Politics
The House | Rishi Sunak On AI: I Wish I’d Spoken To The Country More About The Change Coming
Photography by David Sandison
10 min read
Britain is well-positioned to benefit from the AI revolution, but its workforce may be more exposed than many others. Rishi Sunak tells Francis Elliott how he wishes he had done more to help voters prepare for what is about to come
Rishi Sunak has more time on his hands these days. Not just because he is out of No 10 but also because he is recuperating from a skiing accident caused by ‘showing off’ to his daughters.
In between the pain relief (“a lot of tramadol”) and the physiotherapy, the former prime minister has been building his own AI tool. In will go 20 episodes of his favourite podcasts and post-broadcast social media commentary on them, out will come a short precis that keeps the Richmond MP bang up to date on the issue about which he most cares.
He’s understandably quite chuffed with his new tool, having learned how to build it from a series of free online courses designed to improve AI skills.
“I’m about to turn [this] into something where, instead of having hundreds of pages of transcript, I would just get the three-, four-page, weapons-grade stuff that I need done, completely automatically, every single week.”
This may be peak geek chic, but it is also Sunak practising what he preaches: if you don’t want AI to consume you, you better start consuming AI. The 46-year-old may not have had a mandate or much of a majority as prime minister but, in starting to prepare the UK for the AI revolution, he has emerged with something of a legacy.
Advisory jobs at Anthropic and Microsoft keep him on the frontline of the policy implications of what tech leaders and politicians delicately call “the challenges of the transition” but the rest of us fear is massive, potentially destructive disruption.
Until relatively recently, the consensus had held that AI, like every other so-called general-purpose technology, would in short order create more jobs than it automated. Just as in the 17th century, nobody could conceive of the job as an electrician, so we today cannot comprehend the jobs AI will create.
But Sunak is one of those, like Anthropic boss Dario Amodei, who is – in terms of labour market disruption – starting to shift to a rather less rosy position: that this time it might be different.
“It’s both the breadth and the pace. If you compare in the past, and a nice way to measure it is, how long did it take a technology to get to, say, 100 million users? For electricity, it took about 70 years. Telephone, 50 years. PC, 15. Internet, seven years.
“It took ChatGPT two months. That gives you a sense of how quickly this is [taking place]. Why does that matter? Because history would tell you, these things over time have always worked out, and that new jobs have been created.
“Now, where that might break down is if the disruption is happening so quickly before you get all the new jobs being created. If it just happens so fast, you will get more concentration of job losses first before the new jobs come along.
“The second [factor] is because it is so broad. In the past… general-purpose technologies… would displace employment from a particular area, but there were multiple other opportunities that that person would be able to find work in, that were not disrupted by the same technology.”
He says “this time it’s different” are among the most dangerous words in the English language, but it’s not an implausible outcome. “And certainly not so implausible that a leader should just assume the best.”
Which takes us to Keir Starmer. Sunak gives the Starmer government credit for taking forward the agenda. He recently appeared with David Lammy selling Britain to an audience of AI leaders gathered in Delhi and has met with both Peter Kyle and his successor as tech secretary, Liz Kendall. He says they are broadly doing the right things.
But he clearly thinks Starmer hasn’t the bandwidth or the capacity to make preparing the country for what is to come an absolute priority, and admits he wished he had done more while he was in No 10.
“I wish I had done more on it, and that I’d spoken to the country more about the change that is coming and what it means for us, and how we can make sure it works for the country, how it works for families, how it works for our public services, how it’s going to be good. But also to give people the reassurance that they need, because there’s a lot of anxiety out there about what it means to them.
“You can only have, as prime minister, a handful of personal priorities that you are going to drive through the system that emanate from your office in Downing Street, that the entire system and the entire country knows are your priorities. That is the only real way to change something of this magnitude. This [issue of AI] is, and should be, for the country’s sake, one of those three things.”
Starmer is possessed of a rather different priority at the moment, as Sunak acknowledges.
