On not getting it, Mandelson style

This morning Mandelson gave what, 13 years ago, would have been an excellent speech. It promised all sorts of glowing things. We would have an economy built on innovation and industry. Government would facilitate. It would reform politics. What was there not to like?

The answer, of course, is that it is not 13 years ago. Labour has had a long time to go down the routes that Mandelson mapped out, but had not. But there is something more.

In promising to reform politics and the economy, Mandelson repeatedly used the phrase that the Tories "did not get it". In doing this, he showed that far from bringing any improvement to political life, he continues to inhabit the world of spin. Intelligent argument is eschewed in favour of attractive buzz-words and slogans. The Tories "do not get it"!! And don't ask about the last 13 years, because "we get it". In short, Labour has seen the light, praise the Lord!!

But what does Labour get:

- So, it will make constituencies of similar size giving up its in built advantage in the name of fairness? No.

- It will give Scotland and Wales a proportionate number of MPs? No.

- Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs won't be able to determine for England policies which, for their own constituencies, are nothing to do with Westminster? No - heaven forbid.

What they have done is go root through the voting systems and take out the only one that promises to skew the system even more in their favour. They have latched onto the Alternative Vote System. Even here, they are equivocal. They doubtless know that an unpopular Fourth Term Labour Government might find itself hammered under Alternative Voting. All it needs is for them to disillusion the country so much that they cease to be the second choice of most LibDems.

What else do we find from Mandelson? Wealth through investment in the universities. Is this the same Mandelson who recently cut their budget - something which facilitated Darling announcing new special funding. A new politics? An end to spin? I think not.

And they will secure the (doubtful) economic revival... This is the party that bought into not one but three Ponzi schemes during the last 13 years:

1. The Ponzi scheme of debt.
2. The Ponzi scheme of expanding the economy through immigration - you need more immigrants for the next expansion, and to pay for the services when the old ones settle down and do awkward thingsw like have children, grow old, fall ill, etc.
3. The Ponzi scheme of out-sourcing - it may make some businesses more profitable, but it does have obvious limitations as a long term business plan.

But forget all of this,because, Labour "gets it".

It is a desire to wipe out the last 13 years, and present again the fresh faced promise that seemed so attractive in Blair's 1997 victory speech.

But we know that they have failed because their methods have failed. They have targets which are corrupted into a "tick box" culture. Hospitals become breeding grounds for germs. Pointless appointments are scheduled so that a patient can "see a consultant" within a time frame, after which it can be "no-business as usual". Discipline collapses in the class room - and, even if there is some irony at Guardian reading teachers squealing at the inevitable outcome of their own progressive principles, it is a very bad thing for our future.

Labour doesn't get it. But it still corrupts politics with facile slogans. Sadly, that infection has also spread to the Tories.