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 | When I was first elected to the European Parliament |
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| When I was first elected to the European Parliament in 1989, we were faced with the Tories in power and the prospect of a Labour Government seemed far away. Indeed
it would be another eight years before we were finally swept into power, ending some 18 years of opposition. I raise this now, just to remind
people what it was like under the Tories as compared to our Labour Government, because I honestly believe both the British public and a number of our own Party members have
forgotten. Those of you who are old enough, cast your mind back to the Tory years of crumbling schools, under investment in our health service, the decimation of our traditional
industries including; shipbuilding, mining, steel and engineering. Also, do you recall double digit inflation, double digit mortgage rates ad double digit
unemployment? Who can ever forget black Wednesday, when speculators brought down the British economy or the chaotic privatisation of our railways; and of course the Poll Tax and
the imposition of VAT on gas and electric? Compare that to the record of our own Labour Government and surely one can see the improvements in our
country since 1997. I appreciate that we can always to more, but we have seen record levels of investment in health, in transport, record levels of people in work and no longer are
our school buildings crumbling and our educational standards dropping. We in the Labour Party have a proud record in
Government. The problem is many people have short memories and have forgotten the disaster that was the Tory years of 1979 to 1997. We need to remind them by
outlining their record as against ours.
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