Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
While I agree with what you say about comparing stats, that doesn’t apply here because you’ve got one set of figures (which you selected to prove a point), so you can make a direct comparison. Let’s have a look at specifics in that graph regarding pensioner poverty.

The graph starts at 94/95 with a pensioner poverty rate of 28 per cent. By the time the Major Government was voted out it had risen to 29 per cent, so I would suggest that “high and stable” when you’re discussing something like pensioner poverty would be better described as failure.

By 05/06, Labour had almost halved the figure to 16 per cent, only for it to rise a year later to 19 per cent, but, by the time they left office, it was 15 per cent, so the rate fell by 14 per cent in the thirteen years they were in power.

For the five years we had a coalition Government, the rate continued downwards, but at a much slower rate and it was down to 14 per cent when the Lib Dems left Government. Since then, with the Tories solely in charge, it had risen to 18 per cent by 19/20 and, with all that has happened since then, it’s hard to imagine that they’ve headed in any direction other than up.

Let’s leave guesswork out of it though, you posted the link to this chart to show that what you call the facts proved
that pensioner poverty had “significantly reduced” under the Conservatives - that’s simply not true, the most sympathetic interpretation I can put on it is that the modern day Tories have come pretty close to maintaining the levels Labour took it to after inheriting a failing system. They’ve come pretty close, but they haven’t succeeded - by any interpretation you care to make of those figures, they show that Labour Governments have been more successful than Conservative ones in tackling pensioner poverty in the last thirty years or so.
I agree, my wording was not correct. It didn't significantly reduce, but it broadly remained at the lower level (lets say 13-16%) as opposed to the 28-16% level of the previous decade, which you rightly say, Blairs government made great strides in reducing.

Nonetheless, it is a fact that less pensioners were in poverty under this government than under Blairs. Just as Blair deserved credit for lowering the pensioner poverty rate, so too do successive Tory govts for (hitherto at least) keeping it at lower levels than before, especially as a poverty rate, unlike say health or education is something that neednt be cyclical - great sweathes could be put into or removed from poverty under any one policy decision.

I just disagree, as you know, with this idea that one party is good and one is bad. It simply isn't true, and people like Dorcus above labelling people 'tory twats' completely in the face of the stats before him.