http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8515798.stm

Well if their press releases are out by a factor of ten then we are in trouble when they come to the Budget. Though I will agree with them on this

While that is not something Labour should be proud of, why do I find it so hard to believe the Tories can do any better. They've never managed it in the past, after all.

Weasel words. Anything to pretend they're touchy-feely, caring and sharing. Those of us with long memories remember only too well, thank you, Mr Cameron. We won't forget.

I would agree with you. As a statement of fact they were correct that Labour have failed the poor, but as you say so have the Conservatives. I would never expect the tories wo help the poor but hopefully old Labour will return and do something for the poor. There is more chance of that than the tories doing anything about it.

As with the political parties, a lot of people on here blame previous governments for this mess we're in. Which is all well and good, but as far as I remember time travels forward. So learning from mistakes is good, but wanton blame laying serves little use.

Well, apart from a little flaming.

Yes but neither party have learned from any of the mistakes made.

Precisely. They all have the same blinkered attitudes, short term "next election" horizons, and seem to just fiddle about round the edges, or introduce badly-drawn-up legislation as a knee-jerk reaction to make themselves look popular.

Well that is not exactly true since that is just a trick of statistics. Such as the gap between rich and poor the main REAL difference is that the rich have got exponentially richer and the poor have got richer to but not on the same scale.
How has labour failed the poorest in society.
JSA increases
Income support
Wirking familliy tax credit
MINIMUM WAGE
The massive 1997-2003 expansion in nurse, teacher and various public sector pay
Winter fuel allowance
Sure start scheme
doubling the spending on education per pupil.....
and the list goes on...
However as I am fed up of stating labour have been more than underwhelming in thier last 5 years of government becouming a repressive and abysmal power abusing government. IN reality from 1997-2005 labour have made the most extensive reforms for those in the lower levels of society of any government since the labour government of 1945-51.

Truth is that the poorest in society have are usually those supported by these reforms and they are so happily stuck in this comfort zone that they can't be arsed getting up off thier arse.

People on benifits and low income jobs just don't realise how lucky they have been with labour. Most of it is that people are too feckless to actually take resposibility for thier own lives and do something with them hence 1.8 million Unemployed pre recession plus countless numbers on mickey mouse incapacity with depression or stress.

My main beef with them though is that all this reform in the first 6-8 years of government and we have seen F all since but abuse and misuse of power because they have run out of ways to actually use it.

Just like the latest fiasco over care of the elderly. It is important, too important to be reduced to political point scoring.