What has improved between 1997 - 2009 in your life? (UK)

Goose+

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We often slag-off the labour party and post sensationalist Daily Mail headlines on these forums, but today, I?m in a fairly good mood and I?ve been thinking of what has definitely or moderately improved within my life from 1997-2009 under Labour.

Feel free in posting a list of improvements that labour has affected in your day-to-day life. Perhaps we can have another thread to discuss the failings (albeit several threads).


1)
Smoking ban. What can I say? I?m health-conscious and I don?t have to put up with other peoples? smoke in my local coffee shop anymore. Thank you for the smoking ban, it?s great!

2) Public transport. The trains have undoubtedly improved from the South-East into London, they largely run on time and they?re clean. From what I?ve read and listened to, the conservatives made a complete hash of privatising the railways under Thatcher. I?ll concede that labour know how to run the trains better <_<

Also the New Saints Pancras terminal is fantastic, likewise terminal five. I would definitely say that public transport has improved in the UK. It?s something we should take pride in, not join Clarkson in moaning about.

3) Congestion charge. This sort of feeds into point 2. Why do you need to drive into London when there?s a decent public transport alternative now? I know it?s quite totalitarian to out-right tax motorists, but South-East England is now the most densely populated place in Europe. The way I see it, public transport is the future for Britain and solving congestion.


So, what has improved in your life between 1997 - 2009, courtersy of labour?
 
Personally I'm pretty much too young to notice any difference in the time I've been growing up... :p

And as another point - are you from the South-East? If so, where?
 
Considering I was eight in 1997 I don't remember a whole lot before then. I think about the only thing I can spot is that job opportunities and access to education has opened up, my mum always had to have rubbishy weekend jobs when I was really young and then she got into an open college course and now has a full time job as a home care assistant.

My sister is a lot older than both me and my brother and she didn't go to college/university, but me and my bro have both gone to college/uni and I think that is purely down to the fact we have access to it and my sister didn't. (She's 15 years older than me btw)
 
It's likely the improvement in quality of life has essentially been a facet of growing ('fictitious' as it turns out) wealth.

I suspect labour like to take more credit for the economy that is in reality justified.
 
There were no fees for university before labour though, so that was one thing that kind of went down, although they put in stupid measures to cancel the elitist polices. More accessible in terms to price certainly not ;)

They did do rather well to close all those tax loop-holes that existed before, even non-doms now have to pay 30k a year, trusts don't save as much taxes as in the 90's and getting a UK bank account is one of the hardest things in the world.
 
I think labour took too much credit for the up-turn and too much blame for the down turn.

I agree though that some of the train services are fantastic, Virgin services to London from here are speedy and as long as your not planning on catching the rush hour service you'll get a seat. If you ever stop at rugby station stand on Platforms 1 or 2 and watch the high speed line do it's stuff.

Another thing that i've enjoyed during that exact period of time is Natalie Imbruglia!
 
I was just turning 8 when Blair won the 1997 election. Thankfully I haven't had too much contact with the bits they've buggered up the most (I was privately educated, for one). My biggest complaint is that they're a bunch of snivelling, spin-doctoring cowards and the other is the degradation in road safety standards through speed cameras and inappropriate speed limits.
Oh, and they broke the economy.
 
I thought you had to pay for uni up front at one point which is why it was all rich kids? Otherwise how would the lecturers be paid?
All ours are paid through our tuition fees.

One thing I heard on the news quite a few months ago was that they had the idea to mix certain school subjects together, I'm not sure how but I think one involved History and Religious Education and something else. I really hope that they dropped this idea, I can't think of anything much worse for education, if it covers such a broad spectrum then detail and the important factors are lost.

Just as an example, in high school during my history GCSE we didn't have time to study the cold war as we were too busy studying, the road to world war one, important battles of world war one, after the world war, germany between the wars, the rise of hitler, the road to world war two, america in the twenties and the vietnam war. In this I got a C

In college it was a lot better, my classical civilisations A/S level consisted of: Roman political system and the life of Cicero... and I got a freaking A!

Okay, enough prattling on for now...
 
