First, put the public finances in order — that’s where Clarkeonomics started

His party hoped that Kenneth Clarke as Chancellor would deliver the elusive ‘feelgood factor’ that would somehow win them the election. When would it come through? ‘2 May 1997,’ he told them. He was right. The election was held and lost on 1 May, his successor got off to a flying start, and the factor stayed with him. It has seen him and his party through two more elections, while his opponents tried in vain to argue that all the good work had been done for him. Only now has his factotum, Ed Balls, been sent out to tell us that the man in the floppy hat and the scuffed suede shoes was a terrible Chancellor. Certainly, there was no feel-good factor in the wings when Chancellor Clarke took over. Eight months earlier, his predecessor — whose name ever since then has escaped me — had seen the pound shot to pieces in the marketplace, and his credibility with it.