Going through Mandelson’s memoirs the BBC highlights that he claims Labour achieved 80% of its aims. I could agree with that, but only because it gives me an excuse to play funny buggers with the 80/20 ‘rule’ – that 20% of the effort will get 80% of the work done, and the last 20% of work will require 80% of the effort.
In other words, if Labour’s achieved 80% of its goals in 13 years, then to get that last stubborn 20% would take another 52 years – assuming the Pareto Principle holds true.
65 years of Labour. Yikes.
Of course, this assumes that all problems are a simple question of time and money and that there are never any new problems created by devoting said time and money, and that there’s never any unintended consequences arising from solving said problems.
Nope, I think even with another 100 years Labour wouldn’t get that last 20%. There’s no ‘with just a bit more time it would have all been perfect’ here. They had a super majority, unbelievable public support until the Iraq War, a boom and seemingly infinite money coming from tax revenues. If something went wrong, who can they really blame?
