There’s some very readable stuff in this week’s Economist (including a leader which outlines what Brown’s government should – but almost certainly won’t – do with its “last months in power”). But if you read only one article from it, make sure it’s the Bagehot column and its dissection of Brown’s latest Big Idea: public service guarantees.
These are the pledges-turned-legal entitlements which popped up throughout the Queen’s Speech – such as the “guarantee” that patients will have hospital treatment within 18 weeks of being referred by a GP. As Bagehot points out, it’s a problematic approach:
‘To be worth the manifesto paper they will be printed on, public-service guarantees need to be readily enforceable. It is fairly easy to see how those that are to be bestowed on groups or communities might work. A school is failing; parents complain; something is eventually done. But the situation for individuals seeking to secure their rights in a hurry is fuzzier.
The trouble is that, if the guarantees are not enforceable by law, they will be weak; but if they are, they may lead to an orgy of litigation.
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