Jack Straw talks tough, but acts liberal in crucial areas. The defence review was presented as being about the creation of new, muscular task forces, rather than a cut in military spending in order to free resources for more desirable things such as health and education. One of the mistaken views held about New Labour is that it follows focus groups and opinion polls, adopting positions because they are popular. In fact, focus groups are used to help the government package changes in palatable ways, even if the reform is not in tune with majority views. Focus groups provide the intelligence required to fool the people at least some of the time.
Tax resistance is still part of the political landscape.
The question for the future is whether tax resistance will subside. There are broadly two schools of thought. The first group maintains that Labour had a tax problem because it had a spending problem. People were unhappy to cough up more tax to Labour, because they thought the money would be wasted on lazy bureaucrats and the undeserving poor. In order to get elected, Labour had to promise not to raise taxes.