Katherine Fletcher

Continually & curiously investigating the world

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

Our Armed Forces cannot defend Britain on empty promises and delayed plans.

Keir Starmer’s Defence Ministers resigned as his plan falls short. Their warnings are extremely serious.

I’ve written to the PM offering the support of my MPs to vote to cut welfare to fund defence.

[Julia Lopez MP @JuliaLopezMP]

Overnight, major US AI company, Anthropic, has been ordered by the Trump administration to deny foreigners access to its latest AI models. This is the kind of tech that Labour has spent all week telling British companies to make themselves dependent on via its AI Adoption Summit.

Let me set out why this is yet another example of how Labour’s TOTAL lack of preparedness for government has left the UK exposed (something I touched on with Matt Chorley on 5Live earlier this week)…

There is a whole dance going on right now in the States among and between these AI companies and the US government - that’s for separate comment on AI regulation, the sustainability of their underpinning commercial models and more. But amidst this, Labour’s combination of political naivety and economic failure has created a dependency problem that DSIT’s belated, frenetic barrage of announcements at London Tech Week is unlikely to solve any time soon.

Advances in tech were already making it more important for the UK economy to have high quality digital infrastructure - ultra fast internet, telecoms and cloud, reliable supply chains and so on.

The pandemic accelerated the trend. AI put it on speed.

It means that politicians need to be looking more seriously at who owns and controls the software, hardware and government systems on which Britain relies, what leverage our country can build in critical technologies and how we access or develop the best AI models.

Instead Labour spent its first year in office making all our economic fundamentals worse. Higher taxes, higher employment costs, higher regulation, higher energy costs, a total screw up on defence procurement where dual-use tech is vital to modern warfare, and the same old government contracting that sees players with massive lobbying operations favoured. All of this has weakened home grown enterprise and made us less attractive to international companies despite us having some of the best talent and most innovative start-ups in science, tech and security in the world.

It meant that by the time the US-UK tech summit rolled around a year later to puff out President Trump’s State visit, Labour Ministers were totally dazzled by big tech and its promise to provide positive investment headlines. (Remember this was the time when Deputy PM, Angela Rayner, and US Ambassador, Peter Mandelson, were both resigning from scandal and the Chinese spy case was collapsing.) Crazy investment pledges were being bandied around, many of which were repackaged existing deals or promises which received very little scrutiny despite Labour building policies like AI growth zones around them. Lo and behold some of the biggest deals have now been junked because UK energy costs are nuts and because some of these companies are struggling to make their own numbers work.

In the wider economy, companies were told ‘adopt, adopt, adopt’ when it comes to AI to stay up with any AI-enabled competitors. The promised ‘benefit’ would be a reduction in a ballooning payroll bill. Despite this, a lot of companies have struggled to get the productivity gains that have been billed from AI adoption. Many were told that was because they need to totally rewire their systems to maximise the benefits. But that rewiring makes them dependent on the kinds of AI models that President Trump has just restricted foreigners’ access to and whose token prices were already being jacked up (humans not so inefficient and expensive after all…).

This is not to deny the transformative potential of AI or its disruptive effect on the workforce and wider society. But as the initial AI mania begins to fade, the risks of Labour's approach are becoming clearer. Rather than using the strength of the wider economy to preserve choice and resilience, Labour doubled down on dependence on a small number of companies whose technologies are now becoming more expensive, more restricted and harder to access.

The penny half-dropped with some of their Ministers a few months ago. They started playing into the Mark Carney ‘middle powers’ speech, talking of British-first procurement and making noisy headlines against Musk and the like after realising that that the government had reduced its own own leverage on issues like social media regulation and more. A delayed launch came of a Sovereign AI Fund. A litany of announcements on chips and sovereignty flowed from London Tech Week. But this all risks being small beer when it comes to the scale of what is required, especially when the UK government stubbornly refuses to confront the fact that it has moved all the economic fundamentals in the wrong direction.

