The joys of inequality

It is time we gave the party some electric-shock treatment. The words are worthy of Stalin or Mao, but were spoken by nice, considerate Tony Blair soon after becoming Labour leader in 1994, when he was plotting with his creepy sidekick Philip Gould to ditch Clause 4. In recent months Mr Blair has used the university funding crisis to put several million more volts through his comrades. Like some sadistic psychiatrist, he has fastened his electrodes once again to the emaciated body of the Labour party, which is horribly contorted and enfeebled after eight and a half years of his treatment, but is still capable of feeling pain. Labour MPs emit blood-curdling shrieks of anguish as the Prime Minister tries to force his plan for university top-up fees on them, but that is their function. For if the Labour party regards what Mr Blair is doing as yet another betrayal of socialism, middle England will yet again conclude that the Prime Minister must be getting something right.