New Labour, New Failure

An interesting article from the Torygraph.

"Mr Blair said the criminal justice system in England and Wales was "the public service most distant from what reasonable people want"."

Not quite the admission of failure the Torygraph makes it out to be but interesting nonetheless. After nine years of blaming everything that is wrong on eighteen years of Tory misrule, Blair finally seems to have twigged that some of the things wrong with the UK are the responsibility of New Labour.

But this is even more remarkable:

"He sought to provide a personal justification for staying on as Prime Minister by promising to "re-balance" civil liberties so that the demands of the law-abiding majority took precedence over the rights of offenders."

So, the logic is this. After nine years in power, eight years of which were with massive majorities and a barely functioning opposition party, Blair has failed to be "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime". He has failed at his job, but this is his reason to stay on. Which is unbelievable. Can you imagine the CEO of a major company turning round to his shareholders and saying "I have failed to provide decent profits, to rectify this failure, I would recommend you keep me on?"

I'm going to try this logic on my boss - "sorry, I haven't achieved anything for nine years. However I am going to stay with the company as, moving forward, I would like to achieve something." Actually, best not. Unlike Mr Blair I don't have a muli-million pound house to retire to, and need to be able to pay the rent.