There is nothing insoluble about Britain's long standing problems of slow growth, high inflation, low investment, high unemployment and fiscal strain. They have not been brought about by uncontrollable forces or historical inevitability, but by misguided policies, themselves the fruit of long established social attitudes and views of the way the world operates, which are substantially at variance with reality. Britain's malaise is, fundamentally, the product of nothing more complicated than misguided views about some comparatively simple macro-economic issues, which anyone can understand when they are explained clearly.

Could any political party implement the changes needed?

The solutions proposed above to Britain's economic problems are largely technocratic in nature. There is thus no reason why they should be the natural prerogative of any particular political party. They are not ideological in a left or right of centre party political sense. Any of Britain's major political parties could implement them, given the conviction and determination to do so.

The benefits to be secured for any of Britain's major political parties from running the British economy far more effectively would be huge. For the Labour Party, there would be particular attractions in getting rid of unemployment, freeing up the government's resources for a far wider range of public initiatives, generating a more even distribution of power and income and a fairer society, and providing the scope for bringing prosperity to all the regions of the country. For the Conservatives, there might be particular appeal in making Britain a much stronger country internationally, providing a much more convincing platform for attracting a revivified business class to the Conservative banner, reducing dependency on the state by providing much better economic opportunities to the population of the country, and producing a more confident and united society where crime and envy ought to be less evident. Of course none of these benefits would be exclusive to any one particular party, and many would be shared by the Liberal Democrats. Any party which, while in power, managed to transform Britain's economic prospects in the ways which now look possible would be in a very strong position to reap a major electoral dividend.

The problems in the way of implementing the policies which Britain so badly needs are not the practicalities of putting them into effect. The major obstacle is the deeply embedded conventional wisdom that the policies which have done so much damage to Britain for so long are still the right ones to pursue, and that no realistic alternatives exist. The challenge, therefore, is to persuade enough people that there are other possibilities, which ought to be debated and explored. They need to be convinced that there is nothing inevitable about Britain's long relative decline which better policies are not capable of reversing, and that the attitudes and relationships which cause such damaging policies to be supported are worth exposing and facing down.