Thread on Corbyn's speech today, having now seen summary sent to press and 'check against delivery' version. The section that has attracted interest is "A key sentence is “For the last 40 years, a magical kind of thinking has dominated the way Britain is run. We’ve been 1/n
told that it’s good - advanced even - for our country to manufacture less and less and instead rely on cheap labour from abroad to produce imports, while we focus on the City of London and the finance sector. A lack of support for manufacturing is sucking the dynamism out 2/n
of our economy ..“ First point. This appears to be a standard critique of City dominance, and a laissez faire attitude to manufacturing. Not surprising given speaker + audience. Second point. Why the reference to 'cheap labour from abroad to produce'?? 3/n
The reference to the sterling depreciation is not part of any attempt to talk up Brexit, but rather an attempt to hit at the Conservative's lack of industrial strategy. (In reality, of course, the depreciation was required to offset the negative expected effects of Brexit, 4/n
so not surprising response of exports muted.) It is preceded by a section on the importance for manufacturing of staying in the CU. The speech is really about a government strategy to help industry. Another quote (from fuller version): "“This will be done using a 5/n
three-pronged approach: Changing how we buy things with new procurement rules so that government supports jobs and industry. Investing in infrastructure to support companies here in Britain to keep goods flowing efficiently and costs low. And increasing investment 6/n
in education, skills and lifelong learning ...” Interestingly it does not say the first can now be achieved after Brexit. Instead it notes that other EU countries seem to manage to have their own industries provide public infrastructure while the UK does not, 7/n
and suggests this is down to a Conservative government hiding behind EU rules. Moral of this story. It is unwise to comment on speeches, particularly those by the Labour leadership, by referencing media reports of them. /end