This is why the first priority of any incoming leader or government has to be on getting those fundamentals right. Kemi and the Shadow Cabinet have been relentlessly focused on policies to give our companies the tools to win - cheap energy, less red tape, lower taxes, an education pipeline that produces the talent we need, a Sovereign Defence Fund for dual-use technologies, pensions reform so that we see more money going into UK equities. It’s why I spent London Tech Week talking to the people and companies that understand the nature of the challenge, including techy details like the need for open architecture.

Is there a messiah coming this week from Makerfield in the form of Andy Burnham who understands the nature of the challenge? Forget it - the papers are today being briefed that Ed Miliband is his front runner to be Chancellor. There are more rounds of this chaos to go before this UK gets a government that recognises that without a strong economy, all else fails. Being ready for that moment is the project to which the Conservatives under Kemi are dedicated.

[Martina Navratilova @Martina]

Another man ready willing and able to take away women’s rights… how kind is that???

[Neil O'Brien @NeilDotObrien]

If there's no evidence people left the country after their visa expired, the ONS just *assumes* they left.
Via FOI I have found out that this assumption now accounts for a *fifth* of all non-EU emigration - and rising rapidly.
The govt must get a grip on who is in this country.

[Ameer Kotecha @Ameer_Kotecha]

It’s a bizarre feeling hearing Blair saying things one agrees with and yet knowing that so many of our present woes stem from the changes he brought about

[Andrew Griffith MP @griffitha]

This is the price of Labour’s leadership chaos.

30 Year Gilt yields and borrowing costs at their highest level in decades. Billions worth of extra costs.

All of us will pay dearly for Labour’s game of musical chairs.

[Katherine Fletcher @Fletch_K_]

I am super worried about the amounts 💷 of debt interest this will add to our national bills.

[Alex Wickham @alexwickham]

***BREAKING***

*UK BONDS SLUMP AT OPEN AS PRESSURE GROWS ON STARMER TO QUIT

UK yields are spiking higher at the open, with 30-year rates up 10 basis points to 5.78%. Ten-year yields are up by a similar amount.

[Katherine Fletcher @Fletch_K_]

@JAHeale @JamesCleverly It has - in a council by-election I had 2️⃣ ! posted letters from Farage on national puff & bluster in 4 weeks.

Now, whilst this is within the letter of electoral law on spending rules, is it in the spirit of them?
And is it wise to spend your money like that ?

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

You may not agree with me, but you will always know where you stand with me.

Today in Billericay, a heckler tried to shout me down as I spoke about the normalisation of hatred towards Jews. I did not back down, because it needs to be said. British Jews are being targeted and too many people are pretending this is the same experience of other minorities. This lady implied Muslims are being similarly targeted. This is simply not true.

Let's be honest about what is happening. Certain groups (in particular but not solely Islamic Extremists) are creating a climate of fear and intimidation that is normalising Jew hatred. I will never stand for that. Governments have spent too long hand-wringing, making excuses and hoping it would go away. It is time to call this what it is: a national emergency in our attitude, our urgency and our response.

I will always engage with people who disagree with me. That is politics. But there is a difference between argument and intimidation. Shouting does not make a bad case good. It's done to silence others. And it certainly does not change the truth.

The truth is that British Jews have been made to feel less safe in their own country. Our country. They are being singled out, threatened and harassed in ways that should shame everyone in public life. If we do not stand up now and stop this rise in antisemitism, then why bother saying "Never Again" at Holocaust Memorial Day? Because this is how it starts.

I am not prepared to play along with the pretence that this is normal, or manageable, or just another example of tension between groups. It really is not. It is targeted hatred and it is getting worse.

So my message is simple. Not here. Not in Britain. And not on our watch. We need to stop the hand-wringing and start doing the right thing. That means standing with British Jews openly, unapologetically and without fear.

