Under promise and over deliver ... TONY Blair's Labour Government is 'new' in a way nobody realised when they were elected last May.

Traditional 'old' Labour governments talked very radical and did very little.

But Mr Blair's administration talks very softly . . . and acts very decisively.

While Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan had a radical rhetoric that enthused their supporters, their actions all too often betrayed their promises.

Mr Wilson backed the US on Vietnam, bottled-out of overthrowing the illegal white racist regime in Rhodesia, failed to reform the House of Lords and introduced harsh new immigration laws.

National security

A decade later, his second government, finally ushered into oblivion by Jim Callaghan, made a hash of devolution and managed to trample on civil liberties by expelling American journalist Mark Hosenball from Britain on spurious national security grounds.

However, Mr Blair is rewriting the history of Labour governments.

Business-friendly to a tee, he has taken to heart the modern management maxim of 'under promise, over deliver'.

His election manifesto was long on reassuring waffle and short on radical rhetoric, leading the Left to complain he was just Margaret Thatcher with a different hairstyle.

But, since May, a great deal has happened, starting with Home Secretary Jack Straw's refusal to intervene in the case of Chilean former dictator General Pinochet and in his determination to remove the most offensive of our immigration laws such as the "primary purpose" rule.

Devolution for Scotland and Wales is about to become a reality and regional development agencies for the North-west and elsewhere are on the way.

A Freedom of Information Act and a Food Standards Agency may be delayed, but are already on the stocks.

Public Health Minister, Tessa Jowell, is taking on the tobacco industry, notwithstanding the Bernie Ecclestone million and the Formula 1 exemption.

And the Treasury is trying to cut prices in supermarkets and car showrooms.

Meanwhile, there may be no talk of "Redistribution" in Labour's election pledges, and no move to penal personal taxes, but there is rather a lot of moving money from the middle classes to the poor going on on the quiet.

Student fees - which mainly impact on the middle classes - are in place.

Drivers, mainly middle class commuters, will soon be asked to pay to drive into city and town centres.

Stamp Duty on dearer homes is up, while mortgage tax relief is down.

This week, middle income earners were pressed to spend more of their money in preparing for retirement so they do not depend on tax-financed state hand-outs in old age. The poorest, the disabled and those who have to care for sick relatives, will get their contributions paid for them.

This is not old-style up-front "tax and spend", but a means of trying to make sure that those who do not need state help don't get it, so those who do need it get it.

Indeed, Chancellor Gordon Brown - who found extra billions for health and schools in the summer - shows every sign of being the most redistributive Chancellor in the direction of the rich to the poor since the war.

There are no penally-high tax rates, but Mr Brown realised what his predecessor, Denis Healey, failed to do so when he promised to "squeeze the rich till the pips squeak".

That is that high tax rates make a lot of money for the accountants and the off-shore trusts, but not much, if any, for the Treasury and public services. And finally, there is the House of Lords. Every Labour government in history has been determined to reform the Lords - and failed.

Mr Blair has grasped the nettle by realising that the only way to take the aristocracy out of government is to scrap the hereditary peers' voting rights first and devise a new second chamber afterwards.

It may smack of lack of organisation and undemocratic practice, but, in reality, it is the only way.

The hereditary peers would oppose any scheme he brought up as a means of keeping them in power.

Moderate

So, while Mr Blair's government may seem very moderate as it gives up fiery speeches, state ownership, the promotion of trade union power and a top tax rate of 83pc, it is Left wing in what it is doing.

Not forgetting the return of the right of Trade Unions to recognition and the introduction of a minimum wage, the Government is spreading power and wealth more widely.

Come the next election, Mr Blair - with the help of his Chancellor - may well not only have pleased the impeccably New Labour Ruth Kelly, but the other, more Left wing Bolton MPs, Brian Iddon and David Crausby.

And even intellectual Lefty David Chaytor in Bury North and the thoroughly unreconstructed Old Labour Left winger Terry Lewis in Worsley, may be rather more satisfied with their Government's performance than they currently expect to be.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.