Some have noted the authoritarian slant of Blair's speech, with its emphasis on security rather than protecting the individual. Others have considered his emphasis on public services to be a precursor of vouchers.
My own scepticism concerning the ability of Blair to deliver on public service reform is warranted following seven years of failure. Breaking the pattern of micro-management and centralisation is probably beyond the powers of this government, given that such strategies form the base of their political model. The whole tenor of the speech is arrogant and triumphalist, in a manner that would have been attacked in a vitriolic manner if spoken by Thatcher.
Only one Chancellor to have delivered that economic record: this one. Only one cabinet to have delivered these changes: this one. Only one government to do it all: your third term Labour government.
By the end of 2008, for the first time in decades, Britain will be investing twice as much in our schoolchildren and three times as much in the NHS than 10 years before. Only a Labour government would have done it. No government but a Labour one would have introduced the New Deal and given 1 million young people the chance of a decent job. Only a Labour government would have stopped the scandal of pensioner poverty or introduced the winter fuel allowance.
Only a Labour government would have made a record increase to child benefit or made Sure Start a vital part of some of the poorest communities in the country. Only a Labour government would ever have brought in a minimum wage, and increased it, and made it such a part of our national life that no Tory will ever dare or even threaten to get rid of it.
Even stranger is his secret dream that Seb Coe was London mayor, and Europe was towed away:
And let me tell you what won the bid. Yes, we had a magnificent team led by Seb Coe, a great London mayor who backed it to the hilt, a country behind us.
This is a country today that increasingly sets the standard: not for us the malaise of France or the angst of Germany. It's a national pastime to run ourselves down, so occasionally it's worth saying: Britain is a great country and we are proud of it.
Ever the conspiratorialist, I wondered about the (very convenient) timing of the IRA's disarmament, and the top billing that the event received in the speech.
Amid all the change and progress since our first election victory, it was
interesting to see in the film there the pictures of the Good Friday agreement
in April 1998, and then finally, yesterday, the completion of IRA
decommissioning.
And there is a lesson from Northern Ireland: nothing good comes easy. And in
government, whatever the noise around you, you just have to persevere with the
things that really matter. The question now: how do we secure the future for our
party and for our country? The answer lies in understanding why we can celebrate
these victories.
How about this for complete insouciance (as if the last seven years were a mere bagatelle):
Let's be frank about why so many people are on incapacity benefit: under the Tories it was used to conceal unemployment. Next month we will publish proposals radically to reform the benefit for the future and help people who can work back into the workforce, where they belong.
The whole speech demonstrates that Blair has regained his self-confidence and self-belief. More worrying, he appears to believe his own hype. We face four more years of the same whilst he mouths 'change', 'progress' and '21st century'. He states that he prefers "strategic government" to "big government", although he has presided over the biggest expansion of public services.
Whilst the poor pay more tax, Blair has the gall to state that he would prefer a one party state:
In government, we can change lives. When I listened on Sunday to the tributes to Jim Callaghan, I recalled the 90th birthday party we gave for him in Downing Street a few years back
Around the room: Denis Healey talking to Roy Jenkins; Tony Benn with Shirley Williams. Michael Foot, Jack Jones. What brilliance; and what a pity. Because the seeds of 18 years of opposition were not sown in 1979, but in the 1960s, when great challenges came upon us. And instead of understanding we were simply being tested by the forces of change, we lived out a sad episode of charges of betrayal, questioning integrity and motives.
They were great people. But we were not ready then to see change was coming, accept it and then shape it to progressive ends. United, we should have been the advocates of economic and industrial change in the changing world. And if we had been, how many fewer lives would have been destroyed? How much harsh and bitter medicine for some of the poorest in our society might have been avoided?
People suffered in those 18 years because we let them down. We did so not because we meant to, but because we forgot that the first rule of any party with aspirations to government is to understand first the aspirations of people and how they change with time.
Pride goeth before a fall.