Theme: Political Economy | Content Type: Journal article

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Industrial Policies or Industrial Strategy: The Difficulty of Enacting Long-Term Supply-Side Reform in the UK

Steve Coulter

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Remy Gieling

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Abstract

The government's recent ditching of Theresa May's interventionist ‘Industrial Strategy’ and its replacement with the more amorphous and target-driven ‘Plan for Growth’ has dismayed many in industry. But in many ways, the move merely exemplifies the ad hoc, short-termist and ideologically driven nature of how industrial strategy has often been conceived and implemented in the UK since its rediscovery as an important tool of supply-side policy following the market-fundamentalist Thatcherite interregnum. This short-termism has sabotaged repeated attempts to move the UK economy onto a higher and more sustainable growth path and will likely hinder the government in meeting its objectives on productivity, decarbonisation and levelling up through reindustrialisation. The problem has both institutional and ideological causes, largely to do with Treasury domination of the supply-side agenda and its default market failure approach. This hinders successful adoption of the kinds of expansive, ‘mission-oriented’ industrial strategies followed more successfully in other countries and which could be transformative if applied in the UK.

  • Steve Coulter

    Steve Coulter

    Steve Coulter was Head of Industrial Strategy and Skills at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, and a Visiting Fellow at the LSE. He is now Head of Economy at Green Alliance.

    Articles by Steve Coulter
Volume 96, Issue 2

Latest Journal Issue

Volume 96, Issue 2

This issue features a collection titled 'Governing from the Centre Left' edited by Deborah Mabbett and Peter Sloman. In this collection, authors including Claire Ainsley, Jörg Michael Dostal and Eunice Goes examine how centre-left governments in North America, Australasia, and Western Europe have dealt with recent global pressures, and consider what lessons the UK Labour government should learn from its overseas counterparts. Other articles include a commentary by Ben Jackson titled 'Poverty and the Labour Party'; John Connolly, Matthew Flinders and David Judge on 'How Not to Deliver Policies: Lessons in Undeliverability from the Conservative Governments of 2019–2024'; Stewart Lansley on 'Wealth Accumulation: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'; and Coree Brown Swan, Paul Anderson, and Judith Sijstermans on 'Politics and the Pandemic: The UK Covid-19 Inquiry and Devolution'. A selection of book reviews feature Victoria Brittain's review of 'Palestinian Refugee Women from Syria to Jordan, Decolonizing the Geopolitics of Displacement' by Afaf Jabiri, and Anna Coote's review of 'The Care Dilemma: Caring Enough in the Age of Sex Equality', by David Goodhart.

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