The Growth Commission is getting growing by appointing former Brexit Party MEP turned Tory SpAd Lucy Harris as director. The former Brexit campaigner, known for building successful campaigns from the ground up across different sectors, joins a team of international economists to understand the causes of sluggish long-term growth rates in many Western economies, and set out a pathway for how the UK can get back on a high-growth trajectory.

“The UK and many other Western European nations are stuck in a low-growth trap. It’s essential to our future prosperity that we understand the root causes of this problem and what we can do to fix it – this is why the work of the Growth Commission is so important if we want to turn this around.”

Lucy’s corporate spinning and campaigning background indicates an intention to broaden the conversation of pro-growth economics beyond SW1 and engage a much wider range of businesses, thinkers and ordinary people in this vital national endeavour. The growth advocates need to win the argument more broadly. Currently it is just the concern of a Tory faction and a few broadsheet columnists.

The great and the good of the pro-growth coalition met in One George Street this morning for the launch of Liz Truss’s latest project. The former Prime Minister was joined by Ranil Jayawardena, Priti Patel and Lord Frost – amongst others – as the Growth Commission published their first report. The Commission, made up of 13 leading international economists and supported by analysts, warned of waning growth which they blamed for Britons being £10,000 worse off than Americans. They also took a leaf out of the Starmer playbook and predicted that, on current trends, Poles could soon be better off than the average Brit.

The “fanatically pro-competition” Growth Commission will launch a host of economic modelling to react to fiscal events. Guido doubts this is the last we will hear from them…