Covid has proven the benefits of ‘Made in Britain’

Thatcherite Tories have long been suspicious of the idea of an industrial strategy. Their view was that it wasn’t the job of government to pick winners (or, more likely, protect losers). But the pandemic has changed all that, I say in the Times this morning. The old certainties of globalisation have come crashing down. One influential secretary of state’s view is that ‘it proves the error once and for all of the Blair-era assumption that the location of your manufacturing doesn’t matter.’

The last year has shown that even in this globalised age the nation state trumps the market. You could see this in the scramble for personal protective equipment (PPE) last spring when countries stopped firms from honouring contracts until they were sure their domestic needs had been met. The same dynamic is beginning to assert itself on vaccines.