Progressive economic policies are back on the agenda – time for Starmer to catch up | Larry Elliott

Covid, Brexit, automation and net-zero carbon all require state intervention, and shouldn't be entrusted to the right

Sometimes political parties hit a sweet spot and their opponents struggle to lay a glove on them. Rapid non-inflationary growth meant Margaret Thatcher was invulnerable at the 1987 election. Tony Blair was unbeatable in the mid-1990s when Britain was bored with a tired, discredited and sleazy Tory government.

Boris Johnson has arrived at his own political state of grace this spring. Everything has come together: the NHS has played a blinder with the vaccine programme; record peacetime spending has anaesthetised the pain of lockdown; a weary population is grateful to be allowed to hug and go to the pub again.

Larry Elliott is the Guardian's economics editor