Turbocharge UK plc with a £50bn soft power growth plan

Let’s think about life after Thursday for a moment. What might make the country thrive?

The lines drawn between planning, housing, productivity and growth are encouraging, but colouring them in with detail will take time; lifting them off the page and turning them into homes and infrastructure will take far longer.

What can deliver impact, and fast, is a soft power plan. We’re 12 years on from the London Olympics. It was peak London; joyful, forward facing and with the UK’s capital feeling like the world’s capital.

Have you been to the Olympic – sorry Queen Elizabeth Park – recently? It’s… wonderful.

The stadium is home to Premier League football, athletes’ homes have been Londoners’ homes since, pretty much, the Paralympic closing ceremony, and its parkland is suitably green and pleasant.

More than that, it’s getting better all the time. It feels like Europe’s innovation campus. The old press and broadcast centre, now Here East, is thriving. And East Bank is a fast-emerging cultural quarter, home (or soon to be) to the London College of Fashion, the V&A East Museum, Sadler’s Wells East and the new BBC Music studios.

Legacy? London 2012 has overdelivered.

Can we do it again? Why not.

In 2028 the UK and Ireland will host the (men’s) Euros. Based on current performances, I won’t speculate on England appearing as champions, but I will on the potential economic impact: UK Sport estimates the cumulative socio-economic benefits of the tournament across the five host nations to be £2.6bn. It could be transformative.

Shouldn’t we see the tournament as the culmination of a four-year soft power project? Scratch that. Make it five years, to ensure Olympic levels of legacy are delivered. And let’s set a goal of generating at least £5bn of additional economic activity over its term.

All of it doesn’t have to come from sport – although established events like Wimbledon can help too. Last year, researchers at Sheffield Hallam University put the tennis tournament’s contribution to London’s economy at £198.9m. Nationally that’s a figure close to £327m. (And should planning approval be given for expansion of the All-England Club, that number would only grow.)

There’s TV too. Netflix and Bridgerton production company, Shondaland, said last month that the Bridgerton “universe” had boosted the UK economy by more than £250m over the past five years. Visit Bath and you might think it higher.

Theatre? At last year’s Global Investment Summit, impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber said the UK theatre industry was responsible for £2.39bn of GVA: with £1bn of direct turnover in the UK theatre sector generating £1.3bn worth of turnover across the broader economy.

And then there’s Taylor Swift. With more than one million people buying tickets for the UK Leg of her Era’s tour – including American tourists taking a “Taycation” in London – her economic impact cannot be overstated. The economic boost to the capital alone from her eight nights at Wembley Stadium could be £300m, according to the Greater London Authority. Some say “Swiftonomics” – their word not mine - will boost UK spending by almost £1bn this year.

Add those together and a £5bn soft power plan is looking achievable, even an underestimate if you consider a report published last year by Sky, with Public First and Oxford Economics. Sky estimated that the UK’s media and entertainment sector could be worth £53bn to the UK economy in 2033 if growth continues at its current trajectory. That’s an additional £10bn a year, no less.

I know what you’re thinking. A £5bn, five-year soft power plan is a given. A £50bn plan might not be out of reach. And it adds weight to the conclusion of ING’s recent UK’s Most Talked About Cities report: culture = visibility = inward investment.

So, what can we do to put the plan into action? Well, we can’t live in Taylor’s world every year. Success on the sports field wouldn’t go amiss either. But there is plenty the new government can control. A focus on skills, incentives and infrastructure – digital and physical – will reap rewards. Relentless championing of the UK as a creative powerhouse at home and abroad must be the job of a Cabinet minister.

With focus, alignment and imagination, growth through soft power while hard policy reform runs its course isn’t just achievable, it’s critical if the UK is to thrive any time soon.