This is exciting. British tram projects take longer and cost twice as much as they do in Europe. So the Government have announced a 'mass transit taskforce' (Fingleton for Trams) to identify the reasons why British projects cost more. www.gov.uk/government/n...

Wes Streeting has proposed equalising Capital Gains and Income Tax rates. He (well, CENTAX at LSE really) reckons it'd raise £12bn If the UK adopted this plan, it would give us the highest rate of CGT in the OECD (for long-and-short term gains) albeit with a much more entrepreneur friendly base.

I find it remarkable that there are serious conversations about capping supermarket prices, but to my knowledge, no politician has called for the scrapping of the 'Town Centre first' policy despite extremely good evidence that it increases supermarket prices. www.samdumitriu.com/p/how-to-cut...

Building "luxury flats" actually makes housing more affordable for everyone. It's an effect shown in studies around the world. The chains created by people moving into high end properties free up homes all the way down the ladder.

Britain's first nuclear build in three decades is set to be delayed because Natural England have decided £700m on fish protection isn't enough. A 2 year delay would mean 2-4bn cubic metres more gas burnt and 4-8m tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. www.samdumitriu.com/p/natural-en...

Kemi Badenoch's speech in Parliament yesterday was, according to Hansard, only the second time the phrase 'Epic Fail' was used in Parliament.

You don't tackle climate change by stopping things. You tackle it by building things.

Failed legal challenges have delayed major infrastructure projects like new roads and power stations by a collective 32 years. Labour recently changed the law to cut the time it takes to throw out anti-infrastructure lawsuits. And it's working. www.samdumitriu.com/p/the-planni...

Not usually a fan of Banksy, but this is v. clever.

Every govt forecast demand of electricity demand of the last 20 years has been catastrophically wrong. They keep predicting that electricity use will rise. In fact, it's fallen by than in any other developed country. Only Yemen, Zimbabwe, Jamaica, Tajikistan and Syria saw bigger per-capita falls.

Yesterday, the Government announced they were scrapping an £18 per tonne carbon on electricity. In a new post, @michaeljahill.bsky.social explains the green case for cutting carbon taxes on electricity. www.samdumitriu.com/p/why-the-ca...

Nobody talks about the time when Razorlight got radiation poisoning from the polonium meant for Litvinenko.

In response to the Fingleton Review, the Govt didn't commit to legislating to fix the Habs Regs to avoid things like fish discos/bat tunnels. However, they are legislating to do just that for offshore wind. Why is it one rule for wind and another for nuclear? www.samdumitriu.com/p/if-its-goo...

New: How our planning system makes the weekly shop more expensive. Supermarkets are using planning objections and legal challenges to prevent cheaper rivals (Aldi/Lidl) from opening nearby. www.samdumitriu.com/p/how-to-cut...

Britain is the most expensive place in the world to build a nuclear power station. Labour have just announced an extremely ambitious supply-side reform agenda to change that. Here's my analysis of what just might end up as the Starmer Govt's proudest legacy. www.samdumitriu.com/p/how-seriou...

Remember the Preston Model? The council was meant to have saved their area by shifting spend to local SMEs. But the sums don't add up: council spend is just too small to explain it. @michaeljahill.bsky.social on the real Preston Model: build homes and roads. www.samdumitriu.com/p/the-truth-...

In the Guardian, I argue that Britain’s nature protections often lead to expensive, ineffective mitigations and, paradoxically, harm nature in the long run because they make it harder to build the clean energy infrastructure we need to tackle climate change.

Sadiq Khan has identified London's golf courses as potential sites for new homes. Here are some facts about London's golf courses. www.standard.co.uk/news/london/...

Labour's rewrite of planning policy is genuinely radical, but there's a real risk that good intentions are watered-down due to unclear drafting. Michael Hill and I have set out three problems that could undermine an otherwise admirably bold document. www.samdumitriu.com/p/whats-wron...

I am more relaxed than most about Palantir's role in the British public sector, but this is disturbing. Not only did the CEO twice use a slur about the intellectually disabled, the company account then reposted it. (His core message on Anthropic is hateful too.)

Starmer: “Every time I go to pull a lever, there are a whole bunch of regulations ... that mean the action from pulling the lever to delivery is longer than I think it ought to be” He has a point. Some London boroughs won't be impacted by his housing target policy until the end of this Parliament.

Labour's plan to build 1.5m homes is reliant on housing targets. One big problem: they are unlikely to impact London, which is meant to deliver a huge share of those homes, until the 2030s! My latest explains how places like Camden can avoid higher targets. www.samdumitriu.com/p/the-london...

There's a big risk that conflict in Iran forces Reeves to reverse tax rises, leaving the Government in an even weaker fiscal position. Her plans bake in a 1p rise in fuel duty in Sep and a 2p rise in Dec. Is that politically possible in an oil crisis?

The Shoreditch Works application has taken 4 years and 9,000 pages of documents. Hackney Council has concluded what this project needs is… more documents.

This is interesting. Looks like the EU is planning to reform the Habitats Regulations out of concern they restrict clean energy development too much. www.tlt.com/insights-and...

