FOR much of the past two decades, a consensus has defined Britain’s industrial and labour policies; a theory of the country’s place in a globalised economy and of what it does best. It spans politicians of the left (from Peter Mandelson to Ed Balls and even Ken Livingstone as he ran London) and of the right (Margaret Thatcher, Michael Portillo, George Osborne and most of those around them). It is a tome to which most recent arguments about regulation and economic reform are merely annotations.