Craig Berry
Reader in Political Economy, Manchester Metropolitan University
The covidist state: opportunities for progressive politics?
Craig Berry - 4 May 2020The outbreak of COVID 19 has enlarged the UK state. This blog explores whether this emergency enlargement of the state may come to serve progressive purposes.
Workers of the world, self isolate!
Craig Berry - 3 April 2020Pre-pandemic class relationships are both shaping and disrupting the politics of covidism.
Damned if we don’t, damned if we do: a sideways look at Ciaran Driver and Grahame Thompson’s Corporate Governance in Contention
Craig Berry - 22 October 2018Corporate Governance in Contention, edited by Ciaran Driver and Grahame Thompson (Oxford University Press, 2018), offers an exemplary overview of some of the most important debates in scholarship on corporate governance in Europe and North America
‘Global Britain’ equals Osbornomics squared
Craig Berry - 27 July 2018The tussle over Brexit within the Conservative Party is actually a debate about the UK’s future place in the global capitalist order. Boris Johnson is merely taking remainer George Osborne’s vision to its logical conclusion, while in pinning her hopes on continental capitalism, Theresa May is arguably the real fantasist
From capitalism grounded to grounded capitalism – Part 2
Craig Berry - 18 April 2018Even on the left, post-crisis regional economic policy in Britain has been underpinned by pre-crisis intellectual paradigms. This post argues that a ‘grounded capitalism’ approach can transform the British growth model while alleviating regional inequalities
From capitalism grounded to grounded capitalism – Part 1
Craig Berry - 17 April 2018We can partly situate the grounding of Britain’s pre-crisis growth model in its geographical unevenness – but the left must also situate its response to regional inequalities in a new understanding of capitalism’s spatiality
Conform or confront? Will young people turn to trade unions to address precariousness?
Craig Berry & Sean McDaniel - 12 February 2018Our new research published today considers the perspectives of today’s young people on trade unionism – and how unions can respond
Young people and the normalisation of economic crisis in the UK
Craig Berry & Sean McDaniel - 08 January 2018Our new research considers the perspectives of today’s young people on the economy, crisis and labour market change – and how they view the prospect of transforming their circumstances through politics
The next Brexit...
Craig Berry - 19 December 2017The path to ‘soft Brexit’ has now been firmly established. But the real disjuncture between the UK and the EU may be yet to come
George Osborne’s legacy lives on in Philip Hammond’s latest budget
Craig Berry - 23 November 2017The Chancellor glossed over terrible forecasts, delivered more hype than substance on industrial strategy, and succumbed to another housing market stimulus. But the Osbornomics bag of budget tricks is delivering diminishing returns for the British economy
How should progressives respond to the anti-competitive tendencies of the platform economy?
Craig Berry & Sean McDaniel - 06 November 2017Firms such as Google and Uber – and their control of our data – may pose a threat to the UK’s competition regime. How policy-makers respond to this will help to define the platform economy
Industrial strategy: here come the British
Craig Berry - 01 November 2017The final report of the Industrial Strategy Commission outlines a bold vision for strategic economic management in the UK, including institutional reforms at the centre. Can we expect the same radicalism from the May government?
Has the salience of ‘saving’ in British political discourse declined?
Craig Berry - 09 August 2017The practice of saving has been complexified, but the concept has until recently retained discursive significance as part of an ‘asset-based welfare’ agenda. The 2017 election may, however, have signalled a significant shift in British economic statecraft
The proletariat problem: general election 2017 and the class politics of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn
Craig Berry - 05 July 2017The election continued the swing of working-class voters to the Conservative Party – but also the more important trend of working-class disengagement from politics. Can Labour respond without succumbing to populism?
