A month can be a long time, particularly if you are a discredited Prime Minister counting the days to departure. After a drubbing at the polls Tony Blair was prompted to make humble admissions that not everything was as it should be. But, as PIERS MOSTYN reports, a fortnight later it was business as usual. LABOUR's May local election result was its worst ever Ten days later Blair launched an initiative called "Let's Talk". This was designed to indicate that Labour got the message, was really listening to supporters concerns and would do better. A process of dialogue was implied, leading to new policy initiatives in the duLulll.
We know from experience that the proposed stage managed "conferences" will be little more than PR stunts. Blair will have his jacket off, head craning forward, sweating, In a pose or now wellrehearsed fake integrity. And it says little for Labour's own party democracy that this is how policy is developed.
More significant is the wholesale admission of failure after nine years in government that was involved.
In May Blair admitted for the first time that both his Sure Start scheme for under fives and his policies for children in care have failed the socially excluded. He coupled this with a claim that the criminal justice SYSICILI required fundamental overhaul and needed to be rebalanced in favour of the victim.
The trouble is, Blair's two most famous mantras over the past decade have been "education, education, education" and "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime".
On education, Labour has publicly staked its reputation on its ability to help the most deprived.
And as long ago as 2001, a government white paper, "Justice for All", made precisely the same points about the need for an overhaul of criminal justice. There have been no less than 43 acts of parliament on the subject.
Putting to one side whether any of these policies were correct (which we would dispute), to admit such failure on core issues at this late stage is to accept unfitness for government.
Blair has had more than enough time to get it right. Why should another few years make any difference? He should go now.
These public confessions of incompetence certainly chimed with the public mood. Post-election opinion polls showed a collapse in Labour support, particularly on "core" policy issues like education and health.
In addition, a study by Edinburgh University academic Terry Wrigley demonstrated that Labour's flagship
billion Academy programme has failed to improve
PIRE STATION Fire Brigades Union Hertfordshire fire crews walk out on strike against threatened closure of Radlett and Bovingdon fire stations by the Fire Authority. results compared to the comprehensive schools they replaced.
And the multi-faith Commission on Urban Life and Faith found that decades of economic growth and billions invested in inner cities have done nothing to redress glaring inequalities or have made them worse.
This slump in public confidence on core policies stems from Labour's strategic orientation not from public ignorance of their success or technical hiccoughs in service delivery.
Market-led neo-liberalism smashes up any benefits that Increased movestmen public services like health might bring. By exacerbating social inequality it cranks up educational failure and social exclusion among the children of the most deprived working class communities.
The alienation and insecurity it produces fuels crime, disorder and social anxiety.
But by early June, Labour recovered from this brief bout of unusual humility.
Blair and Brown launched a twin propaganda blitz assert that the "talk" would be restricted to privatisation, job cuts, wage restraint and working harder.
Blair made clear that he was ramming through his "reform" agenda in the public pated. The main public sector union, UNISON, had been excluded from the government-organised connerence on public sector-reforms at which Blair spoke.
Blair's response to poor poll ratings and electoral defeat mirrors his reaction to last year's resounding defeat of the proposed EU constitution mn rrances rererenoun
Despite the clearlv antineo-liberal character of the vote he brazenly claimed that it necessitated a renewed market-led "modernisation" drive, rather than the more obvious opposite conclusion.
The Tories have repositioned themselves sufficiently to warrant a Guardian headline "Labour and Tories swap sides in public sector debate". They have reaped the benefit in the opinion polls.
Voting analyst Professor John Curtice believes Blair's strength was only ever based on Tory weakness, his "luck has been a decade of Tory collapse and that luck has just run out".
But it may take a long time for memories of the years of Tory onslaught to fade. There is little chance of them being taken seriously on public services, Iraq or civil liberties.
With the Liberal Democrats signalling a clear rightwards shift (particularly on law and order and tax), it