Thatcher was right because the country needed a fundamental & drastic change in its inevitable path of slow decline. Blair was right because she went too far and the country wanted a market economy but with some social justice. But Blair's government was still to the right of Heath's, which is staggering when you think of it.
Now it's a case of austerity having gone too far. People would have accepted that if there'd been some benefit coming out of it but the only prospect is yet more of the same, degradation of public services to an unacceptable degree and falls in real wages. They've had enough and many think there's a better way. The political ground has started to shift very significantly in my view.
I've a lot of time for your posts, PB and you may well be right.
But I still return to the fact thought that to me it is staggering that after:
- 6 years of really painful Tory cuts
- deep cuts to our police force and then right at the time of the election, the worst terrorist acts we've seen in this country for years
- A PM who resided over said cuts
- A shockingly bad Tory campaign
- A PM who proved to be a joke; a laughing stock amongst many on both sides
- No vision painted by the Tories, of hope and how things will be better
and on the other hand:
- a Labour gift of £28,000 to everyone wanting to go to university (50% of young people)
- a Labour manifesto that promised 95% of people they'd be better off or no worse off
- Labour promises to fix all our public services
The Conservatives STILL won. How on earth did that happen? How on earth did the Tories win??? In all normal circumstances, they'd have had their arses handed to them.
The mathematical answer, is that Labour started too far back. They made up enormous ground, but were never going to catch up enough. But that's a trivial answer, and doesn't get to the root of it. WHY were they so far behind to start with? Corbyn has been so deeply unpopular in the public at large, and we have to ask, why is that? Well part of it is certainly down to the media, who clearly hate him. But surely that cannot explain all of it? Why is he so unpopular amongst his own MPs?
In my view, he is simply too left wing to ever be what the country wants or needs. We are no longer a nation of millions of unskilled workers being exploited by evil employers. Powerful hard left unions and union leaders yelling out brothers out, is no longer appropriate in this country. We are country of highly skilled, highly paid employees with excellent relations with their employers. Sensible pay demands (and pay) and no strike agreements. This is the modern reality. Corbyn wishes to return us to what he remembers as a golden era where the unions held the power; the state owned the assets; rich people weren't so rich. Hardly anyone else wants this anymore.
Working class people have aspirations not to be working class. They don't want to work on the shop floor doing menial tasks for poor pay all their lives; they are upwardly mobile. They want a better life for themselves and their kids. Perhaps they want to own their own business. They want to live in a country where business is allowed to thrive, because they want where they work to thrive. Or their own business to thrive.
But some of Corbyn's entourage don't get it. I heard one of his supporters on the TV being asked what she hoped for most in a Corbyn government. She replied, I want the rich to be paid less. That was her very sad 1st priority. Forget making the country better; she just wants other people to be worse off. Corbyn still has some of that in him; a bitter resentment of anyone successful. The broader public can smell it and they don't like it.
