Firstly, the beautiful sound of the words 'social contract' being applied to something a bit more multilateral than the old chestnuts about 'rights and responsibilities.' Secondly, there appears to be the first sight of a long-overdue move to kick-start a 'public service movement'.

It means NHS managers, head teachers and business leaders are freed from unnecessary bureaucracy but not from accountability to patients, parents and consumers in their communities of which they are a part.

This can only be read as an appeal to professionalism rather than managerial micromanagement - item one on any post-mortem if-and-when Labour eventually leaves office.

If Labour - the party born of the trade union movement - has one opportunity at the moment, it is to articulate a new social contract - particularly in the field of public service. It's hard to find anywhere for a Labour minister to turn at the moment where they aren't urged to embrace greater transparency, higher standards in public life, a more energetic promotion of participation in policymaking. But none of these suggestions address the key questions that a Labour government has to answer:

Why - in a decade in which we have increased public spending to levels that even leftish critics wouldn't have dared to advocate - do we have a public sector that is enervated, insecure and resentful? Public sector professionals - many of whom had voted Conservative in the past - should be Labour's equivalent of Mrs Thatchers' grateful council-house buyers. A shift back towards professionalism and away from box ticking could save billions, energise what should be Labour's natural constituency, and improve the quality of public service.

A social contract that public sector professionals were invited to shape would be entirely commensurate with Labour's traditional relationship to these workers. They are due an apology, and it's not one that needs to stick in the throats of any Labour minister.