It’s a tall order but Labour has a chance to improve people’s lives in both the short and long term

• Jonathan Portes is professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London and a former senior civil servant

Four years of economic turmoil. High inflation, then high interest rates, then an (albeit mild) recession. A pre-election budget with some distinctly dodgy looking tax cuts. All leaving an election-winning, but nevertheless very unpopular, government with a big fiscal hole to fill. What does the chancellor do? Put up taxes, of course.

And indeed that is precisely what Norman Lamont did in March 1993. By a lot – by most measures, it was the largest tax-raising budget in at least the previous half century. It was followed by a decade and a half of macroeconomic stability and mostly steady growth, averaging almost 3% per year, a level recent chancellors could only dream of.