Net Zero vs AI: can Reeves convince Miliband?
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 17 March 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
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Summary
The Chancellor will deliver the annual Mais lecture today and is expected to focus on closer alignment with the EU, AI and improving Britain's economic geography ('levelling up' in all but name). While her comments on Europe might gain the most headlines, we're more curious about what she will say over AI – given the current geopolitical context. Given the energy requirements of AI, the Iran crisis has only further exposed the holes in Britain's energy policy – can Rachel Reeves convince Ed Miliband to adapt his policies? And is this about the Chancellor's political headroom as much as the economic?
Plus: President Zelensky is in town to sign a defence pact with the UK, while Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yusuf are expected to give their final speeches in the Scottish Parliament before standing down as MSPs. Tim Shipman and Michael Simmons join Patrick Gibbons to reflect on their legacies.
Produced by Patrick Gibbons.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, The Spectators Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Patrick Givens, and today I'm joined by our political editor Tim Shipman and our economics editor, Michael Simmons. Now Michael, later this afternoon, Rachel Reeves is expected to deliver the Mays lecture. Do we know what's in it? |
| 0:21.6 | Yes, we do. It's been trailed and she's not expected to. She's definitely going to deliver it. |
| 0:26.5 | And actually, she's going to be the first person in the history of the May's lecture to deliver it twice. |
| 0:34.1 | The first time she gave it was before Labour were elected and it set out her sort of |
| 0:39.3 | plans for government and her idea of Securonomics. And in that lecture, she said that |
| 0:45.9 | secureinomics was about providing the platform for which to take risks not to retreat from |
| 0:51.3 | an uncertain future. So I think you can expect like some reference to that. |
| 0:56.5 | I mean, she'll use that phrase she loves that I've put the public finances back on a more |
| 1:00.9 | stable footing in a changing world. But in terms of the actual policy that she's going to talk about, |
| 1:07.7 | the free areas we're told to watch out for are AI, closer ties with Europe, |
| 1:14.4 | and they're not calling it leveling up, but sort of empowering the regions of the UK. |
| 1:21.1 | Now, the area we've been given the most detail about is on AI. Reeves has said that she wants to make |
| 1:26.7 | Britain the best place in the world for |
| 1:28.8 | quantum computing and AI companies to start, scale and stay. And she set this target of Britain |
| 1:35.5 | having the fastest AI adoption in the G7 and she says that's going to create 100,000 jobs. |
| 1:42.7 | That's going to tie into what she's saying about regional economies. |
| 1:46.6 | She wants to have these sort of development corporations |
| 1:49.6 | where places like Oxford and Cambridge, for example, |
| 1:52.9 | would have easier planning systems. |
| 1:56.1 | And I guess the question with all of this is, |
| 1:58.3 | it all sounds fairly positive |
| 2:00.2 | what we're told she's going to announce about creating jobs about growing the economy. But we've been here |
... |
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