It’s investment summit day for Sir Keir’s Labour government and, like much else about Starmer’s reign, it hasn’t got off to the greatest start. Despite drafting in the King to win over big business, the Starmer army has still managed to rather make a mess of proceedings. From reckless cabinet minister comments to embarrassing email errors, Mr S has pulled together a list of all the lefty lot’s summit slip-ups so far.
Privacy problems
It transpired just days before Sir Keir’s big investment summit was due to kick off that the government, er, accidentally leaked the email addresses of a number of industry big wigs – including that belonging to fifth richest man in the world. Sub-optimal to say the least.
Whitehall spinners blamed an ‘administrative human error’ for the unintentional sharing of French businessman Bernard Arnault’s email address, alongside that of several other summit invitees, last week. It emerged the billionaire founder of luxury group LVMH had his email CC-d into an exchange, meaning that his contact details were shared without his knowledge.
The Department for Business and Trade has apologised over the possible GDPR breach – and flagged itself to the data protection watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office. It hardly proves the Starmtroopers’ case that the ‘grown ups‘ are back in charge, eh?
Starmer’s Elon snub
Despite tech gurus galore featuring at today’s business bash, one rather notable character didn’t quite make the cut. Twitter CEO Elon Musk is not in attendance at the summit – with the Beeb claiming his snub is down to ‘his social media posts’ during the August riots. The government, however, is a little less keen to specify why an invite was not extended to the US billionaire with Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds telling Sky News on Sunday: ‘I’m not going to comment on particular invitations for particular personnel.’
Science Secretary Peter Kyle was similarly tight-lipped on Times Radio today, insisting:
Elon Musk has never come to any of the past investment summits that have been held under the previous government, he doesn’t tend to do these sort of events, but I stand absolutely ready to engage with him.
Well, they do say actions speak louder than words…
Transport Secretary veers off the tracks
Not long before the business bash was due to kick off, Starmer had his work cut out trying to get on top of a fallout started by his own Transport Secretary. Louise Haigh delivered some stinging remarks about P&O Ferries in an ITV interview last week after it made yet another lay-off announcement. But after declaring that P&O was a ‘cowboy operator’ that should be boycotted, the Transport Secretary appeared to overlook the fact that the company is a subsidiary of DP World, whose chairman was billed to announce a £1bn UK investment plan today. Talk about bad timing…
The row escalated when Haigh, alongside Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, sent out a joint press release critical of the company – which, it has since been claimed, was signed off by Downing Street. DP World then decided to pull its announcement at the summit – a decision which could have cost Britain all of that £1bn. In a hasty effort to control the damage of the spiralling situation, a No. 10 spokesperson declared on Friday that ‘Haigh’s comments were her own personal view and don’t represent the view of the government’, before adding: ‘We welcome P&O Ferries commitment to comply with our new seafarers legislation and we continue to work closely with DP World.’
After a few days of desperate spinning, all that back-tracking just about worked. DP World was in attendance at the business pow-wow today – and has just unveiled its billion-pound plan to expand the London Gateway container port. No thanks to Haigh, though, eh?
Calendar clashes
Back to Sue Gray who – despite her defenestration as Starmer’s chief of staff – is never out of the spotlight for very long. The timing of today’s investment meet is all rather odd, given that Chancellor Rachel Reeves still hasn’t presented her first Budget to the nation. Businesses are griping that they can hardly pledge to merrily invest their millions, when they don’t even know what the fiscal framework is going to look like…
What with the election timing, recess and conference season, Sir Keir’s business bash is taking place a fortnight before Reeves’ Budget. This is due to meet an election pledge to hold a global summit within its first 100 days in office. Might it not have been better to not make such a pledge and host the jamboree next year, to give businesses a sense of what the future might look like?
Sue Gray was the woman charged with transiting planning and ought to have been able to see that clash coming. Then again, as one Labour aide told the BBC: ‘If you ever see any evidence of our preparations for government, please let me know.’
Old promises
And on the question of how significant the investment summit has been, Mr S is curious about how much of what is being announced is new exactly. Of the £50bn figure being lauded today, Steerpike would point out that this includes a £24bn green energy investment announced, um, last week. ‘It’s hard to know whether some of this stuff is being double, triple or even quadruple counted,’ as Ben Wright notes in the Telegraph.
What’s more is that today’s grand total also includes £20bn of investment by Australian infrastructure giant Macquarie, to cover electric vehicle charging points and offshore wind projects. Yet two and a half years ago, Boris Johnson announced that leading Australian organisations had pledged to invest up to £28.5bn in the UK – including a commitment from Macquarie to invest £12bn by 2030 in projects including, you guessed it, offshore wind. How curious…
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