Enabling builders not blockers
Keir Starmer explains his political project
Two follow-ups from my last post, on Labour’s first 100 days.
1) Rosie Duffield
UnHerd has released an interview with Rosie Duffield MP, which amplifies why she felt she had to resign from the Labour Party so soon after the election. I think she overestimates the extent to which Labour has moved on from its uncritical support for the gender industry, but she does provide fascinating insights into Keir Starmer’s inability to connect with ordinary people, or even with his backbench MPs.
2) International Investment Summit
Today the Labour government held an International Investment Summit, where corporate CEOs were flown in, mainly from the USA, to be told that the UK is now a great place for them to invest in.
The pre-Summit preparations did not go well. Elon Musk was not invited, because Keir Starmer didn’t like one of his tweets. Labour’s Transport Secretary said she was boycotting one of the invitees, and they had to be persuaded to come anyway. Questions were raised about why the Summit was held before, rather than after, the Budget that would give potential investors some indication of the tax regime that would await them. And attendees wondered why rejoining the European single market (something that would encourage more inward investment) was off the agenda. But the Summit went ahead, and participants got the chance to hear about the Prime Minister’s political project, in his own words.
Starmer’s welcoming speech was embarrassing and disturbing in equal measure. He hinted at an imagined radical past - “complete with long hair and very, very flared jeans”. He even echoed Antonio Gramsci and Rudi Dutschke, asserting that “We will march through the institutions.” But his radicalism is confined to extolling the growth that he believes is “our most important mission”, and to demonising anything that stands in its way.
Starmer’s incomprehensible attempt to explain why growth is so important to him must have been generated by an AI at a very early stage of development:
“It’s not just that stability leads to growth - though we all recognise that. It’s also that growth leads to stability. Growth leads to country that is better equipped to come together, and get its future back. That’s why it’s always been so critical to my political project.”
At least he managed to avoid mentioning sausages this time. But alongside the worship of a growth that boosts corporate profits rather than wellbeing. and his bizarre metaphors (not “misting up the shop windows of Britain” but “making sure the changing rooms are clean and comfortable”), there is a sinister dismissal of any regulation that does not promote growth. Land use planning looks like becoming an early casualty. - instead of a planning system that balances different and often conflicting aims, for Starmer the aim is only to establish “Is it something that enables the builders not the blockers?”:
“Where it is needlessly holding back the investment we need to take our country forward. Where it is stopping us building the homes, the data centres, the warehouses, grid connectors, roads, trainlines, you name it, then mark my words, we will get rid of it.”
Data centres feature prominently in the investment pledges offered at the summit. As I noted here, data centres consume enormous amounts of energy. Growth that is based on attracting them will require a huge expansion, both in electricity generating capacity and in the transmission lines that will be needed to transfer the power from where it is produced to where it is consumed. The faster the growth that is aimed for, the greater the generating capacity (and pylons) that will be required. Starmer believes that nothing must be allowed to delay what this growth requires. So he wants planning restrictions, to protect people and nature for example, to be relaxed.
In the run up to the general election, Keir Starmer talked a lot about the need to review land classified as Green Belt (land surrounding urban areas where development is restricted). Much Green Belt land, he suggested, has little environmental value - the example he repeatedly quoted was of a derelict petrol station. Such land, he suggested, should be redefined as Grey Belt, and freed for development. As it happens, data centre developers are particularly interested in locations just outside London, close to maximum demand, and where there is grid capacity or where this could be quickly provided. Converting Green Belt to Grey Belt could be very useful for data centre developers. And a lot more land would be needed than is presently taken up by derelict petrol stations.
“Ensuring the right framework conditions for data centre investment via competitive energy policies and faster grid access will power AI opportunities. Working with the Department for Energy to accelerate access should be an essential priority.”
(Google, Unlocking the UK’s AI potential, Sep 2024)
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I don’t know if government communicators think their social media output is what will appeal to a TikTok generation, but it does come across as unbelievably childish.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s TikTok video, promoting the government’s ‘Clean Energy Superpower Mission’, complete with Batman references, comes across like a poor audition for a corny stand-up routine. At least it has more than nine words, though. Unlike Keir Starmer’s one minute promo video on X for today’s Investment Summit, which is a collage of unrelated images, including, half way through, a person with a bow tie disappearing down a plughole. Or is it a toilet? It’s hard to tell.