http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8490024.stm

Of course they aren't going to, there's probably never been a government that has

I want politicians to look beyond the next election.

Short-termism has done for this country. Where's the big planning, the dreams? We'd never come up with anything like the NHS nowadays - that took some vision, and the realisation the idea would outlive the people who came up with it.

Rather than thinking as far as the next election, why not set in motion ideas that might only come to fruition 10, 20 or 50 years down the line?

I remember a few years ago when I was having a discussion about this kind of thing with a friend. Like you've said HK, there's not enough long-term vision going on. Everything seems to be a ham-fisted short-cut "solution" to a complex problem.

Example 1:
Problem: Not enough doctors in the NHS.
Labour's solution: Make medical schools admit more students to do medicine.
Consequence: Lots of students reading medicine without the extra money or infrastructure to support it. Hence, more poor quailty medical education and less-knowledgable and less-experienced doctors. More competition for fewer jobs. More doctors emigrate elsewhere to find jobs.

Example 2:
Problem: Patients complaining about not being able to see a consultant in the outpatient clinic.
Labour's solution: Make a "subconsultant" grade, call it "junior consultant" and suddenly there's more consultants.
Consequence: Patients get seen by "consultants" with less knowledge and expertise than normal consultants. Errors can be made.
Real Issue: Patients education of why, if every patient saw a consultant, the waiting lists would be four times longer, at least!

Every Govt. wants to feel they're the ones who made the most positive changes in Britain, therefore stay in power for longer. But, as HK as mentioned, these changes are short-term, not long-term.

I'd imagine that the debt markets will have more of a say on this than Tony Blair mk II.

...but in the year after, definitely!

Problem is the government is satisfysing. Long Waiting lists in hospitals lose votes, decrease waiting time and everybody is happy for the next election. Think about it though:there is no short term solution to this, that works in the long term; people expect a solution now and for that solution to work for 12 years of government. End result Check Mate.

Problem Is not just political but social.
Think about the introduction of the original pension scheme funded by the national insurance scheme:
David Lloyd George saw a Britain where old people who could no longer be supported by their sons who earned a pittance and had to feed children also, so often they’d have to send their parents to the workhouse. He came up with the pensions to deal with this.
Just a lazy wiki link for this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_reforms
Then look at the reforms under labour in 1946-1951
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beveridge_Report
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_State
The summarising point is: are you so poor you can’t afford the basic necessities of life, do you have to work your bones to dust when you are unemployed in a work-house with no likelihood of escape, when you are old do you have to rely on your families charity to help you.
When bringing up children can you put them through adequate education up to the age of 18 with special provision for 18-22 and do you have the ability to live in relative leisure for portions of your week.
Now for 95% + of society the answer to the first paragraph is no and for the second paragraph yes.
Therefore there is no need for radical reform people are mostly moaning for moaning’s sake, we all have a standard of living but are always expecting more and are acting like spoilt brats, then again the gov’t invites pressure by constantly justifying it’s experience.
When they came up with the NHS and welfare reforms in the post war period we were in an awful state, people were desperate, homeless and disabled it wasn’t a short term or long term solution, just a solution.
Plus if you want to see long term reform there has been a piece: the national minimum wage, the most excellent vision labour probably has or ever will have it has brought an adequate standard of living to everyone working full time. Plus the winter gas allowance and payments for especially cold winters
The USA had the abolition of slavery, the civil rights bills of the 50s and 60s and the new deal. They need health care reform, but for some reason that’s tyranny
Over here we have everything to keep people alive and in relative comfort (ie with shelter, housing, clean water, food and fuel)
What we require now is advancement in something; our telecommunications and internet network; global space programmes; universities; our road and rail network and science.