{"id":39632,"date":"2017-11-30T06:21:10","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T06:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=39632"},"modified":"2017-11-30T06:21:10","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T06:21:10","slug":"the-uks-industrial-strategy-fails-to-ask-the-essential-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2017\/11\/30\/the-uks-industrial-strategy-fails-to-ask-the-essential-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"The UK’s industrial strategy fails to ask the essential questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Progressive Pulse<\/a> began as a spin off form this blog, but now has a vibrant life all of its own. That is very clearly demonstrated in a blog post on it published today<\/a>. Written by Mike Parr (who also comments here on occasion) this tears the new UK government 'Industrial Strategy' to shreds.<\/p>\n

Mike has done what few will ever do, which is read the whole thing. His summary of his findings makes for depressing reading, saying:<\/p>\n

The \u201cIndustrial Strategy\u201d mixes strategy with tactics, with the latter overwhelming any sense of strategy. There should have been two documents:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    A strategy document: max 10 pages which would have identified\u00a0What\u2019s wrong<\/em>\u00a0(there must be something wrong otherwise why bother with an Industrial Strategy after 50-odd years)\u00a0why is it wrong<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 from this will flow what needs to be done to set the\u00a0\u201cwrong\u201d \u2014 \u201cright\u201d<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    A tactical document would flow from the strategy & might break down into several papers on different subjects\/sectors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    He continues:<\/p>\n

    The \u201cIndustrial Strategy\u201d contains a great deal of wishful thinking. In a key part of the Strategy, the UK is positioned as bursting with ideas (which it might be) and the core problem is correctly identified as turning ideas into successful UK companies (and UK employment). However, this latter point (why ideas don\u2019t lead to successful\u00a0British<\/strong>\u00a0companies) is not addressed. The paper never asks itself:\u00a0\u201cif the UK is bursting with innovation & has been for 50 years \u2014 where are all the innovative UK companies?\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Because the\u00a0\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0question was never asked \u2014 the follow-on questions\u00a0\u201cwhere are they\u201d<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0\u201cwhy have they not emerged\u201d<\/em>, with respect to innovative UK companies, is never posed.<\/p>\n

    This goes to the heart of the document \u2014 it is not an\u00a0\u201cIndustrial Strategy\u201d<\/em>\u00a0it is a shopping list (perhaps not so surprising given the current government thinks national economies function like corner shops). The Strategy takes a descriptive, almost scatter-gun approach,\u00a0 to describing small amounts of government activity. From an ideological perspective this makes sense, since to pose fundamental questions (what went wrong) would expose much of the hollowness of the government\u2019s ideology and activity (or lack thereof) with respect to the economy over the last 40-odd years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    And from there it shows how this document, eighteen months in the making, will not be the basis for reviving the UK economy.<\/p>\n

    I recommend the whole piece. You will end up asking, as I did, 'just what is this government doing?'. Mike's blog suggests it's wasting paper and effort for no good return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Progressive Pulse began as a spin off form this blog, but now has a vibrant life all of its own. That is very clearly demonstrated
     Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}