Be 'muscular' and drive green recovery, Cameron tells Johnson

Free market can be overruled if necessary to create post-Covid growth, ex-PM advises former rival

Boris Johnson must be muscular" in reshaping the economy to bring about a green recovery from the coronavirus crisis, former prime minister David Cameron has said, calling for an active policy of industrial intervention.

Cameron, who as prime minister from 2010 to 2016 oversaw the UK's recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, said the lessons from that recession were clear. My advice would be, from what I learnt, is that as well as the framework [of climate and economic policy], you have to roll up your sleeves and be quite muscular in your interventionism," he told the Guardian in an interview.