In 1997, Tony Blair promised it would be “New Labour, New Life for Britain”. By 2001 the party was offering to fulfil “Britain’s Great Potential”. In 2005, it was “Britain: Forward not Back”. Yesterday Gordon Brown published “Building Britain’s Future”.
If it sounded familiar, that’s because it was. It was a relaunch made up of rehashed policy announcements and repackaged spending commitments, less a national plan than a national repeat. More affordable housing, health checks, one-to-one tuition, docking benefits, Lords reform — these are all things that have been promised for months, in some cases years, by the Government. It is only three months since the last relaunch, a “strategic plan” called “Building Britain’s Future”. Clearly not much building has gone on since then.
