Steph McGovern

Actually, I think you say more than the conventional targets that governments have.

Now, if you are, let's say, working in the British Civil Service, you'll read that and you'll probably have a panic attack because your whole mindset is we've got a target.

That's how we deliver what we want.

Governments want the idea that you can sort of make the target softer, but make it much more about participation will terrify them.

So what would you say to reassure those people that it's not all a bit just sort of fuzzy and...

How specific can we be about giving people that sense of ownership?

I mean, right now, it looks as though Andy Burnham is certainly the most popular Labour politician and possibly the most popular politician in the country.

There's...

There is a fairly low bar for that.

And, you know, most of that would stem from the fact that within the Manchester area, he is apparently a very much loved individual because...

he certainly conveys that he listens to the people of Manchester in respect of those bits of policy that he has control of.

I mean, one shouldn't get carried away with how much power our mayors have, but they have some.

And I suppose my question is, how much is it about the extent to which somebody with power like Burnham

you know, just does, you know, common sense things like talking to people, listening to people, and how much is it about structures of participation?

You're pretty ambitious in an intellectual sense in this book.

Pretty much the whole of the first half is an attack on conventional neoclassical economics, deification of markets, the idea that broadly markets can fix everything for us, and when they don't, it's the role of government to correct.

But you have this theory which says, actually, markets, which is true, are just totally social structures, and therefore we should redesign markets so the problems don't arise in the first place.

Now, all of which is incredibly interesting, no question about it.

But the bit that I struggle with, and I think it's a very good argument, but the bit that I struggle with is how do you, you know, essentially you are saying that pretty much every Western economy has been run on a false premise for the last century or so.

I mean, do you genuinely believe that, you know, we are capable of making the kind of changes that, you know, nobody who reads this will come away thinking, well, of course, we'd love to change in the way that you suggest.