One word to describe the U.K.

The last Labour government was that good that in Tony Blair’s first six years he committed U.K. troops to combat situations five times more than any other Prime Minister in history.

Iraq 1998 and 2003

Kosovo 1999

Sierra Leone 2000

Afghanistan 2001

Like I said, rose tinted glasses with the current world situation do t be surprised if our brave troops end up in Ukraine or Middle East…

Intolerant

I expect Labour to win. It would be amazing if they didn’t.
I’m concerned about what happened to our finances last time they were in
and what might happen this time when we have less time for recovery.
I’m seriously concerned about KS’s reluctance to protect females.
I’m worried about the immigrants situation. There seems to be no plan for sorting out the issue and Yvette Cooper is happy to see continued use of the Bibby Stockholm barge.
I think it’s been really funny watching all parties ruining their green credentials hurtling up and down the country.

Thdy would have sold their grannies to ride in a ministerial car.

And then Nick Clegg cleared off to a lucrative job in America!

Siope - what was it please? The thing you thought was such a bad Labour idea?

I was sceptical about SureStart - (though involved in research for it) but came round to it fairly quickly when I was sure what it was and saw what a good one could achieve.

Much earlier I campaigned against the National Curriculum as I felt that would be the beginning of "teaching to tests".

varian

Damaged.

A good country reduced to a far worse country by the disaster of Brexit and the last nine years of gross incompetence, chaos and corruption.

Why only nine years. The Lib Dems put the Tories in power and they are to blame too.

And no they didn't moderate any damage done by the Tories during the coalition. They enabled it. Ed Davey was fully involved. They would have sold their grannies to ride in a ministerial car.

I’ve now read the Zadie Smith article. Fantastic 😄. I’m beginning to dare to hope

No one can deny by a large number of measures the U.K. is worse off now than 15 years ago. No one is looking through rose tinted glasses, no one says it was perfect, but we didn’t have so many depleted services.

GG13, I’m not. I gave up a great job as I could not, in good conscience, implement one particular Labour policy because I believed it would do more harm than good to the communities affected by it (and being proved right was not much consolation).

There were other decisions and policies which I think were not great for the country, in the medium to long term.

But overall, it’s hard to argue with a large amount of empirical evidence that against a wide range of measures, the UK was better during the Labour administration than it has been for many - most - years of this one.

Brilliant Zadie Smith article in the Guardian! Looks forward to new hope on the horizon

I’m not `GrannyGravy. I remember the sense of hope, the community schools, family centres so much focus on Early Years - based on research, not on how much can we cut from this lot

Struggling

I think you are remembering the Labour years through rose tinted glasses.

Damaged.

A good country reduced to a far worse country by the disaster of Brexit and the last nine years of gross incompetence, chaos and corruption.

pascal30

NotSpaghetti

I read the Zadie Smith piece too -
Here it is if anyone else wants to:

www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/03/zadie-smith-on-hope-trepidation-and-rebirth-after-14-years-of-the-tories

thankyou.. great article..

I agree. It's a very good article.

Galaxy

Better than many other places. As a woman I am free to drive, work, have an education. There is a democracy and gay people arent thrown off buildings. There is no capital punishment or gun culture.

I second this.

Gillycats

Wonderful. We are lucky to live in a beautiful country with so many freedoms. People seem to think the grass is greener elsewhere, it’s not. It’s the same everywhere. And for me with many European countries turning to the Far Right I’m even more proud to be living in a tolerant and multicultural society.

Hear hear!

Destroyed.

No one said the grass is greener, but stop pretending everything is hunky dory here - compared with 15 years ago, the U.K. is in a worse place in many areas.

Wonderful. We are lucky to live in a beautiful country with so many freedoms. People seem to think the grass is greener elsewhere, it’s not. It’s the same everywhere. And for me with many European countries turning to the Far Right I’m even more proud to be living in a tolerant and multicultural society.

Yes. Resilient. Maybe not as resilient as we once were though.

ronib

Resilient

I second this.

Better than many other places. As a woman I am free to drive, work, have an education. There is a democracy and gay people arent thrown off buildings. There is no capital punishment or gun culture.

We have been in a bad place before.

The power cuts in the 1970s under both Tory and Labour. The never ending strikes, rubbish piled high and the dead unburied. I think we were called the sick man of Europe. Massively high inflation.

Later under the Thatcher years crippling interest rate. People lost their homes and businesses. The poll tax and civil unrest.

Somehow the wealthy manage to make money even in the hardest times.

Whoever gets in we are in for a very difficult few years. Any politician who says we are not is a liar.

Divided.
But, like others, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.