General election 2017 and the incompleteness of industrial strategy
Craig Berry - 21 June 2017Industrial strategy is the Achilles heel of British economic statecraft, but the radical approaches promised by both the Conservatives and Labour fall short of a transformative agenda
General election 2017 and the insidiousness of austerity politics
Craig Berry - 15 June 2017The Corbyn ‘surge’ denied the May government the majority it took for granted – but the implication that austerity in the UK is over is far from clear
The triple lock is a pensions policy, not a pensioner policy
Craig Berry - 30 May 2017While the current method of uprating the state pension is imperfect, Theresa May’s proposal to abolish it is based on a flawed view of intergenerational fairness
Brexit Britain and undemocracy: an epilogue
Craig Berry - 28 April 2017Paradoxically, the snap election is a further nail in the coffin of actually-existing British democracy – and reinforces the role of Brexit in the revival of conservative statecraft
Forever young, but never young?
Craig Berry - 15 February 2017Alan France’s ambitious account of young people’s experience of economic crisis across eight developed countries shows what it means to be young has been transformed
Industrial strategy failures increase the likelihood of soft Brexit
Craig Berry - 17 January 2017As Theresa May knows, Britain is too weak economically to prosper outside the single market under the current economic policy paradigm – this inconvenient truth will soon tear apart the pro-Brexit coalition
The world as we know it is a world that never was
Craig Berry - 07 December 2016Donald Trump’s election reminds us that world order is based on American imperial power, not liberal ideals – the American empire’s unravelling will now be accelerated
Corbynism, martyrdom and the other Labour split – part II
Craig Berry - 03 October 2016Labour will not split, but Corbynism might – Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party depends on a large group of activists increasingly uneasy with his approach to politics
Corbynism, martyrdom and the other Labour split – part I
Craig Berry - 26 September 2016Jeremy Corbyn’s destructive utopianism has been reaffirmed by Labour Party members – but there are signs of a widening divergence among Corbyn’s support base, with uncertain implications for Labour’s future
Jeremy Corbyn: a Polanyian critique
Craig Berry - 08 September 2016Corbynism represents a ‘fictitious commodity’ in the UK’s political marketplace
Brexit Britain and the political economy of undemocracy: Part II – the left
Craig Berry - 17 August 2016While the right acts decisively to restore the established order, the Corbyn experiment eschews both democracy and state power, and thus Labour’s best hope of transforming capitalism.
Brexit Britain and the political economy of undemocracy: Part I – the right
Craig Berry - 10 August 2016The aftermath of economic crisis, followed by Brexit, has seen the dismantling of democratic norms in Britain. The right benefits, while the left stands by
Austerity has transformed the meaning and morality of work in the UK
Craig Berry - 19 July 2016Measuring economic success through levels of employment obscures the unsustainable and oppressive nature of the UK’s recovery
The Coming Crisis: Neoliberalism’s survival and the crisis of imagination
Craig Berry - 06 July 2016To capitalise on the crisis and create a post-neoliberal economic order, progressives need new lenses for understanding everyday economic life
Brexit = austerity squared
Craig Berry - 28 June 2016The UK’s withdrawal from the European Union is a product, ironically, of the political elite’s longstanding aversion to democratic self-rule
From socialising capital to socialising capitalism
Craig Berry - 09 June 2016Stewart Lansley’s advocacy of the sharing economy is the right idea at the right time, but social wealth funds would be a problematic instrument
UK regions, the European Union and manufacturing exports
Craig Berry - 25 May 2016New analysis of the trade in goods between the UK’s regions and the EU sheds new light on the potential regional implications of Brexit
The real ‘new politics’ of post-crisis Britain: Part II
Craig Berry - 25 February 2016Austerity is anchored in a new politics of place, but Labour is adrift
The real ‘new politics’ of post-crisis Britain: Part I
Craig Berry - 18 February 2016The Conservatives understand – and exploit – the electorate’s concerns about ‘place’
The government is right on pensioner protection – but for the wrong reasons
