Mutual back slapping

摘要

I went to a revivalist meeting recently. You know, one of those events where a preacher gets the audience going, members of the audience get up to speak - with growing passion - about how their lives have been transformed, and then another, higher preacher, comes to the podium to thank the Lord for all of this and tell us that if we repent, we too can reach the Promised Land. This event, however, was not a religious event but the launch of a report from the grandly-named 'Mutuals task force', a government-created body which is all about trying to encourage spin-outs, in the shape of mutuals, from the public sector.