With the polls narrowing, it is clear that more people are planning to vote Labour. In large part that is because the electorate fear the Conservatives' age of austerity and what it will mean for them and their families.
My contribution to the debate is a short book called "Why Vote Labour", which makes the case for voting Labour – reflecting on our record, because I am proud of what we have achieved – but looking towards the future too.
"Why Vote Labour" tells the inspirational stories of people and families from up and down the country about the difference Labour has made to them. It also includes personal accounts from Jo Brand, Gurinder Chadha, Bono, Eddie Izzard and others on the difference Labour has made. I thought some of these stories were worth sharing with LabourList readers:
Dan, West London:
“I was born with cerebral palsy. I was three months premature and my parents spent weeks agonising over whether I'd make it. I survived thanks to dedicated care of the team at Wolverhampton General Hospital, but the next few years were full of battles over therapy and schooling. The local health service, typical of the Tories at the time, wanted to stop my weekly physiotherapy sessions at the age of four. My family were outraged and we appealed the decision, and I told the appeal how important my therapy was. We won - and I kept receiving regular physiotherapy until I was 16.
Fortunately, Labour ensures that people with disabilities don’t have to fight for the services they deserve. The local council (then Tory controlled) wanted to send me to a special school as that's where disabled kids went. My mum thought I was bright and fought for me to go to the local school. It was another battle, but I was the first disabled child to go there. A couple of years later, a girl with cerebral palsy followed and now nobody questions that disabled kids should go to the best local schools. Somebody called me a pioneer; I just thought it was common sense. The extension of grants for students with disabilities, and a personal care package shared between two local authorities - made possible by Labour legislation - helped me go to Exeter University. I got a 2:1 before studying for a Masters in History as well.”
Bono, musician:
“I like Gordon Brown. He’s a serious man for serious times, and many people aren’t aware of his achievements, from when he was Chancellor to Prime Minister now.
In the last ten years there have been thirty-four million extra children going to school in Africa, 3.2 million extra people on AIDS drugs or anti-viral drugs, and half the amount of deaths from malaria. These are extraordinary statistics, and the Prime Minister deserves the credit because he was part of it. I’m sure it goes right to the core of the Labour Party.
An accident in geography should not decide whether you live or die. To have AIDS in London or Birmingham is not a death sentence, and it’s not acceptable that it’s a death sentence in Africa.
The recession has hit Britain hard, but it has hit people in the developing world a lot harder. We need to stand firm with our commitments to the Millennium Development goals. Britain and the Prime Minister have stuck to their promises in good and bad times, moving the concepts of equality and justice for people in the developing world. This is a monumental achievement and I don’t know if the people of Britain know what they have pulled off.
This is what makes Britain great!”
Jo Brand, comedian:
“I want to talk about the NHS, which might be a bit odd because I haven’t worked in it for twenty years. But when I did I witnessed the changes that came about via that champion of the poor, dispossessed and women, Margaret Thatcher. I worked in a 24-hour psychiatric emergency clinic in South London, which was all you might imagine it was. Through those years we saw auxiliary services farmed out to the lowest bidder, witnessed a shift in attitude which nominated our patients ‘customers’, and saw a creeping bureaucracy which favoured businessmen over experienced nurses to preside over the day-to-day workings of hospitals. I don’t think the Tories are safe with hospitals and although there is much work to be done, I am still convinced that the NHS is only safe in the hands of a Labour government despite David Cameron’s protestations on the glamorous posters I see all around me. I remember the Hello Boys posters for bras that legendarily made several male drivers crash. Well, if anything is going to make me drive into a tree, it’s those Cameron billboards.”
David Blanchflower, Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College and the University of Stirling:
“A year ago I was particularly worried that unemployment would rise to well over three million. Fortunately it is nearer to two and a half million, primarily due to the prompt action of this government. VAT was cut, there was cash for bangers and help was extended to the unemployed in general and to the young unemployed in particular and these policies seem to have worked. Without this intervention, unemployment would certainly have been well above three million by now. We have won the opening battle. The worry is that the war could still be lost.
Obviously accommodative monetary policy has helped, although the Monetary Policy Committee should have cut rates and started quantitative easing sooner.
Action by the Labour government has prevented the economy from falling off a cliff. But the risks of a double-dip recession remain. The similarities to what happened in the US in 1937 are instructive. Tightening policy too soon could potentially be the most serious economic policy error of our lifetimes. The unemployed are watching. Keep the stimulus going.”
There are lots of reasons for voting Labour and lots for keeping David Cameron out of Number Ten. The inspirational stories in this book are a reminder of what Labour has achieved – and of what more we have to do to make Britain a fairer, stronger and more equal society.
