(Photo: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

This is the period when the politicos of each party decamp to different parts of the country for their annual conferences.

For the leader, whether Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn, these events can have a nightmarish quality. It certainly brings back memories for me.

The ‘big speech’ is a work that can take weeks and months and can go well or badly — as I well remember.

What is striking to me though is how while Brexit is understandably the focus of almost total political and media attention, under that surface, big change is afoot.


In my party conference speech as leader in 2011, I talked about different companies as ‘predators’ and ‘producers’. It was seen as pretty controversial, many said ‘anti-business’, including some in my party.



Fast forward to 2018 and this seems an accepted part of public debate, with Theresa May talking about the burning injustices of the country when she became prime minister and now capping energy prices.

Another sign of this widespread acceptance of the need for change was the reaction to the Commission on Economic Justice, a report released by a think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, last month.

It was a bold piece of work which made radical suggestions including taxing wealth and work on the same basis, the inclusion of workers on company boards and a new national investment bank. Yet what is remarkable is not just the level of ambition in the report but who has shaped it and who has welcomed it.

Spearheaded by the Archbishop of Canterbury with a board that consisted of business and financial leaders, trade unions, entrepreneurs, community organisers and others, the commission was a mosaic of the political spectrum and civic society.

Finally, 10 years after the financial crisis, it feels like the winds of change are blowing through the establishment.

In an article for the Daily Mail, the Archbishop said that ‘…it is evident for many people that the economy is not working. It no longer fulfils the promise of better living standards.’

‘Now is the time for the whole country – and all political parties – to come together around an agenda of economic reform. Making the economy fairer will benefit us all.’

The Archbishop has long been a champion of social justice and tackling poverty but the fact that a new economic consensus, similar in scale of that which we saw in 1945 and 1979, is not only desired but absolutely required is evidence of a significant shift in the public and political debate.

(Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Enter Jim O’Neill, the former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and former Conservative government minister.

I am on a commission on social housing run by the housing charity Shelter with Jim and have got to know him in the last few months. But even I was surprised by his piece in the Financial Times.

He wrote that, ‘dealing with the UK’s deep-seated economic problems requires sustained thinking and attention, not just occasional lip service. The Labour Party has stepped into the vacuum left by the government and appears to be offering the radical change that people seek.’

My point is less about his surprising praise for Labour and more about what it says about the atmosphere of the moment.



Even the Daily Mail said it found ‘much to welcome’ in the IPPR report and the Financial Times said, ‘it is right to worry about the social impact of many employees — particularly those on casual contracts — feeling excluded by a winner-takes-all economy. The UK’s poor productivity record and relatively low rate of public and private investment in innovation also damages its chances of competing with other countries.’

So could we be seeing a big shift in our politics?

We can’t be sure but what I think is really happening is that the politicians are catching up with the public. People have been clear for a long time about the problems they see in their own lives – stagnant wages, worries about the chances of the next generation, gaping divides in income and wealth and some businesses with terrible practices.

Politics and business has been very slow to cotton on. But finally it does seems to be happening. That’s got to be a good thing.

There is a connection to Brexit. What I heard in the referendum, particularly from those who voted Leave, was not just concerns about immigration and Europe but also a deep sense that the country needs to change and start working for more people.

Finally, 10 years after the financial crisis, it feels like the winds of change are blowing through the establishment in the debate about the way our country is run.

Just like in 1945 when the post-war Labour government set the agenda, and in 1979 when Mrs Thatcher did, the future will be shaped by those with the greatest ambition, boldness and understanding of the changes that are now required.


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