Labour’s Growth Fantasy: Building Castles in the Cloud While Britain Crumbles

Labour Unveils AI Strategy: ‘Mainlined into the UK’s Veins’ for Nationwide Impact – It just won’t be enough…

In the face of zero economic growth and mounting business concerns, Labour’s grand vision for Britain’s future appears to be little more than a collection of buzzwords and borrowed Conservative policies. Rather than wielding their supermajority to implement bold housing reforms and industrial strategy, they’ve opted for the tried-and-failed approach of letting developers call the shots while chasing AI dreams.

The numbers tell a damning story: zero growth between July and September, economic contraction in October, and a business community growing increasingly nervous about Labour’s contradictory policies. While Keir Starmer waxes lyrical about artificial intelligence’s “vast potential,” real businesses are grappling with the double whammy of increased National Insurance contributions and a higher National Living Wage.

Even the CBI’s chair, Rupert Soames, can’t polish this particular economic turd. His admission that business confidence is “bruised” feels like British understatement at its finest. The Employment Rights Bill, while laudable in protecting workers from practices like fire-and-rehire, arrives without any serious consideration of its economic impact. It’s as if Labour believes you can simply legislate prosperity into existence.

But perhaps most telling is Labour’s latest techno-utopian distraction: their vision of making Britain the “global capital of artificial intelligence.” While they dream about supercomputers, Britain’s housing crisis deepens, productivity stagnates, and real wages continue their death spiral. It’s the political equivalent of buying a PlayStation while the roof leaks.

Artificial intelligence will be “mainlined into the veins” of the nation, ministers have announced, with a multibillion-pound investment in the UK’s computing capacity despite widespread public fear about the technology’s effects.

Labour’s plan to “unleash” AI includes a personal pledge from the prime minister to make Britain “the world leader” in a sector that has been transformed by a series of significant breakthroughs in the last three years.

The government plan features a potentially controversial scheme to unlock public data to help fuel the growth of AI businesses. This includes anonymised NHS data, which will be available for “researchers and innovators” to train their AI models. The government says there would be “strong privacy-preserving safeguards” and the data would never be owned by private companies.

Ministers believe AI can help tackle Britain’s anaemic economic growth and deliver, according to its own forecasts, an economic boost rising to up to £470bn over the next decade.

The action plan represents a shift in tone from the UK government which had previously been focused on tackling the most serious “frontier” risks from AI, relating to dangers involving cybersecurity, disinformation and bioweapons.

Technology companies including Microsoft, Anthropic and OpenAI welcomed the plan as Starmer said the “AI industry needs a government that is on their side”. Regulators will be told to “actively support innovation”, setting up a potential clash with people who believe regulators’ primary role should be to protect the public from harm.

But experts in AI’s effects on society, jobs and the environment urged caution. The three words most associated with AI by the public are “robot”, “scary” and “worried”, according to government research last month.

AI Won’t Fix Britain’s Economy or create jobs

The cruel irony is that Labour’s AI revolution risks accelerating job losses across multiple sectors. Those AI call centres, virtual receptionists, and even AI doctors that Starmer enthusiastically promotes? They’re not creating jobs – they’re replacing them. Don’t get me wrong, as a dyslexic writer, I know firsthand how transformative AI can be; it’s essential to my work, and I personally adore it. But let’s be clear: AI isn’t a panacea, and treating it as the cornerstone of Britain’s future is dangerously short-sighted. It’s a textbook case of putting all your eggs in one precarious basket, ignoring the broader systemic challenges we urgently need to address.

Meanwhile, the real challenges facing Britain remain ignored. The housing crisis deepens, infrastructure crumbles, and regional inequalities widen, leaving millions to face a future far removed from the glossy promises of an AI-powered utopia. Instead of chasing futuristic fantasies, Labour should be focused on fixing the basics—because no amount of digital innovation can replace the foundations of a functional society.

On that subject – Labour had a once-in-a-generation opportunity with their supermajority to implement genuine reform: a national housing program, strategic industrial policy, and meaningful regional development. Instead, they’ve chosen to perpetuate the same market-led approaches that have consistently failed to deliver growth.

The government’s growth strategy increasingly resembles a tech startup’s pitch deck: long on promises, short on substance, and completely disconnected from the reality of ordinary British lives. While Labour chases the tech dragon, businesses face rising costs, workers confront an increasingly precarious job market, and the housing crisis continues unabated.

Out on a Limb: A Vision Worth Fighting For

Here’s a radical thought: instead of recycling failed policies and chasing Silicon Valley dreams, why not build something real? Something magnificent? Something that actually matches the scale of Britain’s challenges?

Imagine this: a new city rising from the heart of our former industrial Heartlands, using AI it suggests a location between Rotherham and Doncaster. Not just any city – a metropolis purpose-built for the 22nd century. A city that harnesses both AI’s analytical power and human creativity to create something unprecedented in British history.

The location isn’t random. This area already boasts motorway connections, rail infrastructure, and airport access. It’s surrounded by communities hungry for economic revival. What better way to bridge Britain’s north-south divide than by building its future right in the middle?

This wouldn’t be just another soulless development. We’re talking about a living laboratory for sustainable urban living, where every building, every street, every public space is designed with the next hundred years in mind. Solar panels wouldn’t be an afterthought – they’d be the architecture. Green spaces wouldn’t be squeezed in – they’d be the foundation.

The economic impact? Transformative. Think hundreds of thousands of jobs, not just in construction but across every sector. Electricians, plumbers, architects, engineers, artists, designers – all working to build not just buildings, but a new vision of what Britain can be. The ripple effects would rejuvenate industries nationwide, from steel production to sustainable technology.

This isn’t just another housing project – it’s an industrial strategy made real. While Labour fiddles with AI pipedreams, we could be training a new generation of skilled workers, reviving British manufacturing, and showing the world what genuine innovation looks like.

The message to Labour is clear: stop playing startup founder with the nation’s economy. Your super majority wasn’t given to you to tinker at the edges or chase tech industry fantasies. It was a mandate for real change – one that demands the courage to think big and act boldly.

A new city won’t solve all Britain’s problems overnight. But it would do something perhaps even more valuable: prove that we haven’t lost the ability to dream big, to build big, to be big. In an era of managed decline and diminished expectations, that might be the most revolutionary act of all.

Britain doesn’t need more empty promises about AI supremacy or timid market-led solutions. It needs vision, courage, and the willingness to build something that will still inspire awe a century from now. The question is: does Labour have the backbone to be that ambitious?

Paul Knaggs

Editor, founder, Labour Heartlands, Citizen journalist. 𝙁𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙣 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙍𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙎𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩. Fighting a constant struggle with dyslexia that’s overcome with a burning desire to speak out against the corrupt political system and the social injustices it creates. Advocate for Free speech and open, accountable, democracy. #GTTO