Chris Mason: Labour must make economic growth ideas work this time

The Labour Party has been talking about economic growth for months before and after the election. The problem is, that growth has barely materialized.

This is a problem for the daily lives of millions, as well as for the government's prospects and popularity. As the Prime Minister stated in an article in The Times today, "growth is the defining mission of this government."

The economy is coughing, wheezing, and sputtering—what Sir Keir Starmer has called “the sickness of stagnation and decline.” Government critics, including some senior ministers privately reflecting, are also realizing that their early pessimism didn't help and may have made things worse. So now they're trying to change the atmosphere, emphasizing action, dynamism, and optimism.

Here are four phrases, a total of eight words, that Chancellor Rachel Reeves used in a speech to business leaders this morning, which give you a sense of that shift: "huge potential," "exciting developments," "great companies," and "fundamental strengths." The mantra from senior figures in the government is that they are desperate for what they call "visible evidence."

In Westminster parlance, this means the sight of cranes in the sky and diggers on the ground—things that people might associate with progress. But the problem is that many of these ideas are going to be fiercely contested. This is precisely why some of these ideas have a distinct sense of déjà vu—ideas that have been tried before but never really delivered.

Take the expansion of Heathrow Airport, for example. There has been talk of building a third runway in West London since not long after the Wright brothers first flew. Now there will be more talk, but even if a planning application does succeed, no planes will be taking off for a long time. I understand that work commissioned inside the government concluded that a new runway wouldn't be finished before 2040, and that the biggest increase in traffic would be from transit passengers—getting off one plane straight onto another—so there are doubts about how much good this would actually do for the country.

All these arguments are starting now, or rather starting again. But what the government wants to achieve is to send a strong signal of intent—and a willingness to take on these inevitable arguments and win them. Their plans also include tapping into the economic potential around Oxford and Cambridge once again, which is also not a new idea, but one that will generate more, and fierce, debate.

A corridor with huge potential but terrible transport links is the focus of debate—why does it take two and a half hours to travel between two cities 66 miles apart by train? Now there's talk of dual carriageways, better rail services, new housing, new reservoirs; a flurry of activity designed to turn the area into "Britain's Silicon Valley."

There's no doubt about the government's ambition: the Prime Minister has compared his vision to the deregulation of the City of London under Margaret Thatcher and the globalization revolution under New Labour. The biggest question is will it work, and what happens if it doesn't?

Many Western economies are experiencing a scarred era of financial crises, conflict, pandemics, and a massive rapid shift of economic power towards China and the East. Stagnation has become the new normal, with profound impacts on politics, economics, and society—how we see ourselves and how many people imagine the future. Can this government's big push make a difference this time?