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New Statesman
02-06-2025
- Business
- New Statesman
Labour needs an abundance mindset
Photo byIt once looked like Keir Starmer was going to be a pro-growth prime minister. Alas. It seems increasingly obvious that the government isn't committed enough to the reforms that are needed. The problems run deep. Growth and productivity have been slow, nearly flat, since 2008. The housing shortage in London and the south-east is getting worse. Cambridge is an economic powerhouse thanks to scientific research. But planning rules means there is no spare laboratory space. We cannot build any. We produce far less energy than France, and it costs a lot more. Cities like Manchester ought to be flourishing, but productivity is far lower in British cities than in other countries. Outside London, we are sluggish. A hundred years ago, Birmingham was a rival power to the capitol; today it is bankrupt and wretched. The reason is simple. We have too many rules that make everything too complicated and too slow. The tallest building outside of London was going to be built in Manchester but the process has been stalled because of an administrative error. An application to build a mansard roof on a house in Lambeth was rejected by the council because the house would 'dominate' the local area which is of 'low-scale character.' Imagine the horror of a discrete third floor in a two-floor neighbourhood! To get planning permission for a twenty-home development, developers must provide things like an Aviation Impact Assessment and a Public Art Strategy, among many others. Remember, this is before planning permission. In 2013 there was a proposal to build three nuclear reactors in Wales. Four of these exact reactors are already working in Japan, where they have been proven safe during significant earthquakes. Works in Progress reported that the Office for Nuclear Regulation demanded design changes for four and a half years. The aim was to reduce the amount of radiation being discharged. And they succeeded. The radiation was reduced by the amount that 'a human ingests when they consume a banana.' The planning permission alone for the Lower Thames Crossing was twice as expensive as an actual tunnel in Norway. If the government is going to fix this, it needs to get radical. In the USA, the need for similar reforms have become much more prominent recently thanks to Abundance, written by the journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. They argue that the American left is too concerned with blocking development. Worried that even something simple like building a toilet in a public park has become expensive and complicated, they argue for deregulation. This is a major shift on the American left from writers at the New York Times and the Atlantic. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe As Klein points out, what matters is the default. France is doing better than the UK on this because the default is that it is easier to build. Klein and Thompson have started the important work of reframing what seem like neo-liberal economic concerns into political reality. If Britain wants to be a country with a generous welfare system, it needs to be a country that actually builds enough decent homes for people. If we want to be a country that has excellent hospitals, we need cheap energy to run them. If we want Britain to thrive outside of London, we need the trains, roads, and laboratories to enable that thriving. If we want to have good jobs for working people, we need to have enough homes for them to live where they need to work. If we want our provincial cities to flourish, they need to be able to build transport infrastructure without spending an expensive decade in regulatory review. If we want energy bills to be cheaper for working families, we need to spend less than four years reducing the amount of radiation from a nuclear reactor by a literal banana's worth. We need this attitude shift in Britain. And fast. Apparently a lot of people in Labour are reading Abundance. And yet the government is planning to control where pensions are invested 'for the benefit of the economy.' America has the abundance movement. We have central planning for pension schemes. It will lead to lower returns, disincentivising savings. It's also deeply illiberal. Instead of building roads the government thinks it can plan my pension from Whitehall. Get real! And yet, as the economist Sam Bowman says, Britain is fixable. We don't need to invent anything. We simply need to build trams, homes, and energy plants like they do in other countries. The Democrats are waking up to the importance of this across the Atlantic. It is time for Labour to make the same shift. As well as Bowman, people like Ben Southwood, Samuel Hughes, Tim Leunig, Sam Dumitriu and Britain Remade, Stian Westlake, and many others are all working to raise these issues to the attention of policy makers and the public. But progress is slow. The government probably isn't going to do what is necessary. Ambitious talk of planning reform has become the petty chorus of telling developers to 'get on with it.' Rachel Reeves has promised more than a hundred billion of capital spending. This is as much as the government spends on debt