The new Brown government is doing an incredible and shameless job of presenting a whole new load of ideas as though the past ten years were a massive mistake that was none of their doing. In the same way we don't vote for a Prime Minister come election time, we vote for a party (the Labour elite trotted this line out - fairly - prior to Brown's coronation) by getting rid of the leader does not somehow erase all the mess that the government has made over the past ten years. You got rid of one man - the rest of you are still there. In fact, while Blair was trying to make himself leader of the free-world, Brown pretty much ran domestic policy. So why, all of sudden, were you wrong about the NHS, wrong about education, wrong about Iraq and now wrong about crime? What has changed? You all voted and backed these measures, yet you seem to be passing the buck saying "it was nothing to do with me, guv" like the most clueless of henchmen.
This morning, watching Sky news, Jacqui Smith claimed that the new approach to tackling crime was a marked changed from that of the previous government that cocked everything up that neither she nor the rest of the cabinet had anything to do with. Apparently now, she said, not only will they be hard on those who commit crime, but also on the underlying causes of crime. That was what she said in response to allegations we have heard it all before! I'm sure I remember someone once saying something very similar - tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. But no - this time it is different. What a load of old nonsense. The media and enough of the electorate are sure to buy it though. Spin is alive and well, in fact it is thriving better than ever under the guise of no spin. Genius. Scandalous, but genius.