I started on the Left. My dad was a motor mechanic for the local ambulance service and voted for the British Labour Party. I think his affiliation was tribal, primarily based around ensuring that the working man was not exploited; an honourable objective and understandable in the context of the times in which he worked—the 1930s to the 1960s. If I had not studied economics at a postgraduate level I might well have remained on the Left. As evidence of this, my political position survived an economics honours degree. As further evidence, my dad supported Liverpool football team and I remain…