Pete the Greek said:
Even though they only formed 1 in 3 governments throughout the 20th Century, when they were in power, they always seemed to majorly fuck everything up.
Labour are responsible for all that is shit and evil in this country. Rubbish, vile council blocks, a culture of dependency, molly coddled trade unions, liberal policing policies and law and order, weak sentencing of criminals, the list goes on.
Old Labourites and Socialists - the bane of the earth.
Hummmm . . . . I think it could appear this way, but the reality is somewhat more subtle. And there is a danger with perceiving ruling Labour governments as part of the same mass as 'the left'. To be honest, Labour government ministers may start out as being part of the the 'the left' but I honestly believe the requirements of government, the practicalities of running a country, mean a lot of idealistic beliefs soon get thrown out of the window as realistically unworkable.
I'll take your first point about council blocks. I agree, but council blocks of the 60s and 70s are atrocious. Architectural crimes against humanity. So why were they built?
I think out of good, but misguided, intentions. I'll speak about the Calder valley because it is an area I know well. In some places, it proved cheaper to destroy old mill cottages and build cheap highrises than to install inside bathrooms and then build more housing to cater for demand. The baby boom meant more people needed bigger and better homes. The housing stock was outdated (no internal plumbing, no central heating, no insulation) so building cheap and knocking down old seemed the best option at the time. Yes, people got backhanders; yes, it turned out to be a disaster . . . . but governments never think long term, do they?
Dependancy culture . . . another idea with wonderful intentions that turned out to have negative consequences - not that Lloyd George (yep, the spark of the welfare state began with a Liberal) would ever have foreseen that his state unemployment insurance would turn out the way it did. All he wanted was security for the working man in case of unemployment. Remember: many of those working men were highly suspicious of paying the government money at the time. They preferred to stay with their friendly societies.
In some ways, it is the same as the NHS. An idea that starts with a horror over the poor disease-ridden state of British conscripts turns into a service where people play hell if a doctor won't give them a sick note for court.
When it comes to liberal policing policies, law and order and the weak sentencing of criminals, well, I don't know just how liberal Labour governments have actually been. I suspect you may be viewing a Labour government through the lens of certain leftist commentaries that, sometimes, I suspect hold a position akin to masochism when it comes to supporting ideas that are completely against their self interest. Some leftist take their ideologies way too far - to the extent, they are anti-themselves.
When it comes to Old Labourites and socialists, well, I don't reckon we've ever had any of those in power really. And Old Labourites, real Old Labour, I mean, the kind of folk that wrote the first manifesto on a piece of paper back in the 20s (one of the points demanding an end to compulsory vaccinations, no less) weren't really socialists, more conservative protectionists, which would explain why a lot of their intended inheritors voted Tory in later years (the construction of this point is tricky, I know, but I've had a couple of beers.)
And don't get me started on unions. That's another idea that went tits up in some circumstances - largely because parts of the left refused to see the situation in any way other than factory owners = bad, workers = good (this extreme polarisation has continued into contemporary times: ie. US = bad, Everyone that is anti-US = good, even if they are anti-me). Unions were great for the 19th century, but pants for those folk that worked in good factories and where union reps came in and caused havoc, leading to a loss of benefits for workers.
You see, PtG, if you really wanted to make a statement I could agree with you would have to say: "What a shame that well-meaning middle class imbeciles, with no actual experience of the complexities of other people's lives, have ruined the UK with their do-gooder, pious bollocks that made everything so much worse."
Sorry mate, but I've got better things to do with my time. However, may I point you in the direction of 
