For me, the key extract from the Prime Minister's speech today on reforming our Public Services..
"the scale of this coalition’s ambitions for Britain goes beyond simply fixing our economy. I want one of the great achievements of this Government to be the complete modernisation of our public services.
I want us to make our schools and hospitals among the best in the world.
To open them up and make them competitive, more local and more transparent.
To give more choice to those who use our public services and more freedom to the professionals who deliver them.
I don’t want anyone to doubt how important this is to me.
My passion about this is both personal and political.
Personal because I’ve experienced, first hand, how dedicated, how professional, how compassionate our best public servants are.
The doctors who cared for my eldest son, the maternity nurses who welcomed my youngest daughter into the world, the teachers who are currently inspiring my children all of them have touched my life, and the life of my family, in an extraordinary way and I want to do right by them.
And this is a political passion – and priority – of mine too.
I believe that Britain can be one of the great success stories of the new decade.
We have the creativity and the energy, the language and the global position, the relationships abroad and the stability at home, to make the most of the opportunities that globalisation is bringing.
One of the keys to success for countries like ours will be the performance of our public services.
We must champion excellence – and stop the slide against our competitors.
In Shanghai the average child is two years ahead of a child here.
In Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria and Poland you are less likely to die once admitted into hospital after a heart attack.
Put simply: we can’t be a modern success story unless we have modern, successful public services.
And this is not an alternative to dealing with our debts – it’s a key part of it."
