“And the next time a Labour politician bangs on about Thatcher having destroyed Britain’s manufacturing base, remember this: under new Labour, manufacturing output has contracted by 1.2 per cent every year, down to around 12 per cent of GDP. Britain’s finances were in deep structural deficit before the crisis hit — one reason why, even with aggressive fiscal pump-priming, it has taken Britain longer than any other major economy to start emerging from recession.”

Rosemary Righter