How We Build Britain

Why geography might be the answer to economic growth.

I reflect on Great British Energy's first year and ask an honest question: what has actually changed for the places that have been on the wrong side of industrial decline for a generation? The answer is complicated, but there is a genuine reason for optimism. The coasts, the estuaries, the old industrial heartlands are, by an accident of physics and geography, exactly where the energy transition has to be built. For the first time in decades, the map of where the next economy needs to land overlaps with the map of where the last one was lost. But geography creates the opportunity; it doesn't guarantee it. I make the case for counting the social returns the system currently ignores

What can Britain learn from three crises in six years… and what do we need to do differently?

Three crises in six years. A pandemic. A war. A strait most of us could not have placed on a map two months ago. Each has shown us, in turn, the scale of the UK’s dependency on foreign supply chains. And the cost of an economic orthodoxy that treats market intervention in the national interest as the last possible resort. In this closing episode of the opening trilogy of How We Build Britain, I draw on thirteen years of work on supply chain interventions and investments to ask why we have not learned, why we are repeating the mistake in the energy transition, and what it would take to spend the money we are already spending as builders, not just as buyers.

How other countries built the industries Britain let go.

How has Denmark prospered from one big industrial bet? How did South Korea build an industrial economy that excels in everything from shipbuilding to cutting-edge batteries? Why did Japan keep its heavy industries when everyone else let theirs go? Each made deliberate choices. Each sustained them across decades and changes of government. Each underpinned them with competitive energy. And each now has options that countries without industrial depth simply do not have. Britain has done the opposite. Four industrial strategies launched and abandoned since the early 2000s. The highest industrial electricity prices in the developed world. A manufacturing share of GDP that has halved in a generation. In this episode, I look at what the countries that built lasting industrial strength actually did, what happened when the United States tried to do it at speed and then reversed course, and what Britain can learn whilst it has the chance.

Britain is investing billions in energy. Can it rebuild our industry?

Britain has deindustrialised more than any other developed nation. The energy transition, the largest industrial demand signal this country will generate for decades, offers a chance to reverse that trend. The question is whether we take it. In this first episode, I explore why Britain has become world-class at deploying energy infrastructure but consistently fails to capture the industrial value that comes with it. From the offshore wind content gap to the stop-start history of British industrial strategy, I make the case that energy is not just a climate or technology story. It is the cause and the cure for Britain’s deindustrialisation. This is the first in a three-part series on the energy transition, from a broader podcast that will focus on energy, infrastructure, and industry.