◆The Through-Line

Every mechanism in this plan is the same three sentences wearing different clothes. Give before you ask – insurance before interviews, a day-rate before documentation. Buy services, never exclusivity – pay masters like the professionals they are, and let their knowledge go everywhere, because everywhere is the point. Let the business carry succession – a busy stall can pay its own founder's retirement; philanthropy is for the dishes the market forgot.

For the policymaker, this is a rare shape of proposal: high public value, low fiscal exposure, no new powers, self-imposed accountability, and a stream of genuine public moments from enrolment day to the first mortgage signing. For the makan-goer, it is simpler still: the food survives, the people who make it are treated the way their craft deserves, and the morning at 4.50 a.m. gets a successor. Both readers are being offered the same thing. That is the design – and it is deliberately unfinished, because the conversation it joins is meant to change it. The only thing that cannot wait is the clock: a stall can always be re-let; learning from the hand that cooked there cannot wait for ever. Better to begin while Ah Kow is still able to teach, and while John still has the heart to stay.