We now stand at about 20th, near the bottom of the OECD league, with average incomes 20 per cent adrift of even middle-ranking countries like Australia, Sweden, and Ireland. We are capable of reversing the trend but there are few certainties, no quick fixes, and no guarantees. Governments cannot simply push a button labelled “high growth”, and no one will gift growth to us.
Some things we know work; others we suspect might. But in other areas, we simply have no idea whether we are hurting or helping (or neither) the cause of growth. Often it seems that the pre-conditions for growth are laid down across decades, perhaps centuries. If so, they are hard to lose, but also hard to gain.