Jonathan Todd

This is my contribution to the new Pragmatic Radicalism publication.

Politicians of all parties claim to favour rebalancing the economy; whether this is rebalancing from the public sector towards the private sector; from domestic consumption to exports; from finance towards manufacturing; or from London and the South towards the North and Midlands. These various kinds of rebalancing all enjoy broad political support but these consensuses risk being as glib as saying that all mainstream British politicians believe in, say, liberty. They mask deeper complexities and challenges, which must be overcome to achieve meaningful economic rebalancing. Labour should seek policies which will enable this, as well as language and demeanour that will allow us to reap the political benefit of tapping into the popular desire for a less financial-centric society and economy. We should, however, focus on the substantive issues and avoid puerile bashing of bankers. Let’s consider in turn each kind of rebalancing.

Rebalancing from the public to the private sector

The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) predicts that by the end of this parliament there will be 1.5 million more people working in the private sector and 400,000 fewer in the public sector. The political and economic strategy of the Government largely depends upon something of this order coming about. While their cuts are faster and deeper than is prudent, it is not inconceivable that extremely lax monetary conditions – rock bottom interest rates and quantitative easing – and a low pound allow something approximating to the OBR prediction to become real. Equally, there are many reasons why it may not; not least on-going instability in the eurozone.

It would be as unwise for Labour to be wholly pessimistic about the prospects for private sector recovery as it would be for the UK to gloat about troubles in the eurozone. Labour has to be the party of optimism, which should include being optimistic about the ingenuity of business, particularly if the Bank of England contains its fear of inflation and doesn’t raise interest rates too rapidly. Labour must avoid the perception that we see fiscal stimuli as the only motor of growth and monetary and exchange rate conditions as irrelevant. We should also acknowledge, through a credible deficit reduction programme, that a key reason for deficit reduction being important is that it reduces upward pressure on interest rates.

Part of this programme should involve a shift in the tax base to sharpen incentives towards hard work. This means less tax on income and more on wealth. A land tax could form part of this transition. It would do something to dampen the British tendencies towards property speculation and bubbles. It might also form part of a Labour drive towards tax simplification. Because taxation of land is simple it would be difficult to avoid. Labour could win friends from UK Uncut to the CBI with a considered drive towards tax simplification. UK Uncut should appreciate simplifications that make tax harder to avoid and the CBI should value simplifications that support economic growth. A land tax offset by reductions in taxation on employment would reduce the capacity of the rich to avoid taxation and increase the extent to which everyone keeps the fruits of their hard work. Tax simplification should not be owned by the right. It should be part of Labour’s arguments for rebalancing from the public and private sectors.   

Rebalancing from domestic consumption to exports

The global recession has demonstrated the utility of exchange rate and monetary flexibility and vindicated the decision to keep the UK out of the Euro. It is far from certain, however, that policy thus far has successfully contained the banking and fiscal crisis in the eurozone. Given the importance of eurozone growth to UK growth, the UK should play a constructive role in arriving at such policy, while not confusing our responsibilities with those which properly belong with eurozone members. As debates about the future of the Euro and the EU are disentangled – or, as has been more the case to date, conflated – British interests are ill-served by the chair left vacant at the negotiating table by David Cameron.

The prime minister has been eager to champion trade with the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and bored by Europe. Not realising the connection between the BRICs and the EU. In 2009 Ireland’s 4.5 million people accounted for more UK exports than the BRIC countries combined. It should be an economic priority for the UK to deepen our comparative advantages with the expanding middles classes of the BRICs. The development of these countries does much to explain the expectation of Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered, that the global economy will at least double in size between now and 2030.[1] However, the extent to which the UK benefits from this development depends on how quickly we advance trade with the BRICs. We need an EU that is recalibrated towards adaptation to a global economy that is increasingly driven by Asia. Cameron is too scared of Bill Cash to properly work towards such an EU. His carpet bagging of UK PLC to the BRICs counts for little next to this.

Rebalancing from finance to manufacturing    

We need to be realistic about employment prospects in manufacturing. The UK’s manufacturing sector remains the sixth largest in the world by output but no manufacturing sector in the developed world, even in Germany, a country with a stronger modern manufacturing reputation than us, has been able to avoid a considerable long-term decline in manufacturing employment.

