Should British economic policy pursue “radical incrementalism” to turn around the stagnation that has engulfed the UK economy for nearly two decades? That is the contention of Torsten Bell in Great Britain?, a book that, in both its diagnosis and policy prescriptions, draws heavily on his years as director of the Resolution Foundation think tank. It also prompts a broader question: can think tanks’ hard-headed economic analysis provide the basis of a politically popular policy programme?
❱ Great Britain? How we get our future back
❱ Penguin Books
First and foremost, Great Britain? presents a clear and well-evidenced (there are over 500 references across its 230 pages) diagnosis of the UK’s economic ills. The UK is now more unequal and/or much poorer than most of our natural international comparators. Neither public nor private sector has invested enough, most apparent in our housing crisis. And our economy is geographically imbalanced.
Bell strikes a more optimistic note than some. Our economic problems are as bad – indeed in many cases even worse – than we think. But he explicitly rails against the “wrong kind of radicalism” – embodied by Liz Truss’s brief period in office – that things are so broken that we might as well try something drastic. Instead, he argues there is a clear path to a more prosperous future: we broadly know what policies will make a difference, and poor performance over past decades gives us more potential to catch up so that just bringing Britain into line with international peers would represent substantial progress.
To this point, most wonks are nodding along. Most of the diagnosis and many of the policies prescribed match the conventional wisdom: we need more public investment, our planning and tax systems are inefficient, the UK should decentralise power. Others, like proposals for stronger employment rights and proposals to increase taxes on wealth, represent a centre-left perspective and explain why the author has chosen to become a Labour MP but still sit squarely within the economic policy mainstream.
The big challenge Great Britain? sets itself is to show that this agenda doesn’t just work in the glossy pages of think tank reports or academic seminars, but that it is a viable political project. Think tank researchers understand that their analysis can, and at times does, improve policy. In his years at the Resolution Foundation, Bell had more than his fair share of successes. But equally, there are policies that seem like no-brainers economically that politicians will not countenance, perhaps most evident in our mess of a tax system that reflects years of tinkering for political expedience without coherent strategy.
Bell makes his pitch for “a new patriotism”, transforming from think tank director to political strategist. He argues that the state we find ourselves in is sufficiently dire that a political coalition can be built in favour of these reforms. Echoing the language of prime minister Keir Starmer and his chancellor Rachel Reeves, Bell calls for a decade of “national renewal”, acknowledging that many of these fixes are not quick, while also calling for “downpayments” like reforms to employment rights to demonstrate early progress.
“The big challenge Great Britain? sets itself is to show that Bell’s agenda doesn’t just work in the glossy pages of think tank reports, but is a viable political project”
Is this political case convincing? A think tank economist predisposed to many of the reforms this book proposes is not best placed to judge. Far more important is whether Starmer and Reeves find it compelling. There is already evidence of alignment between Great Britain? and the Labour government’s approach in its early days, through its plans to liberalise the planning system and strengthen employment rights. But in other places, its prescriptions go far beyond current political orthodoxy, including calls to devolve income tax to big city regions. The big increases in public investment proposed are the opposite of the current plans for the next few years. And there are several hard truths in the book that you might expect a chancellor to struggle to say out loud, for example that becoming a higher-investment country will require cutting back on consumption.
The path of economic policy over the life of this new government is not yet set. And no book can have a better chance of becoming its intellectual underpinning, especially because its author is expected to be on the government payroll before too long. Can a wonkish policy agenda be a mainstream political project? The progress, or otherwise, of “radical incrementalism” over the next decade should provide a clear answer.