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| November | 28 |
| 2003 |
First, Foundation Hospitals were watered down to the point of having almost no practical utility; any importance attached to the vote was, as I pointed out below, entirely symbolic.
Now come the hints (from, in the first instance, Peter Hain) that the government
will have to rethink plans to charge students top-up fees if they are rejected by the massive public consultation exercise Labour is launching today
(as The Times puts it).
If this is accurate, and it seems to be, then it's a clear signal that the government is preparing exactly the same sort of 'compromise' that it reached over foundation hospitals: fillet the idea of any meat, and leave it almost entirely worthless in order to get it past the Labour benches.
If - I have to use that word again, since the messages remain mixed - this is indeed what happens, it really will be an unanswerable demonstration that the game is up for worthwhile reform under Labour. Blair has been in office for six and a half years, and the real reforms which needed a Labour government to be introduced are...well, I was going to write negligible, but it's worse than that: zero.
The NHS has been, and will be even more so, an horrific waste of public money, with billions of pounds of tax revenue being shovelled into a giant money pit to test an experiment for which there is no supporting evidence anywhere in history: that if you spend as much money as it's physically possible to do, you will get a first class, equitable health service.
There have been some good education ideas, but they are tiny in their impact compared with what needs to be done.
And the rest, like the minimum wage, have all been designed to massage Labour's erogenous zones rather than grapple with the real needs of the country.
The fundamental problem is the second word in the label New Labour. In the end, the Labour part can't be separated, and holds almost all the aces. The result is the mess in which the government now finds itself.
To answer my headline's question, it does still have a point: the Prime Minister has been exemplary in his actions in response to the threat we face from terror, and since in the end there is not a single domestic issue which comes even close in importance, then Mr Blair deserves and needs to be supported. But as for the rest...well, forget it. The game's up. New Labour never existed as more than the hopes of a few deluded Blairites, such as myself.
MessageSpace
I don't see how you can make any significant differences to the top up fees policy without abandoning the 50% target. It would be unthinkable for them to junk self pay and charge it all to the general tax payer, which is I imagine what the Labour backbenchers want. I suppose the graduate tax option could be sold as a compromise but it would be spectacular U turn especially as the Prime Minister has "no reverse gear". It is possible of course to mange a U turn without a reverse gear but surely risky. If executed too quickly and without care the Prime Minister could find in a sorry heap by the side of the road.
Stephen sounds like he's Guardian-reading, with a Metropolitan existence and a elite lifestyle to match. He should get away from London and Brussels and see some of the differences that this Government has made on the domestic front.
In South Yorkshire the introduction of the minimum wage meant that just over 9% of the working population got a wage rise. When we were looking for shop front for the 2001 election we had literally over a dozen to chose from - there's none empty now. Unemployment is hugely down. The kids at school are better fed, better dressed and that impacts on their education.
Why, other than arrant tribalism, are you (still) in the LABOUR party??!!
Stephen - I'm a Tory and even I have nicer things to say about the government than you! Dennis is right, unemployment is very low and whatnot. The government has done some good things. The problem is that it has also done some very stupid things (in my view - but then I'm not a Labour supporter to start with) and - as importantly - it really hasn't delivered to the extent that a lot of people feel it should have done, especially given the enormous mandate it enjoys.
On the education front it's about time they started drumming into people the fact that impact is not a verb... just kidding.
There was me thinking that entire article was a waste of time, until I reached the last sentence: "a few deluded Blairites, such as myself"
At last, the admission I've been waiting for. Of course, we always knew that Blairites were deluded - deluded into thinking they were Labour, deluded into believe Thatcherism might actually have something to offer, deluded into thinking their "privatise everything NOW" attitude was anything but insanely destructive. But it's nice to see one realising their own deluded nature.
Now, if you'll all just go away and allow a Labour government into power, as the voters of Britain have asked for at the last two elections, we can start repairing the astounding damage done over the past twenty-five years.
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