We should not give in to the presumption that finance and manufacturing cannot be complements. We should be asking: what kind of financial sector would be most complementary to manufacturing in particular and the wider economy in general? And how can public policy best encourage such a financial sector?

The objectives set for the Independent Commission on Banking – minimise systematic risk and moral hazard; promote competition in both retail and investment banking – are vital. George Osborne won’t hold the Commission to these objectives. But Labour should. We should also be advocating a financial sector that is as complementary as possible to the wider economy. This argument probably goes beyond the remit of the Commission but the work of the Commission gives Labour a chance to firmly place it within the national debate.

Alongside rock-solid retail banks we need a flourishing of nimble financial services firms that are prepared to provide capital to enterprising SMEs. Such firms must be developed in green manufacturing but they will be more likely to do so if a credible price for carbon can be established. At the moment the carbon price comes from the ineffective EU-ETS. This carbon trading scheme either needs meaningful reform or replacement by a carbon tax. Either approach should be taken forward at the EU level, rather than in the form of the cack-handed move towards a carbon price contained in Budget 2011. Again Cash haunts Cameron.   

Rebalancing from London and the South towards the North and Midlands

As well as having sharp economic disparities between our regions the UK has one of the most centralised political systems in the democratic world. Labour should take ownership of the localism debate with the intention of creating forms of localism that reduce these disparities. This means holding localism proposals to the real localism standards proposed by IPPR – localism be effective and efficient; properly funded; at the heart of a drive for social justice; accompanied by a step-change in the transparency and accountability of local decision-making; and framed within a constitutional settlement between central and local government.[2]

Local government should be where the next generation of Labour leaders and ideas emerge. When we were last in opposition Lambeth was ill governed by Red Ted Knight. Now it pioneers the ground-breaking co-operative model. Liverpool was once troubled by Militant. It should soon have a resonant voice in national policy debates in the form of a Labour mayor. That Andrew Adonis, as Transport Secretary, reports battling to identify the views of great regional cities like Liverpool, while Transport for London made constant demands of him, is indicative of how skewed our national conversation has been.[3]

Regional cities haven’t only lacked voice in national debates. They have also lacked private sector employment. While Brighton and Milton Keynes both grew their private sector jobs bases by 25 per cent between 1998 and 2008, some cities slipped backwards: Stoke (-16 per cent), Blackburn (-12 per cent), Blackpool (-6 per cent).[4] The Government’s response – Enterprise Zones, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and the Regional Growth Fund – is inadequate. The Regional Growth Fund is one quarter the size of the budget for the (now abolished) Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in 2009/10.

The future of funds previously allocated by RDAs has been keenly debated. But these funds account for less than one per cent of total government spending in the regions.[5] Mainstream budgets, such as transport, skills and housing, are much larger. The principles of real localism should be applied to these budgets. The interface between LEPs and mayors remains to be worked out but the real localism case for devolving mainstream budgets to mayors, given their transparency and accountability, seems stronger than to LEPs.

Irrespective of whether it is to mayors or LEPs that mainstream budgets are devolved it is imperative that these resources are allocated to maximum incremental impact. This means working with the grain of markets, ironing out market failures and only intervening where there is a clear rationale for doing so. That many of these markets are global, both underlines the interconnectedness between the domestic and global economies and the scale of the challenge facing policy makers who are seeking to achieve on much reduced resources objectives that often proved sadly illusive during the New Labour boom. Yes, the resources available in the boom years were not always as well targeted as they could have been. Yes, real localism hasn’t been applied before and should enable better targeting. Nonetheless, it remains the case that politicians eulogise economic rebalancing, due to its popularity with voters, without acknowledging that it often runs contrary to the underlying drivers of our economy or facing up to the tough policy choices that will be required to make it more of a reality.

Conclusion

Voters are strikingly confused as to what Labour stands for.[6] Economic rebalancing, in every sense, given the ineffectual policy, lip service and lack of resources provided by the Government, can be a policy area commanded by Labour, in which we find new expression of our values of equality and fairness. But it raises many challenges, which the party’s policy review should seek to navigate. Only by rising to these challenges will Labour be able to move beyond the dismal record of politicians over-promising and under-delivering on economic rebalancing.

