Written and published before Kwasi Kwarteng’s Chancellor’s statement on 23 September, this article explains the background to the mini-budget and the financial convulsions that followed. It argues that a serious and credible plan for growth can’t be reduced to tax-cutting. It goes on to contend that successive governments have failed to appreciate the scale of the economic task at hand. And that is a cultural failing as much as anything.

This failing has three key elements. First, policymakers are plagued by an intellectual shallowness, which underplays the depth of the economic challenges. Second, they adopt a fatalistic approach to economic developments, which underestimates the capacity of the state to change things. And third, the political class has evaded responsibility, with governments repeatedly recoiling from making the decisions needed to bring about an economic renaissance.

Read the full article here.