The man known to the Cameroons as ‘The Master’ casts a long shadow. David
Cameron has re-launched his public service reform agenda and there was more of a whiff of Blair in the air.
His speech was understated. He eschewed references to radicalism and appealed to continuity instead. The favoured phrase of the moment is ‘evolution not revolution’, and Cameron traced the lineage of his reforms to those of the thwarted Blair administration (and the market reforms of the Thatcher and Major years). He was so deep in New Labour’s intellectual territory that he was at pains to stress that the ‘spending taps have not been turned off’. As a result of systemic reform and competition, he said, health spending will reach the EU average – an unrealised ambition of Blair’s – and per-head expenditure on pupils will reach £5,000 per annum, matching German spending.
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