Julie Crowley

[Tony Blair Institute for Global Change @InstituteGC]

Britain can become Europe’s Silicon Valley – but only if political leaders are prepared to seize the opportunity and grip technology for economic growth.

Read more from TBI's @KeeganMcB 👇

https://t.co/1WR5g8MkWh

[Noa Hoffman @hoffman_noa]

EXCL: The shrinking Labour Growth Group suffered because some of its MP members 'lacked any interest in the growth agenda’ and only signed up because ‘they saw it as the loyalist faction that might advance their careers’, party insiders have told me.

[Bloomberg @business]

It is fashionable to complain that Britain today is ungovernable. Tony Blair, warts and all, reminds us of the flaw in that analysis, writes Martin Ivens (via @opinion) https://t.co/Ua70yLiais

[Rachel Sylvester @RSylvester1]

“The reason I think we’re living through a technological revolution led by AI is not because my institute has been bought off by tech bros but because I’m studying what’s happening and it’s blowing my mind” - Tony Blair hits back in @observeruk https://t.co/PPekpaC5rq

[Maurice Cousins @MDC12345678]

One sign that Tony Blair @InstituteGC has won the argument is that none of his critics has identified the specific flaws in his reasoning. They simply assert that he is wrong and then double down. Starmer’s response essentially stonewalls Blair. Burnham similarly fails to address Blair’s substantive points and relies on a mix of fallacious arguments in his op-ed for The Times.

None of this means that Blair will win immediately. His views remain a minority position within the Labour Party and much of the media. But that has no bearing on the truth or falsity of what he has said in his essay or the reports put out by his institute over the last year. That is why Blair is right to feel confident in escalating his confrontation with the Labour leadership.

On energy, he is unequivocally correct. Government policy, not war, markets or geology, drives the UK’s high electricity prices. Those who argue otherwise are deliberately distorting the debate because they have an idealised view of a Net Zero energy system. They want a renewables-heavy system because they believe, as Ed Miliband argues in Go Big, that it will end our "300-year economic model".

[Tom Westgarth @Tom_Westgarth15]

Laura Gilbert built 10 Data Science and the Incubator for AI, which have both pioneered the deployment of technology across the British state. Few people have contributed more to improving the UK’s state capacity in AI than Laura and the teams she was a part of.

10DS modelling reportedly informed the choice to prioritise by age rather than occupation. This is widely credited with saving lives versus the occupation-based alternative being lobbied for at the time.

10DS and the brilliant folks there did a lot of other great stuff, including building live COVID data that policy teams and the public relied on, as well as releasing a lightweight data sharing tool on GitHub where anyone can access it free of charge. Today, it has amassed over 200,000 public downloads, used by teams across government and industry to make data sharing easy.

Onto AI, where Zack has suggested that Laura doesn’t have lots to offer to public discussion. Whenever I speak with frontier labs, they tell me the U.K. now has the most ambitious and sophisticated approach to deploying AI in public services.

With Extract (which Laura’s Incubator for AI team developed), planning documents are now converted into digital records in 40 seconds, versus the 1–2 hours of planner time it typically takes manually, with higher accuracy. That’s roughly a 100–180x speedup, and is contributing to a 45% reduction in processing time to build the housing and infrastructure the UK is sorely in need of.

The public sector team who built Extract scaffolded Gemini so that it could orchestrate Segment Anything and pose estimation models to map geospatial information from text and diagrams in a way that even the GOOGLE DEEPMIND TEAM hadn’t worked out how to do at the time.

So rather than outsourcing to big tech, which I’m sure Zack and many others are more than sceptical of, Laura helped build true public sector state capacity that reduced our reliance on the private sector, while also delivering a world class public service.

Powerful AI systems are going to usher in a centuries worth of social and economic transformation within only a couple of decades. This requires a deep analysis of where capabilities will develop, an understanding of which externalities we want to mitigate, a vision of what a good life looks like, and amassing the people, tools, infrastructure, and institutions to build that vision. 

Of course Laura is precisely the sort of person that has much to offer in answering these questions. We should be cherishing the tireless civil servants and incredible technical talent that have built capabilities that many folks think the public sector would never be able to do.

[Jack Elsom @JackElsom]

“That is not compassion, it is failure and cause for national shame.”

Alan Milburn writes in today’s @TheSun ahead of releasing his interim report into out-of-work youngsters.

[Tone Langengen @ToneLangengen]

If you’d like to read more about our “real policy on energy” and why the Clean Power 2030 mission makes the problems Torsten identify worse rather than better I refer you to our three recent papers:

https://t.co/kTCeP0JxfC

https://t.co/el3expqyiW

https://t.co/qbanMdexAK

[Tim Shipman @ShippersUnbound]

Further to Blair. Literally every honest sensible person in all the main parties privately agrees with all these propositions:

- welfare spending is too high and is throwing good people on the scrapheap
- defence spending is too low
- the triple lock is unsustainable
- without cheap energy we cannot exploit the AI revolution
- we should be investing in EVERY form of energy: renewables, nuclear and the North Sea
- migration needs to be controlled to boost social cohesion and because the boats look like a huge failure of the state
- any new relationship with the EU will be imposed on us until we are stronger and cannot involve the closeness some desire without freedom of movement
- we are deeply embedded with America in ways which the public does not understand and cannot be told and however joyous it makes us feel to hate Trump, disengagement at the deep state level is not only wholly unrealistic but also undesirable
- Whitehall needs a total overhaul so specific project expertise and political appointees can be brought in quickly

Blair basically says all that.

