Jon Moynihan delivers an urgent and rigorous case for reviving Britain’s economic fortunes by returning to the foundational principles of classical liberalism: free markets, free trade, and sound money. Across two volumes, Moynihan sets out to explain why the UK has struggled to grow over the past two decades, what has gone wrong with recent policies, and how a simple to design but complex to deliver programme of reforms can restore long-term, broad-based prosperity. At its core, from a theoretical point of view, the argument is straight forward but is also powerfully articulated: growth matters—not just for material well-being, but for innovation, cooperation, and the moral health of society. A growing economy is not simply a statistical goal; it is a source of dignity, mobility and optimism.

What sets this work apart from many other policy manifestos is its deep grounding in data and empirical comparison. The books are filled with over 100 charts—clean, well-designed, and often startling in their implications. They reveal the scale of Britain’s stagnation in stark contrast to its OECD peers, and the divergence in policy that has enabled others to maintain momentum while the UK has drifted. Moynihan draws from a rich bank of international economic statistics, using them not just to diagnose, but to persuade. As Steve Baker MP observed in his review, the prose is punchy, but the force of the argument rests on the clarity of its evidence. Whilst the book is written not just for economists or professionals, but for an informed general audience, and so is accessible and full of visual clarity, it is not short and still takes dedicated time to go through it. But it is time well spent; plus, as it is broken down into distinct sections and with clear references, it is one of those books that you can put down and pick up relatively easily.

The structure of the book follows a logical progression, building momentum as it moves from diagnosis to prescription. Volume I is focused on identifying the problems: what has gone wrong, why previous approaches have failed, and why we should care about growth. Moynihan avoids for most parts ideological polemics and instead walks the reader through a detailed audit of the British state. He shows that since the financial crisis of 2008, and especially since COVID-19, the size of government has grown far beyond sustainable levels. Public spending, tax burdens, and regulatory expansion have all increased, but with diminishing returns. It is not just about how much the state spends but how it spends the money. Britain faces the consequences of decades of slow encroachment by an overactive state: stagnating productivity, declining competitiveness, and a shrinking space for private sector initiative. Crucially, Moynihan does not claim that all government is bad— he is not a libertarian absolutist—but rather that the current balance is tilted far too heavily toward a dirigiste model that has failed to deliver.

Volume I also makes a moral case for growth. In a particularly insightful section, Moynihan argues that growth is not merely an economic outcome but a driver of social flourishing. Innovation thrives in dynamic economies. So too do trust, cooperation, and democratic legitimacy. Conversely, in a low-growth world, distributional fights dominate, populism rises, and pessimism takes root. His appeal is therefore not just to the balance sheet, but to the broader human case for renewal.

 Having built this foundation, Volume II turns to solutions. This is where Moynihan’s work distinguishes itself again—not just in diagnosis, but in its ambition to offer a roadmap. He proposes a concrete, staged agenda: fiscal discipline, regulatory simplification, and a return to monetary soundness. He identifies spending programmes introduced during the pandemic that should be scaled back or removed and outlines how the tax burden—now at its highest sustained level in peacetime—can be reduced. Importantly, he anchors these proposals in OECD comparisons, arguing that the UK should aim to reach the spending, tax, and growth levels of successful peers: what have others achieved, and what would it take for the UK to converge?

Throughout, he is acutely aware of the political challenge. He notes, with a touch of irony, that these reforms are unlikely to be popular—at least not immediately. The task of communicating the case for growth, and for a leaner state, will fall to a charismatic and persuasive political figure capable of changing the national narrative. Moynihan is not naïve about this; he devotes attention to the problem of public consent and the dangers of populist backlash. Yet he also believes that the tide can turn, and that the moral and empirical case for change can be made—if the right story is told.

What makes Return to Growth a valuable and timely contribution is its rare combination of ambition, realism, and discipline. It sets out to change the direction of national economic debate—but does so not through polemic, but through persuasion, clarity, and a sense of historical proportion. The book does not call for a return to an hypothetical laissez-faire. Rather, it points to the period between the early 1980s and the early 2000s—roughly the Thatcher-Blair era—as evidence that pragmatic, growth-oriented liberalism can deliver. Government was smaller, regulation more restrained, and monetary policy more disciplined.

In a political climate often dominated by short-term fixes, Moynihan’s book is both a rebuke and a challenge. It offers a serious plan for reform, grounded in data, attentive to politics, and animated by a belief in the transformative power of growth. For anyone interested in the future of the UK economy—whether politician, policy adviser, investor, or citizen—it is essential reading.