"Ten years that ruined Britain"

Max Hastings has written an overview of Tony Blair's ten years in office for today's Daily Mail.  Five extracts are published below:

Education, education, education?
"For all the deceits peddled by examination authorities, our children are costing more to learn less. A third of secondary school pupils have some record of truancy.  Most school-leavers are tossed exam certificates without achieving real skills in literacy and numeracy, never mind knowledge.  Our great universities have fallen victim to class-war football, with Gordon Brown the foremost government striker.  More and more unqualified teenagers from state schools are pushed towards Oxbridge, while private school pupils are deliberately excluded.  Excellence drains away. Under-funded British universities, subject to relentless government meddling, slip ever further behind their American counterparts."

Fatter and fatter government
"In the workplace, the Government has promoted employee rights at the expense of a crippling impact on productivity, in which Britain slips ever further down on the global scale.  Public sector workers have prospered. Indeed, thanks to nice Mr Alan Johnson (when he was Pensions Minister), they are almost the only ones left who can look forward to a decent pension.  The economy is now frighteningly dependent on public sector jobs - non-productive ones, funded by the rest of us - to sustain employment."

Whiter than white?
"The Blair years have been a boom time for: Ann Summers sex shops (up from 13 to 134 since 1997); free Viagra; CCTV cameras; wind farms; John Prescott; Peter Mandelson; Cherie Blair's lecture income; the prison population; Alastair Campbell; private security guards; sales of illegal drugs; binge-drinking; City salaries; Ken Livingstone; childhood obesity; and grossly incompetent management of the rail system."

Nanny state Britain
"The past decade has been a woeful time for personal freedoms. Forget, for a moment, the excesses of government anti-terrorist legislation.  There is something mad about any government which persecutes smokers to the point where they will shortly be banned even from private clubs, yet regards marijuana with far less hostility than cigarettes.  Labour whipped many more MPs into the House of Commons to ban fox-hunting than ever turn out to debate child cruelty.  The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has become an enforcement arm of Blairism, intruding its meddling fingers into every corner of our lives."

Uncontrolled immigration
"Some might forgive Tony Blair for the catastrophe of Iraq, but will never forgive his abject failure to control immigration.  According to official figures - and these, of course, ignore the countless numbers of illegal immigrants - the population of Britain grew by 185,000 in 2005 because of immigration, a trend which means well over a million a decade.  Many of the new arrivals not only do not speak our language, but actively reject our values and way of life.  They want to come because Britain is famously the softest touch in the world for access, public money and housing.  Nobody need agree to anything, least of all loyalty to Queen and country, before being waved through the door.  Few Labour ministers care sixpence about the disastrous impact of this influx on social services, housing, race relations and the sense of British nationality."

Read the full article here.

Comments

[Bill]

Is Max Hastings a recent sceptic or has he always been opposed to New Labour. I know I knew all along they would be a disaster for this country.

[Tandy]

I can see this would appeal to Daily Mail readers but this is kind of 'rant' would turn off most people.

[Chips of Brookfield.]

A silly, unbalanced rant that is not worthy of Mr Hastings. What a shame that such a great mind has fallen to such a level. Maybe he should step aside with Blair.

[Steve]

Since when did the simple and obvious truth become a 'rant?'

The Labour regime ruins the coutnry everytime its in power, this time very nearly beyond repair.

Elect the Labour Regime and get all you deserve.

[Matt Davis]

Well said Max Hastings, I couldn't have put it better myself. I would also strongly disagree with Tandy above since the very many voters I have talked to over the least weeks have been echoing these points and other similar ones as well.The Blair Government has been the absolute worst of my lifetime and has done more permanent damage to our country than any other.The vast majority of ordinary, non politically involved, people that I talk to think exactly the same way and are crying out for someone to take a leadership position on both highlighting and fighting these destructive measures.

[Tim Aker]

Hold on folks, didn't Max Hastings claim to have voted Labour for one, if not two, of the last three Labour victories?

[michael mcgough]

Ten years without an effective opposition.

[Andy Stidwill]

The fact is that anyone who uses words like 'disaster' to describe the last 10 years simply loses credibility straight away, because this is the first 10 year period when there hasn't been a recession. The economy is what most people care about, and no matter which party you support, the economy has been doing pretty well since 1997.

[Andrew Young]

"Ten years without an effective opposition"

Very True! A certain party took 8 1/2 years to sort themselves out ....

[Matt Davis]

Oh you must mean the recession that is on its way now then presumably.

[Angela Potts]

TYPING ERROR in your article there ed.

"The Blair years have been a boom time for: Ann Summers sex shops (up from 13 to 134 since 1997); free Viagra; sales of illegal drugs; binge-drinking; City salaries;"

Surely we need another ten years of this?

[Daniel VA]

"The Blair years have been a boom time for: Ann Summers sex shops (up from 13 to 134 since 1997); free Viagra; CCTV cameras; wind farms; sales of illegal drugs; binge-drinking; City salaries..."

Every cloud...

[FedUpWithCameron]

ha ha. Don't you lot remember when the boy claimed to be "the heir to Blair".

[Scotty]

Watching my kids going through their secondary education just now, I despair of the irreparable damage that Labour has wrought on the once excellent Scottish state education system.
Only a Labour government could plan and implement a policy of dumbing down education with the aim of improving their own statistics!