To pre-order your copy of "Why Vote Labour" for £6.99 email whyvotelabour@googlemail.com or you can buy it in Waterstone's or Blackwell's bookshops or at Amazon.
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I have genuinely got you mixed up with the other Phil(Mill)-
so was getting very confused, and have only just realised.
Blogging can be a minefield!
Jo.
why vote labour? why indeed , wait theres no labour party to vote for , Just red tories and blue.
Danny
I do not disagree that the Agenda for deregulation accelerated during Majors administration and then as you say continued by Mr Brown. But Labour voters cannot and should not believe Mr Brown made a humungous mistake?
"How wrong we were"
could not be clearer could it ?
and I hope that we see some stringent rules on the activities in particular of hedge funds
We know the Tories bankrolled by them won't lets see if Brown has learnt his lesson
However it was Mr Brown who created the Tri-Partits System and Mr Brown who believed the Citys mantra that Certification was the panacea to boom and bust. Mr Brown fell for it cheered on by the Conservatives. Mr Brown then allowed this Country to be built on Personal and Goverment Debt and to achieve what?
I do not want a Tory Gov't which wants to ape Nu Labour, I want an old style Labour Party that wishes to provide decent Schools, Hospitals and Jobs,and Economically competent, not the biggest debts in our History and to see the 100s of Billions spent this last 13 years flushed down the drain.
"Mr Brown fell for it cheered on by the Conservatives."
just to say the Tories actually wanted less regulation and Brown and labour fell for the charms of the city and market philosphy and believed they could self regulate
How wrong we were but lets not confuse that with where it all started and despite a few tory nutters everyone knows it started with subprime and the selling of crackpot products on which the banks built their asset base on.
It appears that everyone is learning. The Greeks had a very successful sale of 10-year bonds. Interestingly, they excluded banks and hedge funds and renounced Goldman Sachs and other US investment banks as brokers. They went directly to insurance companies and mutual funds as proven long-term players. How refreshing!
the very mention of these cretains makes my blood boil
all they are interested in are short term profits they have no other motivations and care less about the impact on wide society (see Cadbury's).
So how apt that hedge fund managers are now the biggest contributers to the Tories
My partner John works partially in Europe with the EU over energy policy, and has had close links for years with businesses all over.We also have extended family that have lived in Denmark and Belgium for many years. This has all been nothing but positive.
Europeans themselves travel across borders constantly, and trade with each other as a matter of course.
I simply cannot fathom their normal straightforward experiences with the types of arguments being made by an anti lobby; it just looks like some "mad" sort of ideology- however articulately expressed.
I'm not direct this at anyone on here- but find outbursts like Nigel Farage's recently, absoloutely beyond the pale.
Sorry, only time for a quick comment.
Jo.
sorry for the phrase, I truly did not mean it to be intended to be connected to the Nazis.
We all make slips from time to time. Thanks for the explanation.
I agree with you that huge swathes of the Country were obliterated because of Lady Thatchers Policies. But you must concede the Country was Bankrupt, the sick man of Europe, lights out at 4%, raging inflation and extreme poverty.
Lady Thatcher made some terrible mistakes but the road she set us on created a strong Pound and rising prosperity and allowd Mr Blair and Mr Brown to inherit the best Economy ever in British History, and now look at us 13 years later/ and you want to blame it on the U.S Banks, I despair!
"you want to blame it on the U.S Banks"
you blame everything on Europe
how can you not blame the US banks, it is the Tory method to try this line and it fdoes not stick, this started sub rpime and deregulation.
you know the two things that Tories love, less red tape and selling homes
what is to blame is the Thatcherite and Reegan philopshy that Greenspan took and went further and no one, politicans, public wanted to get off because house prices doubling gioves such a false sense of finacial worth
in fact who it does is to encourage people to believe they are worth more and thus can spend more than what they can afford
and still no party wants to tackle that
the truth about the EU and its final solution is being kept hidden from the British People.
Its their instincts that tell them something is truly wrong which is why 70% of the population will never forgive Mr Browns Treachery when he signed the hated Lisbon Treaty.
Unfortunately such analogies are the stock in trade of those who complain about the Global Zionist conspiracy, which Philip has done on another thread. I thought he was kidding...
Someone else here, when questioned whether the EUSSR was directly intent on a new holocaust, said it was.
So this phraseology is not accidental.
The likes of Nigel Farage, Dan Hannan, Eric Pickles, and Nigel Lawson et al just make the case "for" even more convincing.
I suspect if we really allowed ourselves to vent our "spleens" on these pages over that, it would be unprintable on these pages...
However, we have to remain dignified and civil...
And wait for the electorate to to decide.
Considering all the massive funding and advantages the Tories have had, and so much time to prepare for this election campaign, they should have been way ahead in the polls.
But as yet it's not convincing on substance or policy.
