Has the Labour Party lost its appeal in the UK? [ENDS 25/04/2010]

Has the Labour Party lost its appeal in the UK?

ENDS 25/04/2010

With a general election looming right around the corner, many have been echoing a rhetoric of change. A lot see Gordon Brown as a failure in his time as prime minister, tarnishing the reputation of the party with some of his policies such as using tax payers money to bail out banks during the heat of the recession, victim culture, binge drinking and many other poor political, social and economic reforms. Labour has traditionally been classed as a party of the people for the middle class/ working person, however many have believed that it has side tracked from this ethos and became party for the rich. Others argue that such changes were crucial for Britain to be progressive in the 21st century and that they bring more stability in the long run.

Therefore, the motion being debated today is looking into the roots of the Labour government and whether it has indeed lost its appeal with the question being ‘Has the Labour Party lost its appeal in the UK?’ (and tell us why!)

Of course it has, this party has doubled the national debt during good economic times, they have sold off the nations emergency gold at ridiculously low prices and given away further powers to Brussels. Despite promising a referendum on any EU Treaties, they happily signed the Lisbon Treaty and as a result, over 85% of our laws are now made in Brussels. They lied to the house of commons and the public about the unnecessary Iraq War and as a result have severely damaged the Anglo-American relationship. Labour has promoted devolution and as a result Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland now have their own governments costing a ridiculous amount of money and money is now unfairly divided which is possibly the biggest threat to Britain at the moment. They have failed to build prisons and have let people out incredibly early, making a complete joke of the justice system. Ruined the pension system which was previously one of the best in the world and caused record youth unemployment. They have failed to outline any real ways of cutting the national debt.

During their 13 years in power I have liked their introduction of the minimum wage, the reformation of the House of Lords and usually their foreign policy however the country cannot go on like this.

The party has never really been a party of the people, the same with all left wing parties. When Clement Atlee defeated Winston Churchill in 1945 despite the Empire being bankrupt and its people poor and still on rations he filled number 10 Downing Street up with expensive antiques. The socialism that gripped Britain after the war led us down the road to ruin which came to head in the 1970s and 1979 when finally we threw it off and got back on our feet. This government wasted the best opportunity to do some things which normally would not be needed/be a priority as it had an amazing economy that they inherited from the Conservatives, instead they chose (like most Labour governments) to waste it and to punish the successful for their waste and self-inflicted debt. The legacy of this government can be clearly seen in Tony Blair, the champagne socialist who is now reeping in millions.

"Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State." - Margaret Thatcher

To add to what Jordy said, Labour dont have a solution to the national debt and never will have because socialists dont understand the concept that you can only spend what you have. The Cameron-Conservative Party on the other hand has also not outlined and plans to lower the national debt and the small hints it has given are quite honestly, pathetic. They say they will not even cut 40,000 jobs from the Public Sector well i'm sorry, but if you times that by 10+ then maybe we are hitting the nail on the head. The sad thing is, whoever gets in come May we will still be under crippling debts and taxes and none of the main parties have a solution. The best outcome we can hope for is a hung parliament with a weak Lib/Lab coalition in which David Cameron is disposed of and replaced with a real conservative leader, and then when that coalition government collapses the Conservatives would win outright I could gurantee it.

yes the have otherwise there wouldn't be any chance of the conservatives getting in this election, of which there is. Gordon Brown is obviously scared that he was loosing so called it before he could do any more damage to his broken party. The war in Iraq from Blair is still looming in peoples minds, the expenses scandal is also extremely fresh in peoples minds aswell when they go to vote for which party they want in. And if it was me I would never vote for a party who spends my hard on money on duck houses and porn for their husbands.

Also people are becoming increasingly fed up with the foreigner people coming into the UK so they may turn to some smaller parties such as UKIP and the BNP in a vein attempt to control Britons boarders once more - which is something labour haven't offered at all.

