I do not believe that was ever the case.What happened last week was therefore not just a symbol of a new Prime Ministerial mood, but a complete and dramatic switch of direction Mr Blair is no longer making way for Mr Brown. But when a marketing campaign such as that one is considered an asset to a family retailer, then one is swimming against the tide. French Connection is not to blame for the mental disorders of teenagers Nor are soaps, or working mothers, or exams Not on their own anyway. But we do have to decide whether we want to protect children from the world we have made, or prepare them for it.

There simply doesn’t seem to be space in our musical life where comic songs can take root any more.There was a time, just within living memory, when Benny Hill singing “Ernie, The Fastest Milkman In The West” could crash the Top 20, and Stan Freberg used to do it regularly, but how could that happen again? Once, merchants of comic songs like Flanders and Swann, and Tom Lehrer, could fill London theatres Not now. Even more interesting is the fact that, although food fads are alive and rampaging through our shopping baskets today, I cannot think of a single comic song written today to lampoon them. To be honest, I can hardly think of a comic song written today. Outside the Kit and the Widow camp, that is.I did once hear Hugh Laurie on TV sit at the piano and sing a wonderful song he’d written called “Mystery” But that’s about it. The song was recorded in 1929, when Snowden was Chancellor under Ramsay McDonald, and it was about the current slimming craze.

Yes, nothing has changed…Just go into any home todayIt’s 10 to 1 you’ll hear the husband say:My wife is on a diet!And since she’s on a diet,Home isn’t home any more.No gravy or potato,Just lettuce and tomato- Where are the pies I adore?Oh, oh, oh, what a disgrace- I’m ashamed to look a grapefruit straight in the face…Not a great song (though I love that last line), but an interesting reflection of the way that health fads have been this way before. Even so, it seems that Mr Blair has applied the biggest reverse gear of the lot and asked Mr Milburn to accompany him on a new and unpredictable journey.s.richards independent.co.uk
More from Steve Richards. What’s the greatest problem now throughout the land?

What’s the greatest problem now throughout the land?
What’s the only problem needs a helping hand?It isn’t Philip SnowdenOr tax relief, I find,It’s something more important now on everybody’s mind… Those are the opening words of a little ditty I caught the other day, on a Radio 4 archive programme about bandleader Jack Hylton. The Prime Minister then managed to see off the Butler report. After which his five-year plans were seen as a sign of renewed political energy.The Prime Minister and the Chancellor have hardly spoken since the local and European campaigns in June, which was when Mr Blair was becoming ambitious again.

Mr Blair overlooked Labour’s terrible performance in those elections perhaps because it was not as bad as he had anticipated. Mr Blair has always been obsessed with the strength of the Conservatives. The failure of the Tories to live up to their early promise under Michael Howard changed the entire political situation from Mr Blair’s perspective. In such grim times, it would not have been altogether surprising if Mr Blair talked along these lines at Mr Prescott’s dinner: I need another year with your full support, and then I will go.Indeed, in some ways it is reassuring rather than alarming that he appeared to do so. There were reports at the time that he had become insulated from political reality, blindly unaware of how he was perceived in some quarters. After the local and European elections, it was clear that the Conservatives were in no position to win the next general election.Mr Blair’s old focus-group guru, Philip Gould, never one of life’s political optimists, was predicting another landslide win.