[Metropolitan Police @metpoliceuk]

Our brave officers confronted a man they believed to be a terrorist, who refused to show his hands, who was violent, and who continued to pose a clear threat. Using only their training, courage and tasers, they detained him while he continued to try to attack and stab them. This took true courage.

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

Jewish people in our country are under constant attack.

This is no longer a growing pattern. There is an epidemic of violence against Jewish people.

It is now a national emergency and needs to be treated as such by the Government and public authorities.

[Andrew Griffith MP @griffitha]

The law most often passed in Parliament is the law of unintended consequences.

Policies that seem like a good idea to career politicians and civil servants in Whitehall come with painful costs to businesses.

I left business after 25 years to put a stop to this trend. 👇

[Katherine Fletcher @Fletch_K_]

@davidgomes If you could remove the pop up attention on “run this time��� so that you can use the enter key for chat permissions that would be amazing.
A mouse click each time takes cumulatively hours
( ubuntu )

[Conservatives @Conservatives]

Choose your fighter

[Jacob Rees-Mogg @Jacob_Rees_Mogg]

Parliamentary Privilege is for Parliament not the internal workings of quangos that report to Parliament.

[Cleo Watson @cleowatson88]

Great way to hand your data (and your neighbours') over to Robert et al

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

Introducing Kemi & Co 🏡

Cutting taxes, getting Britain moving.

[RigoStaRR @RigoIrizarry]

UK 🇬🇧 not all is lost yet. Why is Kemi Badenoch not your Prime Minister? Love her!!🔥🔥🔥

[Katherine Fletcher @Fletch_K_]

@PennyMordaunt is correct as usual

[Penny Mordaunt @PennyMordaunt]

No, he still doesn’t get it.
If you can’t secure shipping lanes 70% of the resources, goods and food the UK needs won’t arrive.
If you fail to deliver energy and data security you can’t grow the economy or protect the NHS.
If you don’t modernise our armed forces, you can’t deter conflict.
What will it take to get you to do your first duty Prime Minister?

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

Keith the Apocalypse Bringer is a three-year-old Anglo-Nubian goat in a field in Devon.

Keith should not be underestimated.

Keith has been systematically dismantling the ecosystem since approximately 7am, when he ate a bramble. This is significant because bramble is an invasive scrub species that outcompetes wildflowers, reduces biodiversity, and creates dense monoculture thicket that nothing else can use.

Keith ate it. Keith does this every day. Keith does not charge for this service.

8:15am - Keith ate a thistle. Thistles are also considered invasive scrub in managed pasture. Goldfinches eat thistle seeds, but Keith's grazing will ensure the pasture remains open enough for the ground-nesting birds that can't use dense scrub. Keith has not attended a conservation workshop. Keith arrived at this conclusion by being a goat.

9:00am - Keith dismantled a section of hedge. This was less helpful. Keith does not have a perfect record.

10:30am - Keith escaped the field. He was in the road for eleven minutes. He ate a neighbour's rose. This is not being counted in Keith's environmental impact assessment.

11:00am - Keith was returned to the field. Keith regarded the farmer with the specific expression of an animal that does not recognise the concept of property.

12:00pm - Keith ate more bramble. His digestive system: four stomachs, a rumen full of specialised microorganisms, the ability to extract nutrition from lignified plant matter that would defeat any other animal on this field, is converting scrub vegetation into milk with a fat content of approximately 4.5%. The milk will become cheese. The cheese will be sold at the farm shop. The farm shop is four miles away. The cheese food miles are: four.

3:00pm - Keith produced manure. The manure will grow the grass. The grass will grow the bramble. The bramble will be eaten by Keith.

This system has no inputs.

It has been running since goats were domesticated approximately ten thousand years ago.

Keith is not aware he is saving the planet.

Keith is thinking about whether the fence on the north side has a weak point.

It does. Keith found it at 4:45pm.

Keith got out again.