I thought you had to pay for uni up front at one point which is why it was all rich kids? Otherwise how would the lecturers be paid?
All ours are paid through our tuition fees.
You are wrong. Public school kids scored a lot better though, so generally got the into the better places.


wiki said:
Until 1998, all education in the United Kingdom was free up to and including university courses. However, shortly after coming to power, the Labour Party under Prime Minister Tony Blair abolished the student maintenance grant system and introduced an up-front fee fixed at just over ?1000 per year for all university students. Up to a quarter of this fee was waived for the poorest students, but many maintained that education should remain a free public service, and that the system would place students in unnecessary levels of debt. The government, however, insisted that fees were the best means of providing much-needed funding to the universities. At the same time, they stated their aim to increase the proportion of students going on to Higher Education to 50% by 2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Education_Act_2004
 
Let me see, I have been outsourced and nearly but not quite off shored, gone up the food chain to see if I can avoid the problem!

Serveral relatives have died (Uncle and Auntie who were both very nice people :sad:).

Lots and lots of digital channels available now - Internest at home on broadband with decent speeds.

Decent OS from microsoft at last (XP), a dissappointing OS from Microsoft "What were they thinking?" (Vista).

Hard disc recorders and decent Diesel cars (Peugeot 406 and Vauxhall Zafira).

Found a decent Indian restrauant and take away - Cobra Beer woot!
 
I've read the article, it says ?1000 wasn't enough in the end which is why it's now ?3000+ per year and I do have a maintenance grant, so blah to you Mr. Blair and your big ideas.

Before I start getting flamed for taking government money, I had a job during uni last year which wasn't enough to cover anything which meant I delved into my overdraft and as I'm moving out this year I need a maintenance loan to cover my student halls rent, and I'm still ?1000 out and a weekend job won't cover it and I saved up ?800 from my job last year. (I got let go.. recession doom and gloom)

In other words, I'll be starting my working life, with a debt on top of another debt!

The student loans one isn't so terrible I suppose, Gordon Brown isn't gunna come knocking down my door for the money and then taking my sofa as payment, I can pay it back as and when I can.
 
It's likely the improvement in quality of life has essentially been a facet of growing debt.

I suspect labour like to take more credit for the economy that is in reality justified.

Fixed.
 
Quite a lot has got better but a the same time quite a lot has got worse couple of points:

- EMA, or Educational Maintenance Allowance, I got this while I was at College for 2 years studying Software Development, (American and British Colleges are different, I guess College in the UK is like your final 2 years of "High School" but I'm not sure) they gave me ?30 a week if I went to all my lectures because my mother didn't earn a lot. It was veeery helpful!

- Student Grants - Again, I don't come from a rich family...friends of mine at uni who do come from weathly families have there parents pay there rent, my mother can't afford to bail me out like that so having a grant added onto my loan is quite really helpful.

Bad points:

- Freedom, I'm not free anymore, the Police are like a bunch of paranoid stoners, ID cards will be with us soon, the NIR database.....Its starting to feel like East Germany.

- Top up fees - ?25k+ in Debt when I finish my degree :) Thanks Tony!

- Fuel tax - Taking the piss a little now....the Esso down the road from me is at ?1,04 a litre now.

There is probably more stuff that's gone wrong, but there are some good things too....but not enough good for bad!
 
I'll give you the smoking ban, great idea. And yeah, driving into London is never a great idea... Other than that, I dunno... Fuel tax is definitely one thing. I just got back from Austria where diesel is 1.02 euro, which is less than 90p a litre. Here the cheapest I can get it is ?1.03... generally it's ?1.07.
 
Do you guys in the UK have a government supported system where the Government pays for your Uni fees and you pay it back when you start to earn a certain amount of money? By the time I finish University, I'll have a nice $20,000 bill waiting for me, which I'll have to start paying back as soon as I start to earn over around $40,000.
 
Do you guys in the UK have a government supported system where the Government pays for your Uni fees and you pay it back when you start to earn a certain amount of money? By the time I finish University, I'll have a nice $20,000 bill waiting for me, which I'll have to start paying back as soon as I start to earn over around $40,000.

England and Wales have to pay tuition fees, paid back in a similar manner. Scottish students tuition fees are paid by the Scottish government.

Everyone is entitled to a means tested student loan.
 
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