Have the Blair years given us a better life?

"The one good thing he did was to merge all the services for children and young people and education into one child-centred service.

"However, there must be a time when the revolution in schools ends because teachers have faced a whole host of mutually contradictory and conflicting demands, with Whitehall believing it knows best."

Ian Murch, Bradford NUT branch secretary, said there had been an increase in spending on education during the Blair years.

But he said: "Teachers resent the continuing obsession with testing and league tables. The decision to privatise things, which Bradford was on the receiving end of in terms of education services, has also been a failure.

"Lots of good people work for Education Bradford but, as a structure, it has produced constant wrangles about what is and what isn't in the contract. You wouldn't get that with a local authority.

"The decision to give schools away to rich businessmen, in terms of academies, is also unpopular. A lot of this is about undermining teachers' control of the way in which they do their own work. There has been a belief that the Government knows best."

Councillor Ralph Berry, the Bradford Labour group's education spokesman, said investment in early years education had been "fantastic".

"Before that, we lagged behind Europe in terms of nursery education and early years education," said Coun Berry.

He said school budgets in Bradford had increased massively through the Blair years and added that investment in infrastructure had been huge.

Business Mike Cartwright, of Bradford Chamber, said: "While a lot of changes have taken place under Blair's watch, the business view on his legacy is that he's failed to leave a marker on that issue.

"He has failed to free small companies from the shackles of regulation and taxation, and we've yet to see a simplified business support structure.

"Two of the other key policy areas in which business has been looking for some progress - skills/education and transport - are still in the in-tray as far as we're concerned.

"It's not all negative: Blair and Brown's reputations internationally for making UK plc a global force remain strong, and the stability of the economy over the last ten years should not be under-played.

"Initial fears over the effects of the minimum wage were unfounded, and the prospects of repealing Thatcher's anti-trade union legislation - a long shot, with hindsight - never materialised."

Health David Richardson, chairman of Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: "The advent of the foundation trust model has been very successful for us.

"We are performing very well and being a foundation trust makes us more accountable to the public we serve and our governors and members can really influence the services we provide."

The Yorkshire and Humber branch of the Royal College of Nurses, which covers Bradford, said the Blair years had produced a "mixed bag".

A spokesman said: "The Labour Government has increased resources for the NHS and that, combined with the commitment of NHS staff, has resulted in better and faster patient care.

"But, over recent years, the constant reform of the service and the impact of financial deficits for Trusts have seen some of those gains reversed."

Pensioners Pensioners' champion Audrey Raistrick, trustee and secretary of Neighbourly Care Bradford which helps to improve the lives of older people in the city, said: "I don't think Blair did such a bad job for pensioners. It could have been better but it could also have been a lot worse.

"I'd have liked to have seen a better system set up for monitoring care homes in his time and the pension system sorted out.

"I worked all my life until I was 65 and yet my state pension is only £65 a week. How am I supposed to live on that?

"What we want to see is a decent pension, enough to have a decent standard of living. We want a pension not perks. The system is very fractured at the moment with different handouts available for different people. An earnings-related pension would be fair. No doubt Mr Blair will be laughing with his pension, he'll be well looked after."

Poverty Tina Morrison, of Bradford-based charity Christians Against Poverty, said: "The situation of debt has got worse over the last ten years. But that's not necessarily due to Tony Blair, more to the changing face of society."

Foreign policy Professor Paul Rogers, of Bradford University's peace studies department, said foreign and security policy did not figure greatly in Mr Blair's original plans when he came to power.

He said the real change came with the response to the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001 - a time when many of Labour's supporters were looking for a more radical focus on domestic issues to narrow the wealth-poverty divide.

"Instead, most of Blair's remaining six years as Prime Minister have been dominated by his unqualified support for President Bush and his vigorous pursuit of the global war on terror," said Prof Rogers.

"Far from being defeated, the al-Qaida movement itself has actually been more active in the years since 9/11 than in an equivalent period before.

"Attacks in Indonesia, Pakistan, Morocco, Kenya, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Spain and Britain have been accompanied by a pronounced increase in anti-Americanism, especially across the Middle East.

"By inserting 150,000 soldiers into the heart of the region, the United States has done a remarkable service to the al-Qaida movement - Osama bin Laden in his cave, or possibly his Karachi apartment, must be hugely satisfied.

"In spite of all of these problems, and in spite of the electoral damage done to the Labour Party, Mr Blair remains absolutely convinced of the rightness of his support for George Bush. He sees it almost in a Manichean good-versus-evil picture and is determined to leave a legacy of a Britain punching above its weight in world affairs."

Crime Mark Burns-Williamson, who has been the chairman of West Yorkshire Police Authority for the last four years, said: "There is no doubt there has been lots of investment in policing and that's reflected in West Yorkshire where we currently have record levels of police officers and police staff.

"In terms of reducing crime, the headline figures are very good and there have been a lot of good inroads into violent crime in particular.

"When we look at the record prison population, it shows that the police are catching more criminals and more sentences are being passed down. The enforcement side has been effective."

But Coun Burns-Williamson said more still needed to be done to focus on the causes of crime in terms of working with society to prevent criminality and re-offending.

He said "We have also seen recognition by the Government that counter-terrorism units need to be established in the regions and there will be one here in West Yorkshire."