Former Deputy National Security Adviser Jonathan Black joins Nesta CEO Ravi Gurumurthy to ask how Andy Burnham can make the UK economy more secure in a world where trade, technology, energy and investment have become tools of geopolitical competition.
This episode is part of Andy Burnham's first 100 days, our deep-dive series on the choices facing the new prime minister.
Ravi and Jonathan talk about how the UK should handle its economic relationships with the US, China and Europe, and where it needs to cut its reliance on countries and technologies that could leave it exposed. Jonathan draws on 25 years in government, including time as the prime minister's G7 and G20 sherpa. He goes through the hard trade-offs on offshore wind, AI and industrial policy, whether the UK should make a strategic bet on Europe, and what Whitehall needs to change to make these decisions well.
Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:56 Can a prime minister avoid foreign policy? 05:48 Global integration meets great power rivalry 08:03 Does US–China interdependence prevent conflict? 13:28 How economic security policy fails 19:36 The Mingyang offshore wind decision 25:40 AI and sovereign capability 28:46 Depending on US frontier models 32:08 Should the UK make a strategic bet on Europe? 35:24 Middle powers and coalitions of the willing 37:52 How Whitehall needs to change 43:08 Working with business without being captured 44:50 Burnham's diary and his first 100 days
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Nesta is a UK research and innovation foundation. We design, test and scale solutions to the big challenges of our time. We're funded by a charity endowment and are politically neutral.
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