Shortly after Gordon Brown's budget last week an opinion poll in the Telegraph gave his tax rise for the National Health Service 76% support.
This morning, for ICM, the Guardian reports 72% approve. These figures are by no means solid, although New Labour spent two years preparing the ground for this. Participants in this list from other countries will remember the vigorous tax revolt in the UK last year against vehicle fuel tax. Indeed in this budget Brown pointedly put no increase on petrol at all. People who support a more vigorous social democratic policy, need to think how a government can do that without being vulnerable to secret individual selfishness in the ballot box. Those who criticise New Labour for timidity need to think essentially how a bolder approach would weld together 60% of the population in a renewed sense of working class solidarity. But with changes in the economic base this has been replaced by a "democracy" in which everyone thinks they are part of the multitude but some are far luckier than others. Chris Burford London
