WHAT’S that saying? Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Words well worth remembering as we head towards the next general election.

Writing in the Guardian in July, Polly Toynbee attempted to reassure the families kept in poverty by the Tories and those with doubts about a Labour government, who have already been put on notice by Keir Starmer that he intends to keep them there. 

Toynbee regaled a story of how in 1997, after Labour pledged to follow Tory spending plans, the then secretary of state for social security Harriet Harman had no option but to implement the benefit cuts to single parents. However, changes made to benefits later benefited single parents. 

The message Toynbee was trying to get across was, yes, a Labour government might continue with the Tory policies but, hey, don’t worry — trust Keir Starmer and, like Blair’s New Labour, it will all be OK in the end. But will it?

I’m embarrassed to say my generation, the 60-plus age group, will be the last people to taste the fruits of working-class struggles that went before us, where in many cases people suffered imprisonment and unimaginable hardship so future generations, like yours truly, could enjoy fair pay and conditions and a well-earned retirement. 

Isn’t it our role to leave things better for the next generation? Yet here we are in 2023 and instead of life getting easier for many, it is getting harder.

This decline began when Thatcher took the reins in 1979, and began selling off electricity, gas and telecoms.

“We’re all capitalist now,” announced Thatcher as customers of energy companies all received their shares, most of which were soon sold by the working class to survive. 

It didn’t take too long before the NHS became the target of the vultures, as catering, cleaning and other ancillary services were tendered out and sold off to the highest bidder. 

When challenged on this by a member of the audience on BBC Question Time, Kenneth Clarke, then chancellor in Thatcher’s government, asked: “Does it really matter to the patient on the trolley if the porter pushing it is working for a private contractor or in-house services?”
 
Well, actually, yes it does. Maybe not to the patient, but it certainly does to the porter who had just had his hourly rate halved by the private contractor, along with his holiday entitlement and other terms and conditions.

By the time Thatcher left the stage, and her successor John Major was thrashed by Blair in the 1997 election, the NHS was a shell of what it had been. 

Society had changed, and in my opinion, not for the better. Social housing had all been sold off and communities broken up and destroyed. 

But we still had our trade union movement and hope, right? After all, New Labour was now in government holding a 179-seat majority, therefore changes to trade union laws that had been introduced to the detriment of the working class could now repealed. 

When prime minister Blair announced: “I’m going to be a lot more radical in government than people think,” the working class that had suffered under Thatcherism could have been forgiven for believing this was a signal by Blair that his New Labour government was going to scrap every piece of anti-trade union legislation that had been introduced since 1979, call a halt to compulsory tendering within the NHS and instigate an extensive building programme of social housing.

However, that was not to be. By the year 2000, it became clear that the priority of the New Labour government wasn’t being “radical” by returning more power to the trade unions but introducing “radical” laws to give more control to the “state” over the people.

The 2000 Anti-Terrorism Act was the foundation stone Blair laid which paved the way for successive governments to remove our civil liberties and turn Britain into one of the most-monitored populations in the world, all under the guise of “keeping us safe.”  

When David Cameron led the Conservatives back to power in coalition with the Lib Dems in 2010, everything that had been inflicted on the trade unions by Thatcher had been left in place by Labour. 

Also, tendering within the NHS continued and the building of new council housing to meet the demand was almost non-existent. Statistics suggest that the Tory governments built more council houses and flats in one year than New Labour built in 13 years.

The note proclaiming: “There’s no money left” by former chief secretary to the Treasury Ian Byrne was the catalyst for Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg to introduce austerity measures which saw the beginning of a rise in the pension age, wage caps and changes to terms and conditions along with an increase in zero-hours contracts. 

All of which increased homelessness and the need for foodbanks which officially first appeared in 2000 when New Labour was still in power, although granted, no doubt, due to the impact of past Tory governments.

In 1997 when we could see the end of a Tory government in sight, the masses voted for New Labour in the belief we were getting a Labour government which would begin to undo all of Thatcher’s work, but we were wrong. 

This time we are forewarned. Unlike 1997, those who vote Labour (holding their nose or not) know exactly what they will be voting for, which is a Labour Party consisting of many MPs that preferred a Tory government to a Corbyn-led socialist Labour government. 

A Labour vote will be endorsing a leader that has stood by while his MPs have labelled the left as “cranks, Trots and anti-semites,” all because they refused to accept the mainstream media narrative that another way, other than inflicting austerity on the poorest in society, was not possible, while refusing to remain silent on their support for Palestinians.

A Labour vote will be endorsing a party that will protect Israel from criticism, which will keep the bedroom tax, which has no money for the NHS but will find money for war. A government that refuses to nationalise energy and water despite people struggling to keep warm in the winter. 

A vote for Labour will be an endorsement of Keir Starmer as party leader who has already said “his” government intends to retain some of the existing Tory policies including the bedroom tax, policies that keep 250,000 children hungry and penalise third child families. 

A leader who refuses to rescind laws that all but ban “peaceful protest.”

Finally, it is worth remembering all these Tory polices were strengthened by successive governments because Blair left them in place. 

In an interview after leaving office, Blair stated that he saw his role was to “build on some of Thatcher’s polices.” This is why I believe Toynbee is wrong. When it comes to trusting a Labour leader that sees their role as building on Tory policies instead of scrapping them, history suggests in the end, it isn’t all OK.