Damn right it does!
First, the economy. The Stock Exchange stopped going down yesterday and actually went up. That couldn't have happened if the banks were still in free-fall. I find that this month isn't markedly different from around 4 months ago, when this crisis first appeared in the news. Actually, tomorrow, when I fill my car with diesel, it will cost me less than it did 4 months ago. My mortgage is the same now as it was then. My other bills haven't gone up. Food did go up, but is now on the way back down. World leaders have complimented Gordon Brown's bold handling of this crisis. People here in the UK are slowly catching on to that, judging by the Opinion polls, finally favouring Gordon's handling of the economy.
Employment. Correct me, if I'm wrong, but didn't the Tories have much higher unemployment than we do now? Double now? Many more people were benefit-trapped. We are a much more service-based economy than we used to be, so we have no more, or little more, manufacturing base to lose. Labour introduced Sure Start, the Minimum Wage, Childcare and after school clubs, which has enabled many, particularly single parents to re-enter the job market.
Education. Schools were dire when I was at school in the 1960's. Schools didn't even try to move around 75% of their students forward to college, grammar schools or university. During the first year in the newly elected 1964 Labour government, one teacher told us that Labour was spending £25 million on education. £25 million was a huge amount back then.
Law 'n Order. Finally, Labour has been proving that this topic is no longer exclusive Tory turf. It never has been, in fact. But for some reason, people's perception is that Tories are tough on crime. Probably because the right of the party succeed from time to time in attempting to return the Death Penalty. They always fail and they always will.
Crimes get reported now much more than they ever did before. There's always been murders, robberies and fraudsters. There's always been crooks and paedophiles. There's always been knife crimes, bombings and shootings.
The irony is, that the authorities are more successful than ever, in both catching and punishing criminals, although this is overshadowed by so much more information about how violent a place any nation can be.
Of course, it is always right to campaign, and do whatever we can to rid the streets of murderers, rapists, paedophiles and thieves. Education is key here. Crime is a weed that's fertilised by people who are excluded. Criminals prey on their need for money, drugs and drink, and even sex. The weeds take over the garden. The best way to make sure you don't have weeds is to have a tidy garden in the first place.
Labour has probably only achieved a small part of what people, and good, loyal Labour people, believe it should achieve. World class schools, colleges, universities, hospitals and also decent affordable homes for people who would like to improve their lives and for those who simply can't.
The Tories believe in an Excel spreadsheet where only companies and shareholders matter. Everyone else is rewarded as an afterthought. Without the "afterthoughts", there would be no companies to have shares.
What Gordon Brown's been trying to do, is to help our country and also the world to avoid a terrible depression. If people refuse to co-operate and try to make political capital out of this situation, then that's all they'll end up with. Political capital. Even America, that proud bastion of Western capitalism, is wising up that their government and opposition alike, will need to unite to see us through this. If the majority of people refuse to co-operate over here, then we're all really going to head for all time economic nose-dive - and we'll have deserved it, if we're that daft!
