The Prime Minister declared government spending in Britain to have been too low - not just under Margaret Thatcher but for "decades".So all those tales of Blair being ever so reluctant to allow Brown to spend, spend and spend again are, well, nonsense. Despite Iraq, Blair has made his choice: it's goodbye Anglosphere and hello high-spending, low-growth Europe.
Note also that Blair remains utterly ignorant of his native Scotland:
Mr Blair also said the 21-week waits to see a NHS consultant was "virtually eliminated". This is untrue for Scotland, where the waiting time is 26 weeks or longer for one in eight patients.Is it not strange that the European levels of expenditure north of the border seem to make things worse? People in England will learn that lesson soon enough. The millions of middle class folk who mistakenly thought that Blair was "one of us" may come to appreciate that old Scots saying: Ye ken noo.He said that "crime is down since 1997" - whereas it has risen in Scotland.
Mr Blair’s remark that "over the next two years, more than half of all secondary schools will become specialist schools" is also not happening in Scotland, where the comprehensive model of education has been retained.