There is a subtle ideological shift going on in the Tory party. At the top of the party, there is an increasing appetite for a modern form of industrial strategy. As George Osborne argues in an interview in the current Spectator, ‘The Conservative party is at its strongest when it’s not the party that says there is no role for government and the state should just get out of the way… That is not a strand of Conservative thinking that, by itself, is enough. You need to have a bit of the Michael Heseltine: “I’m going to take the Docklands and build a financial centre here and build an airport here.” Or, “I’m going to take the Albert Docks in Liverpool and put the Tate Gallery here.” That’s an important part of the Conservative argument.’
You can see this in Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse project which is designed to create a northern hub to act as a second engine for the UK economy.
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