The sense that Britain isn’t working anymore has too many facets to shrug off as undue gloom and doom, as the current government tries to do. The significant thing about all the shocks that have hit Britain’s economy in recent years is its relative lack of resilience. Compared to its developed peers, Britain has been less able to cope with external blows, and been slower to pull through.

Why is the British economy stuck in this rut? The historical economic explanation is not hard to fathom. Britain’s peculiar decrepitude is founded upon a greater dependence on aged capital in both the public and private sectors. But this historic atrophy in production and wealth creation doesn’t explain why so little political effort has gone into attempting to shake up its unusually outdated structures. Specifically, why has Britain’s political class of all stripes been so reluctant to make the hard choices needed for a better future?

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