When Gordon Brown announced the biggest bung in history to 'invest' in the improvement of public services, we sighed sorrowfully and predicted that 70 percent would be wasted without showing visible improvement. Now it seems the public has come round. The latest YouGov poll shows large majorities who think the same. The think tank Reform has played a key role here. No doubt we will continue to read politoins telling us that all is well; but we know it isn't.

The expensive lesson is that the system has to change. You cannot provide decent, efficient services centrally financed and directed. They will be captured by producers and vested interests. They will be over-bureaucratized, inefficient and insensitive. Consumer choice, by way of education vouchers and health passports, could bring in some competition and efficiency by making the producers independent. But these are halfway houses.

The model that works is probably one which allows people to seek their own provision for these services, via savings accounts or insurance schemes, and which concentrates the state's role to ensuring that no-one is denied decent services because of poverty. It has cost us huge tax increases, and an erosion of Britain's competitive position to learn that lesson.