Remember “securonomics”? Once the leitmotif for Joe Biden’s administration, it was enthusiastically embraced by Rachel Reeves as shadow chancellor in a landmark speech she gave in the US capital in May 2023. Prioritising national economic strength and resilience in the face of an uncertain world, she said, was going to usher in a new settlement to replace the failed Washington consensus of hyper-globalisation, free trade and outsourced industrial production, which had hollowed out Britain’s productive capacity and reduced the living standards of millions of people.
It was a transformative vision. Then the hike in inflation put paid to Biden’s re-election prospects, while Labour retreated to economic orthodoxy in the run-up to last year’s general election and for the first six months or so in office. Securonomics seemed dead and buried, while the zombie of George Osborne has burst out of the ground to replace it.
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