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This paper explores the local impact of various forms of fiscal and monetary support for UK-based companies in the context of disruption caused by COVID-19 and associated public health restrictions, including support for household incomes (and therefore private consumption) via the ‘furlough’ scheme, the Covid Corporate Financing Facility and various national and local business support schemes. It shows that the economic crisis associated with the pandemic has been construed to justify interventions that preserve the spatially uneven status quo of the UK’s model of economic development, protecting business from harms arising, apparently, from the public’s reaction to the pandemic. To some extent, COVID-19 has been treated as a localised phenomenon that the national economy requires protection from.

Theories of ‘growth models’ explain capitalist diversity by reference to shifting drivers of aggregate demand in different national economies. This article expands the growth models framework beyond its conventional focus on debt-driven and export-driven demand, through an ideational analysis of Thatcher’s vision of a property-owning democracy, and Blair’s knowledge-driven growth agenda. Drawing on policymakers’ statements, it shows how these hypothetical growth models differed from the debt-driven growth model that ultimately prevailed. Using data on the distribution of wealth and wages, it highlights how both approaches failed to generate sustainable demand; in Thatcher’s case, because of an insufficiently broad distribution of capital ownership, in Blair’s case, because of an insufficiently broad distribution of lucrative knowledge work. This indicates that explanations of dysfunctional growth models need to consider not just the split of national income between labour and capital, but also the distribution of both labour income and capital income between households.

This paper explores the local impact of various forms of fiscal and monetary support for UK-based companies in the context of disruption caused by COVID-19 and associated public health restrictions, including support for household incomes (and therefore private consumption) via the ‘furlough’ scheme, the Covid Corporate Financing Facility and various national and local business support schemes. It shows that the economic crisis associated with the pandemic has been construed to justify interventions that preserve the spatially uneven status quo of the UK’s model of economic development, protecting business from harms arising, apparently, from the public’s reaction to the pandemic. To some extent, COVID-19 has been treated as a localised phenomenon that the national economy requires protection from.

In periods where the national public debt has grown rapidly beyond ‘normal’ levels, the idea of drawing on the stock of national private wealth in order to pay down that debt, whether in whole or in part, has gained currency. ‘Capital levies’ or ‘one-off wealth taxes’ involve a one-time charge based upon wealth, normally assessed across a broad range of asset classes (such as savings, investments, property and pensions). The goal of this paper is to outline, and to expand upon, the evidence base available to policymakers contemplating one-off wealth taxes. It outlines key features of one-off wealth taxes, relative to somewhat more commonplace recurring wealth taxes. Using a comparative case study methodology, the paper analyses historical examples of one-off wealth taxation, which have attracted relatively little scholarly attention to date. It explores practical details of tax design and tax administration, as well as aspects of the political and economic context in which these measures were introduced. In so doing, it identifies factors that make one-off wealth taxes more or less likely to succeed in raising revenue while also minimising any negative social and economic consequences.

Looking back at New Labour’s 1997 election campaign, Nick O’Donovan highlights the importance of ideas to opposition parties.

The government aims to shift the UK towards a high-skill, high-wage growth model, based on investment in education. Nick O’Donovan explores how this ambition was shared by New Labour politicians in the 1990s, and what lessons we can learn from the shortcomings of that agenda.