Hurrah for David Blunkett. He and he alone has appreciated the farthest-reaching implications of the highly successful Hutton report. The system which so smoothly convicted the entire BBC is to be applied to every criminal in the country. Did I say criminal? I meant, suspected criminal. Anyone who might one day be a criminal.Probably.

The Home Secretary wants to try suspected terrorists — that is, people who might, on the balance of probabilities, commit terrorist acts in future — in secret, prosecuted and defended by government-appointed lawyers presided over by a government-appointed judge, using evidence the defendants themselves would not be allowed to see.

Marvellous stuff. A Blunkett ban on justice. The punters will love it, especially once they realise that it will mostly apply to Muslims. And they will continue to love it until the day that “Blunkett’s law”, the precedent firmly established, is extended to other crimes and they find themselves banged up after a secret hearing, because according to their demographic profile they might, one day, commit a crime.

It is for the professionals — in this instance, lawyers — not the public, to recognise the farther-reaching implications of a policy. The time is well overdue to reassert a truth most unfashionable to acknowledge: that the public do not necessarily know what is best for them. And the Labour Government, constantly seeking to pander to the man on the street (or the newspaper headline writer) needs to recognise this fact most urgently of all, because it goes to the heart of its attempt to reform public services.

“Choice” and “empowerment” are the buzzwords of public service reform. In a speech last week which was overshadowed by the Hutton inquiry, Tony Blair set out his objectives for the “next stage” of reform — putting the public at the heart of public services: “It is only by truly transferring power to the public through choice, through personalising services, through enhanced accountability, that we can create the drivers for continuous improvement in all our services.”

But the NHS, for instance, cannot afford to offer everybody a personalised service. It is only by being a bog-standard, though on the whole adequate, service that the NHS has been able to flourish. It needs to be mediocre; just about acceptable, and no more.

I do not want to pay for your desire to have 55 unnecessary tests because you get occasional headaches. If you were in America, you would have them — and it would cost you. But it wouldn’t make you any healthier. Average life expectancy in the US is 80.2 years for women, 74.5 for men. In the UK it is 80.8 years for women, 75.3 for men, even though Americans pay about half as much again per head for health care as we do.

Nor do I really want to subsidise those “child health” clinics at the GP’s surgery, where mothers spend entire mornings weighing and measuring their babies and asking worried questions of their health visitors.

You, on the other hand — I do want you to pay for my daughter’s 85,000 visits to the GP surgery for vaccinations. And I want to arrange them for 8.30am or at the weekend, not at midday on Thursday, thanks.

Offer a free service and the public will freely use it. We are starting to understand, said the Prime Minister in his speech, “that service-users with high expectations and the power to choose and to be heard are the best drivers of further improvement”. But put a patient in the driving seat and he will take himself off to hospital, stopping at NHS Direct, a walk-in centre and the GP’s surgery en route. There are six million calls to NHS Direct each year, yet it has had no appreciable impact on demand for GPs or accident and emergency departments. Offer people more and they take more. And it won’t improve their health either; more likely, they will worry themselves sick.

The Government should stop encouraging the public to act like mini-terrorists and accept that it is part of its job to tell us all what to do. Either that, or accept the principle that those who want personalised services should be prepared to pay extra to get them.

Yesterday, Mr Blair specifically ruled out co-payment — the imposition of upfront charges — in the core public services, schools and the NHS. At the same time he protested that it was impossible to have a debate about policy because as soon as an idea was floated, people treated it as though it were a Bill winging its way down the Mall about to be signed and sealed. Yet co-payment, in the NHS anyway, was one of the very areas No 10 was examining for the future. After reading a few headlines, who has ruled it out? Mr Blair.

This Mr Blair is everywhere, giving everybody what they want. I saw him on Newsnight the other night, facing stroppy queries about tuition fees from students. I watched him fielding questions at a press conference at No 10 three weeks ago, and charming MPs yesterday. He is at the House of Commons almost daily, answering questions, giving statements, opening debates.

And still they demand more. More inquiries, greater openness, more answers. The same principle applies. Giving people — be they MP, journalist, student or patient — what they want doesn’t work. It is never enough. The Government should simply say, stop. We govern. You kick us out of office at the next election if you want to.

For government is about not giving people what they want, as much as it is about pandering to the whims of a backbench MP, a worried mother or a focus group in Surbiton. The voter as consumer is a childish and bolshie creature: alternately demanding and complaining. Give a little more and he asks a little more. Offer him something free and he will, like a dog, help himself until he makes himself sick. And now, look, he is sick of Mr Blair.

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