These changing times

In the week that Bob Dylan turned 60, the Labour Party election strategists finally turned to the issues that they believed would secure them the much-prized second term. Vote, we were urged, for schools and hospitals. Public services had become the election issue, but Labour's strategists knew there were risks. In 1997, Labour was elected on the promise of sorting out education and the NHS. Concentrate only on public services, and an opposition with a coherent approach to the public sector might have been able to inflict serious damage.