Or just complete an existing deal, take the credit and bank 4,000 jobs.
Westminster Politics 2024-2029
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran are here to talk about a frustrating 2 points dropped at Crystal Palace. They then discuss the regeneration of Old Trafford. Finally, Nik is joined by special guest Michael Statham from the Football Oranje podcast - who gives us a more in depth look at our EL opposition FC Twente, and then runs through the (many) Dutch connections currently at United.
What's the link between Quadrature and Blackstone, barring an apparent holding in one its funds?
I've followed this as closely as others.
I was mostly using it as a example against the idea of labour politicians and the rich people they work with being “inherently the good guys”
Although tbh Blackstone are god awful. The jobs will be shite and what the government gives up in return for the investment will end up fecking the country over.
I don't think anyone was claiming Blackstone are 'inherently good guys'.
A lot of the criticism is silly though. 'The jobs will be shite'. This Reuters report says there'll be 1,200 construction jobs, then whatever jobs in the data centre and obviously it will mean extra business for suppliers in the region etc...The company will likely get tax incentives to develop a scheme in an area of deprivation that potentially takes a load of people off the dole.
Good god he is posting AI images of himself.
You can put that down to Starmer alienating the left and telling us we have no home in the Labour party. You can hardly expect us to come out and defend him now
Definitely one for the Hypernormalisation thread
The poster I was responding to was claiming Labour are the good guys and the rich people who work with them can also be good. I was using the Blackstone example to prove this to be not be the case.
Potentially but we are also taking about a group which has been caught using child labour and destroying communities with their landlordism.
Wait and see I guess but I don’t think it’s optimistic future with deals like this.
giggles in Elon
He looks like Paul Golding in that pic
I don't think there is a moral equivalence between this and what the Tories have done, but if the left wants to make it look like there is one, the only people who benefit from it are the extreme right.
I was quite clearly talking about one bloke. The one bloke that everyone else is talking about.
That has nothing to do with the construction of a data centre. Nor is it a commentary on all rich people being good.
Do these false equivalences not exhaust you?
To the deal you quote out of context… I’m not shilling for the blackstone group. But you’ve got to be realistic no? 4000 jobs and investment on a site that is sat dead due to a failed venture.
I’m so with you on political ideals almost all the time. But we are unfortunately a capitalist country and for all intents and purposes, broke and getting broker. We’re a capitalist country in the doldrums. I’d love us to carve out a more socialist future, but I don’t attack every single thing that gets announced based on what I want. You’ve gotta be a realist. Unfortunately.
You might not think that but plenty of others do.
If people want no corruption after years of Tory corruption, Labour's stance of "still corrupt but less corrupt than the Tories because it's within the guidelines (for now)" is obviously going to draw criticism.
I also think it's pretty obvious austerity 2.0 is going to benefit the extreme right far more than lefties criticising Starmer for being corrupt.
The was a specific point UP was making about a Labour donor though, not a random businessman who seemingly struck this deal long before Labour came into power. That's not my beef anyway.
Realistically, the tentacles of private equity firms are now everywhere and all governments are having to deal with them on some level. I'd rather companies like them are kept to funding data centres other job creating businesses than getting their claws into the NHS.
The child labour issue was an investee company, rather than them, but the details were bad and it questions their due diligence. I'm not defending Blackstone btw, I don't care for big PE firms and the regional boss of theirs who I met was an arrogant guy who I didn't like.
Reminds me V for Vendetta a bit.
True that they are everywhere but the way this labour governments deal with them won’t result in good outcomes imo
The British state will end up subsidising the project. Plus it possible this thing could use a huge amount of energy making climate targets difficult to hit.
Hopefully I’m wrong though.
Its derisking, same thing GB Energy is designed to do.
It means these huge companies can push these projects safe in the knowledge that if it all goes wrong, the state is on the hook for losses, while if it goes well, they keep all the profits.
The government get to brag about investment in things we see as good, such as green energy, or in this case AI (that media present as game changing technology), with no downside. Until it goes wrong.
It means these huge companies can push these projects safe in the knowledge that if it all goes wrong, the state is on the hook for losses, while if it goes well, they keep all the profits.
The government get to brag about investment in things we see as good, such as green energy, or in this case AI (that media present as game changing technology), with no downside. Until it goes wrong.
True that they are everywhere but the way this labour governments deal with them won’t result in good outcomes imo
The British state will end up subsidising the project. Plus it possible this thing could use a huge amount of energy making climate targets difficult to hit.
Hopefully I’m wrong though.
Fortunately we have a surplus of cheap energy in this country and what we really need is more demand on our robust and plentiful infrastructure.
