"The reason for that is simple: the British state is big and getting bigger but as an agent of change it is not up to the job. This is true at both central and local levels. Over the years, the capacity of government to intervene has been pared back and professional expertise has been lost as council services have been outsourced."
"The main job of the state is now to alleviate the consequences of failure, which are becoming ever more pressing. Obeisance to market forces explains part of the problem. For the past half-century, there has been a neuralgic aversion to anything that smacks of picking winners. The misguided idea that countries only really thrive when governments get out of the way of the private sector has taken root."
"One is the dominance of the Treasury, which has tried unsuccessfully to be both a ministry that looks after the public finances, and a ministry of the economy. Another is the British cult of the amateur, which has fostered the belief that somehow or other things will work out. Other countries have decided that winging it is perhaps not the best approach, and have done things differently."
Governments often assume electoral victory gives an immediate mandate to implement manifesto pledges, yet find state machinery unable to deliver rapid change. The British state has grown in size but lost intervention capacity and professional expertise through outsourcing, leaving it primarily to manage failures. Market deference and a half-century aversion to picking winners limit proactive industrial strategy. The Treasury's dominance has hampered coherent economic stewardship, while a British cult of the amateur fosters complacency. Other nations pursued deliberate industrial policy; East Asian states and China targeted sectors like electronics, shipbuilding and low-carbon technology to force structural change and global market leadership.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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