If I had to choose between GO, AD or Vince Cable to have the experience and expertise to run the economy- I know who'd my money would be on.
So far so good; we are just turning the corner.
After all, this has been a global recession sparked off by the USA banking crisis, and Obama is having to address this too.
Time will tell, and thankfully the British electorate appear intelligent and astute.
if anyone believes a word that the Politicians are saying about the Economy seriously needs their head examined. "as thin as ice" stated the Chancellor yesterday,umm I think he knows the truth!
The markets this week have shown how they feel about the UKs prospects, they are hovering, they can smell a quick buck, its just amatter of when.
Maybe my idea is a little crazy, i grant you that, but can you honestly say you are proud of Nu Labours record after they promised so much, delivered so little and allowed corruption of the House too taint the whole stinking lot of them, under a Labour Goverment.
Two illegal wars and 8 million people inactive and the biggest debt ever in our history including 450 billion to bail out a Scottish Bank run by his mate who he Knighted!
Oh and by the way, they gave themselves a £1000 a year Pay Rise today, which will also push up the amount they will receive from their Gold Plated Index Linked Pensions even though they have destroyed Private Final Salary Schemes and leaving resettlement packages, even though Mr Brown promised us to sort out the stink from the Expenses Scandal. What actually happened is he did nothing so his own backbenchers would keep him on as Leader, gave up a couple as Mr Cameron as a fop, corruption stinks and right now it stinks to high heaven.
As for the conspiracy theory I appreciate it is really wishful thinking, but can you blame me for wanting a Labour Party that actually wants to do the best for the majority and not the minority?
as usual Tories only look at spending, how about at look at increased tax revenues as well they will reduce some of the defecit and you are presuming to get back to balanced budgets which few economists are saying is needed
Cust are needed bit the Tories are over exaggarting it
as for your conspriacy plan, well sounds a a bit nutty to me
I think a lot of Conservatives have worked out how to destroy Labour once and for all. They have worked out if Cameron the Blair impersonator wins the Election it will be with a tiny majority, which will be terrible for the UK.
They also know that Public Spending has to fall by 18 - 24% and the devestation that will cause the Country will allow Mr Brown or his successor to pretend its all the Tories fault! just like Labour did when Mrs Thatcher was Elected and the Tories ruled for 18 years.
Whoever wins is going to cut, cut, cut, however if they vote for Mr Brown and allow him to continue, they realise that within two years Mr Brown will have to either make the cuts himself and take the blame and in the process wiping out the Labour Party forever as the Unions will turn on their own, or continue building the debt which again will wipe out Labour and Mr Brown and Labour will take the blame.
Tory voters also dislike Mr Camerons stance on the EU, so again if they don't vote for Mr Cameron and he loses the Election, the Party will finally wake up and actually realise that if they ever want to be in Power again they will have to give the British People a vote on leaving the EU and only have Trading Agreements we were promised and we can then, once again, take back our borders and our fishing rights and our future.
So true Conservative voters win if Mr Brown is re elected.
Now if Mr Brown is right and his Economic Policies actually work and their is no double dip and a depression, even though thats highly unlikely, the UK will recover. If on the other hand we have to go to the IMF in a couple of years time then Labour will be a busted flush. The Party will then be forced back to its true reason for existing, fighting the corruption of the stinking filthy EU and actually create a Party once more that fights by actually creating new jobs, houses, a decent NHS and a Schooling System that doesn't fail 20% of our kids, and hands worthless GCSE and A Levels and University Degrees that have not prepared them for work in the real world. So again True Conservatives will win, and if their own Party jsut like Nu Labour just continue to do the bidding of the Corporations and the stinking Rich, the ywill the nbe able to vote for a true Labour Party that is desperately needed.
I think they are extremely worried, the response from the likes of Con home was just to simply blame Mandlesson trather than inspect the actions in particular of HAgue and wonder why someone who harbours hopes to lead this country never spotted this coming from 10 years ago ?
Let me tell you what your government has achieved for me :
I HAD a business - gone
I HAD long-term pension privately funded - now getting about one quarter of what was expected due to GB's pension fund raid
I HAD Eq Life - GB's acknowledged mis-regulation wrecked it
I HAD a little money - a tax year inspection took every single penny of NON-income as taxable because I did not keep provable records of NON-income, assumed the same for another 4 years, and gave me £ 26K tax bill
I HAD a house whose value was increasing, now crashed in value due to GB's "It started in America" recession, but GB made so much worse with chronic overspending on UNreformed "public services"
I HAD a relatively pleasant country to live in, but 13 years of invasive laws with armies of snoopers and jobsworths employed at MY expense to snoop on ME has made it akin to the USSR, or even Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Examples - wheelie bin chips, route route enforcers, more CCTV than the rest of the world put together, need I go on ?
