"We are making the fundamental changes. It was like the decent housing target. We said by 2010, we'd have taken a million houses and refurbished them into decent housing"
About this Quote
“Fundamental changes” is doing a lot of work here, because the proof offered is aggressively managerial: a target, a date, a number, a refurbishment program. John Prescott’s line is classic New Labour-era rhetoric, where politics is framed less as ideological struggle than as delivery. The ambition is sold as inevitable progress: set the metric, hit the milestone, move the country forward.
The specific intent is twofold. First, to claim seriousness. “By 2010” and “a million houses” signal competence and scale, the language of spreadsheets rather than stump speeches. Second, to make “change” feel safe. Refurbishment isn’t revolution; it’s improvement. It reassures homeowners and wary swing voters that transformation will arrive via contractors and compliance, not upheaval.
The subtext is defensive because it’s comparative. “It was like the decent housing target” suggests he’s borrowing credibility from a policy area where results can be counted. That’s a tacit answer to the era’s critique: that government talks big and under-delivers. Prescott is trying to anchor a grand claim (“fundamental changes”) to a tangible, photo-op-friendly outcome: repaired kitchens, warmer rooms, modern windows.
Context matters: this is the Britain of performance indicators, public service agreements, and centrally driven targets. Housing becomes both moral signal and political instrument. “Decent” is deliberately modest - not luxurious, not equal, just acceptable. It’s a word that lowers expectations while still letting ministers claim a historic fix. In the end, the line exposes the era’s faith and its vulnerability: if you reduce change to targets, you win on delivery or lose on the numbers.
The specific intent is twofold. First, to claim seriousness. “By 2010” and “a million houses” signal competence and scale, the language of spreadsheets rather than stump speeches. Second, to make “change” feel safe. Refurbishment isn’t revolution; it’s improvement. It reassures homeowners and wary swing voters that transformation will arrive via contractors and compliance, not upheaval.
The subtext is defensive because it’s comparative. “It was like the decent housing target” suggests he’s borrowing credibility from a policy area where results can be counted. That’s a tacit answer to the era’s critique: that government talks big and under-delivers. Prescott is trying to anchor a grand claim (“fundamental changes”) to a tangible, photo-op-friendly outcome: repaired kitchens, warmer rooms, modern windows.
Context matters: this is the Britain of performance indicators, public service agreements, and centrally driven targets. Housing becomes both moral signal and political instrument. “Decent” is deliberately modest - not luxurious, not equal, just acceptable. It’s a word that lowers expectations while still letting ministers claim a historic fix. In the end, the line exposes the era’s faith and its vulnerability: if you reduce change to targets, you win on delivery or lose on the numbers.
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| Topic | Change |
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