While the country almost aches for politicians capable of doing better than this, Labour will need to be bold reformers of both state and market to be these politicians. Applying real localism principles to mainstream budgets and fully realising the promise of mayors would, for example, be profound reforms of the state. Reforming the financial sector to make it as complementary as possible to the wider economy is as far reaching a reform of the market. Nothing less than such thoroughgoing state and market transformations will be needed for the UK to prosper in an increasingly Asian age.

I wrote this recently for Labour Uncut.

“Pause, listen, reflect and improve”. That’s what David Cameron and Nick Clegg said they were going to do on the NHS bill. Most people know what these words mean. Cameron and Clegg don’t seem to, though.

The only thing that Clegg now reflects upon is how he can shore up his position as Liberal Democrat leader. With Chris Huhne and Tim Farron, two would-be assassins, both playing to his party’s gallery, he has reason to be worried. He sees the NHS as he now sees everything else: through the prism of his anxiety. For the NHS to relieve this, he needs to come to be seen as the man who saved it. The restorer of sanity subsequent to the Andrew Lansley-induced madness.

He wants “substantial, significant changes” to Lansley’s proposals. But the extraction of compromises is the least of the barriers standing in the way of him being re-born as Mr. NHS. He needs to explain away no Liberal Democrat MP voting against the bill at either first or second reading. Perhaps his MPs followed their whip because they thought the whole thing a Liberal Democrat idea. After all, that’s what Clegg argued not so long ago and, as John Redwood reminded Today listeners, the proposals are consistent with the Liberal Democrat manifesto.

Having broken promises on tuition fees and the depth and speed of cuts, Clegg’s attempt to reposition himself on the NHS bill is supremely opportunistic. Labour needs to expose this manoeuvre for the shallow gesture that it is. Only we have consistently opposed this bill and advocated workable reform in the NHS. The Liberal Democrats must not be allowed to steal our clothes.

Such theft would not be without risk for the prime minister. No government u-turn of such proportions can be without risk for its leader. It is indicative of the pickle into which he has allowed things to descend that Cameron now seems set to open this opportunity up to Clegg, particularly when his personal empathy with the NHS was central to his attempted detoxification of the Tories. Cameron may no longer be the man who loves the NHS if Clegg becomes the man who saved the NHS. It may make the “Thatcherite” label start to stick better on this somewhat Teflon prime minister.

We cannot allow the NHS debate to play out in terms of the politics between the governing parties. We need to make ourselves central to it. Ed Miliband’s speech to the RSA was helpful in this regard. It confirmed that we favour reform that works, not sticking our heads in the sand of the status quo. Our use of Commons debates can further assist.

Miliband is fond of saying “I get it”. The public needs to know that he gets the need to raise NHS productivity to maintain service standards in the context of the cost increases associated with society’s ageing. Obviously, real people don’t speak like this. But they don’t take NHS spending commitments alone to be virility symbols for the extent of a politician’s love for the NHS. They know that what is done with the money matters as much as the amount of money. And they also know that the country isn’t sitting on a bottomless pit of resources to devote to public services, and that tough choices, therefore, have to be made.

People are also worried about their own care and that of relatives, particularly the elderly and young. They want politicians to speak to these worries. But in ways that they consider realistic, given what they understand about the pressures on public expenditure.

The NHS in Cumbria shows that Labour reform works. It now shows that the facts on the ground are changing, even as the Lansley reform is supposedly paused. North Cumbria university hospitals NHS trust is to be taken over by or merged with another trust. This is because the current management has concluded that it cannot meet the strict financial criteria set to achieve the foundation status that the NHS bill requires it meet by 2014. This could well remove control of Cumberland infirmary in Carlisle and West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven from Cumbria – a curious form of localism. Try telling the 9,000 signatories on a petition organised by Labour MPs Tony Cunningham and Jamie Reed to maintain services at West Cumberland that the NHS Bill is paused.

Cumbria isn’t an isolated case. At PMQs recently, Labour’s Debbie Abrahams pointed out that the inception of cluster PCTs, which precede the GP consortia, including the Greater Manchester cluster PCT, was brought forward from 1 June to 3 May. The perception that significant swathes of the Lansley reforms are proceeding apace, irrespective of the pause that is meant to be in place, is encouraged by reports that the 50-strong “listening panel” set up to review them is stuffed with “yes men and women”. And, as the focus of the NHS is distracted, waiting times are rising.

