Out a vast £40 billion surplus in the National Insurance fund which he has consistently refused to release for its intended purpose - improving the miserable state pension, which is a fraction of the
generous provision enjoyed by pensioners across much of Europe.
• Blair's team are also driving on an escalating proFrom top: Reid, Brown, Blair and the only serious left challenger, John McDonnell
RA gramme of privatisation, with even the coastguards and parts of the probation service being sized up for sale to profit-seeking operators.
• In the NHS the cultivation of a new, Labour-sponsored private sector stands at the heart of the controversial reforms through which Blair and Brown jointly seek to transform our largest and most popular public service into little more than a fund that would purchase care from a variety of private sector providers. Manageconsultants from McKinsey's and other highprice companies are scooping up huge fees for steering local NHS managers towards cuts, privatisation and handing over control of the NHS commissioning budget to more private sector companies.
• And while the public sector faces an unprecedented onslaught, Blair goes on record defending the parasitic operations of private equity capitalists whose multi-billion takeovers of well-known businesses have triggered new bouts of asset-stripping, job losses, and derecognition of
Where Blair is bad, Brown is just as bad: and Brown has been the Iron Chancellor throughout the ten years in which social inequalities have widened.
If as seems likely the succession is stitched up so as to avert any actual election - by squeezing left challenger McDonnell and the ineffectual Meacher out of the frame - any changeover will be a purely cosmetic exercise reshuffling a few ministers.
Nothing could more underline the urgent need for a political alternative to the left of New Labour: can Respect rise to the challenge, or will it set its sights too low and too narrow, and miss the chance to relate to a much wider base of potential support?