It’s terrible to contemplate, but perhaps a Cameron premiership’s acceleration of the public service and welfare “reform” agendas would begin to convince Labour MPs in a way that left-wing and Liberal protests did not, that despite Co-operative Party enthusiasm, Blair’s changes had les to do with empowerment and mutualism than they did with the need to reach out to private firms because of the financial straight-jacket New Labour inflicted on itself with the refusal to raise taxes on those most able to pay, or to tackle the continuing problem of tax evasion.