There is such a thing as a “public service ethos” and the young have it in spades, the British Social Attitudes survey has found.

Furthermore, the sense among people who work in the public sector that their job is useful to society has not only survived, but thrived since the introduction during the Blair years of a series of private sector practices, such as performance management; targets, choice; performance-related pay; and contracting out, according to Peter John, a politics professor at Manchester university.