American economic imperialism is going too far. It is enough that the British car, pharmaceutical, steel and other industries have been badly injured by Donald Trump’s mercantilism.
Even those of us who have doubts about BBC impartiality, particularly on the Middle East, cannot but be sympathetic to efforts to subvert the broadcaster with a libel threat.
Now, US Ambassador to the Court of St James’s, Warren Stephens, is complaining that Britain’s leading-edge engineer Rolls-Royce has been awarded the contract to build the UK’s first generation of small modular (nuclear) reactors (SMRs) at Wylfa in Anglesey.
He thinks the contract should have gone to Westinghouse.
Ambassador Stephens needs an industrial history lesson. Rolls-Royce is the pioneer in SMR technology, based on the complex power systems used in nuclear submarines.
It is almost a decade since it first came up with the design and, thanks to Boris Johnson and others, R&D funding helped to keep the project alive.
Green light: Rolls-Royce has been awarded the contract to build the UK’s first generation of small modular (nuclear) reactors at Wylfa in Anglesey (pictured)
Delays in Whitehall, which insisted on a global competition for SMRs, held up approval and licensing of the technology.
The bureaucratic stalling gave Japan’s Hitachi, Westinghouse and others the time to catch up.
It is worth noting that while successive UK governments stalled, the Czech government was the first to put in orders for Rolls’ SMRs.
Paradoxically, until 2006 Westinghouse was controlled by British Nuclear Fuels. Gordon Brown sold it to Japan’s Toshiba for £4billion.
Selling the nation’s crown jewels, including the gold reserves, was a speciality of the Blair-Brown era.
Ed Miliband rightly receives bad reviews on these pages for his climate change extremism.
But in embracing Rolls-Royce nuclear tech he has done the right thing. If there are no further hold-ups Wylfa can be a showpiece for global sales.
Under the tutelage of chief executive ‘Turbo’ Tufan Erginbilgic, Rolls has been transformed. Only yesterday the company confirmed its full-year profits forecast of £3.1billion to £3.2billion – a 24 per cent increase.
The jump is driven by stronger flying hours for its wide-bodied jet engines. The outlook is boosted by surging defence spending including the sale of Typhoon jets, powered by Rolls turbines, to Turkey as well as submarine orders.
To that can now be added the prospects for SMRs. The shares have doubled so far this year, valuing it at more than £90billion.
Imagine what Erginbilgic’s electric, take-no-prisoners management could do for Britain’s malfunctioning NHS, where £29billion of fresh taxpayer funds is being frittered away.
Data overload
Time perhaps for the great minds at the Treasury to give Chancellor Rachel Reeves a new script.
Her response to 0.1 per cent drop in national output in September was to boast that the ‘UK had the fastest-growing economy’ in the G7 in the first half of the year.
This fatuous claim would be more credible if Britain didn’t also have the fastest-rising consumer prices and the highest bond rates among the economic elite.
This week the Office for National Statistics said it was cutting back on data releases. As much as the more is the merrier for City scribblers, there is a case for reverting to when GDP data was released every quarter rather than each month.
Britain is cursed by too many fiscal events and data releases which usually require much revision.
It is bonkers to look at one month in isolation. This is especially true when the numbers are rendered meaningless by the cyber shutdown at Jaguar Land Rover.
After all, forecasts behind the Budget arithmetic in two weeks’ time will stare five years into the future.
Check out
The arrival of Joshua Schulman at Burberry has given Britain’s luxury clothing champion a real lift.
He has focused on what it has always done best: outerwear, scarves and trench coats.
By underlining authenticity and adopting sensible pricing the chief executive has let the share price rediscover its mojo. Even previously underwhelming China revenues are sparking again.
An end to HMRC’s ghastly tourist tax would be the icing on the cake.
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