What will Great British Energy do?
The new body’s first job is to unblock private investment
When Sir Keir Starmer proposed a state-owned company called Great British Energy in September 2022, he was aping the man dragged out of 10 Downing St two months earlier. Sir Keir had studied Boris Johnson’s bracing pledge to “take back control” in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Adapting this mantra, the then opposition leader griped that the only governments with a stake in Britain’s energy system were foreign ones, from Sweden, France and China. GB Energy would secure “British power for British people”. It would also allow him to ditch a more radical plan for wholesale renationalisation.
Explore more
Britain August 3rd 2024
- What will Great British Energy do?
- A riot in Southport shows how the British far right is changing
- How deep is Britain’s fiscal “black hole”?
- Britain’s railways go from one extreme to another
- The disease that most afflicts England’s National Health Service
- The race to become leader of Britain’s Conservatives
- Was the Bank of England right to start lowering interest rates?
- British voters care less about tax rises than politicians think
From the August 3rd 2024 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Britain
The evolution of Britain’s extreme right
White nationalism has become more amorphous and more online
Inside the unrest disfiguring English cities
Anger over immigration will be a recruiting opportunity for the far right
Was the Bank of England right to start lowering interest rates?
Andrew Bailey takes a calculated risk
Britain’s railways go from one extreme to another
Departing: privatisation. Destination: centralisation
The disease that most afflicts England’s National Health Service
Stopping raids on capital budgets would be a start