Labour have also been in power for a while and the people have become tired of what they have to offer - nothing. They have had the time to change the UK for the better and all they have done is double national debt, increase war and general mess us about. I think a lot of Labour voters will also switch to the Lib dems/conservatives because it's the only alternative.

As a whole i think the people of Britain and becoming increasing fed up and just want a change. And i welcome it.

The title insinuates they ever had appeal.

Edited by Nicola (Forum Super Moderator): Please follow the debate forum rules posted here and do not post pointlessly.

The title should be, 'Have the people of this country finally woken up?'.

Edited by Nicola (Forum Super Moderator): Please follow the debate forum rules posted here and do not post pointlessly.

Nope. What has always happened in the last century is one party stays in power until they **** up so bad that everyone wants them gone and the other party takes over. They'll lose but they'll be back in 2 or 3 more elections I reckon.

maybe, but that's only because whoever is in power is going to get moaned at, despite all the good things labour HAVE done.

It may have lost it's appeal to the majority of people, but for everyone? Simple answer to that is no! People will still be voting for them, including me. We could of said the same thing about the Tories in '97, when they lost in spectacular fashion (and I can almost guarentee Labour isn't going to end up in the state the Tories did in 97 in this election) This is a ridiculous question to ask...

And in reply to Undertaker...the Labour Party are not socialists. Try doing some research on socialism first before throwing that tag around!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frodo13.

It may have lost it's appeal to the majority of people, but for everyone? Simple answer to that is no! People will still be voting for them, including me. We could of said the same thing about the Tories in '97, when they lost in spectacular fashion (and I can almost guarentee Labour isn't going to end up in the state the Tories did in 97 in this election) This is a ridiculous question to ask...

And in reply to Undertaker...the Labour Party are not socialists. Try doing some research on socialism first before throwing that tag around!

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You (as a party) are not socialist in the sense that you practise socialism yourselves as proven by the Kinnocks, Blair and Mandelson - even big old Union boy Prescott. It is more so that you like to practise socialism on us, by removing wealth from the electorate via taxation and spending it on big government which I believe has expanded by one or two million over the past decade. I respect socialists like Tony Benn and George Galloway who, although I disagree with them profoundly, I respect fully because they are actually socialist and are not the hypocritical mix that the Labour Party is in 2010.

It does make me laugh the way Labour supporters on here criticise Thatcher and her economics along with the Conservatives in general, despite the fact the Labour Party has followed them for the past 13 years with the only differences being that Labour spends what it hasnt got, thus raises taxes to get it. This is where the campagne socialist tag comes from, because you preach (as a party) socialism to everybody else but when it comes to yourselves and your own personal wealth you dont seem all that keen on it anymore.

..now I wonder why that is. (£)

I'm sorry, but every single party would take wealth from us. Need I mention the Conservative tendency to take from the poor and vunrable and plough that cash into their wealthy business interests. No wonder all these business leaders support the Conservatives on massive public sector cuts, it don't affect them in the slightest.

On Labour creating big government, I actually agree. But to be honast, that is purely just an ideological left wing belief for centuries, and whether you agree with that compleatly depends on what you believe in. Obviously, as you support a party that is fairly far on the right, your not going to believe in big government, which is understandable.

And once again, look up what socialism is. If this government were truely practising socialism on us, then this money wouldn't be going into government, this money would be being distributed equally amongst the population. As I said in my previous post, do some research on socialism before you throw the tag around!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frodo13.

I'm sorry, but every single party would take wealth from us. Need I mention the Conservative tendency to take from the poor and vunrable and plough that cash into their wealthy business interests. No wonder all these business leaders support the Conservatives on massive public sector cuts, it don't affect them in the slightest.

On Labour creating big government, I actually agree. But to be honast, that is purely just an ideological left wing belief for centuries, and whether you agree with that compleatly depends on what you believe in. Obviously, as you support a party that is fairly far on the right, your not going to believe in big government, which is understandable.

