Our growth rate has been miserable. We have not invested enough. And over thirteen years the Conservatives have cut spending too much, damaged our trading relationships with our major neighbours, and made a mess of the tax system. These were Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s major criticism of Tory economics today in a speech in which he unveiled his latest plans for the economy.

He summed it all up with one damning statistic. We will, he argued, soon be poorer than Poland. Poland! But hold on. Why does Sir Keir imagine the British have some God-given right to be richer than the Poles? And why doesn’t he take a moment to reflect on the policies that have made Poland so successful – because if he were in Warsaw he would oppose all of them.

If Sir Keir were leading the opposition party in Warsaw, he would of course oppose all those policies

Sir Keir’s speech on the economy today was, as you might expect, long on the condemnation of the Conservatives and very short on specific proposals for making the country richer beyond the usual waffle about ‘green jobs’. On current trends, he said, by 2030 the UK will be poorer than Poland. It is a projection that has been gaining ground recently, on both sides of the political debate, as an illustration of the UK’s relative decline. As it happens, there is nothing much wrong with the maths. From 2010 to 2020 Poland grew at an annualised rate of 3.6 per cent, while Britain grew at just 0.5 per cent. If we keep on at that rate (and unfortunately 0.5 per cent seems a bit optimistic for the UK right now) then by 2030 per capita GDP in Poland will indeed be higher than it is here.

There are, however, a couple of big flaws in Sir Keir’s analysis. The first is that he seems to complacently assume that the UK has an innate right to be richer than Poland. That is, to put it mildly, a little disrespectful to the Poles. In truth, the country has done extraordinarily well since it exited the Soviet Union, especially since it was left with a legacy of declining heavy industry such as coalmining and shipbuilding. By any standards outside of South-East Asia, a 3.6 per cent annualised growth rate is very good. By 2030, it will almost certainly be richer than Italy, France and Spain, and it will be closing the gap with Germany as well.

Poland has managed to achieve this, in large party, because its stuck to pro-growth, pro-business policies. The top rate of personal tax is only 32 per cent. The top rate of corporation tax is 19 per cent, which we are about to abandon in this country. Debt as a percentage of GDP is only 46 per cent, less than half the UK level, and coming down.

If Sir Keir were leading the opposition party in Warsaw, he would of course oppose all those policies, favouring higher taxes, more debt and more state intervention. Instead of being rude about Poland, perhaps Sir Keir should reflect on the policies that have made it so successful. Who knows, perhaps even a few of them might work in the UK as well.