It was Tory attempts to reverse New Labour achievements that politicised a generation, says Rosie Corrigan
I was four years old when the political earthquake that was the May 1997 general election took place.
I grew up in the Yorkshire market town of Selby. A proud, northern town where everyone knows everyone and people look out for each other. It has a beautiful abbey, and is defined by its historic coalmining and shipbuilding industries.
On that day in 1997, John Grogan was declared Selby’s first, and as it turned out, only Labour member of parliament. The seat was split in 2010 and both constituencies in its place are now Conservative-held.
Labour activists who were part of the 1997 campaign have since described to me that feeling of walking bleary-eyed from Selby leisure centre to be met with smiles and congratulations from passersby. I am grateful to them for campaigning to make my childhood what it was, and I am saddened that children today do not have the same opportunities.
As children who grew up under the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, we never knew what a food bank was. Hunger was something that we fundraised for to aid people in economically deprived countries – not in Britain.
I remember school trips, activities with the local youth service, school improvements, and spending Saturday afternoons at the local swimming pool with my friends. There was never any question about whether or not we could afford to go.
Youth clubs were important to us and youth workers made a difference to our lives. We founded the Selby district youth council, and there were resources available for projects to benefit youngsters. Youth worker redundancies were unheard of.
Life was not always rosy, but we were lucky.
In 2010, Selby lost a Labour MP, David Cameron walked into Downing Street, and everything changed.
Educational maintenance allowance was scrapped, tuition fees were to be raised to £9,000 per year, and the cuts to youth services began. I became angry, and then I got political. I organised protests, I stood for and won a seat on Selby town council, and in 2014 I was elected the youngest female mayor in the United Kingdom.
I went into schools in the same community I grew up in, and I saw something troubling. I met children who had never left the town because their families could not afford to take them. I met teachers who told me of fainting, hungry children. I met a young girl who told me she had to leave her home and her friends. The reason? The bedroom tax.
I saw the stark difference between a Labour government and a Tory one.
Since 2010, my hometown has transformed. It has lost its magistrates court and its police cells. The youth centre that I used to attend has gone. Adult social care has been slashed and, in 2015, the nearby Kellingley colliery became the last of Britain’s deep coalmines to close.
The community gets by because it is powered by the determination, love and time of volunteers, but people need the support of government.
We need a Labour MP, and a Labour prime minister again.
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Rosie Corrigan is a member of Progress. She tweets at @Rosie_Corrigan
No, you didn’t see the difference between a Tory and Labour Government. The brand changed and that’s all. There is no difference between the New Tories and New Labour-neither of these parties make the rules, they get told what the rules are and must then sell them to the people. It should have been obvious when Gordon Brown sold off our Gold and then bailed out the banks. It should have been obvious by Osbournes’ tough talk on the economy and his absolute failure in doing any serious austerity and allowing the debt to increase year on year. It should have been obvious by the Tories embrace of minimum wages and INCREASED taxation overall. It should have been obvious by the complete u turn on the bonfire of the Quangos or regulations (the regulatory framework has increased). It should have been obvious through the triple lock on pensions and the ring fencing of the NHS/Welfare budgets.
Blair presided over an economy which was in good health under Major. It wasn’t because it was the Tories that were in power, it just happened that way. Blair and Brown are globalists-economic fascists. They presided over the biggest bubble in economic history and used the income stream to borrow towards all kinds of boondoggles to keep the voters putting an X in the Labour box. However, like all bubbles, eventually they pop. When bubbles pop we are supposed to have a recession as the monetary expansion created by central banks money printing rapidly contracts. It’s like the tide went out leaving the stupider fish flapping on a waterless beach. Except this time TPTB have tried to blow more air into the bubble through QE and other financial voodoo. The result has been an economy on life support, with zombie corporations eating themselves through stock buy backs in order to keep the stock market alive. This has meant that wealth has flowed out of main street and into the pockets of the asset holding classes. Savers have seen their money turn to dust and good jobs have been replaced with low paid service jobs created by a Southern property bubble.
Blair and Brown created the conditions for privatisation of profits and socialisation of losses. It isn’t a sustainable way of creating the opportunities of economic prosperity for all. Instead it’s a way of creating businesses that no longer fear risk because the public will be made to pay for it. Initially this creates rapid expansion and a surfeit of liquid cash, but eventually the risks mount up and the losses cannot be concealed-then the market tanks and the good times end with tears for the masses and whistles of close calls by the wealthy asset holders.
Thank you Rosie for reminding us tthat Britain and the world are better with Labour in power. The Tories disagree – as we’d expect- but our leaders now, as in 2015, never remind voters that Labour has done so much for them.