Cold War.

As the United States presidential campaign has progressed, it has become very clear that President Bill Clinton understood that victory rested in the middle. That understanding may well give him a large vote majority today. The same, of course, is true of United Kingdom Labour Party leader Tony Blair. He has dragged the "New Labour Party'' away from the pressures of the British labour unions and into the middle stream and away from what he has called "the quasi-Marxist economic doctrines that translated ideas of state control''.

Bermuda's politicians should heed a statement made recently by Mr. Blair: "I believe any decent society is grounded on duty.......We need something deeper than merely a contractual relationship between us as citizens. And if it implies a significant degree of responsibility it is meant to.'' Those Bermudians who have been questioning Bermuda's tax structure lately and, like this newspaper, have been suggesting Civil Service economies, will note that Mr. Blair told the Commonwealth Press Union Conference, meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, "The days of tax, spend and borrow centre-left politics are over. No party competing for power should be anything other than fiscally prudent. No party, sensitive to the changed times, is going to want to raise taxes as a matter of principle. All parties will be interested in wealth creation or will not be considered serious about government. All parties will be concerned with how government is reformed to extract better value from the large amounts of money we do spend.'' It is easy while reading Mr. Blair's speech to think that perhaps he had been living in the Bermuda of the past 20 years, that today's Bermuda is the model for tomorrow's Britain. He said, "The emphasis is on education, skills, infrastructure and technology and the support for small business as economic imperatives. To develop the potential of the people, that is our central task.

Our conviction is that this is the only realistic route today to higher living standards in the future.'' That, of course, is exactly what Bermuda has been achieving for years.

Bermuda has revised its education system in an effort to stop young Bermudians "falling through the cracks'' and Mr. Blair says, "The creation of an underclass of people set aside from society's mainstream is a tragedy that should not be tolerated in any society worthy of the name. Its impact is felt on our streets, in our schools, in family instability, growing drug abuse and anti-social behaviour.'' "But in return,'' he said, "there is a duty on those provided with opportunity to take it.''