Hard left think tank the New Economics Foundation put out rapid analysis this week warning that any expansion of Heathrow, Luton, and Gatwick would decimate the carbon emission savings garnered from the government’s Clean Power 30 mission:
“Researchers at NEF have found that approving the expansion of the airports would create 65m tonnes of additional carbon-equivalent emissions within five years of expanded operation, wiping out the savings made through the Clean Power Plan.”
The NEF also tries to claim that the economic growth to be gained from more flights is overstated: “Incoming foreign tourists were outnumbered 3‑to‑1 by UK residents travelling abroad on their holidays, and spending money overseas.” The bastards…
The NEF’s longstanding director was until recently Miliband’s new Minister for Energy Consumers Miatta Fahnbulleh, who led the organisation for a whopping six years. They have stayed close – Miatta touted her experience in the job to get elected in Peckham and recently spoke at the NEF’s event at Labour Party Conference…
The DESNZ team have stayed studiously quiet in public on speculation surrounding next week’s aviation announcement – apart from Miliband saying he wouldn’t resign this time. Look no further than the New Economics Foundation for their real arguments…
The Guardian has put up a fawning interview with Miatta Fahnbulleh, Labour PPC for Peckham and senior economic adviser to Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband. The paper bills her as a “rising intellectual star in Labour’s ranks” who is “juggling campaigning in her own patch, charity work, and school pick-ups for her 10-year-old and her five-year-old twins.” Along with directing policy and research for the left-wing think tank IPPR, Fahnbulleh for the last six years served as CEO of the socialist New Economics Foundation. Her public résumé reveals she has spent her entire life in academia – PPE at Oxford topped up by a Ph.D from LSE – before a stint in Whitehall followed by think-tank wonkery. As clever as Miatta undoubtedly is it is fair to say that all her knowledge of economics is theoretical and she has never so much as run a whelk stall. It’s clear what sort of proposals the “rising star” will be pushing to Rayner and Miliband…
The New Economics Foundation, under Fahnbulleh, recommended, among other things:
Rachel Reeves’ new tax advisory team is filled with high-tax supporters. Now someone who thinks “chasing economic growth” is wrong and that “antiracism means anticapitalism” has the ears of the shadow cabinet’s two leading left-wing members. Who do Labour think they are fooling when they parrot lines on fiscal responsibility?
Speaking to Sky News off the back of Rachel Reeves’ Air Passenger Duty hike, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said:
“Labour is dependent on those Red Wall seats, and yet every move she makes poisons economic growth and damages the UK’s recovery… it’s the Chancellor who stumbles from policy misstep to policy misstep… I think her policy decisions are incredibly stupid.”