An exhibition featuring one million pounds' worth of cancelled bank notes. Photo: Andrew Stuart / PA Archive/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.Jeremy Corbyn's proposal of a 'national investment bank' is nothing new. The record for these sorts of ventures is actually, well... underwhelming. But that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be an opportunity here for real transformation. The proposal to set up a national investment bank and a network of Regional Investment Banks is fast becoming the centre-piece of his economic policy agenda. This seems a clever move. It sounds innovate, avoids tricky narratives about public spending, and is satisfyingly 'public sector'. It almost sounds radical.
Yet before anyone can shoot it down as some crack-pot leftist idea, it easy to point to Germany’s Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau or any number of other promotional banks around the world. In fact, the UK’s utilities, universities and corporate sector have been receiving several billion in financing from the EU’s own Luxembourg-based investment bank every year. If we loose out on that because of Brexit, it would seem only sensible to put something in its place.
It sounds innovate, and avoids tricky narratives about public spending
