Yesterday's Throne Speech opened with a quotation from Thomas Jefferson.

There's nothing wrong with that: The Founding Father who draughted the United States Constitution and laid the foundations for the young nation is often quoted by those who wish to associate themselves with his democratic ideals.

But the "American Sphinx" was also a politician, and could therefore be purposely vague, thus allowing modern politicians of all stripes to use his words to suit their own purposes.

Thus in the Throne Speech quotation, Jefferson emphasises the need for a wise and frugal government, (which could mean cutting spending, but does not actually say how frugal a government should be), "which shall restrain men from injuring one another" (which could mean being tough on crime, or could meanusing moral persuasion), "shall leave them free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement (which might mean less Government interference) and "shall not take from the mouth of labour the bread it has earned" (which could mean tax cuts, but could also mean pay raises for workers).

In spite of that, if the quotation was supposed to lay out guiding principles for the rest of yesterday's Speech, it fails. The Speech is a patchwork quilt of legislation and policies, some necessarily reacting to recent events (a law will give the Health Minister the power to intervene in the hospital fee dispute between insurers and doctors and government will set up a separate school for special needs students), others moving the Island forward in line with international agreements (environmental legislation protecting rare species of animals and birds) and a few showing new thinking, some of it welcome (expanding CURE surveys to include nationality and gender) and some of debatable value (the sounds-good-but-hard-to-enforce Parental Responsibility Act).

The speech also contains one or two poorly thought out ideas, notably a plan to get rid of individual school boards and instead have single school boards for primary, middle and secondary schools. This will supposedly result in greater utilisation of resources between schools and a "holistic approach to school governance".

This perfectly awful idea flies in the face of previous PLP policy and will simply centralise control of schools by the Department of Education, an idea only a civil servant could love.

There are empty promises too, notably one of new laws "to better address serious offences involving the use of weapons". Left out entirely is what the amendments are or just how they will "address" the problem.

The speech is not all bad. Government promises to introduce international certification for technical occupations which should reduce shoddy and unprofessional work. It also promises recognised industry standards for people in the hospitality industry, which may improve the quality of service in the industry.

Another initiative that may improve service and standards across the board is the plan to bar discrimination against people who wish to continue to work on the basis of their age. While care must be taken with this initiative, it is welcome, at least in principle.

So, like most other Throne Speeches, the current one is a laundry list of good, bad and humdrum initiatives. But it has little to do with Jefferson's thinking, and will disappoint those who were hoping the final year of this Parliament would see genuine efforts to tackle problems in the Housing Corporation, the rising cost of health care, continued weakness in the economy, higher educational standards and the myriad other problems that the Island faces.