And once again, look up what socialism is. If this government were truely practising socialism on us, then this money wouldn't be going into government, this money would be being distributed equally amongst the population. As I said in my previous post, do some research on socialism before you throw the tag around!

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What can you and the left in general not understand about the fact that we aretotally and utterly skint - we have no money left. The business leaders and business in general around the United Kingdom produces wealth, the public sector does not. So yes, their opinions do matter because without them you end up with more people depending on the state and thus the state has to raise taxes to fund people just to keep them going which in turn harms business even futher. This totally typical class war subject you have attempted to bring up bears no depth and infact its always been under Labour that the poor have been the worst off - because under Labour governments they end up unemployed with no work and having to scrape a living off benefits because Labour had/has driven all the jobs away.

The Conservatives have never taken from the poor and ploughed it into wealthy business because they are firstly not an investor and secondly they are traditionally the friends of small business which makes up for most business in the United Kingdom. We need taxes, nobody is saying we do not - however taxing people because they have done good/taxing people more and more regardless does not create prosperity and wealth - it creates misery and poverty which brings us onto socialism.

Socialism is this, socialism is not equality because socialism as you tend to describe it doesnt exist and cannot exist. The socialist states/parties that have all existed and put their socialism on the people have put socialism on the people successfully by removing their wealth and making everybody generally equal in poverty and misery (except the ruling class of course, they had food on the table for their family). More tax = business lays off workers = more people unemployed = taxes rise again to fund the unemployed = business/the consumer suffers futher and lays more people off = more unemployed = taxes rise to fund the growing unemployed and so on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frodo13.

I'm sorry, but every single party would take wealth from us. Need I mention the Conservative tendency to take from the poor and vunrable and plough that cash into their wealthy business interests. No wonder all these business leaders support the Conservatives on massive public sector cuts, it don't affect them in the slightest.

On Labour creating big government, I actually agree. But to be honast, that is purely just an ideological left wing belief for centuries, and whether you agree with that compleatly depends on what you believe in. Obviously, as you support a party that is fairly far on the right, your not going to believe in big government, which is understandable.

And once again, look up what socialism is. If this government were truely practising socialism on us, then this money wouldn't be going into government, this money would be being distributed equally amongst the population. As I said in my previous post, do some research on socialism before you throw the tag around!

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Of course all parties would take money off us, tax is needed for the police, roads, military, NHS etc. However the Labour government is just wasting ridiculous amounts on red tape. First of all taxing people ridiculous amounts and then giving it back to people in the form of various benefits and the winter fuel allowance etc. While this money is going through the treasury, a high percentage of it is lost. Beforehand tax was a lot less and as a result, everyone was a lot richer, and yes that includes the working class which the Labour party allegedly "fights for".

As Undertaker has correctly pointed out, it is the private sector which generates the wealth. If you tax them a lot they will simply run off to other countries or you will make it incredibly difficult for people to start up new businesses, the Conservative party has certain policies dealing with this however let's not get distracted by this seeing as this is about the Labour Party. The public sector does not generate wealth and has grown enormously under Labour, now 51% of jobs are with the public sector which is no good at all for the country.

I'm afraid you cannot denounce Thatcher, the Labour Party has not reversed her economic policies, why is this? Because they agree with them that is why. Lord Mandelson who was one of the main people behind New Labour has himself claimed "We are all thatcherites now".

You mention how big government is all part of the lefts ideology which does consist of Socialism and always has been part of the Left for "centuries" and you'll also find socialism is the prequel to communism, and we all know how successful that was? It failed for Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. China has pretty much given up on it, it's only North Korea who remains a communist nation and they have millions starving? The left clearly does not work, whether it's in the form of the Soviet Union, Labour in the 70s or this so-called "New Labour!". The most successful nation is the USA and that is purely right-wing, revelling in the joys of capitalism, look no further than that.