Labour’s ground battle is to resist local changes brought about by the non-pause of the Lansley reforms. Labour’s air battle is to stop Clegg becoming the man who saved the NHS and Cameron being someone who gets the NHS. The war will be won when our policy review shows that not only does the government not have the right reforms, but that we do.

I wrote this recently for Labour Uncut when I was on holiday in the USA.

“I know America to be a forward thinking country because otherwise why would you have let that retard and cowboy fella be president for eight years? We were very impressed. We thought it was nice of you to let him have a go, because, in England, he wouldn’t be trusted with a pair of scissors”.

With such jokes, Russell Brand, as host of the MTV awards, initiated what is becoming an Anglo-American tradition: the cheeky Brit at a major American award ceremony. Ricky Gervais followed up at the Golden Globes this year. These comedians aren’t short of lines ripping George W Bush, but what assurance can we have that the British head of state can be trusted with a pair of scissors? Or even know what scissors are?

We can, of course, have no such guarantee. Birth right determines our head of state, irrespective of their abilities with scissors or other qualities. In contrast, the commander-in-chief is subject to the most gruelling of recruitment procedures. This fundamental difference between our monarchy and their republic convinces me that no matter what wise cracks Brand may make and how many William and Kate themed souvenirs American tourists may buy, ultimately, Americans are laughing at us. The idea of Donald Trump being president is preposterous, but selecting our head of state by birth is infinitely more so.

The royal couple competes with Lady Gaga for coverage in American tabloids. Cat Deeley vomits at the prospect of fronting the US TV coverage of the big event. Such is the nerve inducing size of the audience. Every major US TV and news network had teams in London well in advance. “It’s all so royally romantic”, a CNN anchor cooed.

All of which means they are interested, right? Well, certainly. But largely in the way that museum artefacts fascinate without tremendous contemporary relevance.

Americans are fiercely proud of their constitution. Their forefathers crossed the Atlantic to enact and enjoy its rights. The royal wedding is a throwback to the world they left behind. Not a world they want to return to. They are peering through their TV screens and digital cameras at the crazy Brits. But that doesn’t mean they want to be us or see us as being especially important. Some of them are enticed. All of them are, at core, pitying. We are crazy, after all.

We’re crazier than Arabs who recently seemed so separate and peculiar. Where once the terrain was deemed too arid for freedom and democracy, now Egyptians proclaim the same rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as have always defined Americans. We, on the other hand, remain subjects, not citizens.

The Arab spring is as inspiring as the Gettysburg address, but its outcome remains uncertain and, as with an increasing amount of things, beyond America’s control. America still wants to be the shining house on the hill. But it knows the world is changing. And it is worried.

Whatever else is achieved by William and Kate, they will not encourage the US to see the new allies that they need in the UK. The wedding reinforces the perception that the key global axis no longer exists in the Atlantic but in the Pacific. Europe is ageing, uncompetitive and stuck in a past exemplified by the royal wedding. Asia is rising, assertive and in command of events. Millions of Europeans flocked to Barack Obama even before he was president, but he is deeply pragmatic. He has limited emotional attachment to Europe and wouldn’t allow himself to be distracted by one even if he did.

He might think more of Europe if we were able to punch our weight in military and economic affairs. While the euro threatens to collapse amid its contradictions, European states struggle to muster a credible military response to a crisis happening on the other side of the Mediterranean. Just because the UK isn’t in the euro-zone and is one of the more militarily capable European states (though, one whose military ambitions threaten to outstrip our capacities) doesn’t mean we should congratulate ourselves. Instead of leaving an empty chair at the negotiating table – David Cameron’s style – the UK should be leading in Europe. On Friday, rather than taking such steps as will be necessary to create a Europe fit for the twenty-first century, the prime minister will be eulogising the hereditary principle.

The continued application of this principle distorts what we think of ourselves and what others think of us. So long as it is applied it won’t be possible to bring up children in the UK and truly tell them that they can ascend to any station, nor will others see us as fully engaged in modernity. The Arab word has boldly embraced the future (in spite of our endorsement of the past by having the crown prince of Bahrain attend the Royal wedding). So should we.

I had this on Labour Uncut on the day of the Budget.

