Originally Posted by
pass_and_move
Aye it felt good when the Reds got promotion & Blair got in but from a political point of view I was a naive 18 year owd who grew up on a rough council estate thinking and believing that labour in power was a good thing and circumstances would change. Yes, the minimum wage was raised eventually which temporarily benefitted me cos I was a fork lift truck driver in a dead end warehouse job but it was still difficult to make ends meet.
On buying our first house in 2000, me and the missus were spared about £20 each after mortgage, bills, car and food were paid, both working 40+hrs a week with me doing alternate nights. Bear in mind this was before the 'boom' when housing prices were still relatively low.
We were fortunate. Had it been 4 years later when we purchased our house would've cost 2 and a half times what we bought it for and the mortgage would've been crippling and over a 40 year stretch as opposed to the 20 year mortgage our initial deal was set up for. How young people managed to get on the property ladder after 2004 beats me. What a total feck up and impracticality.
Blairs time in power was an education in what growing up in a Labour town can do to one's mind, the hopelessness of the late 1980s, YTS schemes, school leavers with no opportunity, middle aged blowks art o work, run down areas, no government funding or investment, basically left to rot. That was this tarn.
When Neil Kinnock lost the 1992 general election it hurt me, i felt like crying as a young ****ager. It hurt the whole community and that's what I grew up in as most of us did. Consigned to 5 more years of Tory misery, the last of the pits were closing around that time too. Fast forward to 1997 and the dawn of a new era. Tony fuqing Blair and new labour, an era of prosperity.
Now, things did change for the better but let's face it mate, they couldn't have gotten any worse. As time went by I came to realise that although I didn't and still don't support the Tory regime, Labour's policies were flawed as well. The introduction of tax credits were basically put in place for the benefit of themselves rather than the country. They knew that the Chav society would continually vote them in if they could sit at home in their onesies smoking fags and watching the Jeremy Kyle show whilst dragging their kids up in an all paid for council house. Why the feck would they want to work 40hrs a week just to gain say £40 a week extra revenue when tha can sit on thi arse and do feck all?
The country has lost it's pride and self respect. I'm not blaming labour entirely for that, the seeds were sown well before Blair but he and Brown enhanced the process imo. I allude to the former part of my post, financially it was a disaster for young people to get on the property ladder. I believe the government could've intervened and made borrowing and paying back money more aligned with wages and economic growth. More should've been done to prevent the financial collapse. In my mind the property boom and the introduction of minimum wage was a short term reflection to the untrained eye of Labours early time in power that they were making this country prosperous. People with out any long term vision were believing it at the time. To me thy had honest hard working people who simply wanted to earn a house and a living totally fecked over with debts and mortgage arrears whilst the lazy Chav society spawned yet more no hopers who were funded by new Labour. The bent b@stards did it to keep people down and gain votes. They followed what the Tories started in that respect, creating a society below working class.
There's other issues I'm not prepared to get into but my mind is a million miles away from when I was a young boy thinking that labour would change my life. Growing up in an environment where any liberal minded views were strictly taboo sets the precedent for many. I feel for most kids growing up with parents who dont give a toss abart themselves let alone their offspring. Some kids will ev aif a brain and rise from it but most will fall into crime and drugs or ****age pregnancies.
The country has lost it's way and we have no backbone or work ethic anymore. Theres too many people with no self respect. I just dont like what I see. The more i look at politicians or so called leaders the more corrupt and despicable i think they are. End of rant
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