'The cabinet should remember that if Labour loses in 2010, most of them will never be heard of again'

There is still no clear understanding of what the government stands for, if it stands for anything. That, I suspect, is because of a reluctance to set out Labour's aims and values in case they made clear that, by choosing social democratic policy priorities, they neglected the vested interests of influential sections of the community. Tony Blair defined himself by contrasting what he believed with Labour orthodoxy. Since the upsurge of Tory support, ministers have begun to do the same. At a time when low-paid council and health service workers are expected - regrettably but necessarily, in my view - to accept below-inflation wage increases, John Hutton enthuses about the multiplication of millionaires within the British economy. Labour has to decide whose side it is on.

The fear of alienating people who are already Labour's enemies is one of the reasons why the government is so rarely on the offensive. Much that has gone wrong during the past six months is the direct result of either Tory policy or Tory ideology that Blair accepted. Before Margaret Thatcher's orgy of deregulation, building societies put the interests of savers first. After they became banks it was the shareholders who counted, with the disastrous results for the housing market. Labour never says so in case the government "sounds antagonistic to private enterprise". It ought to be antagonistic when the greed and incompetence of private company directors prejudices the welfare of half the nation.

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