The former prime minister's legacy is the reason why mandarins keep getting the economy completely wrong. In the midst of the Conservative leadership debates, with clear dividing lines on the economy dominating, the ghost at the feast turned up – Gordon Brown.
When our former prime minister pontificated on the cost of living and the need for greater levels of support, the price cap and nationalisation, you could sense a smile of relief on the face of the establishment. This is because Liz Truss has rattled their complacency and demanded a changed approach to the orthodox policies which now risk stagflation.
The establishment's smirk is there because as you look at their desired response to the spiralling cost of living - higher interest rates and higher taxation - you rapidly conclude that Brown actually never went away.
His orthodoxy is still that of the establishment, particularly the Treasury and the Bank of England.
The man who said he had brought an end to the cycle of boom and bust, only to deliver perhaps the biggest bust of all in 2008, has very much been at the heart of what we now refer to as Treasury orthodoxy.
The mindset Brown did so much to create is front and centre in the establishment attack on Liz Truss.
The "steady as she goes" mantra beloved by mandarins, as though there can be no alternative, is now being challenged. And they do not like it.
This orthodoxy is the reason why official forecasts have so often got the economy completely wrong.
More recently they have led to the Bank of England and the Treasury underestimating the scale and extent of the growth in inflation. In fact - astonishingly - less than a year ago they were referring to inflation as short term and transitory.
That led to the massive mistake by the Bank of not raising interest rates earlier, an error compounded by its decision to crank up quantitative easing, buying £450bn of bonds.
This purchase was signed off by the Treasury, despite warnings that inflation was already in the system.
In effect together they pump-primed inflation when they should have been getting to grips with it early. Now we must get it under control, without making things worse by crashing the economy.
We have been here before, struggling against the negative and prevailing view that Britain's trend rate of growth is low and cannot be changed.
It was, of course, the same in 2011 when we over-tightened the economy, and even as far back as the 1990s when we stupidly sought sanctuary in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), leading to a prolonged recession.
Then it was argued that if we left the ERM we would have to put up interest rates to protect the pound and would have to tighten fiscal policy further, restricting growth.
How wrong those suggestions were. When we crashed out, the pound became competitive, interest rates didn't go up but fell and the economy took off.
This defeatist attitude percolates through Whitehall thinking across areas from the economy to illegal migration.
Just look at the promise of post- Brexit regulatory change.
Over a year ago, I and others published a report on how our regulatory system should adapt after Brexit to reflect our more flexible Common Law principles, releasing our economic potential.
Changes to onerous regulations such as Solvency II and Mifid II would release many billions of pounds of capital into British markets and allow the City to re-establish itself as the pre-eminent international financial centre.
That's not all. The growing market in med-tech could and should find its home here in Britain. As our brilliant scientific community showed, released from the constraints of the European Union the UK created the breakthrough Covid vaccination in record time. With the right changes in regulations, our science community could create a global market centred in Britain which would dwarf the City. Yet officialdom still drags its feet.
That's why Liz has got the establishment so worried. She is right to challenge their complacency and demand change, starting with the economy.
We are already stuck with the highest tax burden for decades. That means if nothing changes and we continue with higher interest rates and an eye-watering level of tax, we will enter a long recession.
That will be devastating. A high cost of living on top of the recession will be a body blow to ordinary families. This is not just a set of figures on a balance sheet, but a real human nightmare of lost jobs and missed mortgage payments. With bills already rising and families having to cut back, imagine the pressure on families if they end up in a spiral of unemployment.
The Centre for Social Justice has clear evidence that when families fall into debt, they are more likely to break up, putting huge pressure on children. Such breakdown, significantly widens the terrible effect of a recession for families across the country, Liz is right, we mustn't make the present difficulties even harder.
As independent economists have pointed out, there are ways we can reduce the pain. After all, inflation right now is being driven by supply side factors, coming out of the pandemic, made worse by weak monetary policy. We do not have an overheating economy.
That's why Liz Truss is right to call for a tight monetary policy to hit inflation but a looser fiscal policy, dealing with weaker demand.
To that end, redolent of a previous prime minister who challenged the orthodoxy, Liz Truss's determination to cut taxes is the right decision.
Stopping the rise in corporation tax will help investment in a competitive global market. Getting rid of the job-destroying National Insurance rise and suspending the green levies will help average families. But most of all, this looser fiscal policy will encourage vital growth and that will benefit all families in Britain.
Liz has also made it clear that as required, she will ensure targeted support reaches those most in need of it as inflation and the cost of living rise.
The Conservative Party was elected to challenge the orthodoxy that has delivered low growth in Britain for too long. Of course we have had the pandemic, but that should spur us on to deliver on our manifesto and not break the promises made in 2019.
We were elected to improve the quality of people's lives in areas left behind for too long by levelling up. We were not elected to put up National Insurance tax.
Delivering our commitments is what we must now do.