Something is stirring in the boardrooms of British industry. You heard it at Davos. Peter Mandelson is onto it, and last week Vince Cable joined in. The scale of the structural economic crisis facing the western democracies after the crash of the consumerist boom is driving radical new thinking.
As western governments confront the structural and debt crisis legacy of the credit-fuelled boom in the City, retail and housing, industrial policy is "in" again. But as the chancellor finalises his budget, the industrial policy business wants to see today is unrecognisable from the discredited corporatism of the 1970s. It's an ambitious, modern, entrepreneurial vision of a "rebalanced innovation economy", and – as Mandelson acknowledged – today's industrial activism is being shaped by a new generation of Conservative ministers.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Why Britain needs an innovation economy | Business | The Observer
