Let's dig in to the latest "Top 50" from Labour, why they feel the need to publish this list is beyond me but perhaps they feel more than a little threatened. It is Brown's policy after all to look back rather than forward, as if resting on our successes is enough to get us through future challenges

First up, the things I feel Labour can actually feel proud of having achieved...

3. Introduced the National Minimum Wage and raised it to £5.52.

Thankfully we don't have to look too far down the list to see our first real achievement free of ambiguity, and this one is a true positive in every sense. Workers knowing their rights is an important part of a well functioning economy and ensuring that workers get what they need at least to live is a great and positive step for the country.

10. Written off up to 100 per cent of debt owed by poorest countries.

Not quite as great as it sounds but in effect is a great move that was needed for developing countries.

11/12/34. 85,000 more nurses. 32,000 more doctors, Inpatient waiting lists down by over half a million since 1997.

Yep, great, well done...except how much of this increase is down to immigration? I can't say that this is enough of an ambiguity to keep it from being a real success since waiting lists and times are down significantly from when Labour got in to office. There are still issues over how hospitals are run and funded and thus the NHS issue can't be deemed to have been solved yet, but what is clear is that for all of the governments apparent need for this work force it is happy to waste training doctors and nurses up in the UK at the expense of the tax payer, only for them to not be guaranteed a job (or even by likely to be guaranteed) and then to leave the UK to be able to use their skills.

14/15/19/26. Devolved power to the Scottish Parliament/Welsh Assembly, Restored city-wide government to London, Restored devolved government to Northern Ireland.

Obviously there are some that won't see this as a positive, and there are certainly negatives about how it's been handled with resentment brewing in England, but overall it's a positive set of things to do that I won't play down.

16. Dads now get paternity leave of 2 weeks for the first time.

What could be wrong with this? The acceptance of some parental rights for fathers in the workforce is a positive thing and isn't overboard either.

18. Gift aid was worth £828 million to charities last year.

Well it's not like there weren't schemes to do similar things before Gift Aid, but the simplicity of the current scheme needs to be given kudos I think.

21/22/30/31/42/49. Child benefit up 26 per cent since 1997. 600,000 children lifted out of relative poverty. Delivered 2,200 Sure Start Children’s Centres. Introduced child tax credit giving more money to parents. Over 3 million child trust funds have been started. Free nursery places for every three and four-year-olds.

Despite trying their hardest to screw it all up, the truth is that a lot more money is going directly towards children under Labour than happened before it. Children are better off financially than they've been in recent history, but this isn't the whole story. British children continue to be the most unhappy and dissatisfied in Europe. Labours next challenge is not just funding children to get access to better lives, but providing the infrastructure and resources to enable them to develop them.

23. Introduced the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

I know there are a million and one right wing nuts in the country that will claim this isn't an achievement, but I for one am glad we're getting very clear definitions and support on individual rights.

25. On course to exceed our Kyoto target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

A decent mask for Labour looking to fail its own manifesto pledges, something it must be pleased about as it means they don't have to make any effort to actively break them like other pledges, but there is nothing but truth in this statement.

28. All full time workers now have a right to 24 days paid holiday.

Thumbs up to this one too. We're still pretty poor when it comes to work-life balance and just how much time we work, but this is an achievement since the erosion of free time for workers occurred under the Tories.

32. Scrapped Section 28 and introduced Civil Partnerships.

Why isn't this much higher? Given that some parties still seem to be internally unsure about just how good the idea of equal rights for homosexuals are Labour should be more proud of this than they are.

35 & 38. Banned fox hunting, Banned fur farming and the testing of cosmetics on animals.

I'm so close to not putting this in this section, creating legislation is a far cry from actually making it stick...but in the cases of animal testing and such fields UK is ahead of the game when it comes to ethical practice, no matter how much toffs in red coats are giving certain policies the run around.

37/39/40/43. Free TV licences for over-75s, Free breast cancer screening for all women aged between 50-70, Free off peak local bus travel for over-60s, Free eye test for over 60s.

Yep, Labour loves the oldies! Makes sense really, they're forever looking at their past record it is clear experience matters to them. What can I say that's bad about these initiatives? Perhaps they don't go far enough in terms of the ages people get such free stuff, for example cancer screenings, but these are all good things.

44. More than doubled the number of apprenticeships.

While I disagree with the way this government seems intent on forcing children in to longer education, the advent of more apprenticeships really helps those that choose to find a path in to work that isn't academic.

