Astute historians of social policy will mark down Sunday 16 January 2000 as the single most significant date of Tony Blair's first administration.

This was the day that, in the wake of the New Statesman's interview with Lord Winston and various other revelations about NHS shortcomings, Tony Blair announced on the BBC's Breakfast with Frost that UK health spending is nowhere near high enough and will rise to the European Union average by 2006.…