But one of the reasons Blair and his right wing co-thinkers found Clause Four so unacceptable was that it reflected an aspiration for deepgoing change - from the pront-anven Iree markel system of capitalism, to a system based on social ownership and distribution of wealth.
The Clause now dumped into the dustbin of history, Mr Blair has begun setting out his stall, parading his deeply unattractive variety of 'post-socialist' economic policy.
In place of the promise of change, there is a pledge of no change at all - ever.
In his Mais lecture on May 22 Blair spelled out the main features of the policies he hopes to implement in govemment.
To most observers from right and left alike the speech was a lengthy statement of capitulation to the market economics of Thatcher and Major, a prior commitment to bankers and bosses at home and abroad that a Labour government would change nothing of substance.
wing press lapped it up. The Financial Times editorial was fulsome in its praise:
"Does Mr Blair look like a credible manager of the economy? The answer is that he does."
One reason is because he sees the Tory point of view wrong." ogy, Blair has now effectively So keen is Blair to do this painted himself into a corner. that many may wonder which Labour, which has tradiside he was actually on in the tionally appealed for and won 1980s, when the Thatcherite votes as a reformist party, is anti-union laws which he now now unable to offer serious praises were being introduced reforms of any substance, against the muted opposition SHICC far-reaching of Neil Kinnock's Labour changes would require ecoleadership. nomic policies which Blair has categorically ruled out. Avid He boasts that his government would set a 'target for So avid an exponent is Blair of tighter monetary con- inflation', and effectively altrols, condemning the Tories low a remodelled Bank of England to dictate monetary for being too soft on inflation, policy. But he would not set that even Will Hutton of the Many corresponding target for Guardian complains that his new jobs, for improvement in speech could almost have been written by Bank of Eng- welfare state services, or llcreased living standards for land governor Eddie George or by the head of the IMF. working people.
He rebukes the Tories for Blair's policy of out-Torying the Tories is a recipe for confrontation with the unions, demoralisation of Labour's supporters, and rapid decline in the new government's popularity And so anxious is Blair to placing "far too much faith in appease Tory voters and busi- the benign and self-correcting ness chiefs by displaying his nature or private sector Dehostility to public spending - haviour", but, as his new promising public borrowing Clause Four and now his ecowould only be for investment nomic policy have spelled and not for any improvement out, Blair himself labours unor expansion in the welfare der the delusion that a partstate - that the FT comments nership' can be established that his speech "looks little between the private and pubdifferent from Mr Major's lic sectors, and that the rigours Nothing for pensioners under Blair's tight money policy of competition and the market can somehow work to the benefit of all rather than the profit of the wealthy few.
A refusal to spend more or borrow money - or to raise taxes - ties Labour to many of the domestic policies which have made the Tories so unpopular. No social programmes could be financed until and unless the capitalist economy starts to grow.
Don't hold your breath waiting: the same policies have left John Major's government groping for several years for signs of green shoots of recovery.
If Blair ruled the world, pensioners could expect no improvement in benefits; school cuts this year and next would remain in place; student grants would decline further; hospital closures and NHS waiting lists would increase; the rigid limit on public sector pay would continue, squeezing the living standards of five million workers ...
The depressing list of liabilities flowing from Blair's policy of out-Torying the Tories goes on and on. It is a recipe for confrontation with the unions, demoralisation of Labour's supporters, and rapid decline in the new government's popularity.
Not so now Blair of course claims that this old and tested formula for failure is the 'new economics' of 'New Labour': but the line is anything but new.
Similar policies of abject capitulation to the laws of the capitalist market brought the disgrace and split of the first Labour government under Ramsay MacDonald in 1931.
The post-war Attlee government squandered its landslide victory by implementing only tinkering reforms designed to patch up British capitalism and sustain it as an imperialist power - at the expense of the working class.
And Harold Wilson's two periods of government foundered not on his excess of radicalism or profligate public spending, but on his attempts to sustain the value of sterling and smash the unions in the 1960s, and Denis Healey's capitulation to the IMF and conflict with public sector unions in 1976-9.
The reality is that it is the system itself, and not the day-to-day policies of governments, which has led to the present impasse of mass unthe huge and widening gulf between rich and poor, employed and unemployed.
Conflict
Any government commit-