William Hague last night pledged a Conservative government to succeed in revitalising schools and hospitals where Labour has so far failed - by combining extra state funds with growing freedom from state management or provision.
In a vision which conjured up a restoration of the pre-war patchwork of "free" schools and hospitals as well as universities and museums freed from government control, the Conservative leader argued that "monopoly provision by huge bureaucratic providers cannot work".
To overcome the handicaps of "central planning and monopoly supply" - which are strangling schools and the NHS with paperwork, he said - Mr Hague would create a new class of school, financed by the state but owned or managed privately.
He was more cautious about NHS provision, a notoriously dangerous territory for Tory politicians. He said there would be "no privatisation, no retreat to a core service, no compulsory health insurance", but made it equally plain that private hospitals and voluntary insurance will be encouraged, not least via tax breaks.
It was enough to prompt a vicious Labour response in what will be a crucial election battleground this spring.
The Treasury's chief secretary, Andrew Smith, insisted: "No one will believe Tory promises on public services when they won't tell the truth about their hidden agenda to privatise and cut public services. Their privatisation agenda for the NHS is exposed by their determination to force people to take out insurance instead of using the NHS. Their agenda for pensions is exposed by their plan to destroy the basic state pension through privatisation."
But Mr Hague was undeterred yesterday. He argued that he was not seeking to vilify public sector workers in the row over poor services. Instead he would create public/private partnerships involving public sector workers.
In a speech to the Politeia thinktank in London the Tory leader claimed that schools, the police and the NHS were in "an almost permanent state of crisis" under Labour because ministers had not grasped that "greater public service investment is necessary, but not sufficient, to improve the quality of provision".
