Why is NuLabour's Social Engineering Failing?

On a cold grey day Nosher and I settled down in our old deckchairs in Nosher's shed to sit out the showers.
Through the dusty, cobwebbed window we could see our precious little plants being lashed by heavy rain, but there was nothing we could do about it.
A mug of hot soup from our thermos flasks seemed to make the world a better place.
'I find it astonishing' Nosher declared 'that after nearly eleven years of NuLabour's attempts to transform our society, they're too blinded by their own self-deceit to recognise they've ruined this country with their incompetent attempts at social engineering.'
'It certainly does seem to be all going wrong' I agreed. 'Their strategy of imposing targets from the top, often based on statistics that are of questionable value, has created an aggressive target-driven culture in organisations which serves to undermine any attempt to deliver a service based on a coherent delivery strategy or a genuine service ethic.'
The rain started to fall more heavily, thundering down on the wooden roof of Nosher's shed.
'The Dis-United Kingdom' he continued, warming to his theme 'now has a health service plagued by hospital-acquired infections and disruption caused by constant re-organisation; an education system that is turning out many children who can hardly read and write yet have a string of almost worthless qualifications; a police service that has given up investigating many crimes and which many people believe is just as likely to prosecute the victim of a crime rather than the perpetrator, so keen are they to meet their Government-imposed targets.'
'Even with their obsession for certain causes' I said 'NuLabour has failed to make an impact. Think of sink estates, child poverty, school truancy levels, drug addiction, services to the elderly, and so on. They've pumped in millions of pounds, yet in all cases the problems continue to get worse. Of course they deny it, because they change the targets when things go wrong, or quietly forget about them.'
'But why?' Nosher sounded demanding 'why can't these idiots see that they're tearing this country apart?'
'I guess it's because they're amoral pragmatists who've conveniently forgotten what really matters' I replied. 'NuLabour have betrayed the most vulnerable people of this country.'
Then I added, for good measure:
'When targets matter more than people, its the people who suffer.'