It has not been a great week for Cool Britannia. The backlash has begun and New Labour's rebranding of the entire nation has undergone something of a rethink. The British government is obsessed with style. If proof is needed of Mr Tony Blair's personal style, one only has to look at the current International Best Dressed Poll list to find him in the top twelve. Such is the extent of the obsession that the government recently launched Powerhouse: UK, a panel of 33 ambassadors to promote British creativity and designs abroad and unveiled 202 official Cool Britannia products that included a talking and moving mannequin called Anibod.
When Mr Blair launched the products in front of delegates at the ASEM II conference in London this month, much attention was focused on the creativity and innovation of British design. Yet in the same week the American company, Ben and Jerry, decided to withdraw their Cool Britannia ice cream. The style editors went into a state of shock. What did it mean? Nothing at all - or did it spell the end of Cool Britannia? Some think so, and with less than a year of New Labour under our belts the numbers are growing.
While there is nothing to criticise in promoting British designers and businesses, the obsession with style and presentation makes a lot of people very nervous. In an article for the Radio Times this week, the comedian Ben Elton said what many have been thinking: "The truth is you can't buy cool and you can't create it with a label . . . Cool is in the eye of the beholder.
"I can do without the Labour Party wanting to strut its funky stuff. I did not vote Labour because they've heard of Oasis and nobody is going to vote Tory because William Hague has got a baseball cap."
On the style-summit at Canary Wharf last November, Elton warned the government not to substitute style for substance.
"It's no good going on about our great designers if everything they design is made in China," he said. "When Tony Blair went to Canary Wharf to impress the French with a couple of sofas from Habitat? Well, quel triomphe. I bet Jospin felt a git when he got back to the Elysee Palace."
Now, after months of Cool Britannia and the sight of Labour politicians desperately trying to be trendy, the charge of style over substance is being heard loud and clear. We don't want to be individuals any more, says Elton. "We only want to be cool. The country is collapsing under a pile of labels . . . And what, I should like to know, is so great about being cool anyway?"
One senses a double standard in his attack. Wasn't this the man who got cosy with Tony and Cherie at a Downing Street reception shortly after Labour came to power last May? But that was in the early, heady days of power when Elton's arch enemy - the Tories - had finally been ousted from office, so perhaps we should allow him his moment of glory. Writing in the Independent this week, the comedian Rory Bremner found much in common with Ben Elton. The concept of Cool Britannia was always an odd one, he wrote, "the idea that John Major thought of it first even odder. It simply doesn't help that Tony Blair looks like a primary school teacher and John Prescott dances like your dad."
But perhaps we are getting carried away. It was, after all, John Major who first dreamt up the idea, but no one could ever accuse the "grey" man of being cool. And who could ever imagine a prime minister like Harold Macmillan entertaining the celebrities of the day at No 10? They were as they should be - politicians who just got on with the job, regardless.
A straw poll of Cool Britannia's citizens in Leicester Square yesterday revealed a much more positive outlook on the nation than Ben Elton's article suggested. Teresa Dias from Southwark, in south London, rejected the criticism of Mr Blair outright: "The article is a load of rubbish. The government is just trying to do its best for this country, but then you always get people who want to knock it." Paul Gable, from Liverpool said he believed Cool Britannia was "a bit over the top", but the idea itself was just right: "Maybe we are becoming obsessed with labels and being cool, but why not? Actually, I think Britain has been cool for a lot longer than Labour says it has. People had just stopped saying it."