repayment every year, which now costs more than Universal Credit. And spending all of that money is not much use if it all goes down the perpetual sink-hole of regulation and approvals. Despite the extent of the problems, the government is more interested in adjusting the ISA rules. This is destructive in itself, but while there is so much that needs doing, it is truly fiddling while Rome burns. There's another reason for the left to become more like Ezra Klein. Soon there won't be another option. If Starmer doesn't start ripping up the rule book, someone else will do it. Sooner or later, reform will come. Taxes and spending can only rise for so long while growth remains stagnant. And another decade of low productivity, low GDP-per-capita growth, not enough houses, energy infrastructure, roads, or reservoirs, and an over burdensome tax-and-spend regime to cap it all, will leave us requiring more and more radical reform. The longer the government runs a deficit (while already spending so much on debt repayments) without improving the economy, the more unavoidable the solution will become. Left long enough, that will mean another Margaret Thatcher. Sooner or later, there really will be no alternative. If Starmer wants to avoid empowering a new Thatcher as his eventual successor, he should take a lead from Klein and Thompson and act now. [See also: Why George Osborne still runs Britain] Related
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tribeca Festival Announces 2025 Creators Market Projects
The highly-anticipated Tribeca Creators Market is almost here, and IndieWire can reveal the buzzy projects selected for the three-day, invitation-only industry marketplace event. The 2025 Tribeca Festival, presented by OKX, has unveiled the slate of features, series, and audio projects that were chosen to be part of the Creators Market, in partnership with Indeed. The Tribeca Creators Market will take place from June 9 to 11, and connect rising filmmakers and content creators with industry executives, financiers, and distributors to foster the production of indie projects. This year marks the first-ever open submissions call for the Works in Progress showcase; 12 narrative and documentary filmmakers were selected to preview their feature or episodic projects to financiers, festival programmers, and producers. Past Works in Progress alums include Cristian Carretero and Lorraine Jones Molina, who are debuting their 'Esta Isla' during the 2025 Tribeca Festival, and Raul Paz-Pastrana, who helmed Tribeca pick 'Backside.' More from IndieWire 'Hurry Up Tomorrow': Why Abel Tesfaye Created a Dark Fictional Backstory for His Music and The Weeknd Persona Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef, and Cory Michael Smith's Billionaire Bro Trip Gets Ruined in 'Mountainhead' Trailer 'Tribeca is proud to offer the enriching Creators Market platform to these selected storytelling teams who are using their original sensibilities to deliver form-pushing works,' Senior Film Programmer Jose Rodriguez said. 'The diversity of their narratives – from socially-urgent topics to thoughtful youth-driven stories – present a powerful range of vision and artistic purpose.' The Tribeca Creators Market was founded in 2016 and has worked with more than 250 storytellers. Major studios and production companies that have previously attended the Tribeca Creators Market Sony Pictures Classics, Neon, HBO, Plan B, Impact Partners, Ford Foundation, and Paramount+. Check out the full list of Tribeca Creators Market participants below. Narrative Features Miguel Angel Caballero^, Luis Antonio Aldana, & Helena Sardinha Aliza Gandhi, Ryan Cunningham, Isa Barrett, & Ruby Karp James Gannon & Matt Ferrin Ghost + Cow Manya Glassman & Jocelyn Blockinger Wes Andre Goodrich^ & Patrick Nichols Oscar Labovich & Katelynn Mansberger* Annalise Lockhart & Zachary Shedd Jessye McGarry, Jessica DiMento, Anna Baryshnikov, & Juliana Canfield Mauro Mueller, David Figueroa, & Leslie Holleran* Sonja O'Hara, Peter Phok, & Adam Hoelzel Stavros Petropoulos & Leonidas Konstantarakos Peggy Tserwen Tseng & Sheng-Ting Shen* Eve Van Dyke, Caitlin Bruner, & Lauren Chen Jackie! Zhou^ & Reef Oldberg Narrative Series Brittany Ashley* Mary Johnson & Lexi Diamond* Gbenga Komolafe^ & Tee Jaehyung Park Joanna Leeds & Andrew Leeds Veronica Reyes-How & Paul Schnee Ewen Wright & Gideon Grody-Patinkin Documentary Features Christopher Booker* Nick Capezzera & J. Faye Yuan* Sam Cullman, Christopher Frierson, Morgan Pehme, & Daniel DiMauro Caitlyn Greene & Sara Archambault Emma D. Miller, Florrie Priest, & Colby Day Rodrigo Olivar, Brenda Avila Hanna, Armando Croda, & Alejandro Mejía Kristofer Rios, Carla Gutierrez, & Katia Maguire Will Thwaites* Lerone D. Wilson & Andrea Mustain* Jason Zeldes & Nora Chute* Documentary Series Emily Kunstler, Sarah Kunstler, Jeffery Robinson, & Diana Cherry* Jen Maylack, Nicholas Bruckman, Yoni Brook, & James Doolittle Josh Tickell* Audio Projects Fair Worlds Jazmine (JT) Green Tania Mohammad & Shahjehan Khan Yowei Shaw * = Works-in-Progress Showcase Participant ^ = Indeed Rising Voices Filmmaker Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie The 55 Best LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows Streaming on Netflix Right Now
