Tony Blair says it is time to mark the end of the "1960s liberal consensus"

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But theres a bit on it here:

Blair rejects 60s liberalisms
Analysis
By Nick Assinder
BBC News Online political correspondent

In case there are still a few Tibetan yak farmers who haven't heard - David Blunkett doesn't like liberals.

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This former leader of the socialist republic of South Yorkshire - as Sheffield Council was then known - has no time for bleeding hearts, branding them the "Liberati".

Now he seems to have found an ally in the shape of none other than the guitar-playing former longhaired CNDer Tony Blair.

And what do they blame for inflicting this curse on the land - a curse that has led to a breakdown in law and order, respect for authority and general nastiness? The 1960s of course.

The pair appear to have taken a leaf out of former Tory Chairman Norman Tebbit's book by declaring the decade of free love produced parents whose liberal, hippyish attitudes towards discipline and authority have bred a generation of feral yobs.

Too stoned

Nothing to do, presumably, with the governments of the time, the most liberalising of which was the Labour administration whose reforming home secretary was Tony Blair's hero (along with the guitarist from Free) Roy Jenkins.

Also nothing to do, presumably, with the example set by our political leaders over the past couple of decades.

Vandalism and graffiti will be targeted
Now, seeing Mr Blunkett casting himself as the puritan who "missed the 60s" - and not for the usual reason of being too stoned to notice.

But rock and roll loving, schoolboy rebel and part-time drifter Tony Blair?

If anyone in the cabinet shows the signs of being a child of the 60s then it is the prime minister.

He picks up a guitar at the drop of a hint, is prone to wearing jeans (horror of horrors) and refers to people as "guys". And it's a fair bet he has kept the Kaftan as a memento of the times.

Had enough

But no, he believes it is time to end the "1960s liberal consensus".

Smashed window
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"From John Stuart Mill onwards, it has always been recognised that with freedom comes responsibility. But in the 1960s revolution that didn't always happen," he said.

Indeed, in the 1970s and 1980s the "basic theme" of legislation was around the prevention of miscarriages of justice, he said.

"Here, now, today, people have had enough of this part of the 1960s consensus."

This strikes a familiar tone. It is precisely the type of language used by the Tory party, and Michael Howard in particular, over the past decade and more.

That will allow the opposition to claim that Labour is up to its old tricks of nicking all its policies before the general election.

Street drunks

The prime minister will undoubtedly argue that this is a "personal crusade" and he has always allied his "tough on crime" message with policies to be "tough on the causes of crime" like social deprivation.

But he also knows that the problem of anti-social behaviour is a constant plague for some communities and they want to see a government committed to tackling it.

They want the street drunks, junkies, car thieves, mobile phone snatchers, graffiti "artists", litterers, vandals, obnoxious neighbours and aggressive and violent yobs - to name just a very few - dealt with.

So do Tony Blair and David Blunkett - and now they are promising to do just that. So, without any doubt, will Michael Howard.

So, once again, the two big parties will be sitting on the same ground come the general electio

Who are the Liberati?
By Brian Wheeler
BBC News Online political reporter

David Blunkett has always seemed to delight in his role as the chattering classes' worst nightmare.

David Blunkett
Blunkett: Scourge of the chattering classes?
Plain speaking, unashamedly populist and un-PC, the home secretary seemingly never misses an opportunity to take a swipe at any hand-wringing moral guardians, in his own party and beyond, who attempt to stand in his way.

In the past, he has referred to such people as "airy fairy libertarians".

But it now seems he has a new, far snappier, if more sinister-sounding, enemy - "The Liberati".

This shadowy group made their debut on the Today programme, during a debate with presenter John Humphrys on Mr Blunkett's plans to outlaw incitement to religious hatred.

I usually get the liberati on my back
David Blunkett MP

Listen to the interview

Mr Blunkett, it seems, would like to ban religious leaders he considers "dangerous" from entering the UK.

"Whenever I do this, by the way, I usually get the Liberati on my back for being against people being able to express themselves," he told Mr Humphrys.

Mr Blunkett declined to expand on this new social category, despite prompting from a clearly perplexed Humphrys.

So who on earth can the home secretary mean?

The word "Liberati" appears to be an amalgam of literari, or perhaps glitterati (defined by BBC News Online's dictionary as "highly fashionable celebrities; the smart set") and liberal.

Yoghurt-eaters

In other words, they are an elite. Very possibly a "self-appointed" elite. Almost certainly a Metropolitan one.

They are also "liberal", in the broadest sense, perhaps the same "woolly-minded Hampstead Liberals" attacked by Mr Blunkett's predecessor Jack Straw, when in 1999 he faced criticism for attempting to remove the right of trial by jury for some defendants.

Or perhaps they are the "yoghurt-eating, muesli-eating, Guardian-reading fraternity", Labour MP Kevin Hughes referred to in the same year?

It is a confusing area, as the similar-sounding Libertarians tend to come from the right and believe in freedom-at-any-cost.

In the US, the Libertarian Party campaigns for an unrestricted free market, free speech, the right to bear arms and the legalisation of drugs.

By contrast the Hampstead liberals of political folkore are more generally portrayed as the fair-trade coffee-sipping, dinner-party attending middle classes.

A fine example of the genre is Labour MP Glenda Jackson, who first came to political prominence campaigning to stop a McDonald's restaurant opening in Hampstead, the area she now represents in Parliament.

Others often quoted include writer Fay Weldon and Labour peer Melvyn Bragg.

Compassionate Conservatives

In 2001, Mr Blunkett's Tory opposite number, David Davis singled out Oliver Letwin as the Tories' very own "Hampstead Liberal".

He meant it as a compliment - a sign of how far the Tories had come in their pursuit of "compassionate Conservatism".

Mr Letwin, then shadow home secretary, gained this reputation - and reportedly impressed Mr Blunkett - with his principled opposition to parts of the government's anti-terror bill, including, by coincidence, the creation of a separate offence of incitement to religious hatred.

Then, of course, there are the Liberal Democrats. The party has been a persistent thorn in Mr Blunkett's side over anti-terror legislation and many other issues.

But its Watford-born, comprehensive-educated home affairs spokesman, Mark Oaten, hardly fits the stereotype of the London NW3 dwelling Hampstead Liberal.

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