Your objections are broadly similar to Polly’s on the night Matthew and, for me anyway, Professor Ringen dealt with them quite well. On the ‘economic consequences of non-Mr Brown’ he seemed to be saying there’s little evidence that New Labour even slowed (let alone reversed) the trends in most of the indicators they deemed important; their trajectory was more or less constant. I think he made the point that 94/04 (spanning two parties in power) saw broad improvement which later slowed – he suggested then a few drivers for this which only had tangential links to New Labour policy post-97 (or Tory policy before that).

His most compelling argument I thought was his critique of Parliament, not least because addressing it requires ‘only’ the will to do so and no legislative change or even popular pressure for change. I’m a PR supporter and I take his point that the efficacy of Parliament is actually independent of that but still feel that collectively Parliament will only summon the will & courage it needs when it’s less hidebound by the party system, whips and all that entails.

Great event though and I’m only sorry being stuck here on the west coast of Scotland means I’m unlikely ever to be able to attend RSA talks in person. Keep up the good work.

p.s. there might be copyright issues etc. but it would be great if you could make the slides speakers use available online as well…?

Now, if you’ve been following the NHS debate over the summer, Andy Burnham has went to great lengths to defend the centralised system and has either slowed (Or stopped? I’m not sure) foundation trusts moving forward.

I think this paucity of ideas as to where to go from here is a recurring and troubling theme – the BBC’s political programmes for example show, in my view, that there are few, if any, compelling visions out there. It’s the same old, tired arguments trotted out again and again.

The only bright light is Wilkinson’s and Pickett’s equality argument and yet their proposals ultimately threaten the status enjoyed by financial and political elites, both of which have shown themselves to be deficient. So, is that actually the core problem: elites are only acceptable when they deliver, for the majority. Surely it is time to ask whether (or how) we can run our affairs without such powerful and self-serving elites?