Has the Labour Government been given enough time to fix the issues it inherited? - Yorkshire Post Letters

I have always disliked, and reacted against the phenomenon of the 'Vox Populi', where ostensibly random members of the public are asked for their opinions for television or radio news programmes.

The opinions broadcast are clearly selected by reporters and editors to reinforce any points they may wish to make; how often are counter opinions expressed, or how often does one hear an interviewee say that ‘I shall vote in this way because of my firmly held political beliefs and convictions’?

However, I have detected a common thread of late, which is difficult to explain. A significant number of interviewees have declared the need for radical change and for an end to the ‘same old boring politics’ of the past.

This implies that they are unable to distinguish between a decade and a half of Conservative austerity politics and a year and a half of Labour measures to counter these.

A wider-ranging comparison would be to recognise that we have had nearly half a century of Neoliberalism, whose basic tenet would be to replace public ownership of services with private ownership (all the utilities, transport, steel, probation, military recruitment, public pensions, with inroads into health and education to name just a few), and that efforts to reverse some of these changes have only just begun over the last 12 months or so.

If the British public are unable to perceive any differences, and if, in fact, they are looking for radical change from the one political party which is currently most in support of Neoliberalism (namely, the Reform party), then a proportion of the blame must fall on the current government for failing to announce their intentions and achievements more clearly. And also, one might argue, for failing to use their massive parliamentary majority more effectively.