Ambitious business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has set out his stall as a flag bearer for Thatcherite, free market Conservatism.
There are tensions in the party between the interventionist grand projects favoured by Boris Johnson as 'Heseltine with Brexit' and more traditional perspectives. These have surfaced in tensions between the prime minister and the chancellor who favours fiscal restraint.
Kwarteng says that there is a need to reassert a strong belief in 'free markets, enterprise, entrepreneurship.' In a barb he states, 'It's been very difficult to get that message out when we're spending huge amounts of money [on intervention].'
In a dig at his predecessor Greg Clarke he said that his discarded industrial strategy had been 'very, very broad.' For all its flaws, it was an attempt to give a comprehensive strategic direction to policy.
Kwarteng had to admit that 'fiscal levers' involving tax cuts or extra investment allowances were in the hands of the Treasury: 'That's a conversation we can have with them.' However, it would be quite a one sided conversation as the business department has always played second fiddle to the Treasury whatever the stance of its secretary of state.
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