At this stage in the 1997 election campaign, I would have been told to keep taking the tablets if I had said that in 2005 the UK would have the lowest capital gains tax of the major economies and a stable macro-economy, courtesy of a Labour government.

Every party has publicly acknowledged its dependence on the wealth business creates to fund its future plans. Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, was the first to speak out. Now we have a Labour Manifesto for Enterprise, Skills and Science that boldly states that the responsibility of business is to make profit and the duty of government is to help it do so.