The government, under Andy Burnham, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, is moving away from the top-down targets that distorted and wasted expenditure even faster than usual. Only thirty will be left. Yet, they could not admit that they were wrong. Instead, Burnham baldly stated that they were all necessary for the first ten years and that decentralisation was a natural evolution. Instead of top down micromanagement, decisions will be devolved to localities and agencies: in a realm of tighter public expenditure?
Yet, this is also a "severe break with the past", shades of Blair's 'radicalism' - say it often enough and it must be so. An interesting form of discourse, where you emphasise continuities (two year exercise, long time in planning, etc) and changes (radical change in direction, Blair, who he?). Burnham was not able to pull off a retreat by Brown from his own mistakes, as the public sector returns to older forms.