BRITAIN: Mr Tony Blair has raised the standard for a second phase of "New Labour" government, pledging radical reform of Britain's 1945 post-war settlement on public service provision.
In his set piece speech to the Labour conference in Blackpool, Mr Blair said it was time for the party to "renew" itself in government: "Now is the time to quicken the march of progress, not mark time . . . This is not the time to abandon our journey of modernisation. This is the time to see it through."
Seeing it through meant "a new relationship between citizen and state" and a modern welfare state which must be "active not passive" but which replaced "paternalism" with "partnership". It also meant an end to "the Big State" and the "one size fits all" mass production of public services.
Spelling it out, Mr Blair said: "In education, we need to move to the post-comprehensive era, where schools keep the comprehensive principle of equality of opportunity but where we open up the system to new and and different ways of education built around the needs of our children."
Likewise on health: "We need a National Health Service true to the principle of care on the basis of need not ability to pay, but personalised, built around the individual patient." Mr Blair continued: "Both require an end to the 'one size fits all' mass production public service. The purpose of the 20th century welfare state was to treat citizens as equals. The purpose of our 21st century reforms is to treat them as individuals as well."
People, said Mr Blair, wanted an individual system for them: "They want government under them not over them. They want government to empower them, not control them. They want equality of both opportunity and responsibility. They want to know the same rules that apply to them, apply to all. Out goes the Big State. In comes the Enabling State."
Mr Blair said he was "passionate about reform" because poor public services were usually for the poorest people in society.
Just 24 hours after his defeat at the hands of the trade unions, Mr Blair also made it clear there would be no going back on the government's controversial Private Finance Initiative (PFI) using private sector finance to build new schools and hospitals. "I don't care who builds them," he told conference defiantly, so long as they were on cost and on budget: "And I am not going to go to parents and children and patients in my constituency or any other and say I'm sorry because there is an argument going on about PFI we're going to put these projects on hold."
That defiant "no turning back" message to the unions was not the only section of Mr Blair's speech which evoked memories of Mrs Margaret Thatcher at the height of her power. Mr Blair insisted it was necessary "to change the system" to "put power" in the hands of patients and parents.
"Why shouldn't an NHS patient be able to book an appointment for an operation at their convenience, just like they could if they paid for it? 'At the time I want, with the doctor I want' was Margaret Thatcher's reason for going private. Why shouldn't it be the right of every citizen and why shouldn't it be done within the NHS?" Mr Blair went on: "Why shouldn't there be a range of schools for parents to choose from, from specialist schools to the new City academies, to faith schools to sixth forms and sixth form colleges offering excellent routes into university and skilled employment?"
Rejecting the Tory policy of "pessimism" about the ability to reform public services, Mr Blair told conference: "But we on the left have our own pessimism. It's that if we change a cherished institution, we betray it. If we deliver services in a different way, we trash its founding principles." He said competition "should not be on the basis of cutting wages or employment protection. We should value our public services."
And he had this to say to the unions: "Work with us on the best way of delivering service and we will work with you on ending the two-tier workforce." As he prepared to present proposals for the renewal of the party, Mr Blair warned conference: "The alternative is a return to self destruction, the perennial disease of centre-left governments. Never let us fall for the far left's eternal delusion: that if there is dissatisfaction with a moderate centre-left government this can be manipulated into support for a far-left government. It results in only one thing. Always has, always will: the return of a right-wing Tory government."
Labour he said was at its best when at its boldest: "There's nothing wrong with the old principles but if the old ways had worked they'd have worked by now."