Tories should not be pouring scorn on the benefits of the free market

On this Thursday a year ago, Britain went to the polls in a snap general election whose outcome left Theresa May without a Parliamentary majority. Although the Conservatives won 42.5 per cent of the popular vote, a higher proportion that at any time since the heyday of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, Labour polled 40 per cent, far beyond expectations.

Different lessons have been drawn from this. We argued, both during the campaign and afterwards, that the Tories should have been bolder in espousing the virtues of free markets, competition, low taxes and a smaller state. However, the Left’s malign narrative that rapacious capitalists were plundering the nation’s wealth and keeping the poor in their place was shared, to some extent, by both parties. It still is.

In a speech to the Policy Exchange think tank yesterday, Michael Gove borrowed much of the Left’s language in a lengthy critique of capitalism. Our current model had failed to deliver the progress we all aspire to, he said, though it is doubtful that any economic model could ever be so bountiful.