Party strategists believe that it will be electorally popular, including among lone parents themselves.
The plan is closely modelled on the successful Australian Jobs Education and Training Programme which was launched by Paul Keating’s Labour government.Unpublished Department of Social Security research shows that 90 per cent of single parents would take paid work if they could.The new plan, which reflects Mr Blair’s commitment to an “active rather than passive welfare”, will require the Benefits Agency to draw up employment- and child-care plans for lone parents with children over five, rather than merely continue to pay them benefits such as income support. Labour believes the move -which Mr Blair will unveil in his speech to the party conference – is an important extension of his commitment to a “welfare into work” programme. To me, it’s ex-tremely frightening and I don’t know how he does it. Diana, his wife is a wonderful person but even she can’t change him, and that worries me !. Tony Blair will tomorrow turn the bitterly controversial political argument about single mothers on its head, by pledging a new Labour programme aimed at taking 1m lone parents off benefit and into work. The following day he’s off to Vienna, or the Gstaad Festival, or even South America.

The whole world knows Yehudi as a very special human being, but to me he is just my dearest friend. Recently, though, he has been looking old and quite frail, but he is still driven like the devil. Actually, as far as work is concerned, my nature is the same as his, but I’ve had a couple of heart attacks and have had to slow down. If my wife didn’t look after me the way she does, I would probably have dropped dead in the middle of a performance I look at Yehudi’s schedule and it’s scary. He’ll go to a meeting in Brussels during the day and perform in Paris that same evening. Of course, confidence is extremely important for a performer but with a lot of musicians it is their ego, not just their confidence which stands out Yehudi’s humility is quite extraordinary. It’s one of the things which has always impressed me about him.For the first few minutes whenever we are together usually after a much too lengthy absence there are tears in my eyes and also in his.

This is not a criticism, but many Western musicians are very uptight because Western music is very precise It’s not something you play, as it were, bet-ween the lines. From that very first meeting, I realised that Yehudi was quite different from almost any other Western musician I knew. “Where did this music come from?” is a question which interests both of us. This year we have experienced a most fascinating journey learning about the origins of gypsy music together.Although our cultures and our music are so different, I have never found it a strain to be with him Not even at the beginning. This is what Yehudi and I have shared over many years with our concerts and recordings together.For him, just as it is for me, there is always the excitement of wanting to discover more about the past. There is a saying in Sanskrit, “Ranjayati iti Ragah” which means: “That which colours the mind is raga.” Through the rich melodies of our music, every human emotion, every subtle feeling in man and nature can be musically expressed and experienced. It was also written in Western notation which was difficult for me to read, so I asked one of my English students to translate it for me.

Eventually, I decided that I would rewrite the piece but that I wouldn’t change the raga. I looked at it, and from a Western point of view the composition was very good; but as an Indian sitar player, I felt it was not proper for me to play because it was also, from an Indian point of view, quite childish. Yehudi talked to me about the piece, which he was anxious for me to play. I know that he calls me his guru, but, to be honest, I find that quite embarrassing.I remember once, in London in the early Fifties, that Yehudi was particularly excited about a composition by Wilhelm Furtwangler, who had written a piece based on an Indian melody in what we call a raga pattern a scientific, precise, subtle and aesthetic melodic form with its own peculiar ascending and descending movement.

After that first visit, Yehudi became more and more interested in Indian culture. He came back with Diana on many more visits to India in order to learn, absorb and understand our music. It was the beginning of not only a very great friendship but a learning and sharing of each other’s work. He was extremely interested in Indian music and from the moment we met, we clicked, both as musicians and as human beings. Yehudi couldn’t possibly remember me from all those years ago, but I’ve never forgotten his playing. In those days, in the Thirties, he came quite often to my brother’s home. It was a period in his life when Yehudi was very influenced by the composer Georges Enesco, who had become a kind of guru for him.It was during that visit to India in 1952, when I was asked to play for him, that we were formally introduced.