We have spent a decade asking governments to be exciting. We should try asking them to be reliable.
The best-run public services I have seen are not the ones that make headlines. They are the ones that arrive on time: the bus that comes when it says it will, the permit that is processed in the week promised, the pothole that is filled before it becomes a letter to the editor.
Boring government is not low ambition. It is the ground on which everything else stands. Ambitious plans fail when basic systems do not work, and nothing erodes trust faster than a public service that cannot do the simple things.
So here is a modest proposal for the next election: ask candidates not what they will announce, but what they will fix.
