News

.... a weekly column from Dover and Deal MP Gwyn Prosser

3 May 2007

This week is the 10th anniversary of the 1997 general election which swept Labour to power and ended 18 years of Tory rule and I hope readers will indulge me if I use my column to reflect on the decade.

Few would have guessed that ten years on we would be into a third term of government and contemplating a fourth, it is ground we have never covered before and it is unfortunate but inevitable that at this difficult stage in the political cycle, there are more than a few troubles to contend with.

But we mustn’t allow this to detract from the important improvements we have made. In 1997 people were questioning whether tax-funded public services had any future. Waiting lists were the big issue in the NHS while poor performance and crumbling schools were the focus of concern in education. Crime had doubled under the Tories but people who had lost faith in the Conservative’s commitment to public services did not have confidence that Labour’s pledges to save the NHS and rebuild our schools would be matched by economic competence in government.

So, the battle ground was the economy. Huge rises in interest rates, inflation and unemployment were all still fresh in the electorate’s memory and in our patch we had just suffered the shutdown of the East Kent Coalfield.

Today the economic and political landscape has been transformed, Britain has enjoyed the longest period of growth for 200 years, with over 2.5 million more people in work and in our constituency unemployment has been driven down by 53% and youth unemployment has been slashed by a massive 90%.

In health, no one waits over 6 months and we are on target to reduce this to an 18 weeks maximum. In our schools, standards are up across the board and out on the streets crime is down 35 per cent.

Our big cities have been regenerated and smaller towns like Dover and Deal are now enjoying the necessary government funding to progress redevelopment projects which have languished on the drawing board for far too long.

Further afield, overseas aid has more than doubled and on the global warming front, we are the only country in the world that will achieve double its Kyoto target.

Global terrorism is a new challenge which we did not face in 1997 but the Twin Towers outrage of 9/11 fundamentally changed the world and we are still dealing with its impact, most obviously, and tragically in Afghanistan and Iraq. I opposed the Iraq War and I voted against the Government in the crucial division of March 18th 2003. Tony Blair says that history will make its own judgement on his decision but I made my mind up a long time ago – he was wrong.

There have been other mistakes along the way but I’m convinced that the insight that brought us to power has stood the test of time. There’s lots more to do of course and under new leadership we will be well equipped to start doing it.