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Britain in Decline: Politics, Green Job Trends and Issues Arising

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Work, Politics and the Green Industrial Revolution

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Abstract

I reflect on the notion on the UK in decline and use the example of Britishvolt to support it. I then critically discuss UK politics, green job opportunities and trends, before offering a critical view of them, and UK green job developments and issues emerging.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Essentially, I break with the UK-based, conservative-led argument that Britain is not in decline advanced by UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who criticizes ‘insidious decline-ism’ (Hunt, 2023, p. 4), and the interlocking case that UK problems stem from a low worker productivity, e.g. Ashworth-Hayes (2023a, p. 14; 2023b, p. 21), Jacobs (2023, p. 14), and Timpson (2023, p. 22). Instead, I use economic growth and social inequality outcome data from Sikka (2022) to argue that UK problems arise from unequal and inconsistent British government policy, poor organizational leadership and daily managerial incompetence.

  2. 2.

    On chronology, the UK government released Boris Johnson’s Ten Point Plan first (late 2020), the GJT report (July 2021), this (2021a) file above and then their Net Zero Strategy (Dobbins, 2022, p. 34).

  3. 3.

    ‘Clean industries already support 410,000 jobs across the UK’ (Business, Environment and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) 2021a, p. 1).

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  1. Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

    Douglas W. S. Renwick

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Renwick, D.W.S. (2024). Britain in Decline: Politics, Green Job Trends and Issues Arising. In: Work, Politics and the Green Industrial Revolution. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53067-8_3

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