SO, at long last, the gloss has come off the government and Tony Blair is clearly rattled.

About time, too.

The government's current wobbles started last month with the crisis in the NHS, the departure of junior minister Peter Kilfoyle over London-focused New Labour prattling on about gay rights and proportional representation instead of things that matter, and the voters in the Welsh by-election last week pushing the party into fourth place to show their annoyance over these very things.

They may be a concern to the Prime Minister but they are a breath of fresh air to those of us fed up with his government's arrogant disregard of ordinary people and their concerns.

Don't get me wrong, I do not see these developments as marking a watershed from which the party's ratings begin a headlong plunge to the general election defeat that has been the fate of every Labour government seeking a second term.

So far, the strong economy - a Tory-inspired legacy upon which Tony Blair has happily traded - means Labour still has tons of feel-good to draw upon and a £7-billion election war chest with which to bribe the voters nearer the next contest.

Besides, the Tory opposition has yet to land a solid punch.

Whenever Labour has suffered it has been though own-goals, like its proposals to repeal the Section 28 ban on homosexual propaganda in schools, believing the selfish French would play fair over their beef ban, support for the white elephant Dome, bus lanes on the M25 and Tube lines reserved for certain politicians on their way to the Millennium celebrations and so forth. Tony Blair warned party members this week against the "politics of division" and his deputy John Prescott put out an even-more-jittery message that, without drastic action to stop the emergent grassroots' revolt, Labour could lose the next general election.

What is clear from both these messages is that spin-doctored, pager-clutching, metropolitan, middle class New Labour has found out that there's another world out there that is no longer in thrall of its glossy, do-as-I-say self-assuredness.

This is the healthy departure and it will do our democracy a world of good if Mr Blair and Co realise they cannot ignore it.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.