Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

It came out on 30 August 1988 as the advance single from Workers Playtime and reached 52 in the UK on 10 September. Martin Belmont, Bruce Thomas, Cara Tivey, Micky Waller and Wiggy play on it, Michelle Shocked and Phill Jupitus sing backing vocals, and Joe Boyd produced it with Wiggy. The B-sides were a re-recording of Wishing the Days Away with Tivey and a cover of the Flying Burrito Brothers' Sin City with Hank Wangford.

Bragg wrote it after the disillusionment of the 1987 general election. He has described it as his way of owning up to the ambiguities of being a political pop star while stating that he still believed in Sam Cooke's promise that a change was gonna come. His biographer Andrew Collins said it boils down the whole argument about whether pop and politics mix. The first two verses mention Camelot, post-revolution Cuba, the Soviet Union and Robert Oppenheimer. The Cheese Pavilion of the later verses is at the Royal Bath and West Showground near Shepton Mallet, where Bragg played on 1 February 1987. Go! Discs pressed a promo edit with the first verse removed, without his prior knowledge, which displeased him.

In 2003 Bragg said he liked the way the first disc of his 40-song compilation Must I Paint You a Picture? ended with this song, and the second began with Sexuality.