Cosying up to Silicon Valley means creatives are angry and smaller AI players are ignored

The problem with the UK, according to the former Google boss Eric Schmidt, is that it has "so many ways that people can say no".

- Dan Milmo

The problem with the UK, according to the former Google boss Eric Schmidt, is that it has "so many ways that people can say no". However, for some critics of the Labour government, it has a glaring problem with saying yes: to big tech.

Schmidt made his comment in a Q&A conversation with Keir Starmer at a big investment summit in October last year. The prominent position of a tech bigwig at the event underlined the importance of the sector to a government that has made growth a priority and believes the sector is crucial to achieving it.

Top US tech firms have a big presence in the UK, including Google, Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Palantir, the data intelligence firm co-founded by the Maga movement backer Peter Thiel.

If a government wants growth, then it is hard to look beyond firms with a combined market value of many trillions of dollars.

According to one former big-tech employee with knowledge of how the leading US companies further their interests in the UK, such heft brings immediate access.