What went wrong in 1997 ?
I'm returning to my theme of yesterdays post, but via Jeff Randall's opinion article in today's Telegraph where he accuses Labour of infantilising the electorate.
The long and short of Jeff's argument is that Labour lead people to think they could have their cake and eat it in 97. Ever since then they have pretended ( with all the dark arts they discovered to get themselves elected ) that no choices were necessary. Indeed even when Blair tried to make some choices, after he realised the evil Tories had been right on health care reform after all, the clunking fist was the roadblock to reform.
Its often argued that socialism itself infantilises people as it strips responsibility and replaces it with dependency and special pleading to the almighty state.
I reported figures from a recent poll yesterday that show just how far out the general population are from financial reality. Part of the reason they are there is that New Labour (which has included a very large amount of the MSM - especially the BBC, Guardian, Independent - but also significant parts of the Times, Daily Mail and yes the Daily Telegraph ) hasn't allowed this debate to take place.
In 1997 New Labour had a problem. Everyone knew that socialism was a a cruel failure. If you'd tried some of the lines about Labour being the better party to trust in a financial crisis people would have expired laughing at you. But as luck would have it the Conservative reforms and government had paid off. The most golden economic legacy ever to be passed onto another government had been created. No one wanted to hear about more tough choices - just how to spend it all ( and here New Labour armed with its narratives, focus groups, sound bites, and policy tricks could do business ).
The people no longer saw the need for discipline.
They had had enough of reforms and improvements and where ready to support anyone who promised easy times and lots of spending ( but cleverly disguised in a sort of low fat way that a diet coke comes with your BK double bacon cheeseburger meal ).
So in 97 the electorate stopped remembering what had got the country to the bright economic uplands, and started just listening to the Grimmer Worm Tongues of the Labour spin machine.
Ever since the media has been with the project. The old lessons have been forgotten. If we need more money we can just borrow it and pay it back with fantasy efficiency savings.
In 1997 the electorate just stopped paying attention, and now they can't wake up at the moment of danger.
Note: Of course other things went wrong in 97. The ERM ( which the Labour party & Lib Dems supported also ) had blown up in our face - though that was a tiddler compared to the disaster in banking Gordon Brown engineered. Small scandals were masterfully knitted together by Robin Cook into the Tory sleaze smear campaign ( but again far worse has happened under Labour, but the MSM doesn't want to pin the blame on them ).
The long and short of Jeff's argument is that Labour lead people to think they could have their cake and eat it in 97. Ever since then they have pretended ( with all the dark arts they discovered to get themselves elected ) that no choices were necessary. Indeed even when Blair tried to make some choices, after he realised the evil Tories had been right on health care reform after all, the clunking fist was the roadblock to reform.
Its often argued that socialism itself infantilises people as it strips responsibility and replaces it with dependency and special pleading to the almighty state.
I reported figures from a recent poll yesterday that show just how far out the general population are from financial reality. Part of the reason they are there is that New Labour (which has included a very large amount of the MSM - especially the BBC, Guardian, Independent - but also significant parts of the Times, Daily Mail and yes the Daily Telegraph ) hasn't allowed this debate to take place.
In 1997 New Labour had a problem. Everyone knew that socialism was a a cruel failure. If you'd tried some of the lines about Labour being the better party to trust in a financial crisis people would have expired laughing at you. But as luck would have it the Conservative reforms and government had paid off. The most golden economic legacy ever to be passed onto another government had been created. No one wanted to hear about more tough choices - just how to spend it all ( and here New Labour armed with its narratives, focus groups, sound bites, and policy tricks could do business ).
The people no longer saw the need for discipline.
They had had enough of reforms and improvements and where ready to support anyone who promised easy times and lots of spending ( but cleverly disguised in a sort of low fat way that a diet coke comes with your BK double bacon cheeseburger meal ).
So in 97 the electorate stopped remembering what had got the country to the bright economic uplands, and started just listening to the Grimmer Worm Tongues of the Labour spin machine.
Ever since the media has been with the project. The old lessons have been forgotten. If we need more money we can just borrow it and pay it back with fantasy efficiency savings.
In 1997 the electorate just stopped paying attention, and now they can't wake up at the moment of danger.
Note: Of course other things went wrong in 97. The ERM ( which the Labour party & Lib Dems supported also ) had blown up in our face - though that was a tiddler compared to the disaster in banking Gordon Brown engineered. Small scandals were masterfully knitted together by Robin Cook into the Tory sleaze smear campaign ( but again far worse has happened under Labour, but the MSM doesn't want to pin the blame on them ).
