I think it’s fair to say that most “mature” democracies are in a spot of bother at the moment. The general sentiment in many countries is that most things are pretty broken and the status quo isn’t working for a huge percentage of the population.

Parties are elected on change mandates but, once in power, new leaders are finding it difficult to make material changes to fix problems because they don’t have enough money in the public purse to deliver all of their policy objectives. Voters get disillusioned quickly these days, so governments need to make changes equally quickly or face negative results at the polls. And the cycle begins again.

Is there a solution? The common refrain from politicians is that we need to achieve growth so that we can pay for these policies. But growth isn’t something that can be wished for and then it appears.