Labour half accepts that. The University for Industry, on the go from next year, is meant to utilise the internet and a string of local access points to help unemployed people gain certs and skills online. Productivity also depends on how well companies tool themselves up. Mr Brown has been a devotee of tax credits, especially for internet- related investments by smaller enterprises. This week he added further bells and whistles to a tax code looking, say critics, more and more like a Christmas tree.
Official theory says the state can make markets work better.
Apart from the fact the Germans and French manage high levels of productivity amid a highly regulated labour market, beating workers into submission does not sound a civilised mission for a left-centre government. It proffers a long list of measures to enhance competitiveness, handmaiden of productivity. Yet it is all curiously tentative, as if Labour were riding a beast without much confidence in the reins. Brownism amounts to a curious amalgam of bribery and cajolery with only a hint of a mailed fist in the chancellor's glove. And more subsidised skills training.