Memo to the City of London from the Potteries

According to Will Hutton’s latest column for The Observer, the City of London is feeling neglected by the Tories and the present government, and is more than a little perturbed. Their biggest grievance would appear to be the outcome of Brexit, and its impact on their capitalist fiefdom, and a lack of focus on addressing this.

Well lads, come and join the club. Big parts of the country have been feeling that way for a very long time, and perhaps you have forgotten that you have also been central to the problem. Karma anyone?

However, there appears to be more to it than just the usual time related hump with a set of politicians that have run out steam and ideas, not that they had many in the first place. It seems that there is a realisation that the particular economic model favoured by the modern iteration of the Tory party – rentier capitalism – has run out of road.

In a report produced by the think tank that Hutton chairs – The Purposeful Company – a number of big hitters across the private sector have lined up to back a series of recommendations focused on purpose, and that potentially point the way towards a more socially just version of UK capitalism. These would be backed by a £100billion national wealth fund designed to support the 4^th Industrial Revolution, acting as “a bridge between private equity and public markets.”

In Hutton’s words, “what is emerging is a growing view among the best of our businesses that strategy and values should be driven by a commitment to a social purpose.” If this is the case, then it’s ever likely the Tories are ignoring them.

I’ll always remain sceptical until I see action, but maybe it is a case that hard-nosed capitalists in the City really have experienced an epiphany? Maybe they’ve reached the conclusion that capitalism is in danger of eating itself? It’s a shame that that didn’t happen 15 years ago, then maybe we could’ve avoided the carnage of the past decade or so, but I guess that would be accentuating the negative. If this what is happening right now, I guess that we need to be glad that it is.

The rise of Donald Trump, Brexit and the resulting convulsions were a reaction to an austerity obsessed status quo which had sent many communities around the country down the dustpipe, and acknowledgement of that is becoming increasingly important.

But there are those who believe that Rishi Sunak’s move to 10 Downing Street shadowed by Keir Starmer represent a return to the said status quo. John Harris of The Guardian pretty much nailed it when he said that “the return of politics-as-normal prompts a huge question: weren’t its failures what triggered all that chaos and ferment in the first place?”

Basically we can’t go back.

Ultimately, we need an economy that works for people and places. There are far too many of us that are excluded from the mainstream economy, and so we need to build an alternative that properly values people and allows us to fulfil our potential; an economy that serves us, not the other way round. This would mean the elimination of waste – wasted time, wasted talent, wasted energy, wasted heritage – and the creation of universal basic services that would allow people, places and businesses to properly function. If the City of London is serious about a new focus on social purpose, this would be a good starting point, and here in The Potteries, we’re ready to talk.

And the government has a big role to play in all of this. It can play the role of enabler through meaningful devolution and associated resources. The next big battle on our hands will be with parliament and Whitehall; they need to understand that in order to keep power, they need to give it away. This will ensure that communities are in a strong position, allowing them to engage with capitalists on an equal footing.

Let us design the new economic framework. Now that really would be localism.