Does George Osborne finally have a big idea?

Listening to George Osborne on Today (and stripping away the visceral prejudice I always feel at his sneering patrician tone) I have to recognise that he was saying something very interesting.
The idea of throwing open the public sector to worker-control is very, very intriguing. Co-operatives are the future of Britain: this is not something I ever thought I would hear from the mouth of a Conservative politician. I don’t know if George Osborne has any experience of living or working in a co-op (it strikes me he is not the type). They can be a mixed bag, but the principle is great one.
I have long thought Gordon Brown should have adopted the co-operative principle as the defining philosophy of his administration (Ed Balls is a Co-Operative Party MP and the party’s General Secretary Michael Stephenson is also close to the PM). In 2007 I wrongly predicted it would be Brown’s big idea.