Britain’s population is ageing and too dependent on handouts. Growth is dismal, public services are starved of funds and taxes are high and look likely to drift higher. Yet few people in politics seem able to square all that with the fact that Britain is already living beyond its means and depends on loans from foreigners to pay the bills.

Britain is cheap—cheaper than warranted by the obvious risks. If the government can seize the opportunity, then being value for money offers Britons a pathway to better economic growth. Britain’s sales pitch begins with the bargain-basement cost of assets and labour. Gilts have lower prices (and hence higher yields) than just about any rich-world bonds. Stock valuations are low, too

Well-educated British workers are cheap, too. Feeble wage growth and the clobbering sterling took after the Brexit referendum has made them cost-competitive, especially in services, including consulting, IT, law, human resources and the like. JPMorgan Chase, a bank, says that the cost of its technologists in Glasgow is closer to that in India than Texas.

Sir Keir must not succumb to the temptation to run up more debt, mess with credible institutions like the Bank of England and the OBR, or attempt to create room for profligacy by once again fiddling with the fiscal rules. Instead, he must confront the fantasy economics which rejects all cuts to welfare as immoral without regard to what is affordable.

"Embracing the Poundland strategy would run against a century of rhetoric obsessed with restoring the Great to Great Britain. After the chest-thumping of the Brexit era, a Poundland prime minister would be accused of declinism and of selling Britain short"

"After a decade of sorry growth, Britain has no shame—and lots to gain—from being a bargain."