Polling evidence from the start of February onwards this year is giving the Tories a lead anything between 10-20% over Labour. It’s worse when the question is asked about economic competence with the Tories storming ahead at 44% against Labour’s 28%. The minor miracle is that Labour is scoring so highly on its handling of an economy which is starting to resemble Iceland’s. By default the Tories will pick up a lot of support from people who see their world crumbling around them but their plans don’t bear very close scrutiny. Essex council, according to The Times, plans to “to outsource all or most of their services to save funds, including schools management, social care, roads and libraries.” On the other hand there has not been a rotten Tory idea in the last two decades that Labour has not embraced eventually.

The prospect of electoral meltdown has started something of a debate inside New Labour. Tessa Jowell, and it’s best if you sit down before reading this, proposes shifting the party to the right. Expect the unexpected. Not.

Responding to this Ken Livingstone makes the completely correct observation that New Labour needs to start building more council houses. This is something that lots of people inside and outside the party have been saying since 1997. Running a country is a big job and there is so much stuff that you have to remember to do like handing over the construction of hospitals to PFI consortia, going to bankers’ dinners to remind them how little regulation you impose on them and stating wars. It’s easy to see how even with all that nagging building council houses can slip right out of your mind.

Livingstone cites New Labour’s own data to reveal that the party has been losing working class support since the 2001 general election. His view is that his personal vote in all of London’s 640 wards was higher than Labour’s because he was identified with a policy of building council houses. While there is no denying that he is personally more popular than any other prominent New Labour figure you would have to look hard to find much evidence of his desires between translated into real council houses. Even in the most needy London boroughs under his mayoralty the vast bulk of housing was built by speculators at prices beyond the reach of working class families. In any event his radical credentials took a bit of a dent with his gung ho support for the Metropolitan Police’s inalienable right to blow the head of young Brazilians. Then there is the Olympics. A behemoth building site which may, if we are lucky, leave us with a big swimming pool, stadium and shopping centre. That’s if the state can find the money to finish it.

The blindingly obvious thing that is missing in Britain is any sort of meaningful political or industrial challenge to the capitalist crisis. The sort of cuts that the Irish government is planning in public spending are inevitable on the other side of the water. Job losses on a similar scale are beginning and there are reports that in the building industry wages are being cut by 50% without a murmur. Warmed over appeals to New Labour to break with neo-liberalism are not an adequate response to this. A party that is hell-bent on selling off the Royal Mail is not refusing to build council houses due to absent-mindedness. If the Tories do get in it will be worse than the 1980s because the world economic situation will be catastrophic. Essex council is showing the way. And where does the political responsibility for this rest? With New Labour and all those who spent a decade giving it a bit of quixotic radical cover.