Regional Performance in the UK under New Labour
The election of New Labour to government in 1997 heralded an unprecedented commitment to boosting economic performance in the lagging regions of the United Kingdom. This paper describes how New Labour failed to reduce the gap between the northern and southern regions despite the renewal of interest...
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| Udgivet i: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/osb, |
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| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Sprog: | Anglais |
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Observatoire de la société britannique
2012
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| Online adgang: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Summary: | The election of New Labour to government in 1997 heralded an unprecedented commitment to boosting economic performance in the lagging regions of the United Kingdom. This paper describes how New Labour failed to reduce the gap between the northern and southern regions despite the renewal of interest in regional economic performance. It finds that towards the end of New Labour’s third term in office the three northern English regions were performing well below the UK average on all main indicators. It also underlines the worrying dependency of northern regions on public sector jobs created under the previous government. It is argued that New Labour’s policies failed to reduce regional and sub-regional disparities because of failings in their overall framework for the regions. It seems that there was no role for demand in the policy for the regions. Moreover, successive Labour governments moved away from some of the more successful regional development policies of the past and focused on five drivers without proving first that these essentially national drivers could be applied successfully at a regional level. |
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