Where there is need, front line staff like doctors and nurses are underpaid, relative to what they should receive, and where there isn’t, a whole host of people are well paid.
There is a lot of rhetoric about boosting vocational training, but we need to do more to deliver it in practice.
There was an old-fashioned outbreak of class war, and the Deputy Prime Minister found himself on the losing side.
There is nothing for productivity growth, ageing, minimum wage hikes, tailoring care to individual needs, or councils’ incentives to build more homes.
Debates around this issue are conducted as if it were politicians’ own money at stake rather than taxpayers’.
No fuel duty rises, self-employed taxes, income tax rises, more taxes on food and drink – and the like.
The Government can avoid worsening it. But that requires as bold a deviation from ordinary policy as the extraordinary relief efforts we saw before.
Measuring people’s incomes needs to be part of measuring progress – but we need to be careful, because different measures give different results.
As the Prime Minister said, many people have lent us their vote, and they won’t be so generous next time if we get it wrong.
A new Conservative Government will need to transform the economy. It remains to be seen whether this be done with a majority based on northern, post-industrial Britain.
“Now I want a nice clean game from all of you” – so said Madam Hooch in Harry Potter. The reality is, it’s not going to happen.
It’s a bit like the roof of Parliament’s Westminster Hall: which is held up by a lot of huge, ancient beams all resting on each other.
Bowman and Westlake’s policy ideas are perfectly compatible with this end, but pitching them as a city and town agenda risks creating a false impression.
The Conservative Party could become the natural home for the urban working class if it revived these towns, David Skelton argues in his new book.