Back in 1992, the Labour Party carried a now-infamous party election broadcast about a young girl awaiting hospital treatment that kicked off what became known as the War of Jennifer's Ear. The original purpose of the film was to highlight the Tories' neglect of the NHS during the course of what, at that stage, was their 13 years in power. As it turned out, this objective swiftly became lost in a rancorous series of claims and counter claims about whether Jennifer's family voted Labour or Tory, and who leaked her real name to the press. It didn't, of course, result in an election victory for Labour, although the party did win back a large number of Tory-held seats, including Darlington, where Alan Milburn became the local MP. So it was interesting to hear former Health Secretary Mr Milburn this week decrying the Tories' use of individual patients to draw attention to the failings of the NHS under Labour. It followed more than a week of furious debate about Mrs Margaret Dixon and her cancelled operations and Ms Maria Hutchings and the treatment of her autistic 10-year-old son. But whatever the rights and wrongs of those cases, Mr Milburn's reaction demonstrates a wider political point about the forthcoming election and the changed circumstances in which the parties find themselves. It is that, for the first time in 20 years, the Labour Party is having to defend its record - and it doesn't like it! At each of the last four elections, Labour has used a consistent line of attack on the public services, blaming "Tory under-investment" for the state of everything from the NHS to rural buses. And it was a fair charge. During their 18 years in power the Tories practically bled dry the public services in this country - those that had not already been sold off to their friends in the City, that is. Though the War of Jennifer's Ear ended up doing Neil Kinnock no favours in 1992, it was an entirely legitimate point to make at a time when tax cuts were being given priority over public spending. And although Labour had already been in power for four years at the time of the last election in 2001, the country was at that stage still suffering the after-effects of the Thatcher-Major regime. But all that has changed now. The Tory years have begun to recede into what in political terms is the dim and distant past - almost like something that happened in another country, long ago. Since May 1, 1997, Britain has belonged to Tony Blair - and he has had vast power and resources at his disposal to re-fashion the country along Labour lines. He hasn't always made the most of it - for instance Britain still suffers from the prevailing view among the two main parties that the private sector is somehow more effective at delivering public services. But if after eight years and billions of pounds of spending Mr Blair has failed to make a difference, it is he, not the Tories, who must answer to the electorate for that. To be fair to Mr Milburn, his reaction when confronted with the shortcomings of Labour rule was comparatively mild compared to the fury unleashed by the Downing Street spin machine in the Rose Addis case. The 94-year-old whose plight was raised by Iain Duncan Smith in 2002 after she spent hours on a hospital trolley was smeared as someone who held "racist views." But even if this had been true, what the Number 10 press office failed to explain was why on earth someone's political opinions should affect their hospital treatment. The day that becomes the case, we really will have arrived in George Orwell's Oceania. Labour's tactic of playing the man, rather than the ball, has also been regularly exhibited in Mr Blair's Question Time exchanges with Tory leader Michael Howard. Rather than answer detailed questions about his record and policies, the Prime Minister consistently bangs on about the poll tax, for which Mr Howard briefly had responsibility as Local Government Minister. But while this kind of knockabout is an accepted part of the political process, it doesn't really add a great deal to the sum of human understanding. Mr Blair, a pro-market, pro-European, "just war" theorist who fought the 1983 election on a platform of wholesale nationalisation, withdrawal from Europe, and unilateral nuclear disarmament, ought to know that better than most. If politicians really want to re-connect with the electorate, they would be better off dealing with where we are now as a nation than rehearsing ancient controversies like the poll tax. One question which Mr Blair and his Chancellor urgently need to answer is what has happened to the plan to regenerate regional economies by moving up to 20,000 civil service jobs out of London. This was supposedly the centrepiece of the Government's entire regional policy, but as The Journal revealed this week, it appears to have run aground amid the usual bureaucratic inertia. Yet if the Prime Minister really were to be asked such a question, what's the betting he would reply by reminding us that under the Tories, unemployment in regions like the North-East topped 10pc? The first thing that could be said about such a response is that it would, of course, be absolutely true. But the second is that it would tell us absolutely nothing about the circumstances in which the North-East finds itself today, and what the Government is doing about them. Answering tough questions about your record after eight years of government ought to be par for the political course for any party in power. If New Labour can't or won't do it, then they don't deserve to stay there. | 
