Lost Labour

When disabled activists converged on the House of Commons this week to protest against welfare reform, they wanted to remind the Tories of what happened the last time a reforming government tried to tackle disability benefits. That was December 1997, when Tony Blair was talking as fervently about welfare reform as Iain Duncan Smith does now. But once he saw men in wheelchairs chaining themselves to the Downing Street railings wearing placards saying ‘Blair doesn’t care,’ he panicked. The reform agenda was quietly abandoned. As a result, millions lived through Britain’s boom years in a state of welfare dependency. By the time Blair tried again, years later, he had lost his political authority and he made little progress.

This time, the protestors face a government with firmer resolve — one which has learned from Blair’s failures. The tragedy of the Labour years is that so many good ideas were mooted but never properly implemented.