BEST
FOR BRITAIN'S
WEEKEND WIRE
Dear John,
We’ve made it past Blue Monday, but
unfortunately, we still have a blue Government. Doubly unfortunately,
you can’t get rid of them by booking a holiday, but that hasn’t
stopped Boris Johnson from trying. Let’s see how they got
on.
Cosying up, not levelling
up
Well, you can’t dink the PM for
being honest. After last summer’s leadership election, when hot-mic’d
Rishi Sunak boasted about redirecting funds from ‘deprived urban
areas’ to Tunbridge Wells, the latest allocation of levelling-up funds
revealed the plan had not changed.
The 111 grants announced this week
include £19m magically landing in the PM’s own constituency of
Richmond (Yorks), ostensibly for the benefit of servicemembers
stationed there, and more money for London’s boroughs than for all of
the North East. The South East was the biggest winner in funding, and
a Guardian analysis showed that Tory-held constituencies received nearly £20 more per
capita than similarly deprived non-Tory seats.
The whole kerfuffle over levelling
up has left many Tories eager to drop the whole programme as a
political liability. News this week emerged that many in Sunak’s
government want to ditch the term, while the latest fund allocation set Tory West Midlands mayor Andy Street on the warpath against the
‘begging bowl culture’ around funding after most of his region’s
applications were rejected.
Britishvolt zaps
out
The pride and joy of the
Government’s levelling-up agenda was, well, levelled on Tuesday when the electric car battery start-up Britishvolt
went into administration. The factory in Blyth, Northumberland was
meant to bring thousands of jobs and kick-start a homegrown electric
car industry in the UK.
How the company flamed out is a
long and complex story that began with its founding in 2019 and the
beginning of factory plans without any orders secured. Despite touting
from Government ministers eager to Get Brexit Done and flex the UK’s
economic might, mismanagement and profligate spending on company perks
and promotion alongside a lack of necessary technology plagued
Britishvolt from the beginning.
The killing blow, according to both
Sir John Amitt, chair of the National Infrastructure
Commission, and former Tory leader William Hague, was Brexit, with Hague chalking up
Britishvolt’s difficulty in securing large enough orders to make the
factory viable to being shut out of the single market. Eco-conscious
Brexiters everywhere will hang their heads, because the Leave bus’s
battery is dead.
Former Taxman settles with current
taxman
It’s one offshore company, Rishi. What could it cost? £3.5m, if
Nadhim Zahawi is being forthright in his agreement to pay millions in back taxes amidst allegations that he funnelled
capital gains from the polling firm YouGov through a Gibraltar-based
company.
If there’s one thing British
overseas territories are known for, it’s financial propriety, right?
Undeterred by the fact that Zahawi’s finances were flagged before his brief stint as Chancellor, the
current Prime Minister insisted that the very-much-still open matter
was already closed.
In solidarity, B4B is dreaming of a
team trip to each of the exotic locales Tory ministers have stashed
their cash. We’re thinking of climbing to Nadhim’s Notch on the Rock
of Gibraltar, jetting off to California wine country to see how the PM spent his domiciled time
there, and swinging by the Cayman Islands for some beach time on the way
home.
UKTBC takes construction and
manufacturing
On Thursday, the UK Trade and
Business Commission, organised by B4B, held a live evidence session
focused on the future of the construction and manufacturing sectors in
the UK and the challenges they face post-Brexit. The six witnesses
giving evidence represented industry bodies, sector researchers, and
academics.
Witnesses at the session
highlighted major issues facing their sector, like energy costs,
skills deficits, and pandemic knock-on stressors. They additionally
took the Government to task for their failure to set out a long-term
strategy to enhance the UK’s manufacturing and building capabilities
as they look to achieve net zero goals, and lamented Brexit-related
labour shortages costing the economy billions per year.
A full recording of the session can
be found here. A write-up of the session appeared in Peter Foster’s
Financial Times Brexit newsletter (Paywall warning). The next UKTBC session
on culture and the arts will be held on Thursday 26th
January.
Swedish straight-talk in
Switzerland
The world’s leaders, luminaries,
and lizard people climbed the Swiss Alps this week for the yearly
World Economic Forum Davos summit, and the verdict on Brexit is
unanimous: it’s not great!
An Ikea executive speaking at the
summit lamented Brexit’s “chaos” and its effect on the megaretailer’s
cross-border operations, calling for an end to the regulatory dumpster
fire and closer alignment between the UK and EU.
Meanwhile, Grant Shapps admitted to
the gathered audience that leaving the EU has “caused significant
challenges” as he half-heartedly tried to hail the UK’s newfound
“agile, forward-looking approach”. Turns out regaining the advantages
of EU membership isn’t as simple as photoshopping the UK into the group picture.
Government blocks
GRR
On Tuesday, the UK Government
announced it intends to block legislation passed last
month by the Scottish Parliament intended to make it easier for
transgender people to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).
This would mark the first time the Government has invoked Section 35
of the 1998 Scotland Act and struck down a law passed by a devolved
legislature.
The Government maintains that the
Scottish legislation would skew UK law and create an unbalanced
situation if different rights for trans people exist in Scotland from
those in the rest of the UK. Leaders in the Scottish Parliament,
however, have slammed the Government’s actions as an attack on
devolution and vowed a legal challenge.
Many commentators have also
condemned the move as an exploitation of trans people’s struggles to
gain political points. Government and Opposition politicians have come under criticism for their equivocation on transgender
rights surrounding the debate over the GRR.
Tragic crash in
Kyiv
The Ukrainian government was rocked
when a helicopter carrying three top officials, including interior
minister Denys Monastyrsky, crashed near a nursery on the outskirts of Kyiv Wednesday morning. At
least 17 people were killed, including three children, and dozens on
the ground were injured.
Monastyrsky’s death makes him the highest-profile Ukrainian official to
be killed since the war’s beginning. Officials stated that the
helicopter was on its way to visit combat-stricken regions in
northeastern Ukraine. Leaders around Ukraine and Europe issued tributes to the crash’s victims.
We could have choo-chooed
for less cha-ching
Who knew that flipping over the
negotiating table didn’t absolve you of picking up the cards?
Certainly not Rail Minister Huw Merriman, who during a Wednesday
select committee admitted that resolving the dispute with the railway unions months ago
would have cost less than the £1bn in add-on costs triggered by
repeated waves of strikes.
Merriman claimed he does not want to “interfere in a negative manner” in the pay
disputes with rail unions, insisting that the Government has been
negotiating in good faith, providing measured concessions to the big
bad unions, attending church every Sunday, and helping old ladies
cross the street.
Perhaps realising he’d been caught out, Merriman then pivoted
to a refreshing helping of word salad, citing “reforms that don’t get
talked about”, “overall impact on the public sector”, and how an
accountant he met at summer camp did all the maths showing why the
Government can’t cough up the funds. Has he asked the rail workers to start ironing passengers’
tickets?
That’s all from us at the end of a
very chilly week–get cosied up by a fire, grab a drink of something
warm, and daydream about sunlit uplands. Bye for now!
Best wishes,
Tommy
Gillespie
Press Officer, Best for Britain
