Spotlight: Divide and conquer?

A time for harmony

Sir Keir Starmer has never been shy in nailing his footballing colours to Arsenal’s mast.

So he should, therefore, be more than familiar with the club’s historic Latin motto.

Victoria Concordia Crescit – victory grows out of harmony – was the watchword for years, a constant across various changing crests.

One wonders if it crossed his mind when Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her budget of no little division.

It should have done.

To govern, of course, is to cause electorate fragmentation.

It comes with the territory.

But with opinion polls showing an (inevitable) slide in public sentiment, backbencher Mike Amesbury suspended for an alleged street assault and Louise Haigh jerking starboard over P&O when all around Starmer’s cabinet pointed portside, the first real mini fissure of the

Labour administration has been exposed.

And the Chancellor’s budget has only crowbarred it wider.

As fiscal programmes go, it was, to put it mildly, brave.

Described as a safety blanket for an economy repeatedly torched by Conservative ministers and measures, the sight of chief firelighter

Liz Truss carping in its immediate aftermath worked to add some credibility.

But it was nevertheless a daring move for a party that has waited so long to regain power.

Attention spans these days rarely extend to the next episode of the latest Netflix drama, never mind a full term in political office.

And in a world where things have felt tough financially for a long time, delivering a budget that effectively told people to expect more of the same for a while yet, hardly screamed ‘vote winner’.

But here we are. And for Labour, what happens next is crucial, even at such an early juncture in its reign.

With public trust so delicate, it needs to see the seeds it has planted grow quickly.

Furthermore, the party mustn’t let itself become another iteration of the regime it has replaced.

After the shambles of recent years, the UK simply cannot afford any further splintering of priorities and personalities, nor any further division on directives and decisions.

Like the fans who had Arsenal’s harmony motto inked into their flesh years ago, Sir Keir must ensure concord remains a constant throughout the weeks and months ahead, to ensure the promises of yesterday are delivered in earnest tomorrow.

Keep rail promises

There were some bright spots for the region in the budget, not least confirmation of a previous Tory pledge to hand over £25 million to help remediate former Wearside shipyard land to create the 8000-job Crown Works Studios film and television hub.

Equally welcome was a commitment to pump cash into the country’s electric vehicle sector – an industry where our corner of the UK continues to make notable advances – and the North East Combined Authority’s eligibility for integrated funding settlements from 2026/2027, a move that paves the way for the north of the region’s historic devolution deal to sing even louder.

But there was also disappointment around the scrapping of plans to dual the A1 in Northumberland.

And there was no mention, either, of Hitachi’s train building factory in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham.

When the £82 million plant opened in 2015, the site hummed with activity, with East Coast and Great Western rolling stock projects complemented by Scottish and East Midlands trains.

The company’s order book, though, has since slowed, the previous Government’s decision to hold off on triggering an extension of West Coast work a notable spoke in an increasingly complex larger wheel.

Labour spent the first half of 2024 telling all who would listen the problem was more than resolvable, and deputy prime minister Angela Rayner told the Commons in late October the party was “in close contact with Hitachi to secure a sustainablefuture for Newton Aycliffe”.

For the sake of the company, the hundreds of staff it employs and its sprawling supply chain, that contact must be translated into tangible change – and quickly.

To lose Hitachi would be a catastrophic blow to the region’s business sector.

But it would also be incredibly embarrassing to see a train builder, based just a stop or two from the genesis of global rail travel, shunted into the sidings.

A refreshed skills platform

Redcar’s former steelworks site has been a lot of things to a lot of people.

It’s now about to become something else.

With plans for a £4 billion Net Zero Teesside carbon capture, utilisation and storage plant recently rubberstamped by the Government, a landscape once home to red hot iron and white hot steel is about to join the green revolution.

Pledging to deliver 1000 jobs, the venture is one of huge promise.

But its potential will only be fully realised if action is taken now to ensure sufficient talent is in place to feed the development with the staff it needs.

For too long, a disconnect has existed between education and industry, where one feels like the other isn’t holding up its end of the bargain.

With this venture, we have a chance to categorically repair that fracture.

To make it – and future similar endeavours – a success, we need a training pipeline free of blockages and kinks, one where education providers and industry coalesce seamlessly, and where the Government plays its part with meaningful funding and support mechanisms.