What annoys me most about the Blair years has been the constant harping about “tough choices” and then the singular failure to actually take any.

This coming after 7 years of staggering, shambling incompetence, and 10 years before that of haughty disregard for all the stuff except for the really important stuff, which was fiddled with continuously.

There are only two years in my life when the government was vaguely tolerable, 1997-1999..

Every opinion poll predicted not just a Labour victory, but a *large* Labour victory; however, the events of the 1992 election (which the pollsters got wrong all the way down to the exit polls that forecast a hung Parliament) were still fresh in the mind of many, and the Conservatives were certainly (and desperately) hoping the polls would be wrong again. I personally thought Labour would win and that the Liberal Democrats might do well, but the sheer scale of Labour’s landslide, the crushing defeat suffered by the Conservatives and the remarkable success of the Liberal Democrats were all nothing short of amazing.

Portillo’s defeat in what had been up to that point an ultra-safe Conservative seat was certainly both shocking and indicative of the extent of Labour’s landslide, but the result I remember most vividly was Malcolm Rifkind’s defeat in Edinburgh Pentlands: I recall saying aloud “Oh my God, there are no Tories left in Scotland!”, and indeed a few seconds later the BBC announced the Conservatives had been wiped out in that country, losing all their parliamentary seats there (that was also the case in Wales).

Regarding Labour’s record in power, I agree that while in general it hasn’t been bad, it could have been a lot better; in a sense it reminds me of the Harold McMillan’s “never had it so good” phrase back in the 1950s, which while certainly true, masked the fact others were having it even better, and leaving Britain behind in the process.

As for the Conservatives, they’re right now in the same position as Labour was after 1987, attempting to recover the middle ground after having moved to fairly extreme positions on a number of issues, and finding nothing but rejection at the polls. Moreover, a parliamentary majority is so far beyond the Conservatives’ reach right now (as was the case with Labour back then) that it may take them at least two elections before they return to power, even if they manage to win a popular vote plurality before then - ironically, all because of the first-past-the-post system they so much cherish.

Brown will be Prime Minister at any rate for a couple of years before there is an election. The Tories are only seven points ahead in the latest poll, which is respectable enough at this point in the electoral cycle, but not decisive (especially given the bias against them in terms of how the seats are drawn).