A Summary Of The Damage

Aside from savaging this country's entire political class - a few would say with some justification - in his column today, Christopher Booker also provided a pretty clear summary of the carnage caused by 13 long years of Labour misrule:

It is almost impossible to measure the damage done by 13 years of rule by Blair and Brown. They have left the country effectively bankrupt, its manufacturing industry halved, the City tottering and under threat. They have allowed the United Kingdom to splinter, debauched the House of Lords and brought politics into contempt. They have done irreparable damage to our Armed Forces (not least through the humilating fiasco which led to our being thrown out of Iraq). Our country's standing on the world stage has never been lower.

What's hard to believe is that this is by no means a comprehensive summary. Booker decides not to mention the immigration scandal, the politicisation of the civil service, the filthy and dangerous hospitals (that now cost us twice as much as they used to, at a cool £100Bn a year), a state sector that has grown to the point where it swallows-up 52% of the nation's wealth, the lies and the smears and the spin - and so on and so on and on and on. It's no wonder that right-minded people find it impossible to believe that, so the polls say, probably misleadingly, Labour still enjoys support from 30%-odd of the electorate.

But it is worth repeating Booker's summary nonetheless. People should bear it mind when they look to cast their votes in May.