About a year ago, during one of the peaks of exasperation at the Government in the left-leaning parts of the British press, I interviewed a member of a think tank close to New Labour. For an hour or so he kept up a fairly convincing defence of the Government. He cited the increases under Blair of certain social security benefits, the reductions in taxes for some of the poorest Britons, the reforming energy of the Administration in general. But then his mood darkened. The problem with New Labour's busy modern brand of social democracy, he said, was that it was still too much about adjusting to the harsh modern world and not enough about challenging it. He looked suddenly frustrated, despite his open-necked shirt and confident insider's manner. He offered an example. 'You won't find a single member of the Cabinet with anything intelligently critical to say about capitalism.'

LRB 4 April 2002 | PDF Download