ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
The Reinvention of Britain 1960-2016
by Scott Newton
(Routledge, £23.99)
IN 1945, Labour introduced a programme of full employment, public ownership and the welfare state. A brave new world of economic expansion and renewal, it was interrupted by problems of inflation, the adverse balances of international payments and the runs on sterling which continued under later Tory governments.
Those problems continued under the Labour government of Harold Wilson, which in 1964 put the accent on planning and supply side reforms. But the aim of increased growth of 25 per cent up to 1970 was a target not achieved.
IAN LAVERY MP warns that decades of neoliberal policies have left former industrial communities behind — but a renewed Labour commitment to working people could change the political landscape
Friedrich Merz’s call for a new Plaza Accord ignores how Washington’s 1985 currency ambush destroyed Japan without fixing US deficits — China, a sovereign socialist state with 1.4 billion consumers, cannot be bullied the same way, writes CARLOS MARTINEZ
If the government really wanted to address public finances, improve living standards and begin economic recovery, it would increase its borrowing for investment, argues MICHAEL BURKE



