It is interesting that some forty economists are backing Jeremy Corbyn’s approach to economic solutions for the UK. It seems to this blog that one of the many reasons that New Labour has lost votes election by election since 1997 is that it has never had a clear cut economic policy which was significantly different to the Thatcherite agenda of the Tories. That was was an advantage at the turn of the century when the Tories had ceased to be a credible option and New Labour was able to slip on the mantle of the natural party of government. However when the Tories finally came through their very slow recovery process, their supporters flocked back to them with relief.
Labour then suffered from the fact that it had lost the votes of more than four million of its natural supporters. It cannot win until they return. It will not be possible to get them back until an advanced, modern, credible anti-austerity economic platform is developed. The only candidate even to try is Jeremy Corbyn. None of the others can answer a straight economic question, without resorting to sound bites which reveal their ignorance of the subject is almost total.