Last night’s launch of the “Looking For Growth” campaign organised by Professor Lawrence Newport saw hundreds of tech bros come together at The Camden in Mornington Crescent – far from Westminster. The room was filled with tech entrepreneurs and CEOs from the numerous sectors including e-commerce, shipping, and AI traffic management. Some attendees even flew in from far flung Australia and San Francisco for the event…
Newport, known for his Crush Crime Campaign and successfully getting XL Bully dogs banned, unveiled a new National Priority Infrastructure Bill to present to MPs for removing all obstacles to deliver infrastructure. Clue: it’s nuclear, overhead cables, and data centres…
Fans can pay for the bill to be printed out and sent to MPs or ministers – or just bombard them by email. Newport tells Guido “this is about taking action – it’s a political movement for growth.” Labour group Day One sent a few of their people to the event, though any politicians were noticeably absent. And Labour claim to be the “party for growth”…
More events are being planned for the new year. Meanwhile, speaker Dominic Cummings unveiled his latest plan to remove Sadiq Khan from office, eyeing up a candidate to beat the London Mayor in the next election. He also didn’t miss the opportunity to bash the blob. No Starmer-style reversal on this one…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”