“The problem with all the drama that we’ve seen in the last week, when these things happen, governments stop governing, essentially, and they start focusing on survival.”
Domestic squalls will pass; the question of how the UK copes with geopolitical and technological dislocations will sustain.
“If you look at the two things that have just changed, we as a country need to make sure that we are prepared for them. It’s a geopolitical environment that has changed, and the fact that we’re on the cusp of this enormous, significant technological revolution, are the two most dominant structural forces out there.”
Does Sunak agree with Nick Clegg, another who found a berth on the US west coast after government, that talk of UK AI sovereignty is “dishonest”? In as far as sovereignty means the UK being entirely independent, Sunak agrees that this is a fiction.
The US and China will continue to exert huge leverage over other nations because of their dominance over the emerging technology. But Sunak says the UK has cards to play and that it needs only to make itself “indispensable” in part of the supply chain to protect itself.
As a Conservative, Sunak is suspicious of the ‘picking winners’ element of the government’s new AI Sovereign fund, but sees the value in putting resources – not just cash but computing power – behind potential capabilities that might, in time, serve as vital national assets.
New hardware innovations – chip-making – are among the start-ups that have been given taxpayers’ cash. Other assets include the AI Safety Institute which seems well-positioned to serve as the world’s premier kitemarking service for Big Tech to show consumers their products won’t do serious damage. (Anthropic recently submitted its new Mythos tool to the ASI for evaluation.)
I wish I had done more on it, and that I’d spoken to the country more about the change that is coming
UK biotech and access to NHS data also mean the country is well-placed to make the most of a coming explosion of new drugs and treatments powered by AI.
These are, Sunak agrees, “reasons to be cheerful”. Even better, he says, is another lesson from the other times the world has been transformed by new technology.
“History tells you that you don’t need to be the place that invents the technology to be the place that benefits the most from it,” starts an enthusiastic Sunak. “I geek out about this all the time.
“The printing press is my favourite example. That’s invented in Germany, in Mainz, the Dutch were the ones that run away with it. But you look at why it’s fascinating, it’s because of a couple of reasons.
“One is they didn’t have censorship laws. So, obviously, if you’re a printing business, you’ve got to have these very stifling laws in Germany, what you could and couldn’t say in print. They didn’t have that in the Netherlands – free for all.
“The second thing is, they didn’t have guilds like the Germans. These old-school trade union closed shop decided [who could and could not operate a press]. And then the third thing is, because there were more advanced financial markets in Amsterdam, the companies could hedge paper costs, right? Which really matter, because they were volatile.
“So, that’s why the Dutch became [the world’s] publisher, right? So, you don’t need to be Beijing, you don’t need to be Silicon Valley. This technology exists. It’s out there. We should be trying to win the race for what I call everyday AI.”
It’s a full-fat free market interpretation from a man who is, after all, paid to keep the regulators at bay. But he is not as aggressive as some Tories on the threat to AI from any EU reset, noting that the Commission itself is trying to unwind some of its early attempts to bring US tech giants to heel and that Starmer has largely followed his own hands-off approach.
Nor is he particularly exercised about the relatively high energy costs making Britain a less attractive place to build data centres – a huge number of which will be needed to power the AI revolution. He does, however, say the government ought not to be “ideological” about letting data centres source their energy from fossil fuel sources.
He sees both sides of the debate about whether to ban under-16s from social media, noting the design challenges of that policy but also its utility in making it easier for parents to set rules.
When these things happen, governments stop governing essentially and they start focusing on survival
Despite the noise around social media, so far the so-called ‘techlash’ in the UK has been muted compared to that which is starting to shape US politics. There is no high-profile equivalent of Bernie Sanders, the Democrat senator leading the campaign against data centres, or Steve Bannon attacking AI from the populist right.
But the fact is that the UK’s economy is dominated by just those sectors that appear to be most vulnerable to labour market disruption.
That AI models can already reliably replicate many, if not most, of the tasks carried out by many so-called knowledge workers has huge potential implications for this country. The upside is an economy that receives an outsize productivity boost – the downside is a white-collar bloodbath so bad it potentially shatters the social contract.
