In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” So spoke Ronald Reagan, the greatest US president in modern history; it was music to the ears of Lady Thatcher, herself our greatest post-war prime minister. They became friends and soul mates, making it their mission to unleash enterprise, cut taxes, privatise industries and empower families.

Fired up on the ideas of libertarian economists, they understood that the domestic problems of the day – weak growth, crippling unemployment and generalised decline – were the fault of misguided government intervention. Their supply-side medicine worked wonders, unleashing a wave of entrepreneurship and a popular, aspirational property-owning democracy.

Thirty years later, free-market ideas are in retreat. The drift began well before the financial crisis, and was at first camouflaged by the ongoing march of globalisation, technology and consumerism. New Labour increased spending and intervention; likewise George W Bush, who also subsidised sub-prime mortgages; central bankers injected moral hazard into everything; and David Cameron introduced new workers’ rights, property levies and environmental rules. He increased far more taxes than he cut and bashed bankers. Sir John Major’s government was the last to make, if falteringly, the case for markets, competition and choice; and Michael Howard was the last Tory leader to advocate capitalism.