On a point of detail, it was Major rather than Thatcher that abolished NEDC. She scaled by the frequency of meetings but they still took place, even if no one paid them much attention. Indeed, ironically,, it was Michael Heseltine, a long time advocate of industrial policy who was behind the closure. FWIW I think the current IS follows the Heseltine model..
My point was really only about the spirit. As far as money was concerned he was always very focused on bending existing spend. He is, after all, a Conservative, albeit an interventionist one.
Heseltine has always believed in the importance of government supporting key sectors of the economy in a joined up way, driven by joint working, sound analysis and hard targets. The best summary is here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/no-stone-unturned-in-pursuit-of-growth When he was in Major’s Cabinet he produced a series of White Papers which developed this approach. He also moved the best people in (the then) DTI into expanded sector divisions so that they could develop a deep knowledge of their sectors. He always used to tell business “you may not agree with every decision I take but you will understand the basis on which I will take it”
To be precise a series of Competitiveness White Papers. I declare an interest because I was the lead economist on those, as well as many years later being part of the team helping him with No Stone Unturned.
Do you think the current crop of civil service leaders - who largely got to the top during what I think you would call a neoliberal era - are a problem in implementing this?
No in that I think the civil service gets blamed for a lot of things that are not its fault and basically as far as I can tell it is composed of capable people sincerely doing their best.
Yes in that the civil service is as steeped in neoliberalism as the rest of UK society. Certainly in the drafting of the strategy, the early things I saw from civil servants didn't grasp the depth of what needed to change.
So having got here, I'm reasonably optimistic. The bigger human issue I think is the lack of investment experience in the financing institutions, BBB and NWF.
Let us hope that the British government will start to understand that any startups resulting from government investment in research will have a government golden share which prevents them being snapped up by foreign companies. We have 70% of the wind resources of Europe and seem to be blind in using it because of the resistance of local groups to the sight of wind turbines. This could easily be resolved by offering bribes to households within sight of the turbines. I hope the political leaders in the North of England are directly involved in the management of all new developments. It always appears that when Whitehall is involved we get Bat Tunnels and spend £400 million before a spade is put in the ground.
I think we are quite a long way from golden shares in startups. But if the kind of things in this industrial strategy don't work, something more muscular is going to have to be done to make sense of our spending on R&D.
On a point of detail, it was Major rather than Thatcher that abolished NEDC. She scaled by the frequency of meetings but they still took place, even if no one paid them much attention. Indeed, ironically,, it was Michael Heseltine, a long time advocate of industrial policy who was behind the closure. FWIW I think the current IS follows the Heseltine model..
Right. In that sense the spirit is similar. But what about money? What was there to compare with the institutions in that diagram in the article?
My point was really only about the spirit. As far as money was concerned he was always very focused on bending existing spend. He is, after all, a Conservative, albeit an interventionist one.
Not to mention tax breaks for R and D.
My memory is of a department whose budget was crushed by attribution to the EU payment.
Thanks David, twice over. I've corrected the NEDC reference. Can you say a bit more about the Heseltine parallel?
Heseltine has always believed in the importance of government supporting key sectors of the economy in a joined up way, driven by joint working, sound analysis and hard targets. The best summary is here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/no-stone-unturned-in-pursuit-of-growth When he was in Major’s Cabinet he produced a series of White Papers which developed this approach. He also moved the best people in (the then) DTI into expanded sector divisions so that they could develop a deep knowledge of their sectors. He always used to tell business “you may not agree with every decision I take but you will understand the basis on which I will take it”
To be precise a series of Competitiveness White Papers. I declare an interest because I was the lead economist on those, as well as many years later being part of the team helping him with No Stone Unturned.
Do you think the current crop of civil service leaders - who largely got to the top during what I think you would call a neoliberal era - are a problem in implementing this?
No and Yes.
No in that I think the civil service gets blamed for a lot of things that are not its fault and basically as far as I can tell it is composed of capable people sincerely doing their best.
Yes in that the civil service is as steeped in neoliberalism as the rest of UK society. Certainly in the drafting of the strategy, the early things I saw from civil servants didn't grasp the depth of what needed to change.
So having got here, I'm reasonably optimistic. The bigger human issue I think is the lack of investment experience in the financing institutions, BBB and NWF.
Let us hope that the British government will start to understand that any startups resulting from government investment in research will have a government golden share which prevents them being snapped up by foreign companies. We have 70% of the wind resources of Europe and seem to be blind in using it because of the resistance of local groups to the sight of wind turbines. This could easily be resolved by offering bribes to households within sight of the turbines. I hope the political leaders in the North of England are directly involved in the management of all new developments. It always appears that when Whitehall is involved we get Bat Tunnels and spend £400 million before a spade is put in the ground.
I think we are quite a long way from golden shares in startups. But if the kind of things in this industrial strategy don't work, something more muscular is going to have to be done to make sense of our spending on R&D.