Ross Clark Ross Clark

Labour want to Frenchify the economy

Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and David Lammy in Paris (photo: Getty)

It is not that long ago that the new Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced that his would be the government of ‘growth, growth, growth’. What has he done in that time to try to realise that ambition? It is hard to think of a single measure that will genuinely do anything to improve the fortunes of wealth-creating businesses – other than promised planning reforms which seem destined to fail as they are based on the faulty premise that it is only Nimbys who hold up house-building and other development, and not reams of environmental regulations which Labour has shown no interest in reforming.

We have a government which poses as a friend of business but which in reality is more tilted towards the demands of organised labour than any government for at least half a century

On the other hand it is very easy to point to measures which will place extra burdens on business.

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