I've just been re-reading Jean-Paul Floru's "Heavens on Earth." (I should declare an interest in that I am one of two that the book is dedicated to). It is a superb book, not least for being highly readable and packed with engaging anecdotes. More importantly, though, it puts its message across with a wall of supporting evidence. The message is that microeconomics works. Every single country that has tried to achieve rapid economic growth by cutting taxes and red tape has succeeded.

The formula is simple. You don't achieve growth by massive public works and government spending. You do it by making it easier for private people to innovate, to invest, to spend on what they value, and to build for the future. Whether it is post-war Germany, the US, Hong Kong, China, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore and industrial revolution Britain, it has always worked. It achieves all of the choices and the chances that wealth brings with it. It creates "Heavens on Earth," and you do it by motivating people, by increasing the rewards of success, and by removing the barriers that stand in the way of human achievement.

I really wish that some well-to-do business-person would fund the cost of sending a copy of this book to every Member of Parliament. If sufficient numbers of them dipped into its pages or told their assistants to read it and summarize its findings for them, the governance of this nation would be much improved. I am recommending to everyone I meet that they should read it and absorb its lessons.