New ideas from Labour on economic policy

It may be a coincidence, but the possibility of fresh leadership seems to have inspired a couple of papers published by Labour groups on how to reform the UK economy. In reality their appearance is probably more a testament to at least the perception of the lack of major reform coming from the current Labour government. Ben Zaranko has already discussed both in the Observer, but I think what I write here is complementary. (Unlike Ben I won’t be discussing ‘Manchesterism’ for reasons well set out by Joshi Herrmann here.) The paper from the “Labour Growth Group” is written by Mark McVitie with Chris Curtis MP. Its overall theme can be summed up by the following quotation: “Britain has become an economy where position too often pays better than action and contribution. We call this the extraction economy: a settlement in which holding scarce assets, protected licences, legal leverage, regulatory position or the power to shape and navigate broken systems can pay better than working,…