Rachel Reeves is discovering there are no easy shortcuts to boosting the UK’s sluggish economic growth. She has signalled her support for a highly controversial third runway at Heathrow airport, even as the government prepares to allow Gatwick and Luton to expand their operations and has already done the same at Stansted and London City airports.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos today, the chancellor declined to comment on Heathrow expansion because she has not yet won cabinet approval for it. She might have cleared that hurdle by the time she makes a speech on growth next week.
In Davos, Reeves declared that growth must trump “other things” and declared war on nimbyism. She argued that the problem under the previous Conservative government was that somebody always said they “don’t like that investment, we don’t like that wind farm, we don’t like those pylons, we don’t like that airport, we don’t …