The Sun Says: Labour's lost it

I may be one of the few who reads the Sun only for its editorials but this is worthy of wider circulation. The language is deceptively simple, but the universality of the condemnation exhibits a sound intellectual grasp of the situation.

This Labour Government has lost its way. Now it's lost The Sun's support too

TWELVE years ago, Britain was crying out for change from a divided, exhausted Government.

Today we are there again.

In 1997, "New" Labour, shorn of its destructive hard-Left doctrines and with an energetic and charismatic leader, seemed the answer. Tony Blair said things could only get better, and few doubted him. But did they get better? Well, you could point to investment in schools and shorter hospital waiting lists and say yes, some things did - a little.

But the real story of the Labour years is one of under-achievement, rank failure and a vast expansion of wasteful government interference in everyone's lives.

Who do YOU want to lead the country?

Nobody can doubt the dedication of Gordon Brown - or the love and loyalty of his wife Sarah, who delivered a moving plea on his behalf yesterday.

But nor can they disguise the failures of Labour in Government over the last 12 years, many of them embarrassingly laid bare by the PM's own words yesterday.

Britain feels broken . . . and the Government is out of excuses.

Blair took office with bulging coffers, an invincible majority and weak opposition, and he and Gordon Brown could have worked miracles.

But they FAILED on law and order, their mantra "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" becoming a national joke. Knife murders are soaring. Smirking criminals routinely walk free in the name of political correctness, while decent people live in a virtual police state of snooping cameras and petty officials empowered to spy and to punish.

Labour FAILED on schools. Yes, facilities improved - but four in 10 kids leave those shiny classrooms still unable to read, write or add up properly. We are plummeting down international league tables for maths and literacy, but every year "grade inflation" ensures record GCSE and A-level passes to fuel Government propaganda.

Labour FAILED on health - spending billions on clipboard-ticking target managers instead of on frontline care.

Labour FAILED on immigration, opening our borders without any regard to the consequences. Illegal migrants and bogus asylum seekers poured in.

Labour FAILED the children they claimed to have made their priority. After 12 years of Blair and Brown, Britain is officially the WORST country in the developed world in which to grow up.

Most disgracefully of all, Labour FAILED our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving them to die through chronic under-funding and the shambolic leadership of dismal Defence Secretaries like Bob Ainsworth.

As our forces in two war zones suffered, the scale of Government waste at home was mind-boggling and tragic:

• Billions blown employing a useless layer of public service middle-managers like those who condemned Baby P to die.
• Billions more spent, insanely, making benefits more lucrative than a pay cheque - creating a huge, idle underclass for whom work is a dirty word. And all along the Government has had one overriding concern: Itself.
• Blair and Brown's puerile feud has long been a cancer at the heart of New Labour, their divisions often paralysing the country.

Labour's driving ambition has not been to improve Britain. It has been to retain power at all costs - with no lie judged too great in its ruthless and relentless self-promotion.

They promised a referendum on Europe. They claimed they had ended "boom and bust". They tried to con the public with promises of endless investment, when they knew they would have to cut.

At the 2005 election, we and our readers believed Labour had many failings but gave them one last chance over a lacklustre Tory party.

They have had that chance and failed.

That is a fact Gordon Brown cannot escape, for all his rhetoric yesterday - his rewriting of history, his absurd caricature of the "heartless" Tories, his tired promises to solve problems he has had 12 years to solve.

Britain needs a brave and wise Government to restore our self-respect, our natural entrepreneurship and the will of every family to improve its lot through its own efforts, without depending on handouts.

We need a Government that will cut the red tape strangling businesses, that will make affordable tax cuts to stimulate growth, that will reform wasteful public services.

We need a Government with a genuine will to win the war in Afghanistan and the commitment to give our forces whatever they need to do it.

This will not be a Government that merely talks the talk, as Labour has. It will ACT.

We hope, and pray, that the next Government will have the guts and the determination to do these things. And we believe David Cameron should lead it.

Between now and the election Cameron's Conservatives must earn voters' trust by setting out their promising policies in detail.

If elected, Cameron must use the same energy and determination with which he reinvigorated the Tory Party to breathe new life into Britain.

That means genuine, radical change to encourage self-improvers, not wasting time on internal party wrangling or pandering to the forces of political correctness. It also means an honesty and transparency of Government that we have not seen for years.

We are still a great people and, put to the test, will respond to the challenges we face.

The Sun believes - and prays - that the Conservative leadership can put the great back into Great Britain.