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Meanwhile, Tony Blair, while maintaining a social-liberal discourse in Brussels and in public, carefully kept from applying in the UK the solutions he promoted publicly. In the past 5 years, he doubles public spending on transport or education and increased by two third spending on healthcare. He created 600,000 new jobs in the public sector, including 200,000 in the education sector and 300,000 in healthcare... Meanwhile, he increased taxes on the richest, so that last year, despite 3% growth, income after tax actualy decreased, according to the Institute fof Fiscal Studies (IFS). While income tax went down by 1.5% of GDP in Germany between 1996 and 2005, it increase by the same metric in the UK. But that's not all: Tony Blair also put in place a minimum wage in 1999, a real revolution in Margaret Thatcher's country, and increased it so rapidly that it has become higher than the French SMIC - and when no such minimum exists in Germany. In short, if Tony Blair is still in his job and if the UK economy fares better than its neighbors', it is because - despite strong inequality and poverty - he led an extremely traditional social-democratic policy. Meanwhile, those on the left, like Gerhard Schroder, who took his social-liberal discourse seriously, has badly weakened the economy of their country and plunged it into a serious crisis.

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But as with Jean Chretien, I don't think you can attribute Blair's electoral success solely to the public's admiration for his policies. In both cases, the disarray of the opposition parties had a lot to do with it.

There's no major left-wing party to challenge Labour, although the Lib Dems may be moving in that direction. And the British Tories have been just as disorganized and divided, and producing just as extreme and incompetent leaders, as the right wing has been in Canada.

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In short, if Tony Blair is still in his job and if the UK economy fares better than its neighbors', it is because - despite strong inequality and poverty - he led an extremely traditional social-democratic policy.

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[ 21 September 2005: Message edited by: obscurantist ]

While Maggie was busy pauperizing a nation, socialist Singapore was catching up to and surpassing Britain in several economic areas - most competitive economy and fifth highest average incomes in the world.

The far right in Europe still can't afford to be as far to the right as our own liberal and conservative autocrats are here in the west. It doesn't look good for liberals masquerading as socialists in Germany either.

[ 21 September 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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I find those numbers hard to believe. The Third Way is largely about privitising government;

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Maybe this proves that to be a misconception.

There is nothing unique about Blair being pro-US in terms of foreign policy. Almost all social democratic parties in Europe fought struggle with Communists to dominate the "left". They all tend to be very pro-NATO etc...the German SPD favoured the cruise missile and the neutron bomb in the 70s. The Labour party in the UK in the 60s supprted the Vietnam War...

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Originally posted by Rufus Polson:
... but I have occasionally read news items about rail accidents happening due to poor maintenance. Isn't rail still privatized over there? That was mostly Maggie, I think, so not Blair's fault per se, but I don't think he's done anything about it. I would suspect that there again, rather than throw money at the problem he's thrown money at the tycoons.

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Your right on that one. Maggie began by selling off water and electric power in England. Water and electric prices skyrocketed. And Brits experienced water outages for the first time as water mains broke, and trains derailed. Of course, the excuse then was that the taxpayers had let it all go to rack and ruin. Rails needed investment and so did private water handlers. So they came to Maggie with caps in hand. Prices still didn't come down though.

As for the buses, my cousin, the bendy bus driver says that buses were in mess after they removed ticket conductresses from buses around 1980, I think?. Back in the good old days, and when leather shoes made in England could be had for a few bob, you could hop on a bus from and get from Maltby to Rotherham(Yorkshire) for about 9 pence, as an example. You paid only for how far you went. For a few years after that, buses were never as efficient or on time. My cousin says the fare meters are a pain in theass for drivers to manage. I'll be seeing them in a few months and get caught up after too many years apart.

Maggie waged war on Yorkshire coal miners. She bough coal from unionized coal in Poland to spite the Yorkie's. Miles of steel works, manufacturing and textiles were shutdown in Sheffield, Coventry and Birmingham. Maggie's name is still mud in those parts.

I do know that a Russian contingent travelled to, I think, London or Midlands to study a privatised bus line. Can't remember what city it is. The Russian's were not embarassed to describe their own ailing buses in varying states of disrepair and breaking down constantly. The new buses in the English city? are sleak and clean looking. The Russian's were impressed. But the one Russkie ups and says, ~"But your buses are driving around half-empty most of the time. Ours are full most of the time, and they're free for everyone to use." I laughed because it's true. In the documentary, they showed you the Russian's all crammed into one bus, and the thing broke down. The driver gets out and a mechanic meet up with them. They fix the engine on the spot, and away they go again.

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And Stockholm said:
Or maybe no amount of money will ever solve the problem with the health care system.

