We won't unlock a 21st century economy with 19th century transport and communications infrastructure. Woeful under-investment in infrastructure over the last 40 years has left too much of Britain already at gridlock at peak times. Our transport infrastructure reflects the imbalances in our national economy: too little long term investment, too much dependence on servicing unsustainable booms in the City, housing, public sector and retail and too little thinking about how we unlock new sources of sustainable economic growth. [read more]

After the pageantry of Tuesday's State occasion, I spotted Tony Blair and Gordon Brown together in the Members' cloakroom. Like the ghosts of Budgets past, their presence was an interesting reminder of how their legacy still dominates the Westminster landscape.

Blair's Wars and Brown's Debts, and the broken trust in politics they dramatically contributed to, are at the heart of the political and economic legacy that they have bequeathed our generation to deal with. [read more]

Something is stirring in the boardrooms of British industry. You heard it at Davos. Peter Mandelson is onto it, and last week Vince Cable joined in. The scale of the structural economic crisis facing the western democracies after the crash of the consumerist boom is driving radical new thinking. [read more]