IN THE discussion around the Budget, you may have noticed the odd reference to “modern supply-side economics,” much beloved of the Biden and now the Starmer administrations. 

Supply side economics in Britain was an ideological approach shared by both Labour’s last administration and of course the Tories. 

There were two key elements to it. The primary drivers were tax cuts and deregulation on the expectation that both would encourage growth by incentivising economic activity and consequently that this wealth would “trickle down” to the rest of society, because, it was argued, in the face of globalisation there was little else governments could do.