Re: As some of us said at the time...
El Reg reported on the announcements in May and took the line shared with many commentators that not subsidising new fabs was a mistake.
As I recall, the line many commentards (myself included) took was:
Nice that they've actually developed a strategy (now do the rest of the economy - UKGov has no over-arching industrial strategy), but:
1. It's table stakes. You don't need to be subsidising fabs to take a proactive interest in things like developing connections with universities, putting the right investment in place to develop clusters (whether that's for shiny logic silicon or - very sensibly - leveraging existing expertise in power silicon and other niche sectors). But they're not taking a tremendously proactive approach on that.
2. Realistically, this government is allergic to investment or infrastructure. It's cynical but not entirely unreasonable- to suggest that them saying "We're going to pursue this niche stuff, so don't expect big press about a new 3nm plant or anything. It's important but very low key" is actually expectation management for "we're promising low because we have no intention of delivering anything anyway" and nobody can be surprised when it all goes quiet and we hear nothing about it again.
3. Good luck delivering even if they do want to - they've gutted the civil service such that DBT would have a real job delivering some of this stuff even with strong ministerial backing.
4. None of this matters because industrial strategy is necessarily long-term. But this government has less than 12months in office, and is then looking at another decade in opposition. And they know it. One can have their own opinions on HS2, but the manner in which Sunak has cancelled it and is then expediting the sale of land, at a loss to the taxpayer is a deliberate attempt to salt the earth and prevent a future government restarting the project. It's scorched earth politics from a party that doesn't give a toss and is busy burning every bridge they can, to make life hard for the next government. They're not good-faith actors. If they do something good, it is purely by accident - but even then, it probably means you haven't looked hard enough to find the donor who is cashing out.