Looking back to past decades can be a positive experience – with rose-tinted spectacles we can look back to gentler times, when people had more time for each other and respect was as important as rights.

This is, of course, partly the effect of that rose-tinting and the reality was probably different. However, the one time no-one looks back to with much fondness is the 1970s, when the happy era of the 1960s came to an abrupt halt.

That was the era of stagflation – inflation and recession combined, strikes, and a general mood of discontent. Sadly, the news is now pointing to us being back to those bad old days and there is no simple resolution.

Back then, the UK had just joined the then EEC, now we have recently fully left the EU – but the problems we are facing are entirely home-grown and nothing to do with Brussels or its institutions.

It is impossible to say what brought the economy and government to this point. There is no escape from the harsh reality that the UK is economically now the sick man of Europe. It is facing the deepest recession of any major developed economy.

That cannot be down to Brexit alone, but in an uncertain world of major power blocs now is not the best time to be ploughing your own furrow. At the same time. the government has not taken advantage of the freedoms promised with Brexit.

It has not delivered any policies that are radically different to those of the EU. It has not controlled its borders, other than to block much needed European labour for areas across the economy, including farming and food.

There has been no explosion of new trade deals, other than bad deals with Australia and New Zealand; a deal with Japan has proved less effective than the deal UK traders had already enjoyed as an EU member state.

Overall, there is a sense that the government is out of ideas and firefighting its way to the next election, with little to sell the electorate. Sadly, the alternative, in the shape of Keir Starmer and Labour, is promising more of the same when it comes to Europe.

Rishi Sunak has always been pro-Brexit, but Starmer was not. Despite that, he has ruled out rejoining the single market and presumably membership of the European Economic Area, with Norway and Switzerland, for fear of not winning back the pro-Brexit red wall seats in the north of England.

That is politics, rather than economic logic – and it is getting those in the wrong order that got us into the mess we are in now. By an election in 2024, people will be reeling from two more years of recession and inflation and they will be seeking someone willing to put principle ahead of politics.

It was scary this week that the NFU in England, rightly, accused the government of sleep-walking into a food security crisis. This summed up perfectly Westminster's hands-off approach, which makes the fundamental mistake of taking food security for granted.

It is continuing to ignore the burden of higher costs on farms and recognising that farmers find it impossible to pass on the full impact of rising input costs. Westminster has also failed to recognise the labour availability problems it has created in food and farming.

Read more: No sign of inflation easing

Its 'purist' Brexit policies only seem to work for legitimate migrants rather than those seeking to enter the UK illegally.

The approach to agriculture is one of 'nothing to do with us guv', after years when policy was decided in Brussels. It forgets that it campaigned for Brexit to change this, but having succeeded it is doing nothing to take advantage of the opportunities.

It failed to exploit opportunities that would come from a less green approach to agriculture that would reflect the rest of the world, rather than Europe. That was underlined this week by the Defra minister, Therese Coffey, who said there would be no intervention to help farmers, or boost the importance of food security.

The EU is far from perfect in this, but recognises the challenge of food security and the need to do something about it, albeit while still wrapping its policies in a green blanket.

On trade, the EU – in its latest trade figures – cemented its position as the world's biggest agri-trader, with a positive balance of trade gap between exports and imports of £5bn and combined trade in August of over £30bn.