Labour is on firmer ground with economists when it says it would aim to raise overall public and private R&D investment and invest more public funds into infrastructure. But as Oxford academic Bent Flyvbjerg has documented, governments tend to prioritise megaprojects that run over budget and underdeliver for the economy. Labour says nothing about how, institutionally, it would avoid that pitfall and ensure it selects smaller projects with better returns.

On trade policy, we are likewise told Labour has a plan to “buy, make and sell more in Britain”, including using more locally sourced inputs for infrastructure projects. These sorts of “Buy British” restrictions, though, harm productivity. Inevitably, they mean using more costly inputs than necessary to protect domestic jobs. But protectionism, by removing a competitive constraint, breeds domestic inefficiency too.

What unites the rag-tag of ideas Reeves presented, then, is not any theoretical or empirical grounding as guarantors of higher growth. No, it’s the method of policy development they convey – one of economic corporatism.

Labour right now seems to think that a “pro-business” government working closely with corporations and small businesses can simply conjure up a higher growth economy, with the state delivering what businesses say they need through close cooperation with domestic sectors.

The reality of this approach would not be a high-growth economy (which requires getting the institutions and incentives for market-led innovation right). It would be a world where businesses end up playing to the political ambitions of politicians as a quid pro quo for favouritism.

Faster growth is a worthy economic goal of any government, but Labour’s policies do not live up to the lofty rhetoric of their ambition.

Ryan Bourne is the author of ‘Economics in One Virus’ and an economist at the Cato Institute