There's an interesting article here about Labour's relationship with Blackrock.
I know loads of conspiracy theorists are citing this as further evidence of Blackrock controlling our Govts, but when you break it down you understand that it is about the UK Govt encouraging big investment into British infrastructure, and thus in turn they hope that will boost the Economy and job security etc. This isn't really a secret, Labour have said that they want to secure investment into the UK and so it makes sense to get the world's biggest investment company around the table.
The interesting part in here is though, that whilst Blackrock are an asset manager, and only hold shares (for their investors) in around 5% of any given company. They have started to acquire infrastructure companies 'In January this year, the firm
announced it would purchase Global Infrastructure Partners, which controls around $170bn worth of assets worldwide, including Gatwick airport and Hornsea 1, a project to build the world’s largest offshore windfarm in the North Sea. This purchase, which was completed last month,
reportedly makes BlackRock the second largest asset manager in the infrastructure space, after ‘the vampire kangaroo’, Macquarie.
Critics will argue that when asset managers own significant chunks of infrastructure, their priority is their investors (including sovereign wealth funds and pension funds), rather than society, or even the planet. The primary purpose of infrastructure, the argument goes, becomes the generation of profit, rather than providing a working, reliable service. In practice this might mean cutting investment while raising prices'
So in effect what Labour are doing is something akin to PFI on steroids. Using private finance to rebuild Britain's infrastructure. Is that the right thing to do ? Nobody wants to pay more taxes, and to finance massive infrastructure projects you need massive investment. I know some commentators criticise Blackrock for their ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) for being 'woke' but as investors they would naturally want to make sure that those investments are in companies who have rigorous safeguards in place, rather than some cowboy outfits who are simply out to make money, but have little regard for any social or environmental impact, as they represent a bigger risk for investors
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/da...ock-letters-inside-labours-close-partnership/