The Spectator

Weak foundations

Compromise has diluted The Prime Minister's foundations initiatives to the point of nullity

issue 10 May 2003

Tony Blair turned 50 this week. The milestone has been celebrated with a special exhibition by the staff of No. 10. In an impressive display of their talents, the spin doctors of Downing Street have boggled or bullied the media into presenting the Prime Minister as a sort of composite prime minister of 1945: Churchill transmogrified into Attlee. The war leader, having settled his foreign enemy, will now deal with the axis of domestic evil in similarly short order. We are given to understand that the famous five giants of social distress – all stubbornly unslain nearly 60 years after the foundation of the welfare state – will now receive the attention of the government. The alternative comparison is with Mrs Thatcher after the Falklands: a prime minister with a mission to reform utterly the institutions of the country.

Spin works when it is sincere, and Mr Blair is undoubtedly sincere in his wish for thorough public-sector reform.

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