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In 1995 Will Hutton published The State We’re In, his critique of the damage Thatcherism wrought and his hopeful blueprint for stakeholder capitalism that he – and the liberal press in general – assumed to be a blueprint for Tony Blair’s Labour government-in-waiting. In the end, Blair chose another way. What followed was Iraq, the 2007 crash, austerity, Brexit and the political and economic exhaustion of the current government. Hutton’s slightly passive aggressive title is addressed to this year’s Labour government-in-waiting. He outlines the perilous state we’re in and proposes, via a detailed history, a British version of Roosevelt’s 1930s New Deal programme of investment, financial reform and industrial rebuilding. His plans are ambitious, his case is persuasive and his goals attractive. Is Keir Starmer listening?