NEW: Labour are on track to miss their 1.5 million home by a distance. Our analysis of planning application data predicts only 800,000 homes will be built in England by 2029. Just 3.4% of people in England live somewhere on track to meet their housing target. www.samdumitriu.com/p/labours-15...

thread

Would you say a 9,054-page planning application for an office block and some flats is: A) Too long B) About right C) Not long enough If you answered C, congratulations! You could work at Hackney Council.

This is a must-read. A forensic analysis of a planning application (and a report from planners recommending its refused). Kafkaesque is over-used, but it is the perfect description of the process so far for the extremely popular Shoreditch Works scheme.

One of the big problems for marketeers such as myself is that people absolutely hate prices being used to indicate scarcity. Rent controls are exactly the same as calls for constraints on TicketMaster: requests to move towards a system of queuing for scarce products rather than money.

Britain is a very centralised country. Britain is also a very expensive place to build new infrastructure. Are these two facts linked? @alonlevy.bsky.social, one of the world’s top experts on infrastructure costs doesn’t think so. Here’s why I disagree. open.substack.com/pub/samdumit...

NEW: 45 leading figures from academia, business and politics tell Ed Miliband "Don't U-turn" on the commitment to implement every recommendation of the Fingleton Nuclear Regulatory Review. Full letter below.

Is it me or is this really egregious? Green NGOs have published a briefing claiming that the Fingleton Review into nuclear regulation made up a key case study. The only problem is they didn't. And it isn't hard to check.

The Wildlife Trusts have published a briefing claiming that the Fingleton Review's into nuclear regulation was 'flawed' in its use of evidence. I've read their briefing. And frankly it's laughable. Full of errors and in some cases, outright misleading. www.samdumitriu.com/p/in-defence...

"HS2's £100m bat tunnel isn't a waste of money" argues HS2 Ltd's top ecologist. His argument: There was "no better solution that met species protection law and reduced cost." I'd argue he has completely missed the point. (1/2)

Is offshore wind really 40% cheaper than gas? Sort of, but we need to be clear that the high cost of gas is, in part, a policy choice driven by carbon pricing and lower-capacity factors. My latest attempt to inject some nuance into the energy debate. www.samdumitriu.com/p/is-offshor...

My instinct is, when evaluating a politician, the public indexes less on policy and more on character. It can be hard for the extremely ambitious people in Westminister to grasp, but in the real world loyalty to friends and colleagues comes first.

NEW: Britain's latest CfD auction secured a record 8.4GW of wind capacity. New projects will be awarded 20-year fixed-price contracts at £91 per MWh. The highest price 2015. Why has wind power got more expensive and what will it mean for bills? www.samdumitriu.com/p/britains-l...

It is more expensive to build on previously-developed land than greenfield. A new tax on housebuilding (Building Safety Levy) was meant to have a lower rate for it. One problem: the discount is defined in a way that rules out almost all brownfield sites. www.samdumitriu.com/p/the-buildi...

New: Britain can't decarbonise quickly without buying a lot of Chinese tech. What are the risks of becoming dependent on China for solar panels, batteries, and EVs? Britain Remade's China expert Michael Hill explains what we should and shouldn't worry about. www.samdumitriu.com/p/how-worrie...

From solar panels to EVs, China dominates green supply chains. So how did they get there? @britainremade.bsky.social's Michael Hill explains that it wasn't some grand strategy, but applying the East Asian industrial model to 1.4bn people. www.samdumitriu.com/p/why-china-...

Prediction: Madrid will have better outcomes (when you adjust for economic growth) but the conclusion from the author will be that Barcelona's reforms were 'watered down' and didn't go far enough.

Thread: How reliant are the UK’s Net Zero plans on Chinese goods? Here are some stats taken from @britainremade.bsky.social's Michael Hill. www.samdumitriu.com/p/can-we-ach...

Can Britain get to Net Zero without China? In the short-term, almost certainly not. China dominates the supply chains for wind, solar, batteries, and EVs. Super inisghtful post from my colleague Michael Hill www.samdumitriu.com/p/can-we-ach...

NEW: Labour just announced the biggest change in planning policy in 80 years. My breakdown of the key measures and whether they will succeed. www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are...

Britain can't reach Net Zero without Chinese supply chains. What are the risks and what should we do about them? This, from my colleague Michael Hill, is the best thing I've read on Britain's reliance on China to reach Net Zero. www.samdumitriu.com/p/china-the-...

Labour spent ages arguing that the railways should be nationalised. They appear not to have spent much time figuring out what we can learn from the best nationalised systems. catchingmice.substack.com/cp/180687006

This is a vital report. Whether or not the Government accept it in full, is a test of whether they are serious about growth.

The findings of the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce lay bare the litany of regulations that make Britain the most expensive place in the world to build nuclear power stations. 1/4

Hinkley Point C is set to be the most expensive nuclear plant ever built. The numbers below reveal they spent £700m on fish protection. Based on the latest estimates that’s £280,000 per fish.