Let's sum up.
The first PM I remember is Harold Wilson. He was Labour but I don't know if he was extremely left wing or not. Since then up to present date we've had a mixture of Conservative and Labour govt's. Two points here. Politics and govt is cyclical. No govt usually lasts more than two terms and no Labour govt has ever had an extreme left wing leader. Michael Foot was unelectable because of it,, John Smith might have got in but sadly he died. Blair realised this and he moved his party and I think people have to say he was initially a big success. But in gov't there are usually defining moments. Blair and the Iraq war cost him. Thatcher survived on the back of the Falklands War and the patriotism that brought out in the British people. Brown lost out because of the banking crisis. Corbyn was unelectable because he had no clear policy on Brexit, he associated himself with terrorists and cared little for the important issue of defence. Starmer has come in and hopefully he realises the mistakes of Corbyn and Corbynites [those on here know who they are] and that to follow that path has little chance of success. He needs to get Labour back on track fighting for that so called centre ground and I bet that once this current crisis is over he and the party will go from strength to strength as a credible opposition and come the next election will have every chance of success. If he fails to learn the lessons of history then they will suffer again.
The NHS even though a massive topic wasn't the subject of discussion that it currently is. My view on the NHS is that it's unfixable. You can throw as many billions as you want at it you will never solve all the problems it has. Why? Because the NHS is a totally different animal to what it first was and what it was even only forty years ago. Technology has advanced greatly regarding all the studies of various diseases illnesses etc. I'd guess the pharmaceutical companies are making massive and obscene profits out of the NHS. There's so much more around now that we think we know about and how to treat it sand that all costs.
Now, all that said, we still need the NHS. We still need it to do the things it does. It's one of the things that being British should make you proud. I just think that we need to accept that the NHS is and always will be like throwing money down a black hole but it's something we need to do.
There you go, I think that's a very reasonable minded post.
Let's sum up.
The first PM I remember is Harold Wilson. He was Labour but I don't know if he was extremely left wing or not. Since then up to present date we've had a mixture of Conservative and Labour govt's. Two points here. Politics and govt is cyclical. No govt usually lasts more than two terms and no Labour govt has ever had an extreme left wing leader. Michael Foot was unelectable because of it,, John Smith might have got in but sadly he died. Blair realised this and he moved his party and I think people have to say he was initially a big success. But in gov't there are usually defining moments. Blair and the Iraq war cost him. Thatcher survived on the back of the Falklands War and the patriotism that brought out in the British people. Brown lost out because of the banking crisis. Corbyn was unelectable because he had no clear policy on Brexit, he associated himself with terrorists and cared little for the important issue of defence. Starmer has come in and hopefully he realises the mistakes of Corbyn and Corbynites [those on here know who they are] and that to follow that path has little chance of success. He needs to get Labour back on track fighting for that so called centre ground and I bet that once this current crisis is over he and the party will go from strength to strength as a credible opposition and come the next election will have every chance of success. If he fails to learn the lessons of history then they will suffer again.
The NHS even though a massive topic wasn't the subject of discussion that it currently is. My view on the NHS is that it's unfixable. You can throw as many billions as you want at it you will never solve all the problems it has. Why? Because the NHS is a totally different animal to what it first was and what it was even only forty years ago. Technology has advanced greatly regarding all the studies of various diseases illnesses etc. I'd guess the pharmaceutical companies are making massive and obscene profits out of the NHS. There's so much more around now that we think we know about and how to treat it sand that all costs.
Now, all that said, we still need the NHS. We still need it to do the things it does. It's one of the things that being British should make you proud. I just think that we need to accept that the NHS is and always will be like throwing money down a black hole but it's something we need to do.
There you go, I think that's a very reasonable minded post.
Let's sum up.
The first PM I remember is Harold Wilson. He was Labour but I don't know if he was extremely left wing or not. Since then up to present date we've had a mixture of Conservative and Labour govt's. Two points here. Politics and govt is cyclical. No govt usually lasts more than two terms and no Labour govt has ever had an extreme left wing leader. Michael Foot was unelectable because of it,, John Smith might have got in but sadly he died. Blair realised this and he moved his party and I think people have to say he was initially a big success. But in gov't there are usually defining moments. Blair and the Iraq war cost him. Thatcher survived on the back of the Falklands War and the patriotism that brought out in the British people. Brown lost out because of the banking crisis. Corbyn was unelectable because he had no clear policy on Brexit, he associated himself with terrorists and cared little for the important issue of defence. Starmer has come in and hopefully he realises the mistakes of Corbyn and Corbynites [those on here know who they are] and that to follow that path has little chance of success. He needs to get Labour back on track fighting for that so called centre ground and I bet that once this current crisis is over he and the party will go from strength to strength as a credible opposition and come the next election will have every chance of success. If he fails to learn the lessons of history then they will suffer again.
The NHS even though a massive topic wasn't the subject of discussion that it currently is. My view on the NHS is that it's unfixable. You can throw as many billions as you want at it you will never solve all the problems it has. Why? Because the NHS is a totally different animal to what it first was and what it was even only forty years ago. Technology has advanced greatly regarding all the studies of various diseases illnesses etc. I'd guess the pharmaceutical companies are making massive and obscene profits out of the NHS. There's so much more around now that we think we know about and how to treat it sand that all costs.
Now, all that said, we still need the NHS. We still need it to do the things it does. It's one of the things that being British should make you proud. I just think that we need to accept that the NHS is and always will be like throwing money down a black hole but it's something we need to do.
There you go, I think that's a very reasonable minded post.
Very good post 20’s. Wouldn’t really disagree with any of that, and covers a lot of ground.
This is not intended as a criticism but there is a missing dimension IMO, which I think helps explain a bit more about where we are today.
You are right to say that Labour failed to get elected under extreme left wing leaders, but since about the mid 70’s the Tories have IMO strayed some distance from their ‘One Nation Conservatism’ despite what all their leaders since then would claim.
They always seem to have some new economic experiment to try out on us. Among others wehave had monetarism, neoliberalism, austerity and next in all likelihood hard brexit.
They have done some very good things and floated many boats for sure, but have neglected huge areas of the country and sectors of society and in doing so have sunk plenty more.
Our winner takes all electoral system does help extremes into office IMO, and most of us probably only want centralist common sense government I think?
We have not seen anything like enough of that in the last forty odd years I would say.
We are left now with a very polarised politics, and a very divided and unequal society. This board is a symptom of all that.
PS sorry did not mean to quote your original post 3 times, and I don’t think Harold Wilson’s government was particularly left wing, but I don’t remember it well, and it did have people like Tony Benn in it.