You are right, building anything new is a fool's game in this country and we should all just stop trying, eh. FFS.
It’s a serious concern though no?
Why? And by that, I mean is it a serious concern specific to Blackstone? Are there ways to build data centers on the that scale without the energy requirements? Would it be better for the UK to avoid building data centers in general?
I can see Daniela Gabor has highlighted that data centers require a lot of energy, but I'm unsure of the point to it. Yes they do, but they can be worth it is surely the point?
Data centres do require a lot of energy but also the modern world requires a lot of data centres. So we'd better get building.
Microsoft is doing a deal to restart Three Mile Island so they can get the power they need to run their AIs. That's how serious these companies are about this stuff. Things are moving very quickly.
Id say this deal with Blackstone is a small step in the right direction, at least it recognises what the future sort of looks like. But we will need 20 more of them, doing much more than warehousing data, and we'll need ways of powering them. And we need to move fast.
Microsoft is doing a deal to restart Three Mile Island so they can get the power they need to run their AIs. That's how serious these companies are about this stuff. Things are moving very quickly.
Id say this deal with Blackstone is a small step in the right direction, at least it recognises what the future sort of looks like. But we will need 20 more of them, doing much more than warehousing data, and we'll need ways of powering them. And we need to move fast.
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I’m a software developer so you’d think investing in the tech sector like this would be up my street but it’s not because I really do question if the UK has the energy infrastructure for it yet. If they were promising to be carbon neutral and invest in wind or hydro infrastructure then I’d get behind it but I haven’t seen any suggestion that they will. Data centres and their energy use is a much bigger issue to me than the scope of the UK economy. They should only be built in countries that have the green infrastructure ready to support it.
It’s the equivalent (although not as extreme) of Saudi Arabia, ignoring the legality and cultural taboo, deciding they want to be at the forefront of wine production. Their infrastructure just isn’t setup for it, it would be absurd to add pressure to an already critical issue of water scarcity.
I get that we want to have an industry again but seriously will it really be a net positive to the UK economy if it adds demand to a utility which is already at breaking point and prices already sky high? If it causes prices to increase then it’s every other area of the economy that will suffer as well as the average citizen directly through their energy bills.
I expect the really big players will build their own power capacity into these systems, they won't want to rely on the grid or rely on third parties to eventually get around to installing the capacity. This is where we will see a lot of the start up work being done on small modular nuclear plants paying off, I would guess, assuming they can deliver the power output needed
This AI project is being built on the site of the old coal processing factories. It was supposed to be a factory manufacturing new battery tech, now its an AI farm.
What? Corbyn gets loads of gifts and does claim expenses. Is that article from 2010? It's not even a criticism of him, but he got a lot of money through a legal defence fund and he naturally claims his office costs.
You can run a heat network off a data centre and provide heat for municipal buildings and towns nearby. It’s a good balance.
What! She can do this! But the black hole! The house hold budget!
I’m sure most of it will be given to private sector while poor pensioners and people on benefits both get the blame and get targeted by the state.
I’m sure most of it will be given to private sector while poor pensioners and people on benefits both get the blame and get targeted by the state.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c04pe3653k7o
The Treasury is reconsidering parts of Labour’s manifesto plan to toughen up the abolition of non-domicile tax status.
This is on account of concerns over how much money will be raised, should wealthy foreigners simply leave the UK
Pretty soon there won't be a manifesto left.
The Treasury is reconsidering parts of Labour’s manifesto plan to toughen up the abolition of non-domicile tax status.
This is on account of concerns over how much money will be raised, should wealthy foreigners simply leave the UK
Pretty soon there won't be a manifesto left.
If she actually can do that then the WFA bar needs to go straight away, absolutely no excuse if you can 'unlock' that amount of money.
And the 2 child benefit cap.
"Nobody told us the Laffer Curve was real"
I didn't think anybody could be more incompetent than the last lot.
I don't agree. If she can unlock that sort of money, it needs to go on infrastructure investment, which will generate growth, rather than on current spending, which won't.
Meanwhile France is preparing new wealth taxes which could mean even more wealthy French come to the UK. I suppose they will spend money here but on the other hand they could feck off again when ever they feel like it, so I don't know if it would be a good thing or not. Good for us I mean, I doubt it would be good for France.
I am in favour of raising taxes by the way, but only where the Treasury guys say it would not be counter-productive.
These fecking people. It's a project that should have been done 10 years ago, is important for energy efficiency and clean air, important for the north's economy in general, and they want to spend the money on fecking roads.
feck the treasury guys, they haven't tried it, they don't know. If it fails you can always go back. Nobody ever did anything useful without trying and failing along the way.