Peter Hyman, in his book 1 Out of 10, wanted a higher top income tax rate (but not as high as 50 per cent) and Patrick Diamond, in The New Egalitarianism, floated the idea of abolishing the upper limit on National Insurance contributions. Yet taxes have risen over the past eight years and the better-off have borne the brunt. But that was a long time ago now, and anyone who thinks that a 50 per cent tax rate on incomes above £100,000 a year and abolishing the academy schools programme is going to usher in Scandinavian levels of equality is deluded, and Brown needs to say so.The so-called left has not come up with an alternative programme to New Labour. Too many in the party would happily rewind the video to before John Smith’s funeral and fight on a programme on which (with the benefit of hindsight) “we would have won anyway” in 1997. This is not healthy either for the party or for his prospects as prime minister.It allows the Labour Party to sink back into the comfortable belief that Blair is unique, an aberration, a nasty but necessary medicine it had to swallow in order to win elections, but which can be discarded now that the magic has worn off. On every policy for which Blair is unpopular with Labour Party members and core Labour voters, Brown has allowed people to think that he would be more left-wing than the present incumbent.

He has worked hard this year to show that his reputation for grudge-bearing and factionalism – which marked him out as less well qualified for the top job than Blair – was unfair.Yet he has not dealt with the substance of the expectations problem. The Government is in an unusual state of suspension, because everyone knows that power will pass by a certain date – the next election must be called by May 2010 – but that the thunderstorm will probably break long before then. Thus, ministers are caught between pleasing the present Prime Minister and making themselves indispensable to the Dauphin.With another two or three ministerial reshuffles likely under Blair, it is still too early to hurtle to the aid of the victor of the next Labour leadership election. Suddenly, “a dreadful noise, absolutely like thunder, was heard in the outer apartment; it was the crowd of courtiers who were deserting the dead sovereign’s antechamber to come and do homage to the new power of Louis XVI”.Only Blair is not politically dead yet.

It is like the scene from Madame Campan’s Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, when Louis XV lies dying. Thus all eyes were on Brown, the coming power.
The funeral, Brown’s attentiveness to it and Blair’s absence, helped mark a great shift in politics. Only six months ago, before the general election, it was often suggested that Blair might use a third election mandate to sack Brown. Weeks later, in the election campaign, Blair looked like a hostage, with Gordon Brown, arm around his shoulder and gun digging into his side, muttering through clenched teeth: “Just act normal.”As the inevitability of Brown’s succession settled, the corridors of power have been rumbling with the sound of feet scuttling from the current Prime Minister to the next. This time, Blair could not even be bothered to turn up, a remarkable breach of etiquette on the part of someone once described by Roy Hattersley as “one of the most polite people I’ve ever met”. Then, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown jointly represented the future of the party although, by the time of the funeral, Blair’s succession to the top job was already assured.

It looked so much like the black-and-white photographs of the shadow cabinet emerging from Cluny church, in the same city, 11 years before, after John Smith’s funeral. New Labour’s transitions can be told in funerals. The most striking image from last week’s service at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh was that of Gordon Brown, with his wife Sarah by his side, in the solemn tableau of mourners coming out of the service for Robin Cook. But spare us, please, from the self-justifications, the fantasies of world war and the cover-up of incompetence. We’re old enough to be told that our leaders are just like ourselves, pretty much in the dark about what is going on.a.hamilton independent.co.uk
More from Adrian Hamilton. And it has a sort of wry tolerance that keeps it from the wilder fantasies of hate and fear.

The moment has passed and the city is getting on with its business.London will get through It has no choice. We have enough to fear from the extremists in our midst without the threat of plain-clothed security officers.Ken Livingstone and Tessa Jowell could have done something for London when it was needed most – just after the second bombings. Hence the travails of restaurants and theatres as well as shops.But for a lot of us, there is no choice. We have to use public transport, and it really is no help having to hear Sir Ian Blair and Clarke tell us to expect another bomb every day. Nor does it help to have a police force that executes an innocent Brazilian and then disguises the circumstances.