Starmer supplied a stodgy speech on investment to the International Investment Summit. Lobby hacks have enthusiastically written up his plegdge to “rip up” regulation and cut bureaucracy – while Labour’s new legislation does largely the opposite…
After the speech Starmer sat in for a 30-minute Q&A with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, whose first comment was: “I was shocked when Labour said it was in favour of growth.” Starmer sulkily replied that “wealth creation is the number one mission of a Labour government”…
The Q&A was watched live on LinkedIn, where it was hosted, by a pitiful average of 440 people. Hilariously about 20 minutes of the entire chat was taken up by AI as business leaders constantly rediverted to the topic. Starmer just repeatedly said it’s a “real game-changer.” Maybe there was a good reason Sunak bothered to invite Elon Musk to chat about the new technology – especially as Musk has just invented AI-powered robots…
Labour has finally found a line on Elon Musk’s non-invitation to Starmer and Reeves’ investment summit: ‘He doesn’t have anything to invest.’ Eh?
Ministers have spent the weekend refusing to comment on whether he was even invited. Now Peter Kyle has been asked in every interview on the morning round why the “most successful businessman in the world” didn’t cop an invite to the summit. His response is that “Elon Musk doesn’t have a global investment programme that’s underway at the moment.” Just the odd invention or two…
That’s different from Labour’s previous line, which also went on about tech investment, on the summit’s purpose:
“The summit is an opportunity to meaningfully engage with the world’s leading businesses and investors, and to continue to build long-term relationships that will drive investment into the UK in the months and years ahead.”
So Labour doesn’t feel the need to meaningfully engage with Musk. Is it because he said mean things about Keir on Twitter?
Guido has got hold of a copy of the delegate pack for Labour’s much-touted International Investment Summit next week. It’s a swanky affair…
Delegates are warmly welcomed to the event “jointly hosted by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC MP,” Rachel Reeves, and Jonathan Reynolds. Sorry Ange, no space for the “Deputy Prime Minister” here…
On Sunday night it’s a pre-summit reception hosted by Reynolds at Lancaster House, “one of the UK’s most magnificent venues, steeped in political history with its fabulous Louis 14th style interiors and beautiful art collection.” A taxpayer-funded official photographer will be roving to get snaps…
At the summit itself actress Adjoa Andoh will be the compère to tell delegates when it’s time to have lunch, head to breakout sessions, or reconvene to listen to Rachel Reeves’ keynote address. Presumably she’ll also wake them up once it’s over…
Pretty much every major Labour politician will be there including regional mayors – apart from Tory mayor Ben Houchen, who’s the only one not on the list. Even John Swinney’s copped an invite…
Anyone hoping for a good time should be warned “no alcohol will be served during the day.” There will be a designated smoking area though. One rule for them…
Labour have gone to great lengths to design an entire private-access swish website for the event where delegates can upload their LinkedIn accounts and select breakout sessions. After afternoon activities everyone will decamp to an evening reception. The government helpfully reassures delegates that journalists “will be easily recognisable by yellow lanyards” and “will not have access to the parts of the programme that are closed.” Wouldn’t want the media coverage promoting UK investment or anything like that…
Read the full document below:
Starmer is meeting with businesses this morning in New York to try to convince them to invest in the UK. Or at least turn up to Reeves’ ‘International Investment Summit’ to get the numbers up…
To prove he’s already making successful investment progress the government ‘announced‘ that Starmer has secured a £10 billion deal for US investment company Blackstone to build the biggest AI data centre in Europe over in Blyth. Keir gushed: “New investment such as the one we’ve announced with Blackstone today is a huge vote of confidence in the UK and it proves that Britain is back as a major player on the global stage and we’re open for business.” Sounds impressive, until you realise Starmer is ‘announcing’ six month-old news…
The deal was signed off and publicised widely months before the election on 15th April before getting fully confirmed a few weeks later. Not that the media haven’t dutifully written it up this morning…
Northumberland County Council Tories say Starmer has obviously had nothing to do with the it – they did the negotiating, with some input from the Office for Investment under Sunak. They say “the PM must feel like a bit of a silly sausage.” Has Keir not managed any investment at all since he came into office?
In another win for Brexit Britain, the UK has become the top destination for investment in financial services, according to EY. The UK pulled in a whopping 108 financial services projects last year, a sharp rise from 76 in 2022, leaving European competitors in the dust. Economists point to the post-Brexit regulation-slashing Edinburgh reforms unveiled last year for the surge in investment.
The so-called powerhouses of Europe, France and Germany, trailed behind in second and third place, securing a meagre 39 and 38 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects in 2023 respectively. The UK represented 28% of all financial projects in Europe. Anna Anthony, EY UK financial services managing partner, said:
“The UK didn’t just maintain its lead as the most attractive European financial services market last year; it extended it significantly.”
So much for the City armageddon that was promised…
Tory peer Lord Harrington’s Treasury-commissioned report into the UK’s dismal foreign direct investment (FDI) says Brexit isn’t the cause of our economic woes. Instead, Harrington finds that the civil service’s perpetual instinct to do “anything to de-risk a decision“, particularly by “shoving financial decisions to a series of semi-arms length institutions” is to blame. Endless bureaucratic delay does not an attractive place to invest make…
The report finds “competitors have about 12% of GDP in business investment both domestic and foreign, our equivalent is 10%” – that amounts to £50 billion annually. Meanwhile, new figures show the UK business death rate has exceeded the birth rate for the first time since 2010. Over 200 banks, businesses, and wealth funds have spoken to Harrington to complain about the lack of willingness and expertise in the government when it comes to getting new business. The report is calling for a new “Investment Minister” to lead a “business investment strategy“. Never mind another strategy, how about they get out of the way…
