John Patten admirably has chosen to write a book which looks forward

John Patten, admirably, has chosen to write a book which looks forward. He might have been tempted to write about the past by way of memoir and apologia. He had the combination of talent and unabashed ambition to be the first of the 1979 Tory intake to be made a minister, and was in and out of the Cabinet before he was 50. The loss of office must have been deeply painful, but there is no bitterness here (unless we count a teensy reference to cones hotlines). Things to Come eschews gossip: the publishers have not provided an index, but if there were one it would, I think, contain only one entry for Thatcher, none for Major and two for the President of the Board of Trade. His book 'The Hidden Wiring: Unearthing the British Constitution' will be published by Gollancz in October.. Glittering prizes all, and there for the taking - unless the Cabinet shows that it is indeed of a lesser breed than the political generations that have sat around that table before.The writer is professor of contemporary history at Queen Mary and Westfield College, London.

Similarly, the justifiable concern that has drawn much public activity into an unaccountable patronage state could be substantially eased.Even the esteem in which the public holds our political class might recover. He is quite right.If the Nolan report is implemented in full, a deep pool of public queasiness will be drained. For example, fears that the Civil Service has been politicised and is even more open to contamination now through new performance-related contracts in an increasingly fragmented public service could be allayed - a matter of great significance if the Government does change between now and the spring of 1997. Mr Major will look truly tawdry if he refuses to let the committee have its way should Lord Nolan ask for the removal of this prohibition. The committee should also glide into that most gilded of our secret gardens, the honours system - a patch of our constitutional- cum-patronage terrain were even parliamentary questions are banned.Over a century ago Gladstone declared that the British constitution "presumes more boldly than any other the good sense and good faith of those who work it." Lord Nolan has implicitly accepted that neither can be relied on any longer as the 21st century approaches.

Henceforth standards must be written down, adhered to and monitored.Should the process of inquiry and reform stop here? No. It was plain at the press conference yesterday that the Nolan committee is itching to examine the financing of political parties - which the Prime Minister, so far, has ruled out. The message of Nolan is that the "code of the Woosters" will no longer do. The days of the "good chap" theory of government are gone (when a chap, of either sex, in authority knew how far to go and no further within the vague niceties of constitutional and personal behaviour). But implicitly he did just that, for he did not find in favour of the status quo.

Lord Nolan was too gentlemanly yesterday to accept the argument that standards of conduct in public and political life have fallen. Lord Nolan could not have seized upon the document for embellishment and refinement had it remained secret. If it is reformed and tightened it would amount to a citizens' charter for ministerial conduct, something which might appeal to the Prime Minister.Taken as a whole, the report is more than ministers bargained for. Like Sir William Beveridge in his 1942 report on social security, Lord Nolan has taken his terms of reference and run with them way beyond the expected touchline. Will the Government let him get away with it? If it tries to rein him back, it will certainly receive the same treatment as those who attempted to water down Beveridge in 1943.The Cabinet has no real alternative but to accept the report in full.