Wednesday 01 July 2026 5:21 am  |  Updated:  Tuesday 30 June 2026 12:36 pm

Britain must speed up to survive the AI era

By: Sam Richards

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The AI era will reward the small number of countries that can adapt and build quickly enough and it will punish those that can’t, says Sam Richards

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else – if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”

“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass

For most of my life, Britain has assumed we live in Alice’s world. No need to rush. Our prosperity and security, accumulated over centuries, could simply be maintained by a gentle jog. Growth could be a bit slower. Infrastructure could take a bit longer. Planning rules could become a bit more cumbersome. We muddle through.

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