Upper-middle-class angst is everywhere as the successful try to cope with long hours at

Upper-middle-class angst is everywhere as the successful try to cope with long hours at work and The Ivy restaurant; demanding nannies; private schools that make it so hard for your little honey to get in; bloody nuisance disputes with France that make one uncomfortable drinking fine French wines; too much loveless sex; and the unbearable lightness of being in with the right crowd.
Take the example of the usually sensible and very bright Cherie Blair. The gods have created new reasons for people to be cheerless. After all, the poor will, in the name of fairness, get their crumbs, along with instructions on how to use them prudently so that they have some left over for their old age Oh Happy State to be in

Not so, it seems. In this brave New Labour world, the rich (on the right and left) can enjoy their wealth without guilt. The industrious are to be rewarded and the indolent to be punished.

If society was really divided into those simplistic categories the Queen’s Speech and the spirit that it reveals might provide the basis for an ideal society. It takes us only one small step towards a more compassionate version of welfare capitalism.. GORDON BROWN believes in a society that promotes both fairness and enterprise. Indeed, the whole package of social and economic reforms seem based on the dubious principle that if the economy grows more prosperous in general every responsible member of society will share in that improvement.For all its slickness there is a chillingly Old Testament quality about New Labour. The Queen’s Speech confirms that Gordon Brown draws a sharp distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor. Certainly – and it is a cause for rejoicing – “more people are in work today than ever before, with employment up by 700,000 and long-term unemployment halved” and, “the new Working Families Tax Credit is raising the income of working families”.

But there is still too little help for the desperately poor – the families without work or the prospect of work. One of the features of the 1999 Queen’s Speech is the way in which it managed to make the barely acceptable sound unequivocally desirable. It is the opening paragraphs – generally declamatory and self-congratulatory – that reveal the most important elements in the Government’s thinking. Of course, the Queen – reading the text which her ministers drafted – merely announced the title of a measure which, on the basis of its name alone, seems wholly admirable. The Freedom of Information Bill enacts “the people’s right to know” in little more than name. For ministers will be empowered to prevent the exposure of papers they regard as private and the Independent Commissioner will not have the power to overrule them.

They should be welcomed both on their individual merits and as a sign that the Government does not always believe that the least government is the best government.Not that the Prime Minister and Home Secretary are invariably determined to reduce the central Government’s power. The Government’s intention to “make unlawful for public bodies racially to discriminate” is wholly to be applauded. So is the decision “to establish a Strategic Rail Authority” Each proposal amounts to a new regulation. The removal of regulations may, or may not, be desirable – depending on the regulations removed.

That is why, in pursuit of that managerial objective, there will be a reduction in “overcomplex regulation”. Yesterday the Queen announced, with proper regal calm, that “a bill will be introduced to give the courts themselves the power to decide whether certain defendants should be tried by jury or by magistrates”.The Government defends its determination to reduce the right to jury trial with the claim that its “reform” will make justice speedier and less expensive. It is because that protection was denied that so many suspect IRA bombers were wrongfully convicted. But the Government has turned its back on Labour’s libertarian past. They deny men and women, designated as potential terrorists , the protection available under the general criminal law.