The latest spin: Straw 'admits' the Tories resonate

When Jack Straw is one of the few too class actors Labour has left. He's also taken over the John Reid role as the minster of last resort for a desperate government. This is the context that his pronouncements today have to be seen in.

Labour is unpopular - really unpopular. How do they deal with this ? Not in the open and honest way that say Margaret Thatcher would have approached the problem by restating why what they are doing is necessary, but with the slippery sub-concious technique of New Labour spin.

Step 1 - empathise with what ever is going on. When your as shameless as the current Labour leadership this even with the general public preferring another party.

Step 2 - admit nothing or as little as possible. "The only problem is that we haven't quite delivered yet" and the underlying problem is with people not perceiving how wonderful the New Labour government has been.

Step 3 - make some vague promise about the future as a gentle reminder that your actually in government, unlike the other lot.

This lack of courage perhaps comes form a lack of conviction, or perhaps from the absence of it. They have a magician's set of spin tricks that worked so well for them when the campaigned as an opposition ( for about the first 7 years in government ), but they are incompetent in the business of government.

Remember if Jack Straw shakes your hand you should count your fingers when you get it back and when Jack Straw appears to suggest the Conservatives have been doing a better job than Labour its time to look carefully at what he's up to.