Some AI insiders apparently have started to become profoundly worried about the societal implications of a technology that could turbocharge existing inequalities, concentrating ever more wealth in the hands of a tiny number, while also creating a “permanent underclass”.
Sunak wants political leaders in the West to move fast to reassure voters that they will be helped through the transition. The UK particularly cannot afford to miss out on a change that could at last lift it out of its decline.
There is still plenty of time to ensure that AI augments and does not just automate. Governments can rebalance the tax system to favour labour, he says. Workers, meanwhile, have time to learn the AI skills that will make them more attractive to employers.
“The biggest risk in all of this is if you just put your head in the sand and try to ignore it. The bigger risk is we will get left behind and become less competitive and efficient than other countries,” Sunak warns.
“We happen to have more knowledge workers [than] other countries. I think the bigger risk is we don’t embrace this wholeheartedly and as quickly as others…
“There is currently, in the West, a trust deficit when it comes to AI, for sure. In contrast to places like India, China, the Gulf, Singapore, where positivity and trust around AI is very high, in Western countries here – the US in particular – it’s very low.
“And we do need to change that because if that persists, all these wonderful benefits I think this technology can provide will never get realised because it will either be regulated or banned or just not adopted.
“We have to create an environment where people feel more positive about the technology in order for us as a society to actually get the benefits.”
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Politics
Politics Home Article | Public Concern About Climate Change Rises After Summer Of Extreme Heat
This summer has been the driest summer in England and Wales since records began in 1836. (Alamy)
4 min read
There is growing public concern about climate change after weeks of wildfires and drought in the UK, according to polling shared with PoliticsHome.
Around three-quarters of people (74 per cent) told an Ipsos poll they are concerned about climate change, up from 69 per cent before the summer. At the same time, the share of people who say they are unconcerned has fallen from 28 per cent to 24 per cent.
Over half (56 per cent) said recent high temperatures had affected everyday activities like work, exercise and sleep either a great deal or a fair amount.
Eighty-seven per cent said it is likely that the country will face similar summer heatwaves in the future, compared with just 3 per cent who said it is unlikely.
The online poll of 1,085 people was carried out against a backdrop of heatwaves, drought and wildfires across the UK.
July was the driest month in England and Wales since records began nearly two centuries ago, with the Environment Agency warning that the heat was affecting farmers, wildlife and water availability. Large parts of the country are subject to hosepipe bans, while a recent wildfire in Suffolk was described as the size of 210 football pitches.
Major wildfires have also impacted European countries like France, Greece and Spain.
Raquel de Luis, Head of Energy and Environment at Ipsos in the UK, told PoliticsHome: “The intense heat this summer and visible wildfires across Europe have served as a visible focus point around discussions on climate change, which may be driving a clear uptick in immediate concern and leaving nearly nine in ten convinced that these heatwaves are our new normal.”
When respondents were asked what measures they planned to install in the next two to three years to help cool their homes, portable air conditioning was the most selected option (29 per cent), followed by a fixed air conditioning unit (23 per cent) and blackout blinds or curtains (19 per cent).
Of those who told Ipsos they do not plan to make changes to their homes to cope with heat, the most common reason was affordability (39 per cent).
“The key challenge for Westminster will be delivering accessible, cost-effective infrastructure and adaptation support that enables households to build resilience against recurring summer heat without adding to their financial burdens,” said de Luis.
Paul McNamee, Director at the Labour Climate and Environment Forum, said the findings show that Labour MPs are right to keep making the case for the UK’s net zero targets at a time when parties on the right are calling for them to be relaxed.
“It has been really good to see Andy Burnham knock some money off energy bills to address people’s concerns [about cost of living],” he added.
“But we also need to keep on rolling out renewables and upgrade our grid to make sure it’s fit for purpose for a future of clean energy, and our main ask is [making] sure that the government makes the absolute most out of the electrification benefits that sit beneath it.”
