How blue is the Coalition? Part Three: Public Services

By Paul Goodman

This is the third post in a five-part series asking: in practice, how Conservative is the Coalition?  In doing so, I'll examine its work under the same headings that Tory backbench committees follow, risk a very brief comparison with the Thatcher and Major Governments, and give a mark out of ten for "blueness".  It goes almost without saying that my view on what a Conservative view or policy is won't be everyone's.

Public Services

This is the big one.  Pre-election, Michael Gove's ambitions to bring in Free Schools was well known.  So was Iain Duncan Smith's mission to reform welfare and improve incentives to work. But most people hadn't clocked the radicalism of Andrew Lansley's manifesto plan to drive though universal GP fundholding.  And on top of that, there's policing reform and elected police commissioners, led by Theresa May and driven by Nick Herbert.

This all adds up to an unprecedented attempt to reform Britain's main public services in one fell swoop - breathtaking in its ambition, reckless in its pace.  David Cameron was once described as Willie Whitelaw with an Ipod.  And it's true that by temperament and inclination he's a traditional, left-of-party-centre, One Nation Tory.  But he's going at his public service reform agenda like Arthur Seldon on acid, thus showing that by experience and training he's a child of the Thatcher years.

Some of all this may not happen - which must be borne in mind - but Cameron's courage should be honoured with...

Conservative credentials: 8/10

Thatcher didn't get going with major public service reform till her third term, Ken Baker leading on schools and Ken Clarke on a forerunner of Lansley's GP scheme.  Privatisation didn't gather pace until her second term.  Major saw through some fag-end changes, notably railway privatisation.  Cameron's starting far faster than either.