The one thing he doesn’t say and which the same group of people agree on is this and it’s something Blair left behind:

- judges and quangos have too much power, are unaccountable and without redressing the balance in favour of parliament it is very difficult to do anything big fast
- the bare minimum that needs to change in this regard is to reform judicial review and planning law so we can put building and economic growth ahead of newts and NIMBYs

None of that above really ought to be up for discussion. It is all common sense but not one of our politicians will publicly say all of it

Whatever you think of Blair, engage with what he’s saying not how he makes you feel. The bare minimum we should expect from any leader is that they have an analysis of the current situation and a plan to deal with it which is as coherent and realistic as his intervention. Pretty well every critique I’ve read so far has failed to meet this requirement.

Over to Andy and Keir and Kemi and Nigel and Zack and all the others

[Tony Blair Institute for Global Change @InstituteGC]

Britain has huge strengths, highly talented people and a residual respect in the world.

But we must show we understand how that world is changing and what our place in it should be. That requires a fundamental change in our current politics.

Our aim for the long term should be a Reimagined State in which taxes and spending can be lower, productivity higher and government seen as enabling not directing.

Read Tony Blair's essay 👇

[Siobhain McDonagh @Siobhain_Mc]

🗣️ If you’ve been diagnosed with a Glioblastoma, we would love to hear from you.

❤️ This trial represents real hope.

📧 Please email me at [email protected]

☎️ or call Cristina on 07483467798

[Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn]

There is a route for Andy Burnham to become PM without winning a Commons by-election first: he could be made a Lord. Constitutionally the PM just needs to be a member of one of the two houses of Parliament.

This was Alec Douglas-Home’s route, who became PM in October 1963 as a Lord before winning a by-election to be an MP 20 days later.

It’s an absolutely awful undemocratic look that could sink Burnham’s brand forever, plus of course Starmer may well not want to oblige his nemesis with a peerage. But these are strange and desperate times for Labour.

[Matteo Renzi @matteorenzi]

“If we choose ambition over drift, coordination over fragmentation and delivery over debate, Europe can lead – not follow – in the new energy age."

Europe has made real progress on decarbonisation. But in today’s world, energy is also about competitiveness, security and growth.

The countries that succeed will be those that can deliver energy that is abundant, affordable and reliable at scale.

Europe has the capability to lead, but it must now focus on delivery.

I’ve co-written a foreword with Tony Blair for @institutegc on Europe’s energy future. Read the full paper: https://t.co/oaO8V6Zy8I

[Tony Blair Institute for Global Change @InstituteGC]

Without a challenge to the ideology that encourages antisemitism, incidents like the arson attack on a Jewish Charity’s ambulances will continue “to the shame of our society”.

Tony Blair sets out the scale of the challenge. Read more: https://t.co/NWXLjK0D5u

[Julie Crowley @JulesNeath]

Shared with you by a Times subscriber.

Enjoy this article for free.

https://t.co/WftkNEj3pM

[Julie Crowley @JulesNeath]

RT @InstituteGC: Tony Blair's tribute to Phil Woolas

[Barak Ravid @BarakRavid]

Dan, I disagree.
1st - This is the most significant effort by a U.S. President to tackle the issue of Gaza - a key impediment to any Israeli-Palestinian peace deal - in more than a decade. President Trump has so far shown incredible commitment to this process
2nd - Biden should have done it after the May 2021 war. There were plans drafted, but he neglected it
3rd - this plan is based on the political context of Palestinian statehood
4th - The plan establishes a new Palestinian government in Gaza supported by the international community. The head of this government spoke yesterday at the event
5th - Trump managed to build an international coalition to support the Gaza peace plan. It is based on Muslin and Arab countries from the region who also agreed to put their money and political capital into it. Some even agreed to send troops. The Europeans are wrong to sit it out
6th - the plan creates unprecedented international pressure on Hamas to disarm. Most of this pressure comes from Arab and Muslim countries. This is a first
7th - The President of the World Bank was at the event. He is overseeing the money, so not sure a "slush fund" is an accurate description
8th - for the first time in history the Israeli government doesnt have an automatic veto on what happens in Gaza and is only one element in the process
9th - the Palestinian Authority is involved, as @nmladenov said in his remarks
10th - a new Palestinian security forces is being formed and a U.S. military highly respected general is going to oversee the process
11th - Is it perfect? No. Are there going to be challenges? Definitely. Is Hamas gonna play ball - I have big doubts. But it is in my judgment a sincere and serious effort by the President and his team to create positive change in Gaza and in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[Tone Langengen @ToneLangengen]

Always love engagement with our work, but claiming we’re sprouting myths and misinformation is simply false. Let me explain:

[Matteo Renzi @matteorenzi]

A new paper from @institutegc – drift on European defence is no longer an option

https://t.co/5pHJyLA785

[Tony Blair Institute for Global Change @InstituteGC]

Statement from Tony Blair on John Burton https://t.co/2glDhW9Mvd