However, he said there is more that can be done in the short term to boost community resilience in the face of extreme heat, like creating green spaces where people can cool down and better managing land to help avert wildfires.
Managing Director of the Conservative Environment Network, John Flesher, said the government needs to do more on adaptation because the country isn’t “well enough prepared” to deal with the effects of extreme hot weather as things stand.
“We need to think a lot more about preparing for this,” he told PoliticsHome, pointing to water security and agriculture as areas of high importance. “It’s terrible what this [extreme heat] could mean for the cost of food, for farmers’ abilities to conduct their harvest as normal.”
Tom Bradshaw, President of the National Farmers Union, recently told the BBC that the UK has taken its food supply for granted for far too long and called for more resilience planning.
“Those other countries around the world that we currently rely on to produce our food and vegetables, their climates are changing as well,” said Bradshaw.
“It does feel like there is going to be some shortages of [food] products.”
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Politics
Politics Home | Big Tech Firms Are “Winning In A Big Way” On Online Safety, Warns Jess Phillips
The former safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has warned the big tech firms are winning in the battle over regulation (Alamy)
3 min read
Major tech companies are “winning in a big way” against efforts to make the internet safer for women and children, according to former safeguarding minister Jess Phillips.
Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, said that during her time in government, parts of Whitehall, including No 10, were reluctant to take action for fear of retaliation by tech giants and the Donald Trump administration.
Speaking on the latest episode of PoliticsHome podcast The Rundown, which will be published on Friday (7 August), Phillips said: “We are too beholden currently in the world to basically five unelected people.”
The Labour MP resigned as a Home Office minister in May, accusing the Keir Starmer administration of not working hard enough to protect women and girls online. Phillips said Starmer was a “decent man” but his reluctance to “have an argument” meant that steps to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG) were “stalled and delayed”.
In her resignation letter to the then-prime minister, Phillips said that “91 per cent of online child sex abuse is self-generated by children groomed, tricked and exploited into abuse”, and that Google and Apple, the two companies that control the operating systems on almost all smartphones, could quickly and easily install software that would stop them being used by children to take and receive naked pictures.
In June, Starmer gave tech firms a September deadline to make this change, warning that the government would give itself the powers to fine or take criminal action against those that did not comply.
Phillips wants new Prime Minister Andy Burnham to hold them to this, telling the podcast that, as things stand, “tech companies are winning in a big, big way”.
The former minister said there was a divide within Whitehall about how to tackle online safety when she was in government. She described the Home Office as being “hawkish as hell about tech companies”, while No 10 and the now-abolished Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) were nervous about being too aggressive.
Phillips recalled “the sense that tech companies and the US would hold us to ransom on all sorts of different things”, adding: “I’ve had it directly said to my face, ‘well, look, they’ll just put trade levies on us if you try and do anything with tech companies’.”
She said Starmer “was always on my side in conversations”, but that she “just started to feel like I was going slowly mad” waiting for the machinery of government to make it happen.
“If you could hear some of the conversations I had to have with people. There are some people who genuinely just think that people taking dick pics is a human right,” Phillips said.
“I had to say to somebody once: ‘You know, you won’t die. It’s not water or shelter’.”
Phillips expressed concern that the government’s Online Safety Act is “woeful for women” in its current form and “20 years behind” where it needs to be to tackle evolving online harms.
“As somebody who was seeking to put down lots of amendments to the Online Safety Act while it was passing through, I’ve never known aggressive lobbying like it,” said the Labour MP. “Every single law firm in the whole of London was basically on retainer to one of the big tech companies so that they couldn’t work for anyone else. That is just anti-democratic.”
The Rundown is presented by Alain Tolhurst, and is produced and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot
- Click here to listen to the latest episode of The Rundown, or search for ‘PoliticsHome’ wherever you get your podcasts.
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Prime Minister Andy Burnham has outlined a range of areas he would like to see greater spending in. (Alamy)
4 min read
Andy Burnham has set out some major ambitions for government since entering office. Experts look at how he could pay for them.
