Starmer’s drive for growth will stand or fall on his willingness to take on the lawyers
Both Labour and Conservatives share the objective of raising the growth rate – and it looks very likely that, on Friday, this challenge will fall to a Labour chancellor.
There is no doubting Rachel Reeves’ commitment to doing this. It makes everything else governments want to do so much easier. By contrast a low-growth environment, where Britain has been stuck since the 2008-9 financial crisis, traps us in a miserable zero-sum game in which extra resources for someone come at the expense of less resource for someone else.
That is the backdrop to public disenchantment with politics and a willingness to embrace wild alternatives on the far left or Right. We have a shared interest in getting growth going.
However, raising the growth rate of a mature democracy is very difficult. It involves far more than common sense and stability.
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