World News – GB – Cummings’ exit leaves economic strategy in a whirl

Dominic Cummings has been the driving force behind major government policies, so what will happen to raise the bar now?

Dominic Cummings is on his way out, and with him unfolds the vision of a frenzied reformist government seeking to reform the nation in a short time..

He’s only one man in the gigantic Whitehall machine, but he’s exerted a huge influence, so it’s reasonable to ask how his departure has affected plans to reform the economy – especially when Britain needs a quick recovery from Covid, and the prime minister needs a strong and organized figure. Behind him.

As much as the government has a strategy that is not related to « Covid », it is based on two key policies of Cummings: achieving Brexit and improving the nation.

The first of them come to a conclusion, one way or another, in the next few months. Analysts believe the demise of Cummings plus Comms Director Lee Cain, a veteran of the vote, may make a deal more likely..

The second was blown off course by Covid – Watch last month’s battle over regional lockdowns and alleged bias against the North in Liverpool lead the group to Level 3.

To these goals, a third element must now be added, which is a familiar ground for conservatives: control of finances.

This is now in danger. The budget deficit is set to reach 400 billion pounds this year, well above almost 160 billion pounds at the height of the financial crisis, which heralded a decade of austerity to restore control of finances.. .

“The Boris-Dom project has always been one that spends a lot,” says one seasoned insider at Westminster.

«  Cummings always imagined returning the UK with huge investments in things. But he was undoubtedly dependent on having a lot of money to spend. This money is gone.

Former Chancellor Philip Hammond said this week that anyone who thinks the political will exists for major spending cuts or tax increases before the next election is to « live in an imaginary land. ». But it limits the scope for pledging additional spending.

Without the Durham County champion raising the profile, it can be difficult to stick to the campaign promises made last year..

Andrew Carter trusts Center Towns that the rhetoric about the upgrade will continue, but he fears there will be little progress without Cummings..

« The settlement agenda is complicated. It requires government departments to operate a little differently and be more organized among themselves than they do in typical departmental cases.. This requires political rhetoric but it also takes people to get it done, « Carter says.

“Progress, which was not as fast as we would like, may be slowed further due to its withdrawal.

Cummings has also been an advocate of innovation-led regional renewal championed by Richard Jones of the University of Sheffield, whose paper on the « reemergence of regions » referenced in a blog post.

Jones called for a series of public investments in new research centers outside the booming southeast of England. Publicly funded research and development will in turn absorb private sector funds, whether building on existing regional strengths or exploiting new technology..

Stian Westlake, a former government consultant and innovation expert – who also agrees with Jones’s approach – says: “There is no doubt that the desire to upgrade and help the poorer parts of England will continue to provide new services to the ‘Red Wall’ MPs who have been elected..

« I think the challenge would be – and this might be more difficult if it’s always away from the scene – to do so effectively through R&D. There is always a temptation if you are trying to help a poor area spend a « ham barrel »; You’re saving failed industries and doing things that make people happy in the short term but not achieving long-term economic growth, an effective return to 150 years of failed British regional policy..

Firms found Cummings to be both aiding and a hindrance to the advancement of industrial strategy.

“He gave a degree of interest to manufacturing that we would not have had otherwise – he showed genuine interest and interest. He sees upgrading as important, with ideas to move capital, resources and investment across the country, and he sees manufacturing as a big part of the solution, « says one industry source..

However, companies often found Cummings to have an outdated idea of ​​manufacturing, neglecting the shift to the cutting-edge specialist business in recent decades..

Moreover, the source says, he and his clique of senior advisors usually took on too much projects and control, meaning that they were unable to create a sustainable industrial strategy, while refusing to let the ministers all the time or the formally responsible for it write Politics already.

Without Cummings’ enthusiasm, there might be a few key policy advocates who are either keen on the idea, or the prime minister trusts them enough, as one veteran observer in Westminster puts it: “Dom is like Michael Gove, a neoconservative – They believe in power as long as they exercise it.

Steve Baker, Conservative MP and former minister, stresses the utter horror of trying to achieve these policies while keeping a lid on public finances – the two dual challenges that will dominate public life in the coming years.

« Money is running out, massive quantitative easing is being used and the Treasury denies the link between quantitative easing and spending, » he says..

“We must now get out of this terrible impasse, and we will not go into a large and sustainable deficit and quantitative easing. Reviewing spending plans appears inevitable now, the money is wasted, but there can be no blasphemy in our ambitions for the country..

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Dominic Cummings, 10 Downing Street, Boris Johnson, Government, Michael Gove