CBI chief: Free market has failed
THE head of the CBI will today launch a damning critique of free-market capitalism, claiming it has left swathes of the country in decline.
Director-general Tony Danker will tell the Confederation of British Industry conference that successive governments have let ‘old industries die’ since the 1980s, with the communities facing ‘benign neglect’ ever since.
‘We’ve had five decades where the free market has palpably failed,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘There is a debate on the Right of politics over industrial strategies and whether they should exist.
That should not be a debate. This is a critique of Thatcherism, though not a traditional one, and also of New Labour.
‘But it is a wider critique because pretty much every institution took the same view. I don’t think you can “level up” without free-market capitalism but it is not enough on its own. We need partnership with government.’
The speech is a departure for the CBI, which is usually seen as a champion of the free-market economy. And it is likely to anger acolytes of Margaret Thatcher, who will perceive it as a broadside against her policies towards traditional industry.
Boris Johnson has put ‘levelling up’ the North at the centre of his agenda as Prime Minister, with the policy credited with earning the Tories a host of Red Wall seats at the 2019 general election.
Mr Danker has previously worked at business consultancy McKinsey, the Treasury and the firm that publishes The Guardian newspaper. He will deliver his speech at the Port of Tyne in South Shields today.