Gordon Brown tells the
Parliamentary Monitor it is time to "adapt and rethink New Labour policy." But his spin doctors have played down the comments and
Nick Robinson thinks we should not get too excited.
Nevertheless, there are, to my mind, some intriguing straws in the wind in this article for those of us who had all but given up hope of seeing Mr Brown set out a distinctive post-Blair agenda, notably his admission that after more than 11 years in power Labour has not improved social mobility.
"We need to be honest with ourselves: while poverty has been reduced and the rise in inequality halted, social mobility has not improved in Britain as we would have wanted," he says.
"A child's social class background at birth is still the best predictor of how well he or she will do at school and later on in life. Our ambitions for a fairer Britain cannot be satisfied in the face of these injustices."
If this is an attempt to finally give his administration some moral purpose beyond remaining in power as long as possible, then it has to be said that he has waited until five minutes to midnight to do it.
He now needs to put some flesh on these bones in Manchester the week after next. If he doesn't, we really will have to conclude the long-awaited "vision" is simply not there. Indeed, some of us could surely be forgiven for having concluded that already.
