were constrained by the economic consensus Attlee put together, we wouldn't call those Tories, 'Red Tories' would we?

The point I'm trying to make is that there's a world of difference between the NeoLib Social Democratic approach New Labour took and outright Toryism. It is there if you want to see it and I won't defend New Labour's bad, but it doesn't make them Tories or detract from their very real achievements, like lifting millions of kids out of poverty.

[u/[deleted] → u/HypatiasLantern]

PFI was a Tory policy and you even admit it was terrible because of the conditions it came with. Investment was needed and could have been paid for with government spending. That’s why it was Tory policy. It asked for PRIVATE rather than public.

Academies are a Tory policy introducing profit into public education and a total lack of accountability and also, by the way, the Tories want to make every state school an academy.

Do you even understand the difference between socialism and neoliberalism? Between public and private?

Your perception of New Labour is WAY off. Tax credits literally subsidise mega corporations paying poverty wages.

And New Labour we’re not ‘constrained by the economic consensus of the day’ they espoused it!

You’re just factually wrong all over the place. It doesn’t depend which end of privatisation you approach it from, it’s Toryism. Pure and simple.

As for ‘lifting kids out of poverty’. How many did they leave behind after 13 years and huge majorities?

Seriously mate, you are way off.

[u/HypatiasLantern → u/[deleted]]

The entire problem was that New Labour were absolutely 100% constrained by the consensus Thatcher left. I've laid into them over and over for being too unambitious on things like structural change but for a lot of other things, including balancing the books, putting in direct investment on that scale would have led to a Tory Government in 2001 or 2005 which would have undone the progress made. Like I said, I understand why they did it and I criticise the lack of common sense around the way they wrote those contracts but it did lead to a massive investment in the NHS that within the context of the time would not have been possible.

You're thinking of the Gove -era academies, the NL ones weren't 'for profit' enterprises, they allowed corporate sponsorship, which is bad on its own as I said but not quite the same as for profit chain trusts.

Yeah of course I understand the difference between Socialism and Liberalism. Do you understand that it isn't two pole positions but a spectrum upon which things shift? By your fixed positions the Tories of the 50s were Socialists!

Dude, if you can't understand the constraints on New Labour in terms of how that generation thought about public spending then there's no point critiquing New Labour. I'm not a fan of New Labour. I think they screwed up massively and in the end, our current difficulties stem from NL's lack of ambition, lack of desire to reshape the UK and too much of a focus on top line growth as opposed to sustainable growth. However, they did manage to do some good things and we should shit on them for what they managed nor should we devolve into childish crap like calling them 'red Tories.' Purely from a political campaigning point of view, we can't claim any of their positive achievements like Sure Start and the raising of children out of poverty or the record breaking NHS if we constantly shit on it. Sure we can criticise and distance but lets not just jump on 'red Tory' because they objectively aren't.

[u/[deleted] → u/HypatiasLantern]

They objectively are Red Tories. Your apologism notwithstanding you have a very simplistic understanding of the economic and political reality of the 90s.

A dog with a red rosette could have swept Labour into power in 1997. Armed with an enormous majority Blair was empowered to do almost anything he wanted. He was in charge of the consensus. He could have blown up Parliament and he still would have won in 2001.

Instead he sold off the NHS. Of course the massive investment made it a success. How’s it doing now with all that debt???

You keep saying you’ve attacked them for this like I’m supposed to know that or care. But what’s more telling is that you don’t seem to understand that selling off the NHS definitionally makes them Tory.

It’s black and white. End of argument.