It is strange, not to say surreal, to see Conservatives and Labour switching places on public services.

Suddenly, Tory leader David Cameron is full of praise for civil servants, while Tony Blair is saying that they should be more businesslike, and warning them that future investment is at risk if they are not more "productive".

Bringing it down to local services, more productive would suggest larger class sizes in schools so that teachers can teach more children at the same time.

More productive would suggest that care workers should spend less time with each client, so they can "get round" more people.

Neither social care services nor education can be run like businesses.

The Prime Minister could help us all by with removing some of the plethora of Government-imposed targets and performance indicators that mean that we at County Hall spend nearly as much time measuring what we do as actually doing it.

Zo Patrick (Councillor), Leader, Liberal Democrats, Oxfordshire County Council