An Open Letter to Boris Johnson

Dear Boris,

I read with interest this morning your plans for a "New Deal" for Britain.

It is an admirable ambition.

No one can argue with an additional ￡1.5 billion for NHS capital works, the planting of over 75,000 acres of trees each year to "enchant and re-energise the soul," or the need for "new schools, new buses, and new broadband." Arguably these announcements are long overdue.

The New Deal of FDR was, broadly speaking, a success. It ended the Great Depression and built industrial capacity to prepare the United States for the Second World War. Invoking it now in the UK, in preparation for what may likely be the deepest recession of any of our lifetimes, could be a stroke of political genius.

But you do not go far enough.

The original New Deal, remembered for its public works programmes and associated government employment of American citizens, was far more than an infrastructure cash splash.

New investment boards driven by public and private partnerships electrified America, and provided the investment environment for new industries to thrive. The Defence Plant Corporation created the equivalent investment of 25% of GDP in 1940, much of which led to innovations in aerospace that we still rely on today.

The New Deal ran for several years, with spending each year accounting for between 5% and 7% of GDP.

What you propose today would be less than one quarter of one percent of GDP. A drop in the ocean of what is required.

Britain has an innovative, digital, service based economy. We require more than overdue infrastructure investment and bluster.

What environment will you create so that the innovative companies and individuals of 2020 can thrive?

You have long idolised Churchill. This may be your moment to step up.