Writing a book with a provocative title has its risks. In This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain I argue that the government must escape the serial mistakes of the past 45 years of trying to shrink the state and promote a self-organising market. The aim is unworkable in theory and practice, engendering a series of disasters ranging from monetarism to the Truss budget.
Instead, Britain must strike out anew. The project must be a high-investment, high-productivity economy. The state does not crowd out business investment: public investment crowds it in. Inequality and social division are not prices worth paying for growth; they actively impair it. The mission should be to build a “we society”, incorporating not just an income safety net but decent housing, nutrition, transport and provision of health and social care, ladders of opportunity and the creation of a purpose-driven, innovative stakeholder capitalism. An agile state would lead the charge.
