Jim

It's Labour's job to oppose now, they are in opposition. What would you have them do? Let the Government do whatever they want? I don't recall the Tories being quite in opposition despite the fact that they 18 years in power to "sort it all out".

On the subject of VAT, of course revenue has to be raised, but do you consider VAT to be fair and equitable? i.e. will we all be affected in the same way?

Personally I couldn't wait for Labour to get the hell out of there. I wanted conservative to win due to their policies on the debt, immigration, special needs and a few others. Though I am glad that miserable old man has gone, I know it isnt a leaders popularity contest but my god he was so bloody boring and dull. Leave them out to grass for a couple of terms and hopefully see this government recover their mess.

Every incoming government complains about the "mess" left by someone else. As has been said, the Tories had 18 years to sort out the last "mess" and only helped create the type of institutionalised greed and "me first" attitude that ultimately led to the worldwide collapse. They also governed the inexorable decline in manufacturing (because its full of those nasty union type oiks) in favour of their buddies in the "city". They swapped real wealth generation for mumbers on a computer.

I didn't particularly like Brown either, but without him the collapse would have been much worse. That's not just me saying that, there are a lot of financial guru's that would agree.

I am not die cast red, blue, or yellow; I think if you do that you do the country a disservice. We need people who can make good, fair decisions. I really hope the new coalition get to grips with the economy quickly but I get the horrible feeling that the recovery (when it comes) will be off the back of our taxes and yet again a privileged few will get rich quick.

Good Post.

I have mixed feelings about what Blair, Brown and Labour did whist in power

As a 15 year old in 1997 my abiding memory of the election campaign was 3 words, "Education, education and education".

My first memory of them in power was scrapping student grants and charging to go to university. The people who were affected weren't old enough to vote yet, it was a blatant cheap shot that went against everything a labour party was meant to stand for.

Then the greatest stealth tax of them all, the minimum wage, brilliant idea, gave the lowest paid a living wage and had them all paying more income tax as a result.

Massive reductions in waiting times in NHS hospitals.

The Iraq war certainly divided opinion.

Brown selling our gold reserves when the price was a third of what it is now.

Using terrorism as an excuse to try to force I'd cards upon us.

Brown signing the Lisbon Treaty when Labour promised a referendum on it in their manifesto. An act of treason in my opinion.

I'll save my judgement on this new government until they've actually had time to do something. But the one thing I hope they do is get rid of the entitlement culture that Labour has created in the last 13 years. Make the choice (and in a hell of a lot of cases it is a choice) between working for a living and having kids/watching Jeremy Kyle/sitting in the Bus station (delete as appropriate) for a living a lot more favourable towards working.

Excellent post.

And another excellent post.

Labour's problem has been where to draw the red line between welfare/car and dependency/freeloading.

The minimum wage and the NHS being great things as you say.

The challenge is to get people out of benefits mentality. That's where Labour will need to readjust it's mentality and policies over the next parliament.

That and adopt an honest approach to immigration, which none of the parties have, even now.

VOTE Keighley Cougar's.

Neil Spencer for Chancellor of the Exchequer!

Scott Law for Minister of Justice!

My feelings also.

He even had to sneak in and sign it when others had left.

The Labour Party policy almost kept Brendan out.

What would you have advocated?

Some very good posts from both sides of the spectrum even though some I disagree with.

Back to vat, the tories for months have done nothing but talk the country down and go on about getting the recovery going, as we know businesses whether self employed or running any type of business can claim vat back through various methods, I have no issue with that but by putting vat up to say 20% will hit those not able to claim vat back mainly those on the lower end of the financial scale, how on earth can this help revive the economy when prices go up therefore folk cannot afford to spend as much.

Lets remember in 1979 tories came in vat was set at 8%, later that year Geoffrey Howe increased this to 15%, in 1991 it was increased to 17.5%, there is a pattern here do you not think, also the tories cannot blame vat on labour government in that period as from 1979 to 1997 they were in charge.

I agree there will be waste in nhs etc, however to bring in private companies to run parts of the nhs will only make matters worse, remember how they screwed up privatisation of the rail network.

Now onto the pay cut of 5% government ministers have been told to take, do not get me wrong this sets a good example, however based on government figures the average cabinet ministers payment at 1st april 2010 was £145k.

The fact all the tories ministers and also Clegg are multimillionaires as were some labour ministers, nothing wrong with that but 5% of ministers income will not be felt as much compared to say someone on £16k.

Benefits now, there is no disagreement that some folk and this is a tiny amount of claimants play the system we all wil probably know someone. Bt as someone who has worked most of my life or should I say been employed and currently in receipt of job seekers allowance Ican give a real insight. In order to get £65 per week it takes up to a month initially to get accepted and then this large sum is paid fortnightly I defy anyone to try survive on this. So before just reading the odd ones that screw the system do not tarnish everyone the same far too many folk read headlines forgetting to read the full story.

One thing that labour did when the GLOBAL recession started was to bring from 39 weeks down to 13 weeks the time you have to be out of work for before being able to claim interest on the mortgage being paid by the state this has helped protect millions from possibly losing homes including possibly myself.

I am under no illusions labour made numerous mistakes but compared to what is in place now and what is coming labour everytime for me.

All I want is folk are treated fairly but sadly yet again the folk at lower end of scale suffer.