The current Spectator cover story claims that Conservatives are as struck by panic as they were in the autumn of 2007 when Gordon Brown seemed set to crush them by calling an election. George Osborne saved their bacon then and they look to him to revive them now. Everyone else is looking at Libya. Hence, the impact of the budget will be dimmed. But Osborne will try to pull a big enough rabbit out of his hat to wrest attention away from the middle east.

Osborne doesn’t begrudge Libya coverage, obviously; particularly not if it leads to his boss being seen as a competent and brave war leader. If – and clearly this is a massive if – a stable post-Gaddafi Libya emerges, then the earlier shambles will be largely forgotten and David Cameron will gain kudos, which will make him harder to dislodge from Downing Street. The resignation of Lord Carrington did little to dent the boost that the Falklands war gave Margaret Thatcher at the 1983 general election.

Osborne’s rabbit isn’t intended to divert eyes from Libya or the spotlight from Cameron. It will seek to disorientate Labour and have our leaders confuse tactics with strategy. Fiscal constraints limit the cards in play, but the cards available are all held by Osborne. He knows that he can use them to establish dividing lines that will set the terms of debate. He was as keen a student of Gordon Brown as either Ed Balls or Ed Miliband.

Both of whom will know that the biggest sting is likely to come in the tail of Osborne’s delivery. That’s how Brown used to do it. This way the respondent has least time to calibrate his rebuttal. Osborne pulled this trick last October when his concluding remarks on the spending review contained these words:

“The average saving in departmental budgets will be lower than the previous Government implied in its March budget. Instead of cuts of 20 per cent there will be cuts of 19 per cent over four years”.

This is an eye-catching claim. David Cameron subsequently went on a similar manoeuvre at PMQs. Both were too clever by half.

First, it undermines the strongest Tory attack line: Labour created the deficit and has no plan for addressing it. Labour must have a plan if Osborne is cutting departmental budgets by less than our plan. Shadow ministers should jump at the chance to forcefully make this point whenever ministers afford them the opportunity.

Second, like many eye-catching claims, it is too good to be true. “Gord bless him” was the response immediately after the 2007 budget. But the more the details were picked through, especially the abolition of the 10p tax rate, the less this was the case. The lesson: play it straight. Don’t let your rhetoric outpace the reality. Be open about the trade-offs and the reasoning driving how they have been approached. All of this is especially true in our post-expenses, hyper-cynical times. And it is as important for oppositions as it is for governments.

Cameron has already stupidly supersized his rhetoric: “the most pro-growth budget in a generation”. Such bluster from a prime minister is as much use to a chancellor as Ricky Hatton’s mum shouting “hit him, Ricky” at the ringside. “I never thought of that, Mum”, Ricky later reflected. Osborne may now think similar of Cameron and ruefully so, given that his ability to impact growth is closer to that shown by Hatton when knocked out by Manny Pacquiao than in securing a famous victory against Kostya Tszyu.

Balls might have out-boxed the Hatton beaten by Pacquiao, but we shouldn’t mistake Osborne for such a reduced opponent. Osborne is a smarter operator than Michael Gove, whom Balls so pummelled as shadow education secretary. There will be no missteps. Only precision targeted hits. Irrespective of the current Spectator cover story, the next edition, along with much of the rest of the press, will eulogise him. The rabbit will entice.

The trick for Labour will be to not let it distract. Chasing the rabbit is mere tactics. We should be all strategy. Both Douglas Alexander and Jim Murphy define our strategic objectives as a draw on the deficit and a win on growth. I would go further: securing a draw on the deficit is a precondition of avoiding defeat on growth.

Osborne thinks he has won the deficit debate, wants to close it and shift the focus to growth. He declares his actions last year a “rescue mission”, which necessitate no further cuts or tax rises this year. Yet the cuts largely haven’t hit. And it will be more redundancy than rescue when they do.

We can’t let Osborne have a win on the deficit. He pretends that the only choice is his approach to tackling the deficit or not tackling the deficit at all. We only defeat this by having a credible alternative. This demands unflinching straight-forwardness from us that, while they can be better managed than they are being by Osborne, cuts are unavoidable.

Effectively neutralising the deficit debate requires that we don’t go into the growth debate pushing more government as the answer. We need something more nuanced. This might mean a national investment bank or other carefully argued reforms. But it has to be about good Labour reform versus bad Tory reform, not unaffordable Labour spending versus Tory reform.

I had this on Labour Uncut today.

