Grow for it
WE cannot fault the Government’s new ambition to end the decades-long paralysis which has made Britain poorer.
Our crippling planning system and routine capitulation to the blockers have prevented almost anything of national significance being built for years.
ReutersSir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should expect civil war as they brush aside climate commitments to bolster growth[/caption]
So Rachel Reeves’ speech backing Heathrow expansion, huge infrastructure developments between Oxford and Cambridge and plenty more was a breath of fresh air.
That said, it is true that in opposition Labour were among the noisiest blockers.
Even now, those they will need to face down are mostly on their side politically.
It is also true that a Government which before the election made growth its priority should never have talked DOWN the economy while giving huge pay rises and new powers to unions and workers.
Nor imposed a “jobs tax” which even the Chief Secretary to the Treasury admits is a burden on firms.
Having topped the G7 table under Rishi Sunak, our growth is now zero — and we desperately need that to improve rapidly for living standards to increase.
The Chancellor agrees. And it doesn’t matter that her ideas are the Tories’ . . . they spent 14 years in power fending off crises and building nothing.
A speech, though, is the easy bit.
Do Ms Reeves and Keir Starmer have the nerve for a Labour civil war, as London Mayor Sadiq Khan immediately vows to fight Heathrow expansion and their backbenchers recoil at anything running counter to the Left’s demented dash for Net Zero?
And do they realise too how hard growth will always be while we have the world’s highest industrial energy prices?
Britain is sick of Governments’ broken promises.
This one, with its huge majority, must fulfil those it made yesterday — or at least get them under way.
Do they have the courage of their growth convictions? Or will Net Zero prevail?
Why so secret?
WHY is Attorney General Richard Hermer so coy about his past earnings?
Unlike other lawyers he refuses to reveal his pay or clients in the period before he became a politician.
We can think of one explanation.
As a left-wing human rights brief he routinely sided against Britain’s interests on behalf of people the public reviles.
A list of his cases might make that even more obvious.
Good Lords
WE don’t often speak warmly of peers.
But we congratulate them for defying Labour and Tory whips to support amendments on AI to protect the Press and the creative industries.
Giving away our work is not an option and would be a death-knell for media.
Labour must rethink. It cannot smooth AI’s path while killing the free Press.
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