Yes, you can be VERY proud of what you have achieved for me ! Thank you, and drop dead. (Not literally, but politically)
Alan Douglas
We and the States got hit the worse due to the captialist models we run where growth was funded by debt, Labour did follow this too much but be in no doubt IF the Tories had been in charge in 2 years ago it would have been worse
As for pensions, Brown's so called rais is a fraction of your losses, the greater losses were down to 9/11 and the the decline in shares at the time of Lehman's, have a private pension and did not people tell you shares may well go down than up
As fgor your house price comments, well what do you expect in a market continuing rapid growth ? you blame Brown but there again you want and desire the house rise prices to make you feel wealthier when in fact you do little to enhance value.
Do you want a market economy or not because continual growth is never guarnteened and 'corrections' always happen.
I think you are blaming Gordon Brown ever so slightly to much.
And house prices? Hope they go down the toilet so i can actually afford to by one:)
Personally if I were a Tory I would be very angry and worried that Cameron and co were snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Let's be candid, given their recent record NL doesn't DESERVE to win (OK they may claim to be seeing us out of recession, but I think that is more down to luck - things were probably not quite so bad as they seemed in 2008), the Third Runway at Heathrow, Purnell's "reforms" etc are things you would expect from a Tory administration - not a "Labour" one.
I think cameron's biggest mistake was in promising "an age of austerity", which sounds a bit too Marie Antoineet-ish from a gang of wealthy ex-Etonians: Cameron might have guessed that while this mood of pessimism was there, when he made the remark, a week later the mood would lift. The British are notorious for being up in the clouds one minute and down in the dumps the next. He caught them on a "down" day, but on the whole people want optimism, most of the time, and they soon want to see the silver lining behind the clouds. Cameron was too cloudy - he doesn't understand psychology.
Her daughter has a complex of disabilities - some on "the autistic spectrum" - some not. since she approached the primary/secondary school choice last year her mother, with the assistance of her foster mother, has been trying to persuade ******* Borough Council to let her be sent to an APPROPRIATE school - capitals because they aren't looking for "best" - just appropriate to a collection of disabilities which an educational psychologist we engaged described as "unique". The borough had a much simpler solution. This child, highly social and whose dominant problem is speech, but who was simply diagnosed by the borough's educational psychologist some years ago as autistic, has to go to a school for autistic children and spend the next year in a cubicle, in a one-to-one relationship with a computer.
Foster Mother, foster aunt and I have committed some thousands of pounds (which we MIGHT get back) to appealing against the borough's decisions and paying for the child to go to an appropriate special school. It looks like we have won - the borough produced no assessments of the child more recent than over a year ago and their officers attacked the honesty of our professional witnesses who they said had tailored their advice to the mother's choice of school - they hadn't: we could prove that the school choice was made in the light of our professional advice.
The tribunal kicked out the prpough's case and those of us who might have to pay the tribunal costs and the first terms school fees are hoping for a favourable award of costs - but prepared to accept that we might get nothing back.
Now, this is not a complaint about labour, nasty things happen under both labour and tories - probably under lib dems too. rRather it's a complaint about local government administration. Such things happen under all governments, all parties.
Lists of hard cases don't make a case against a party! I might believe that a Tory borough would have made a better job of it (they couldn't have been much worse) but anecdotes are the worst sort of evidence.
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics/exclusive+tory+lead+shrinks+in+key+marginals/3569462
so maybe more are listening, which has shocked me
I've never had much time for the vocalist from Me2.
I actually think personal testimonials can be incredibly powerful,
far more than theoretical points.(See We Love the NHS on facebook...)These reveal a lot of truths.
I did like reading about Jo Brand in particular- but then I'm biased. She worked at my old hospital- the Maudsley in London.
She's about as "solid" as one can get- and hilarious at the same time!
We must all keep this coming!
Jo.
At least when Thora was endorsing stair lifts and Nanette Newman Fairy liquid we knew they were only doing it for the money, but some of these "celebrities" seem to think that we think what they think matters.
Re Dan of West London - Was it really just because it was a Tory controlled council that the health service intially rejected the application? Lucky there was an appeals process (presumably managed by the same disabled-hating Toreeez)
Bono saying "the Prime Minister deserves the credit because he was part of it". So do I and so does everyone who donated. While there are many reasons to vote Labour this CERTAINLY isn't one of them. It's a fatuous remark by a multi-millionaire, tax avoiding musician. And it's not even as if the Tories (for all their many, many faults) would have opposed any of this. Why can't we concentrate on things the Tories really would do/have done differently?
Jo Brand's remark about how the Tories shift of auxiliary services to the private sector was damaging to the NHS - anyone care to guess how many digits there are on the extra cost of PFI-built hospitals?
Sheesh