So the refreshing wind of political change is rushing through the dank and musty corridors of power following the Tories ejection from the last-chance saloon. Well as you sip on your Perriers on the way back from the bar where the Tories were so abruptly told: "time gentlemen - no more" it might pay you to examine your political change.

A number of things we'd all hope to see are very unlikely to happen even under the so-called sweeping changes announced by the incoming Labour Party. Firstly but not necessarily most importantly I wonder if the striking Liverpool dockers, whom I drive past nearly every weekend, are to be given any help at all by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescot - after all he was once one of the boys and now he is in a position to help - we shall see but I doubt their brazier will be extinguished for some time.

Secondly, we still have 300 years' supply of coal beneath our feet and maybe a tenth of that in oil worldwide. So will we see some of the pits, closed under the Tories in a vicious and acrimonious campaign which decimated mining families and communities alike, re-opened under Labour? Tony Blair should understand these people, he claims to have his roots in a mining community in County Durham, now that he is in a position of power will we see the re-investment needed to re-vitalise and restart this vital industry? We shall see.

Many of the Tories reviled by the public for so long are still in place: Michael Howard, the man who has acted beyond his power (therefore illegally) so many times he has been censured several times by senior court judges.

Peter Lilley, the man who had the ridiculous idea that it made good sense to spend more money chasing benefit dodgers than could possibly be recovered even if they all handed themselves in tomorrow, is also still an MP.

Now I don't like Neil Hamilton and I care for his wife even less but as far as I understand it he has admitted to relatively minor misdemeanours and now Martin Bell is the MP for Tatton. Martin Bell had an affair, yes it was years ago but it still involved deception and couldn't Hamilton argue the same thing as Bell when the same number of years has passed? Bell doesn't know Tatton and until very recently didn't live there. He also used dodgy actor David Soul (he of Starsky and Hutch fame) to endorse his campaign. I seem to remember a couple of drinking stories involving the actor before he was accused of beating up his wife don't you? How sleazy do you want to get?

Margaret Thatcher was vilified for enjoying a special relationship with Ronald Reagan and the US. They were accused of being war mongers and portrayed as having itchy, trigger-fingers on the nuclear button. Two days into the new administration and we are told of Mr Blair's warm relationship with Mr Clinton - is there any real difference? Has the nuclear capacity been removed overnight? Or are we just more trusting of political figures who've had the image-maker's air brush treatment?

Harriet Harman's kids and Tony Blair's kids both go to schools their party would not allow you to go to - grant-maintained and in failing to eradicate grammar schools the Labour party have just made those schools more elitist and exclusive than they ever were. You could go on forever but not since Uri Geller was ruining everybody's cutlery has such a con been attempted on the British public. The Tories needed replacing: their plot was transparent, their dialogue stilted and there didn't seem to be a happy ending in sight - a bit like watching Jaws - unfortunately there's only one thing worse than that... does anybody remember Jaws II?

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