Learning lessons from policy changes is desirable even if, as in the case of this book which charts New Labour’s English NHS market reforms, it may seem too late to inform the next wave of change. This assumes, of course, that policy makers want to learn lessons. They can be fussy, selective consumers of evidence, cherry picking that which supports their preferences while ignoring inconvenient truths.

In a democracy perhaps this is how it should be because—as the research here shows—evidence is rarely sufficiently robust or uncontested to stand alone as a guide to action. Not that a casual reader would reach this conclusion from Julian Le Grand’s unashamedly smug foreword. Le Grand, a key architect of the NHS reconfigurations when he was adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair, derives immense, misplaced satisfaction from being proved right about the changes …