per cent by the age of seven. Nearly half of the richest group go on to get university degrees while only 10 per cent of the poorest manage to graduate.

Social mobility has declined to pre-war levels and child poverty is rising again. The poor have been ghettoised, with 80 per cent of the new jobs created since Labour came to power going to immigrants rather than indigenous workers. Wages, especially at the bottom, have declined in value and prices of basic goods have risen dramatically. Thus the poor find themselves cut off from any improvement in their lives and prospects.

So where exactly has New Labour gone so wrong? Firstly, they offered nothing new at all. If we have had enough of New Labour we have also - even if we don't realise it - had enough of Thatcherism. The dictatorial politics of New Labour's managerial class has ensured the extension of Thatcherism into all areas of British life. Both Blair and Brown were and are ardent Thatcherites who despise the ethos of public service with its emphasis on care and vocation. Instead they worship

wealth and power and adore socialising with a moneyed elite that thinks it knows best.

If they were just Thatcherites then maybe things would not have been quite so bad. But they were worse than neo-liberals; they also loved control and centralisation. Thus New Labour also introduced into the mix the worst aspect of its own tradition: the bureaucratic authoritarian state. This tax and surveillance system despises ordinary people and their organisations. It undermines local government and civic society, it extends our Quango democracy and ensures that nobody except central government has any power or influence.

I haven't even detailed the cash-for-honours scandal, nor the malevolent dishonesty surrounding the legitimisation of the war in Iraq. Why? Because all of this stems from something more basic and brutal - the overwhelming contempt that the progressive elite has had for the society it is meant to govern.