It was my son Peter who alerted me to the ghastly truth. After a BBC radio debate with John Pienaar, he told me: “Matthew Taylor was right, and you were wrong.”
Matthew hadn’t done what I expected – and what he’d have done right up to the election. He didn’t try to argue that New Labour was a success, just that it wasn’t a total failure.
And as he said, there was the national minimum wage and more money for public services. I should stop denying it, said Peter.
It's true. I’d want to point out that the minimum wage was set at the meanest rate, lower than the Bain Commission recommended, and was rather negated by New Labour’s war on the unions in Europe, which prevented the European Union from providing more workers rights.
And the money for public services was often wasted because of New Labour’s addiction to channelling it into private hands, through mechanisms like PFI and academies.
But they were there. Why do I and many others find it so hard to admit that there was anything good about New Labour?
Partly, of course, because we expected much more, and it could have delivered much more. Partly because of Tony Blair’s determination to sneer at Labour’s traditional supporters.
But the main reason, the great betrayal, was Iraq. We find it hard to credit the author of that war with anything at all.