45. Free entry to national museums and galleries.

I'm feeling generous, I don't really think that this is an achievement as such, but I'm sure others will think it's the best thing since fossilised sliced bread.

47. Heart disease deaths down by 150,000 and cancer deaths down by 50,000.

I'm sure Labour don't wish to claim that they reduce the chances of cancer simply by being elected, but ultimately if your bring waiting lists down and waiting times then more people will survive what they unfortunately are afflicted with.

Now for ambiguous achievements, poorly worded or simply not actually as true as they may appear. I didn't use the word misleading if you didn't!

1. Longest period of sustained low inflation since the 60s

Well I guess this depends on what you deem to be "low" and what you deem to be "inflation". If we use the CPI then sure, they've managed to keep costs rising at a similar rate for a long time. But if we use the RPI which takes in to account more of the real costs to people then it's a bit of a different story. Nothing has really been sustained in the RPI figures since Labour got in to power, but then it's not exactly been high. What's certain though is this first on the list is also the number one example of looking back rather than forward as the RPI is now creeping consistently higher than it has been at any point since 1991.

2. Low mortgage rates.

Again, what does "low" mean? In this case it is certainly the case that Labour can be proud that mortgage rates have been lower than under the previous Tory reign, so why then have I put it in this section? Well, low mortgage rates mean low saving rates too. Would Labour so readily call a weakening of the savings and investments market a success, I think not. But then in all fairness you literally can't win them all in this subject so maybe I'm being unfair.

4. Over 14,000 more police in England and Wales.

I think we'll see more of these unquantified figures. Yes, well done, you employed more police. What have you done with them exactly? The overtime bill is soaring which shows that efficiency is down and/or workloads are harder on the increased numbers of police than on their counterparts in 1997, and there are wide calls for reform. It's all well and good employing more but how about also ensuring that such a figure actually increases productivity for the force as well, rather than increases the amount of people sitting around doing paperwork?

5. Cut overall crime by 32 per cent.

Yet not really managed to make a dent on crime levels that existed in the early 80's and before. You may have brought crime back down to older levels and that is to be commended, but all you've done is reverse an upward trend, you've not made any impact in to where we were with crime historically. In fact you inherited a falling crime rate from the Tories and have manages to slow the rate of decline of crime rather than increase it.

6. Record levels of literacy and numeracy in schools.

Well isn't this just like saying "the weather isn't quite as shitty as yesterday". I'm sorry but things like this don't fly with me, in a modern thriving country a fifth of our children should not still be leaving illiterate. You can brag as much as you want about increasing levels but until you effectively eradicate illiteracy you've got nothing to be proud of.

7. Young people achieving some of the best ever results at 14, 16, and 18.

I'm not going to be one of those people that belittles the work that kids do for exams these days, being amongst the most tested in the world is hard and I appreciate what they must do to get their results. But when physics papers are having physics dropped in place of propaganda questions that require no physics knowledge about environmental concern you simply cannot say that exams are the same standard they were. And what does passing an exam actually say about a persons ability to do more than regurgitate what they were repeatedly taught, to their ability to actually think for themselves and develop? Oh yeah, absolutely nothing.

8. Funding for every pupil in England has doubled.

Lets assume this means standard education not FE or HE, in which case the claim is correct of course. What is ambiguous about this is that funding for every pupil as an individual entity varies depending on where you live. If you live in a Labour area then you as a pupil will be receiving much more of the pot than if you live in a Tory area. Under Labour they have indeed increased the money spent on students in total, just not effectively controlled where it is spent and has created a situation where some pupils are somehow worth more to the government than others. Again, I wouldn't call this a shining achievement.

20. Record number of students in higher education.

Yes this has risen, as has the amount of debt they acquire, the amount of students leaving university without a graduate level job, and the drop out rate. In fact if it weren't for what accounts for a minuscule percentage of poor students getting in to university since Labour came in to power I'd just put this one in the bullshit pile out of principle. Labour can brag as much as they want about the HE system in the UK, but they have a failed strategy with it and financing is spiralling out of control. While this is happening no more poor students are actually attending than in the last few years and more realise it's not worth the immense cost they'll be carrying for the rest of their lives. Labour should feel ashamed of their record on HE, not proud.

