He hasn’t got all the answers to the immense problems Britain faces, but the new prime minister appears to have the daring to do something about them

Some time in the last century, probably towards the end of the 1970s, I remember learning with surprise about the establishment of a group of wise heads within the operation of 10 Downing Street to deal with what was then termed “industrial adjustment”. Someone had clocked the fact that the country’s traditional industries – notably manufacturing, and particularly in the north of England – were in a state of serious decline and had apparently decided that perhaps the government should be giving some thought to what happened next.

My surprise – and the reason I even remember this today – was because I was genuinely startled to learn that someone, somewhere had not already been bending considerable attention to an issue which was obvious even then to a know-nothing, two-bit kid political reporter who talked to MPs about what was happening in their constituencies and got about a bit at by-elections. I thought that was what governments did. I thought it was why we put them there: to think about what happened next, to work out what to do about all the things that were too difficult for the rest of us because we couldn’t do anything about it anyway – while they could, of course, because they were the government. Well, I was very young.

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