[IRJMilne]

Whilst agreeing with the jist of his article...

- what is the relevancy of "wind farms" to the whiter than white pledge?...

- what control does Mr Blair have over Ann Summers? He hasn't nationalised it...

- "Labour whipped many more MPs into the House of Commons to ban fox-hunting than ever turn out to debate child cruelty" Because there won't be opposition support for child cruelty, and you're comparing a debate and a vote...

- City salaries - what is wrong with good city salaries?

etc.

[Mike A]

What a load of nonsense.

[TomTom]

e irreparable damage that Labour has wrought on the once excellent Scottish state education system.

What about the damage it IS inflicting on Northern Ireland's Grammar schools ?

Poor Max H, if he thinks Ann Summers is raunchy......

[Anne-Marie]

Articles like this are exactly why I despise the Daily Mail and why all self respecting Conservatives should give up reading it for anything other than amusement.

[david]

All well and good. But has it ever crossed Max Hasting's mind that Blair might not have got away with all of this, had it not been for those "useful idiots" like Max Hastings who were so seduced by Blair that they spent much of the last 10 years trying to destroy the Conservative Party?

[Bill]

There's loads I don't like about the Telegraph since Moore departed but I still buy it. Whilst I am not a regular buyer of the Mail, it does have some value. I particularly admire Peter Hitchens. I sometimes think Mail bashing is a bit of a pose. I can think of better targets for Tories. In any event thanks for reminding me to get a copy from my Observer loving news agent.

[Bill]

Mr Stillwell

Just as money should not be the measure of man, economic success should not be the exclusive measure of success.

You are correct to point out that Labour have not lead us into recession which is an undoubted blessing. But Labour's economic success is overstated (property boom, inflation generally, economically inactive, productivity, PFI etc). Just as under the Tories, not everyone has benefited from this growth. And on a per capita basis I believe disposable income is falling.

But even if you give Labour credit for the economy that does not mean you can ignore all the other issues which I rightly think have meant New Labour have been a disaster for this country. All things being equal I think even the 1997 Tories would have done better than the Labour shower.

Labour got off to a good start aided by a compliant and complaisant media. History I believe will be a far harsher judge.

[Sean Fear]

It's thanks to people like Max Hastings that Labour won so convicingly in 1997 and 2001, and were able to do as much damage as they have done.

Still, there is always joy in Heaven over the sinner that repents.

[Cllr Alexa Michael]

Well said, Max Hastings. It is interesting to note that many of the issues he raises are of concern to people who don't even vote Conservative. I am sure many people would agree with him on issues such as crime and uncontrolled immigation.

[Richard Baxter]

"The economy is what most people care about, and no matter which party you support, the economy has been doing pretty well since 1997." - Andy Stidwill

I think you'll find that for most people, "the economy" is a pretty nebulous and vague concept. Most people care about their own prosperity, and that of their families. The economies of countries such as India are doing rather well on paper, yet a large number of Indian citizens are living lives that would have appalled Dickens over a century ago.

Here's a hint: if you're targeting voters aged under 30, promoting the message "you'll be much, much worse off than your parents were at your age, and you'll be lucky to retire before you're 70, and oh, if you're hoping to own your own home before you're 45 and you earn a salary less than £50,000, pardon me while we pee ourselves laughing" is hardly going to endear people to vote for you, regardless of how well "the economy" is doing. Promoting policies which are actually fair to the average citizen may be more successful.

[Michael McGowan]

Sean is correct as usual. Until Iraq, Max Hastings was one of Blair's most slavishly deferential media admirers.

[Alan Browning]

I speak as a fromer citizen of the United Kingdom. I have since moved my compay to the United States for various reasons. I relocated here (Austin,Texas) in the 80's and early 90's when the previous Conservative Government sold us all out. I was wondering if they were actually going to do any better than they did back then? Do i need to bring up any points to highlight how they failed in the 80's -early 90's?

[StevenAdams]

bill1215:

Peter Hitchens is a ridiculous caricature who couldn't judge a village flower show, let alone the political mood of a nation. Moreover, 99% of his 'recommendations' for govt are based on the outmoded politics of the 1940s.

[Kevin Sapwell]

when are we going to get rid of this labour goverment before more lives are ruined and pushed further into the have nots and we see more poverty rising because of our failing schools and failing to help people unemployed back into fall time work how long how many lives are going to have to be ruined how many of our nation powers get signed away before we say enough is enough and kick labour party out of office how many more stabbing

[SammyTerO]

:) Wow. nice arcticle

[EtreeeRys]

I love this blog! Give me please more arcticles :)

[Peter Dudley]

all i hearing is how great it is not being in ressesion and all thanks to labour. now we are in the worst ressesion we ever been in. All labour has done is cut vat which just helped shop keeper make more money,and a scrapage shceme trying to make us spend our saving on a new car, now we are in debt in to our eyeballs and its goin be me the younger generation paying in back with higher taxes (if taxs wernt high enought) school are bein ruin trying to please labout satatic and the same with unemployment putting people on welfare to make umemployment figues better. people now refuse to work and give excuse like astma, cannibis adition. my once great country is ruin beyond repay and im goin to pay the price for it.

[Bobbie]

He's hit the nail on the head.Everyone knows labour get this country in the SH%T then the next government tries to get us out of it.then the idiots who understand nothing think that getting labour back in will sort it out.