Labour Together is a left leaning think tank, which has just published a proposal with lots of merit, which in time is doable and thank the lord has plenty of market potential. Right place and right time. So it is naive that it contains two fatal errors. Why is Labour and its activist and intellectual base so often so unworldly when it comes to planning policy?
They call it Project Hawking,Tripling the Size of Ox-Cam by 2050 and the authors are an economist, a campaigner who knows a bit about the housing market as a commentator and a researcher. None seem to have much real world property experience worthy of note of the hairy market as entrepreneurs. So understandable their approach is driven by intelligence, which leaves little room for understanding the passions that drive property trends, the overwhelming power of irrational herd sentiment which dominates the property market sentiment, nor the absolute need to understand and accommodate the deep fears of those who, whether right or wrong, perceive themselves as potential victims of the rampant all-powerful state. Which is a massive shame, as their ideas for fast tracking the Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge growth corridor or arc have a lot of merit. If the Starmer government is going to deliver economic growth it is this sort of thinking that must lead the way.
The two elementary errors are first to think that riding rough-shod over local residents concerns is realistic without first getting their support. Second, riding rough-shod over the fears of land-owners is plain silly. They are an incredibly powerful, well funded veterans of playing the market who consequence have the ability and knowledge from experience to kill this great piece of thinking dead in its tracks. If Labour Together are serious about this proposal they must now write a second proposal. It will explain how their ideas will be made acceptable to the Conservative leadership. 25 years for delivery of their dream is realistic. But it seems unlikely in our political system they will stay in power for 25 years. Without cross-party consensus one more wonderful dream will simply fade away.
Ian Campbell
23 January 2026
