Theresa May’s industrial strategy, launched today at a special Cabinet meeting just outside Warrington, is part of the Prime Minister’s efforts to show that she is doing interesting and original things on the domestic front while also working on the Brexit negotiations. It is also part of her attempt to show that she is different from her predecessors in government. But how different?
The 132-page consultation document, Building Our Industrial Strategy, focuses on ‘creating the right conditions for new and growing enterprises to thrive, not protecting the position of incumbents,’ according to Business Secretary Greg Clark. But this is a contrast with the ‘fatally flawed’ plans of the 1970s, rather than the approach of the previous government.
The real difference between the previous government and the May administration is that the previous government had an industrial strategy but preferred not to call it that. Under Vince Cable as Coalition Business Secretary, it published explanations of its industrial strategy, but in the Tory majority government after 2015, it continued to stick to the five main strands set out in those earlier documents, just dropping the name. This was largely because the Business Secretary in that majority administration was Sajid Javid. As a dry Tory, he tended to suffer allergic reactions to words like ‘industrial strategy’.
So perhaps the main shift from the Cameron government to May’s leadership is one of a rose by any other name. Which sounds a little Gordon Brown-esque, particularly given regional cabinet meetings started under the Labour Prime Minister.
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