The new Prime Minister was keen to hit the ground running when he succeeded Keir Starmer in No 10 last month, promising quick action to help people cope with cost-of-living pressures. He announced that he would take VAT off electricity bills, cap bus fares at £2, and reduce business rates for pubs and restaurants.
When it comes to longer-term policy, Burnham has promised to end rough sleeping and reform adult social care. His vision for the latter, bringing it more in line with NHS provision, is estimated to cost billions of pounds of additional spending every year. The new PM is also under pressure to increase defence spending in response to global security threats.
At the same time, the PM has pledged to stick to the government’s fiscal rules and 2024 manifesto pledges not to raise income tax, national insurance and VAT.
This has raised questions about how Burnham will fund his plans for government.
Many details will not be confirmed until Wednesday, 28 October, when Chancellor John Healey delivers the first Budget of the Burnham Labour government. Healey, who resigned as defence secretary during the final weeks of the Starmer government over defence spending, has said that the Autumn Budget will be “built on fiscal discipline”.
What are Burnham’s options?
Carsten Jung, leader of the economy team at the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank (IPPR), argued that Burnham and Healey have inherited a better economic picture than Starmer and former chancellor Rachel Reeves faced.
“Rachel Reeves, for all of her strategic mistakes, really fixed the public finances,” said Jung.
“What she inherited from Jeremy Hunt [her Tory chancellor predecessor] was unsustainable. It was based on cuts to departmental spending which weren’t sustainable. So she went to the painful exercise of increasing taxes to fix that.
“What Andy Burnham inherits is a much better funded state, and he also has headroom against the fiscal rules he inherited, which makes it less dire.”
However, he said that borrowing money to fund government spending could be riskier for Burnham than it was for Starmer due to “jittery” markets and a more precarious global picture. The Bank of England recently warned that it may be forced to raise interest rates later this year if the US war with Iran escalates, which in turn would make borrowing more expensive.
Jung said that one option available to the government is to increase tax on wealth to bring it closer to tax on earnings, highlighting capital gains tax.
As things stand, people are charged either 18 per cent or 24 per cent on profit they make when selling, gifting or disposing of an asset that has increased in value, such as a second home. Burnham could increase Treasury revenues by aligning capital gains tax rates with income tax bands of 20, 40 and 45 per cent.
Elsewhere, examples of pro-growth policies according to Jung include the Treasury investing more in “leading industries” in the UK as well as “boosting entrepreneurship” while closing tax loopholes.
Isabel Stockton, researcher at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said Burnham’s ambitions can be split into two categories: those that are less fiscally challenging, such as the cost-of-living measures he announced in his first few days in office, and policies with greater economic implications, like defence spending and adult social care.
Stockton agreed with Jung that borrowing more money would be “difficult” and “risky” for Burnham as it could push the new government close to breaching its fiscal rules, leaving him with two broad options: raising tax and cutting spending elsewhere.
Burnham has already said that the country must get “really serious” about reducing welfare spending to fund priorities like greater defence spending.
Stockton also suggested that the Labour government explore using the National Wealth Fund as a way of boosting spending power – it was launched under Starmer in 2024 to “mobilise billions of pounds of investment” in UK “clean energy and growth industries”.
By the end of the current parliament, the NWF should be on track to have capitalised with almost £30bn – with government funds directed to “resources to finance economic activity that supports additional private investment”, opening up investment options for the government.
However, NWF is still funded by taxation and borrowing, and is run by the Treasury – meaning the challenges around scrutiny on tax and spend remain.
Stockton told PoliticsHome the limitations Starmer’s government faced on taxation, spending, and spending cuts continue to exist, and remain challenging for Burnham’s government.
“With any new government, it can make different choices, but it is going to be facing essentially the same constraints, especially given that he [Burnham] says he’s committed to the existing fiscal rules,” said Stockton.
“He says he’s committed to the Labour manifesto on tax, so that rules out quite a few things already. That means that the decisions are going to be difficult.”
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