So How Did You Feel Ten Years Ago This Morning?
Were you up when Portilo lost? I was.
Watching all those famous Conservatives lose their seats was better than any amount of coffee for keeping me awake into the early hours. I didn't go to bed I crept upstairs to Janis at about 5 a.m, kissed her on the forehead and whispered "We've won."
It was a bright sunny morning, both meteorologicaly and metaphorically. The Americans had Camelot under the Kennedy's, we were going to have Avalon under the Blair administration. It was a relief after all the years of Conservative rule to see a P.M so vibrant, so alive, somebody who appeared to be in-touch with 'real' people with real worries: health, education, transport - the issues that affect people everyday.
Watching the party faithful dance to D:ream "Things Can Only Get Better," was embarrassing, like watching your uncle dancing without the benefit of a pint of beer but as the cameras panned along the lines of happy, clapping, smiling Labourites there was a sense of a new beginning, people refer to it as New Labour or Nu-Labour or just NL. It was all that, but in a sense it was a reflection of changing times across Europe during the previous decade, the previous year had seen 'football coming home', now it was 'social responsibility coming home'.
The Conservatives had run out of ideas and steam, the voters were finally realising that whilst tax cuts made good headlines and the individual feel good in the short term, they weren't good in the long term. Then there were the scandals, the sleaze, the Hamilton's. Charles Kennedy had led a good campaign on the Lib.Dem ticket but the general feeling was that whilst that party works well at local level not enough people would turn out and vote for them to make them serious contenders for power.
The new regime did what all new regimes did, it made promises: Education, education, education, became one of a series of slogans, catchphrases almost. The word spin, one that had previously only been uttered by Richie Benaud during the summer months or variety acts in the plaza at Covent Garden, became synonymous with the new Government. For the next eight years or so, whilst Alastair Campbell remained in charge of P.R, every white lie or big lie was put down to 'spin'.
For the first two terms the public love affair with the Blair government remained undiminished, for businesses too it was good news, low Corporation Tax rates and high Capital Allowances meant that investment flowed into the country. Then things started to go wrong, the Chancellor tampered with the tax credits which in turn affected pension funds and meant that for anybody born after the baby boomers, pensions would never be the same again.
The biggest public fallout in terms of confidence came after the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in September 2001, the U.S.A invaded Iraq and British troops went along as part of the package. A war on terror was declared, this time the soundbite had it's origins in the States and not with Millbank but the sentiment was there, Britain cowered like a stooge behind the playground bully shaking it's fist at the world beyond Europe it had previously cared little about and had tried even less to understand. As the body bags began to pile-up so people took to the streets, first the anti-war brigade, then the anti-hunting lobby, then the pro-hunting lobby, then those campaigning against some cartoons published in Denmark and then those protesting against the protesters who had been against the cartoons that had been published in Denmark.
At home Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland enjoyed self-determination and self-government whilst in England, Scottish M.Ps are still allowed to vote on constitutional matters that had no bearing on their constituents. Fifty million people were saying, "look, you've got your own Government but why not spend a while in ours as well," it's often said 'Only in America' but only in England could this happen.
Britain apologised for slavery, for Ireland, for being crap at all sports and not for not eating all its greens up. Blair's babes, a feature of that famous first term, disappeared from public view, one even drank herself to death. Then came the sleaze.
Sleaze happens, it happens it all walks of life and politicians having power are more likely to be corrupt than most - after all who is more likely to award you that civil engineering contract, the bloke who lays the bricks or the bloke that approves the planning - it's a no brainer. Unfortunately the Labour party had set its stall out back in 1997 as being the party that had the anti-sleaze broom and was about to sweep clean. From Bernie Ecclestone to Lord Levy, from cash for questions to cash for honours, the Labour party proved that whatever the colour of your beliefs they can always be bought for a price.
In 2006 people feel let down, there is a growing sense of failure by even the most loyal party followers that this has been an opportunity wasted. It's mainly the Government's fault but part of the blame lies with a weak opposition, as Mrs Thatcher once remarked a Government is only as good as its opposition. Iraq, immigration, education, congestion charges, the health service - most of the issues aren't new. Perhaps we live in a more cynical, more accessible era where we expect politicians to be whiter than white or perhaps we live in a world where you expect a decent service in return for payment.
Personally I don't feel any worse off than I did 10 years ago, I don't feel threatened in my house at night or on the street, my daughter's school doesn't suffer from shortages and my hospital doesn't have long waiting lists, I have an NHS dentist and a doctor I can see at a day's notice, my town is clean and the public transport system is good. I'm lucky. There are people out there who aren't so lucky and 10 years of this Labour government has let them down.
6 comments:
Hello Baldy, well written and concise piece that...and I agree with most of it!
I had just moved house when TB won and even though I was a true blue I did feel the sense of "this feels like something special" etc....how wrong I was ;-)
(runs away)
Thanks Span - it was a tangible sense of something new and exciting wasn't it? No need to run away I think most people who felt good about TB 10 years ago feel let down.
ANY party in after 10 years feels stale. Nu Labour have been worse than many though.
(FFS - lose the unnecessary apostrophes!!!!!!! Arrrgghhhh!)
I've only put them where spellchecker suggested!
Get rid of spellchecker then!
I've never used it btw. Have a dictionary next to pooter in case have to check how to spell something.
I remember the day Blair got in and I was delighted.
Who are worse of now as a result of Blair?
I like most of what new labour has done. Its easy to point to the war and say but not that. However I sometimes wonder 'what if'. With the recent news that the 7/7 bombers had come to the attention of security services, but that security had failed to act, I do wonder what might be happening now in the world had we failed to act in Iraq?
Post a Comment