Tales from the crypt: Margaret Thatcher’s industrial policy and its afterlife

This chapter examines the paradoxical nature of Thatcherite industrial policy, challenging the conventional view that Margaret Thatcher's governments pursued a purely laissez-faire approach. While official discourse emphasised a ‘horizontal’ strategy—focused on enhancing market competitiveness rather than direct intervention—successive British governments, including Thatcher’s, engaged in covert forms of selective industrial support. This ‘dual industrial policy’ combined rhetorical commitment to free markets with discreet state intervention to support strategic sectors. The chapter traces the evolution of this consensus from the 1980s to the end of Rishi Sunak's administration, highlighting how leaders from Major to Cameron, despite their anti-interventionist rhetoric, continued this pragmatic approach. After a brief deviation under May, Johnson and Truss, Sunak has revived the Thatcherite model, adopting what has been termed an ‘apologetic’ industrial policy. By reassessing the Thatcherite legacy, this chapter demonstrates how its contradictions continue to shape contemporary British economic governance.