Grass grows where once there was only grime, toddlers attend French classes and redundant factory workers dare to dream of new futures as counsellors or childminders. Barnsley, a former coalfield town in the industrial north, is the embodiment of high-spending New Britain.

The sums that have gushed into communities since Labour turned on the spending taps in 1999 have underpinned the government’s drive to improve the prospects of those floundering in the slipstream of an increasingly global economy.