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"Alain Enthoven, the guru behind Thatcher's internal market NHS reforms of the 1980s, was US assistant secretary for defence under President Johnson.... The assault on professionalism - teachers, doctors, lecturers, police - suddenly appears not an unfortunate byproduct of policy: it is the policy. Ministers want doctors and lecturers to be motivated by money and league tables. It is only by ridding them of pesky notions of doing good or knowing best that game theory and public choice can be made to work." Why Gordon's 'greater choice' is a MAD idea
"Lord Turnbull’s jibe last week that Brown was a “Stalinist” was hardly fair. It was under Turnbull as cabinet secretary that delivery teams mimicked Stalin’s pseudo-contractual Gosplan, with ministries reduced to gosarbitrazh boards negotiating the internal state market place. The new element is that in Britain the state retains control but subcontracts delivery, usually at much greater expense, to friends in the private sector. Not a week passes without this system showing obvious signs of collapse. A computer sends thousands of passports to the wrong people, including terrorists. A call to an out-of-hours doctor in north Wales is answered uselessly by a call centre in Cardiff. As schools “teach the league table”, the number of 16-18s not in school or training rises under Labour by 20%." Public services with a heart
Iraq - Question Time
