Governing in the era of Donald Trump has been Labour’s miserable misfortune. As our prime minister and king grovel to the global bully with royal folderol this week, we will probably feel the full humiliation of the would-be American king.
The recent blow to British life sciences is a brutal example of our serfdom. Trump’s threat to put a 250% tariff on medicines made abroad by pharmaceutical companies, unless they move their factories, research and legions of jobs to the US, is driving out the UK pharma industry. What’s to stop him? AstraZeneca has ditched a £450m vaccine plant in Liverpool. In a shock announcement last week, the US drugmaker Merck axed a half-built, £1bn London research facility next to the Crick Institute it was destined to work with. Eli Lilly is pausing investment in the UK while Novartis is understood to be “keeping its investments under review”.
