The economic competence of the labour party in historical perspective

TELESCA, Giuseppe

doi:10.1111/1467-923X.13454

The economic competence of the labour party in historical perspective

dc.contributor.author	TELESCA, Giuseppe
dc.date.accessioned	2024-12-19T10:45:10Z
dc.date.available	2024-12-19T10:45:10Z
dc.date.issued	2024
dc.description	Published online: 20 September 2024	en
dc.description.abstract	The theme of the relationship between Labour Party and economic competence resurfaced in February 2024 when Keir Starmer decided to scale down its £28 billion green investment pledge. This work explores the historical and structural reasons why the economic competence issue has tended to be ‘owned’ by the Tories. It highlights that the definition of economic competence has often coincided with an emphasis on monetary stability and balancing government budgets with relatively low levels of taxation from the late 1970s onwards. The Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) crisis in the 1990s led to a partial redefinition of economic competence, now built around a political economy of ‘constrained discretion’ and ‘credible Keynesianism’. The 2007–8 global financial crisis gave the Conservative Party the opportunity to regain its reputation for competence by arguing that the crisis had been the consequence of excessive public spending. The Labour Party's decision to sacrifice its biggest single policy pledge on the altar of financial probity heralds the difficulties that the new Labour government will face when attempting to reconcile the need for an active and strategic state with its stance on fiscal rectitude.	en
dc.description.sponsorship	The project leading to this article has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 884910).	en
dc.description.sponsorship	This article was published Open Access with the support from the EUI Library through the CRUI - Wiley Transformative Agreement (2024-2027)	en
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.citation	The political quarterly, 2024, Vol. 95, No. 4, pp. 627-633	en
dc.identifier.doi	10.1111/1467-923X.13454
dc.identifier.endpage	633	en
dc.identifier.issn	0032-3179
dc.identifier.issn	1467-923X
dc.identifier.issue	4	en
dc.identifier.startpage	627	en
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1814/77681
dc.identifier.volume	95	en
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.orcid.upload	true	*
dc.publisher	Wiley	en
dc.relation	The Memory of Financial Crises: Financial Actors and Global Risk
dc.relation.ispartof	The political quarterly	en
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess	en
dc.rights.license	Attribution 4.0 International	en
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/	en
dc.title	The economic competence of the labour party in historical perspective	en
dc.type	Article	en
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