## Notes from 10 August 2025 [[2025-08-09|← Previous note]] ┃ [[2025-08-11|Next note →]] I read three pieces as parts of one arc: [Chris Curtis’s _Telegraph_ op-ed](https://archive.is/11N2w) (3 July 2025), the [[Labour Growth Group (LGG)]] [call in the _New Statesman_](https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2025/07/britain-faces-a-revolutionary-moment-labour-must-respondl) (21 July 2025), and a _New Statesman_ report (9 August 2025) on [Labour’s new interest in Dominic Cummings’s ideas](https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/labour/2025/08/how-labour-fell-in-love-with-dominic-cummings). Taken together, they describe a centre-left turn toward **abundance** that is tailored to Britain’s highly centralized state and to the fatigue that follows many years of Conservative rule. Curtis’s op-ed is the sharpest statement of intent: **incrementalism won’t do**. He lists the choke points (planning that stalls, energy projects that crawl, a risk-averse Whitehall) and then breaks two British taboos. First, he argues that government must **confront NIMBYism** and fast-track major infrastructure, even by using emergency legislation. Second, he says the centre should consider **more political appointees** in the most active parts of government to actually grip delivery. In a system built on a neutral, permanent civil service, stating this so plainly is unusual. The LGG essay supplies the frame. It names five “giants” that hold the country back: a paralyzed state, a divided economy, blocked building, smothered enterprise, and constrained energy. Their answer is what they call a _National Renewal Compact_, or a Beveridge-style blueprint for growth, inspired by organizations that are talking about abundance in the UK such as the [[Centre for British Progress]], [[Britain Remade]] and Labour Together. The moral centre is simple: growth is a means, not an end; it funds services, reduces inequality, and expands freedom, as they quote it: _“Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.”_ The warning is equally direct: if the centre-left cannot deliver abundance, the radical right will thrive on scarcity. The weekend piece about Cummings tries to draw a straight line from his long-running Whitehall criticisms to this LGG mood. Sure there is overlap on diagnosis (planning reform, state capacity, delivery) but calling it “falling in love” overstates the case. Cummings did not invent civil-service reform, and his forays into darker online themes make him a risky touchstone. What the article does capture is a gap the left helped create by going **purely defensive** about the civil service; if every reform is treated as code for demolition, the centre-left yields the argument to others who will push it. Here the LGG is useful, because it puts the **political economy of reform** back in view: union vetoes, departmental risk aversion, judicial review, and a media cycle that rewards announcements over trade-offs. The group is also frank about costs: more nuclear and new grid will spark local resistance; faster licensing means someone loses a blocking power; shifting from generalists to specialists in Whitehall means changing culture and careers. Their bolder claim is that **more executive grip** may be needed to overcome veto points, an idea that might work in practice but also tightens a system that already has few democratic release valves. There is a French echo worth noting. At its high-water mark, **Macronism** tried a similar blend: civil-service changes, faster institutional tempo, a strong centre as lever. It worked until legislative fragmentation set in. In Britain, the Labour supermajority has opened a fresh window for a growth-first, delivery-led push, but windows close. Can this travel? Not easily. In **Brazil, South Africa, and Germany**, there is no shared language for “abundance” yet, and even home-grown variants are thin. Chile is a partial exception with its debate on _[[permisología|2025-05-17]]_. Without **ideological machines** (organizations, money and talent pipelines, as discussed by [Nadia Asparouhova](https://nadia.xyz/idea-machines)) the idea remains a slogan. The LGG’s explicit list of partners points to the right move: institutionalize the agenda so it survives news cycles and reshuffles. The LGG’s most important shift is tonal and practical at once: **growth as a condition** for the social contract rather than a totem to be praised. That translates into permits issued, pylons erected, training delivered, contracts managed and a centre of government that can actually coordinate and follow through. If Labour turns that language into projects on the ground and stable numbers in the books, it will not be “inspired by Cummings”; it will have **reclaimed state reform** as a social-democratic task. For now, the mood is urgent but grounded, honest about trade-offs and losers, exactly the kind of clarity that tells you the real test is still ahead.