EDUCATION, EDUCATION, education. Prior to New Labour's arrival in Number 10 in 1997, Tony Blair said these would be his priorities in government. Britain's economic success and its social cohesion rested on education becoming a success story. The Conservatives, he claimed, were driving Britain's education system with their eyes fixed in the rear-view mirror. Blair wanted an education service fit for a new millennium, closing the gap between elite excellence and mass under-performance - New Labour would invest, offering new policy and leadership, giving Britain an education to match the best in the world.

Blair did accept that the Tories had "spent a lot of money" on education, but it was on "the wrong things". New Labour would spend on the right things.

Now a decade and more after the promised action comes the result. And if it was an exam, Labour has failed.

Social mobility in the UK has not improved since 1970, with clever children from poor backgrounds still being overtaken by less bright kids from affluent homes. New research by the London School of Economics and the University of Surrey shows our enduring and stark inequalities point to social class still being the biggest predictor of educational achievement.

If old Labour's welfare guru, Nye Bevan, was still around, he would have rounded on Blair's trinity of priorities. Bevan once attacked Harold Macmillan as having an absolute genius for putting flamboyant labels on empty luggage. Bevan could rightly ask Blair: where has the money gone and what difference did it make?

There has been a seven-fold investment in school buildings worth £5 billion; 29,000 more teachers, and £1000 more per year spent on every pupil than in 1997. And exam results do look better.

But look below the political flag-waving, and there is Bevan's empty luggage: 44% of the richest 20% of households see their kids get degrees, whereas of the poorest 20% of households, only 10% manage the same feat, and rarely at Britain's best universities.

Just as Blair did in 1996, so the Tories will do at the next general election: they will say New Labour spent a lot on education, but on the wrong things. There will be promises to reverse the trend, to widen opportunities, to attack the inequalities in social class.

Labour already have their defences prepared. The minister for children, Beverley Hughes, said it was "far too early to say" what will happen. She may have accidentally hit on Labour's next general election slogan: "Things might get better."