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I think that governments don't want to reveal certain data regarding industrial pollution as cancer rates rise here in the west. I think they know that the byproducts of capitalism are poisonous to the overall good of society. We have to have socialised medicine. It's cheaper all the way around than the alternatives.

[ 22 September 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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I think that governments don't want to reveal certain data regarding industrial pollution as cancer rates rise here in the west. I think they know that the byproducts of capitalism are poisonous to the overall good of society.

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If your eyes wont, your lungs and white tee shirt will. (or the tar colour of your snot).

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Of course. The Soviets had disaster equivalents of Love Canal, Walkerton, Hanford WA and more.

The Chinese know that their pollution levels are approaching that of North America's and that they have to do something. Their cancer and lung disease rates will climb, like ours. Their murder rates will nose up, and the Chinese will need more shrinks to try and help people adjust to what is an abominable economic system based on a single human behaviour - self-interest. And before they know it, the politicians will be preaching free market to the masses while practicing socialism for the rich and privileged, just like here.

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There will be no progress towards peace so long as Tony Blair remains prime minister. He was re-elected with only 35 % of the popular vote and barely a fifth of the overall electorate - the lowest percentage secured by any governing party in recent European history. Britain is undergoing a crisis of representation: a majority of the population opposed the war in Iraq; a majority favours withdrawing British troops;66% believe that the attacks on London were a direct result of Blair's decision to send troops to Iraq. All good reasons why we march and demand an end to war, occupation and terror on Saturday.

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From the Tariq Ali article (another thread on babble)

[ 23 September 2005: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Or maybe no amount of money will ever solve the problem with the health care system.

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Don't Communists believe that concern about the environment is a petty bourgeois obsession and that we need to fulfill the five year plan at all cost - environment be damned!!

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Tony Blair is to the British Labour Party what Bob Rae was to the Ontario NDP, or what Gary Doer is to the Manitoba NDP. No, wait, he's worse. Tony Blair is a war criminal. He's also a neo-liberal masquarading as a lef-winger, a wolf in sheep's clothing.

[ 24 September 2005: Message edited by: Left Turn ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
I suspect that unless you live in the UK and read the British media religiously - you would know nothing about 95% of what the Blair gov't is doing domestically.

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Stockholm? What the hell kind of comment is that?

For one thing, there are a handful of babblers who are living there and post most informatively here. None of them is a Blair promoter. Others of us stay in touch by other means. People have posted above about Blair's ineffectualness in fixing the collapse of the British rail system, his enthusiasm for the PPPs, and other domestic policies.

For some bloody-minded reason, you wish to stonewall any discussion of Blair's compromises and failures, not to mention his criminal complicity with the Bushites in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

But stonewalling is all you do.

[ 26 September 2005: Message edited by: skdadl ]

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For some bloody-minded reason, you wish to stonewall any discussion of Blair's compromises and failures, not to mention his criminal complicity with the Bushites in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

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No, I don't cut Blair and co. any slack at all when it comes to their participation in the Iraq War. I condemn it wholeheartedly. I am just pointing out that some people may make the mistake of assuming that just because Blair has a pro-US foreign policy he is ipso-facto the British equivalent of a Republican in every other facet of public policy. The Labour Party is still a left of centre party that has done a lot of good stuff as well at the domestic level - stuff that never would have happened if the Tories were still in power.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
I suspect that unless you live in the UK and read the British media religiously - you would know nothing about 95% of what the Blair gov't is doing domestically.

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Exhibit A.

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Utterly unapologetic for the public service reforms that have so angered Labour left-wingers, Mr Blair said: "Every time I've ever introduced a reform in government, I wish, in retrospect, I had gone further."

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Labour delegates applauded Mr Blair's reference to nuclear power, to the controversial decision to impose tuition fees in English universities and even parts of his defence of the war in Iraq and his support for the US.

Far from allowing his more radical policies to bed down, Mr Blair told the conference that reform must go further and faster if Britain is to cope with the growing economic challenge of emerging powers like China and India.

"We have to change again," he said. "Not step back from New Labour, but step up to a new mark a changing world is setting for us. In the era of rapid globalisation, there is no mystery about what works: an open, liberal economy, prepared constantly to change to remain competitive."

He also made perhaps the most cogent attempt to date to defend his plans to introduce market-style choice into public services. Those policies enrage trade unions, are opposed by many of Mr Brown's Labour allies and may be defeated in a symbolic conference vote today.

"There is another myth: choice is a New Labour invention," Mr Blair said. "Wrong. Choice is what wealthy people have exercised for centuries. If you have the money, you buy better. I want decent, hardworking families to have the same power."

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