The longer Gordon Brown was prime minister, the harder it became, sadly, to picture him in post at the 2012 Olympics. His purchase on the future evaporated. Ed Miliband has to recover this to return to government. He has to convince that he has the answers to the challenges of 2015 and beyond. And personify these answers.

While his speech to the resolution foundation looked towards this, the past is always knocking incessant, trying to break through into the present. As Jim Murphy told the progress political school, in politics, the past is always the context, the future the contest. The spectre of Iraq hangs over Libya. The fiscal management of the last government colours arguments about the approach of this. In many areas – NHS, schools, welfare and, increasingly, foreign affairs – David Cameron presents himself as more heir to Blair than a return to the 1980s. Labour begs to differ. The public is uncertain.

What is not in doubt, however, is that the past has to be overcome to own the future. The 1997 victory couldn’t happen until Labour had outrun the shadow of its discontented winter. Tory detoxification hadn’t removed the stench of Thatcherism before 2010. That foul odour now emanates from Number Ten, in spite of Cameron needing Nick Clegg’s help to limp over the finishing line of the general election.

Cameron has hired a head of strategy, Andrew Cooper, who was convinced of the need to detoxify the Tories before he was. Cooper is determined to now complete this long march. Only when this journey has ended, liberal Tories like Cooper think, will a Tory majority come. Mainstream Tories, such as Tim Montgomerie, less abashed by association with Thatcher, disagree.

Clegg now blocks the route that Cooper wants to pursue. It will be difficult to avoid the narrative that anything progressive done by the government is a consequence of the Lib Dems. These actions would serve only to prop up Clegg, not detoxify the Tories.

So long as Margaret Thatcher is held in such low regard in the northern seats that the Tories need to form a majority, mainstream Toryism cannot own the future. Equally, liberal Toryism is compromised by the Lib Dems claiming any of their victories as their own. Mainstream Tories and liberal Tories may battle for the soul of Cameron and their party, but these factors mean that neither is capable of owning the future.

It doesn’t have to be this way for Ed Miliband. But, first, we have to move beyond our past. Voters felt, as Fiona MacTaggart conceded at conference last year, that we were “taking their money and giving it to people who are taking the piss”. This is no prospectus upon which to form a government.

Labour canvassers rarely field complaints that we let the state get too big. This isn’t how people tend to conceptualise things. The Tory charge of profligate Labour spending still stings, though, because too many people feel Labour took too much of their squeezed wages in taxation, with too little improvement in public services to show for it, while being too generous with those unprepared to graft as they do (namely, some welfare recipients and, less fairly, immigrants).

James Purnell argues that Miliband can neuter the Conservatives’ attack that Labour is spendaholic by committing that no new Labour policy will involve additional spending. He claims that this would redefine the political battleground. Rather than being reform versus spending, it would be good reform versus bad reform. The story of the Cumbrian NHS exemplifies the virtues of Labour reform over Tory reform. Such arguments have to be taken on and won.

Labour reform enables more to be done for less, which is integral to being fluent on the deficit, as is a compelling plan for economic growth. However, the economic argument isn’t simply about fiscal management and growing GDP, but raising wages unchanged in real terms since 2005. The biggest long-term challenges that the country faces – earning our way in an Asian century, decarbonisation, ageing, banks both too big to fail and save – are all bound up with this most bread and butter of issues.

More immediate changes can help: tax incentives to encourage wider payment of the living wage and use of smart meters; more advocacy of the kind that saw consumer focus earn households a £70m rebate in the week before it was callously axed. However, the squeeze is intimately connected with the advance of globalisation and the failure of public policy to keep pace.

To be social democratic is to be condemned to optimism about capacity for improvement. Yet, as a country, we are far from having found the policies to grasp all the opportunities and meet all the challenges of an ever more Asian-powered globalisation.

Ed Miliband needs such policy, and ways to present it that are doorstep-ready. The big society wasn’t so ready and has become synonymous with small-state Thatcherism. It is now a rhetorical cul-de-sac for Cameron. Miliband cannot, however, own the future by default.

Only when his blank pages are filled with policy that escapes big government perceptions and paints a believable picture of a Britain at ease in the global age of today and tomorrow will he be able to own the future. This will take time and be no easy task. So long as we are privately advancing in these regards, the right public posture is enough for now.