So, PM David Cameron finally stamps his personal vision on government with the open public services White Paper. To be published a week hence, it aims to end what Mr Cameron terms ‘old-fashioned, top-down, take-what-you're-given' public services.

The means for ending state monopoly is an automatic right for private and voluntary sector bodies to bid for public work. In practical terms, this might be considered a 21st century recasting of Margaret Thatcher's drive for compulsory competitive tendering (CCT). Philosophically speaking, it could herald the rebirth of the new public management model (NPM) so beloved of the first-term Reagan administration. To recap, NPM undertook to fragment the Leviathan of state bureaucracy into smaller agencies competing against themselves and private sector suppliers.