Keir Starmer was touring the UK National Nuclear Laboratory in Preston when the Bank of England halved its 2025 growth forecast, cut interest rates for the third time in six months, warned of an uptick in inflation and said the national insurance hike on employers would hit prices and jobs more than expected.
It was a blow to a prime minister and chancellor who have placed all their chips on growth, made all the more painful because of those budget decisions that – in the short term at least – have made matters worse.
Rachel Reeves said soon after: “I am still not satisfied with the growth rate.”
Keir Starmer, in Preston to talk up nuclear power generation, said “there’s more to do” as he extolled the virtues of small modular reactors – faster to build than existing larger power stations – as a way of speeding up the delivery of new nuclear power stations in England and Wales.
The government hopes the first one will be up and running by 2032.
He wants to do it by shaking up the planning system to “clear the path” for smaller reactors (there are currently just eight favoured sites for nuclear power plants in the UK).
This was a prime minister determined to channel his inner Donald Trump and – hat tip to Chris Mason at the BBC – “build baby build”.
This is a PM determined to take on the “blockers” and get Britain building again.
But what is fast emerging, as growth flatlines, is that he and Rachel Reeves – who once said she’d be the UK’s “first green chancellor” – will also take on the blockers in the cabinet and party if that is what it takes to get growth.
When it comes to green versus growth,…
