I had an awkward moment the other day the sort of moment when a Basil Fawlty-like war wound would have come in

I had an awkward moment the other day, the sort of moment when a Basil Fawlty-like war wound would have come in useful. Basil’s embarrassing situations, when he was suddenly afflicted by an old war wound, arose over questions about his hotel. My awkward moment involved a question about Nordic social democrats.
In the middle of a convivial conversation with one of the brightest Labour MPs, I raised doubts about whether the Government would measure up to the challenges of the second term. Quite suddenly, the MP paused, looked up and said with an uncharacteristic ferocity: “Name me a famous Nordic social democrat, a titanic political figure from a Nordic country, who has transformed politics on the centre-left.”Now I have to confess that titanic Nordic social democrats are not my strong point. Probably, with a bit of thought, some names might have sprung to mind. At that moment I could only think of Sven Goran Ericsson, who might transform the prospects of the England football team, but is not known for his contribution to Nordic social democracy.

I almost used the Fawlty war wound, ready to limp away from this exchange. Instead, I tried a Third Way “that’s an interesting question”.”Come on, name one,” came the response. Finally under great pressure I admitted that I could not do so, at least not at that precise moment.”Exactly,” came the humiliating response I was ready for the killer sentence. “And therefore you have no right whatsoever to comment on social democracy in Britain, not without a wider context, not without the context of the Nordic greats.”But at this point the awkward moment became an enlightening one The humiliating put-down did not happen. “Exactly,” said the MP, “there are no Nordic social democrat heroes. Nordic social democracy came about not through heroism, but hard work, compromise and incremental reforms We are very Nordic here, you know.

There are no titanic heroes in the Government, but slowly and unglamorously they are making a difference.”Somewhere in this embarrassing exchange is the essence of this government. Labour’s manifesto, launched on Wednesday, will have lots of incremental reforms and ambitious objectives, rather like the last one in 1997 There will be no great surprises. As one of the party’s uninspiring slogans points out, there is “more work to do”. It will be a manifesto of a well-intentioned, managerial government, although no doubt some of its more over-excited members will proclaim it as “radical” or “revolutionary”, adjectives that are so overused they have become meaningless.For all the overblown obsession with spin, what you see of Mr Blair and his team is ­ more or less ­ what you get.