When Rishi Sunak turned to the topic of artificial intelligence in an attempt to reset his fading government, Labour was quick to accuse a man with strong Silicon Valley connections of trying to position himself for a new job after Downing Street.
“Rishi Sunak again allowed himself to be distracted from the serious issues at hand, perhaps with one eye on his future career,” goaded Peter Kyle, the then shadow technology secretary, after the Tories had rolled out the red carpet for Elon Musk at their Bletchley Park AI Safety Summit in November 2023.
How awkward, then, that barely a year later, Kyle’s boss has resorted to wittering on in similarly vague terms about the very same subject as Labour desperately attempts to calm a crisis entirely of its own making.
With the might of the financial markets turning viciously against the Government, it is bad enough that the Chancellor was 5,000 miles away in Beijing, engaged in a futile attempt to convince the Chinese to pour money into the UK economy.
Not only should Rachel Reeves have been back at home, desperately trying to convince investors that Britain hadn’t suddenly become a basket case overnight, but with the pound tanking and the bond markets turning against us she couldn’t have picked a worse moment to be handing round the begging bowl. Imagine the sales pitch: “We’re not Zimbabwe – yet!”
Far worse, though, is Starmer’s risible AI pitch. There’s something inherently cringe-y about politicians trying to talk about technology trends. In fact, Boris Johnson’s “limbless chickens” and “pink-eyed terminators” speech to the UN General Assembly in New York should have ensured that no sane public figure ever dared venture near such subjects again.
But this from the Prime Minister, in the form of its “AI opportunities action plan” together with a soft editorial placed in the Financial Times by No 10 lackeys, is simply the wrong topic at the wrong time – an embarrassing piece of chin-stroking and future-gazing with no substance to it.
All this does is further reinforce the impression that Starmer is so out of his depth he will soon be required to wear bright orange armbands whenever he sets foot outside of Downing Street.
Even more scary, perhaps, is that he and those around him genuinely believe AI could in some way be the solution to the current turmoil. Barely six months since Labour was elected to power, is this really what it has come to – our very own Prime Minister hoping and praying that some magic robots will turn up and make it all go away?
Either it represents displacement activity of the highest order, or the Cabinet is already out of ideas.
So who is the weakest link in the Government? Is it the Chancellor, for absconding at the precise moment that she was needed to soothe the growing nerves of investment bankers sitting at trading desks around the world as the pound tanked and borrowing costs spiked? Or is it more that China was her unfortunate choice of destination? There is never a good time to be cosying up to a regime that MI5 accuses of being engaged in espionage against the UK on an “epic” scale.
However, the imminent return of Donald Trump to the White House surely makes any attempts to build trade ties with Beijing a truly terrible decision given all his threats around tariffs. Any tit-for-tat counter-measures from President Xi Jinping wouldn’t just hurt the US in numerous ways but its biggest trading partners, too.
Even if China did represent some sort or miraculous solution to our economic problems, it isn’t something that will happen fast. Allegiances like these represent a five-year project when what Reeves needs is a way to turn the country’s fortunes around in weeks or months.
Rachel Reeves with Vice Premier He Lifeng. Her China trip only raises further questions about her decision-making – Kirsty O’Connor/HM Treasury
Desperate attempts by ministers to trumpet a mere £600m of investment that the Chancellor secured in China only raise further questions about her decision-making.
It’s “a start”, was the best that Kyle could muster about a sum of money that is dwarfed multiple times over by the estimated £10bn cost of the recent bond market rout that wiped out Reeves’s fiscal headroom.
But he and the rest of the Cabinet know the harsh reality, which is that her measly Far East fund-raiser doesn’t even begin to move the dial when the nation’s finances are deteriorating so rapidly.
Yet Reeves’s foreign escapades at least have the veneer of serious government. There is something far more desperate about Starmer’s half-hearted Bill Gates act. It feels like something that took panicked Downing Street officials all of about 30 seconds to come up with – a ruse straight out of the “under-fire chief executive” playbook that FTSE 100 companies turn to when every other tactic has failed to calm shareholders.
The question is whether Starmer really thinks AI is a cure for all our ills or he just thinks he can fool the country into believing it is.
It’s a tough call as to who will be forced to relinquish their duties first, but if the pair are serious about saving their jobs then someone needs to come up with a plan in record time to fix the economy.
The obvious move is to come out and promise a programme of severe public spending cuts where the Treasury says it will review all publicly agreed pay awards. That’s the sort of meaningful action markets are seeking, especially when Reeves has returned from China practically empty-handed and to a slew of fresh questions about her stewardship.
As the Chancellor arrived back home, fresh data showed City job opportunities have plunged and optimism among Britain’s finance chiefs has slumped to a two-year low. Elsewhere the pound continued to fall and there are growing concerns that mortgage costs could spike again – another reminder that the Government’s incompetence is having real-world negative consequences.
Starmer and his fellow ministers can continue this elaborate yet ultimately facile charade where they either pretend everything is the Tories’ fault or that there isn’t a crisis. However, in the end, they will have little choice but to either slash spending or put up taxes again.
Whether it’s steep cuts to services or far less money in our pay packets, ultimately millions of us will become decidedly poorer at the hands of this hapless double act.
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