BRITAIN: Mr Tony Blair has vowed to "go big" with his general election manifesto pledges as he set out his vision of an "opportunity society replacing the traditional welfare state".
In a keynote speech yesterday designed to show that he and New Labour were fit for a full third term in office, the British Prime Minister called for much greater social mobility as he promised "to alter fundamentally the contract between citizen and state at the heart of the 20th century [welfare state\] settlement".
He rounded on Conservative suggestions that voters were no longer attracted by "grand visions and great causes", attacking Mr Michael Howard's counter-offer of "minimalist politics . . . an offer so bare that its very paucity is supposed to give it credibility".
However, Mr Blair was in turn mocked by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, as anti-Trident nuclear weapons activists protested outside Downing Street while he faced fresh criticisms at a private meeting of Labour MPs following last week's report from the Iraq Survey Group confirming that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction.
To Mr Blair's promise to "radically extend" New Labour's reach, the Conservative co- chairman, Dr Liam Fox, dismissed the prime minister's third term vision as "yet more talk".
Insisting that the Conservative proposals were more far-reaching than those of the government in the areas of health, education, immigration, Europe and pensions, Dr Fox said: "Today we have yet more talk from Tony Blair. He cannot stop talking about building new societies and new economies.
"So far we've had 'the decent society', 'the creative economy', 'a stakeholder economy', 'a new age of achievement' and 'the partnership economy', not to mention 'New Labour's Millennium Challenge', 'the information superhighway', 'a people's Europe' and, of course, 'the Third Way'.
"All this from the man who said 'this is no time for soundbites'."
Mr David Cameron, the Conservative head of policy co-ordination, joined the attack. "If they handed out Nobel Prizes for talk, he [Mr Blair\] would have dozens."
For the Liberal Democrats, Mr Steve Webb told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme that Mr Blair had repeatedly promised to "think the unthinkable" but produced few firm proposals. "Really we have had seven wasted years and still not a very clear direction today," he said.
Mr Blair did risk inflaming Labour's internal tensions over policy and the control of the election manifesto by signalling his enthusiasm for further reforms aimed at reducing the role of the state in the provision of public services.
Speaking in Beveridge Hall at the University of London, Mr Blair said the differences in the social conditions and assumptions between the 1940s - when Beveridge and Attlee were creating their welfare state - and today provided the starting point for his argument.
"Beveridge recognised more than most that institutions are images of their time; that each generation must create or recreate them anew," Mr Blair said.
Having made radical changes to the structures of the welfare state and public services in his first two terms, Mr Blair said: "The third-term vision has to be to alter fundamentally the contract between citizen and state at the heart of the 20th century settlement; to move from a welfare state that relieves poverty and provides basic services to one which offers high quality services and the opportunity for all to fulfil their potential to the full."
Just as they had moved from mass production in industry, Mr Blair said, "we need to move from mass production in what the state does".
"At the centre of the service or the structure has to be the individual. They have both the right and responsibility to take the opportunities offered and to shape the outcome. The role of government becomes to empower not dictate."
Mr Blair explained: "This requires an inversion of the state/citizen relationship, with the citizen not at the bottom of the pyramid taking what is handed down; but at the top of it with power in their hands to get the service they want."
He added: "So, far from retreating from New Labour, we need radically to extend its reach."