Craig Berry - 14 January 2016Critics of the protection of pensioner benefit entitlements are playing into George Osborne’s hands
You wanted it, you got it
Craig Berry - 14 September 2015New Labour offered change for two decades, without ever really meaning it. Jeremy Corbyn is the near-inevitable consequence
Austerity rests on a thesis the government doesn’t believe in
Tom Hunt & Craig Berry - 01 September 2015Concentration of infrastructure investment in areas with high levels of business activity suggests the government is unconcerned by ‘crowding out’
Citizenship in a financialised society
Craig Berry - 28 August 2015The Conservative government’s promotion of financialisation is transforming citizenship in the UK
Transport investment and the North’s development dilemmas
Tom Hunt & Craig Berry - 28 July 2015The gap between rhetoric and reality with regard to transport investment in the North of England encapsulates all the problems of Northern economic development
Why the North, why now, and what’s new?: Part II
Craig Berry - 11 June 2015Osborne’s plans spell ‘devo-danger’ for the left in Northern England
Why the North, why now, and what’s new? Part I
Craig Berry - 04 June 2015For England’s sake, the time has come for Northern England to find its ‘inner powerhouse’
Ed Miliband didn’t convince the electorate, because he didn’t convince himself
Craig Berry - 12 May 2015An ambivalence towards the state meant Labour failed to offer a meaningful alternative to the Conservatives
Will the Budget reinforce Britain’s lopsided housing recovery?
Craig Berry - 15 March 2015Regional housing inequalities continue to widen – because the game is rigged
The rebalancing agenda, Boris Johnson and the politics of pension funds
Craig Berry - 26 November 2014The Conservative agenda on pension investments is inherently shallow and increasingly moralistic in tone
Devolution and the silence of political economy
Craig Berry - 30 October 2014The shallowness of the UK debate on devolution demonstrates the new marginalisation of political economy in public discourse
Scotland can do better than ‘tartanised’ neoliberalism
Craig Berry - 09 September 2014The SNP has failed to offer a meaningful alternative to the UK’s flawed economic model – a view from Northern England
The deliberate impotence of active labour market policy
Craig Berry - 05 June 2014Hyper-Anglicisation typifies the supply-side agenda for employment – and renders it increasingly irrelevant
The regressive evolution of the UK tax base
Daniel Bailey & Craig Berry - 13 June 2014The declining significance of progressive and business taxation demonstrates the character of ‘austerity’
Scotland, England and currency union – or two bald men and a comb
Craig Berry & Richard Berry - 18 March 2014The phoney currency debate in Scotland relies on misunderstanding and is helping to marginalise the real alternatives
Britain’s unreal recovery risks a very real economic crisis
Craig Berry - 26 February 2014Investment and consumption performance demonstrates the frailty of the UK economy; the economic recovery is not yet secure
Britain’s trade deficit persists in spite of sterling devaluation
Craig Berry & Scott Lavery - 18 February 2014Sterling’s falling value has not been exploited, exposing the coalition’s failure to rebalance the economy
Business as usual as City pay soars while manufacturing stagnates
Craig Berry - 09 January 2014George Osborne promised a ‘march of the makers’ but as yet there is little sign that a resurgence of manufacturing is helping the economy to rebalance
Welcome to the pseudo-recovery
Craig Berry - 29 November 2013UK investment and consumption performance demonstrates the frailty of the economic recovery
Interrogating the ‘good news’ on employment
Craig Berry - 25 November 2013Why the coalition government is wrong to consider the relatively high employment rate one of its main successes
Export-led growth and the failure of economic rebalancing
Craig Berry - 19 November 2013The trade deficit is growing – and the Transatlantic trade deal is unlikely to rectify this
Are we there yet?
Craig Berry - 14 November 2013The recent good news about renewed growth in the British economy badly needs to be scrutinised and put in context
Can pensions break the British investment strike?
Craig Berry - 07 November 2013The government has a covert strategy to use pensions saving to improve Britain’s economic performance, but it may jeopardise the long-term interests of members
Mark Carney’s ‘forward guidance’: from rebalancing to fingers crossed
Craig Berry - 08 August 2013Pension funds will find little comfort in forward guidance