36. Cleanest rivers, beaches, drinking water and air since before the industrial revolution.

Is this a Labour achievement or an achievement of government that happens to be Labour? I'm not so up on my knowledge about this but given the amount of environmental targets handed down to us by the EU I am putting this in the ambiguous section, I just honestly can't accept that any party wouldn't have achieved this.

46. Overseas aid budget more than doubled.

Great! What? You mean that we've also spent money on "democracies" that have fallen apart? We could have been funding corrupt leaders that meant the aid was useless to the people of needy countries? Yeah, that's the problem. It sounds great to say we've double the overseas aid budget, but with so many questions being asked over just how it's being allocated and who it's being paid to this one is not yet an achievement. £10 in fishing equipment given to a single farmer is far more valuable that £10,000 in cash given to a corrupt tribal leader.

The downright bullshit and pointless are up next. Seriously, why are some of these even on the list as "achievements". Others on the web have already gone in to how it's telling that they haven't put Iraq or Afghanistan on their list, but surely there are other things that they can be proud of?

9/41/48. Employment is at its highest level ever, Cut long-term youth unemployment by 75 per cent, New Deal - helped over 1.8 million people into work.

Employment is up 2.7 million from 1997, however almost half of that is immigrant workforce. The UK population since 1997 has risen by approximately 2.6 million. I'm not denying that employment is technically at it's highest ever level but what's the context? If we take a look at the economically inactive figures we are almost in the same situation of real term unemployment that we were in before Labour came to power in 1997! This is the perfect example of Labour spinning the facts to make an achievement out of what has ultimately become a bit of a failure.

13. Brought back matrons to hospital wards.

Why is this listed as an achievement? You brought back matrons because standards of hygiene and practice on ward floors were declining beyond acceptable levels. This isn't an achievement as much as a quick fix that has yet to show if it's changed anything at all

17. NHS Direct offering free convenient patient advice.

Once upon a time there used to be a person called a GP who you could go to for free and convenient patient advice. Unfortunately something happened along the way and suddenly the GP's job was no longer to prevent illness with early detection but to diagnose what people already have. NHS Direct is a good thing, but how much of it really replaces what we used to have with our local GP service and how much have we lost? I can't call this a success for the same reason I can't call matrons a success...it's plugging a hole they made.

24. £200 winter fuel payment to pensioners & up to £300 for over-80s.

Price of gas and electricity the year winter fuel payments were introduced, approximately £700 a year, now? At least £950 a year and rising. What's the point is trumpeting an "achievement" that simply says they've allowed pensioners to fall in to the same situation they were in before we needed to implement the winter fuel payments? Pathetic and disgusting.

27. Over 36,000 more teachers in England and 274,000 more support staff and teaching assistants.

Like with doctors and nurses, I don't know how the numbers here are attributable to immigrants or not. The difference here is the rise in teacher numbers hasn't impacted so greatly. Certainly in one aspect, teacher to pupil ratio's, the increase in teachers was required mostly just to keep the ratio from increasing negatively. As it stands the increase in teachers has to be seen as an improvement, but an achievement? Not quite yet.

29. A million pensioners lifted out of poverty.

Yet we still have roughly the same amount of pensioners now earning less than 40% of the national income as we did in 1997, so even if those with under 60% of the national income has decreased, the poor are still staying just as poor. With pensioners feeling the need to protest and even go to prison over council tax charges, fuel poverty being such a severe issue for poor elderly people in modern society and pension increases of less than £2 per week each year show that while the government is happy to give pensioners free stuff, they're not happy to give them enough to truly live on. I don't call this lifting anyone out of poverty.

33. Brought over 1 million social homes up to standard.

So when they're not planning on kicking the "poor scum" out of council flats they're doing some up. I say some, of course, since there are still many millions of others to do, if they ever check them to see if someone has died inside or not...and rather than build new social housing to add to the stock they spin figures about new builds and try to slip under the radar plans to develop greenfield land. Housing is just not an area where Labour can competently claim any kind of direct accomplishment.

50. Free fruit for most four to six-year-olds at school.

Free fruit? I don't think I need to say any more.

Over all, giving them a point for successful achievements, half a point for ambiguities, and no points for pointless garbage, I give them a score of 35 out of 50, not too bad but could do a lot better. I of course welcome any criticism about my analysis, and unlike Gordon Brown I won't reiterate any of my past credentials to try and browbeat you out of an argument