Will the real radicals please stand up?

At the next election, all parties will agree that Britain is in a mess. They will disagree about is who is to blame. Both the Tories and the Liberal Democrats will say that Labour left behind an even bigger set of problems than people realise; their government has started to fix things, they’ll argue, but they need more time. Labour will claim that the ‘austerity coalition’ has choked off growth.

But what’s odd — given that we’re heading for a second election where the voters will say ‘no’ when asked whether they’re better off now than five years ago — is the lack of radicalism in British politics. The ideas doing the rounds in Westminster do not meet the test of the moment. To be sure, the coalition is doing some radical things, including making significant changes in education and welfare. In the long run, these will boost Britain’s competitiveness.

But David Cameron, by temperament, is not a rip-it-up-and-start-again man.