Goodbye Blairism, farewell Thatcherism

It took us nearly 10 years to tire of Blair, but just six months to dislike his moody and secretive successor, Gordon Brown. The latest polls show the prime minister is highly unpopular, with affection for the government at a new low and Conservative support at its highest since 1992. Britain has had just over 10 years of New Labour, and its style of politics, government and media management. And it seems we do not want any more.

Elected on May 1, 1997, Blair and Brown promised honesty, integrity and proficiency. The British public voted for them en masse, well aware that public services could not survive further cutbacks and right-wing neglect. New Labour promised us something different: rising prosperity with the benefits of economic growth being applied to the public services. The health service would be renewed, education would be the new driver

of equal opportunity, and poverty and exclusion would be tackled as never before.

Well - it doesn't look like that now. Despite the enormous sums of money poured into the National Health Service, nurses are still poorly paid, old people have been abandoned and forced to soil their own beds, while hospital infections that could be stopped with basic hygiene now kill more people than ever. The recent massive wage increase for the already well-paid consultants and GPs has ensured they do less work for more money while the cost of this increase equals the deficit that forced hospitals to lay off frontline staff.

Similar tales afflict education. We were told that the government would ensure opportunity for all. But the middle classes have colonised all the working-class routes to advancement. The Surestart programme, originally envisaged to help poorer families, is full of well-off mums from the suburbs. And it gets worse: a report last week showed the least able children from the richest 20 per cent of the population overtake the most able children from the bottom 20