Inherited Projects, Hugely Inflated Claims: Labour MP Accused of 'Misleading' Residents...

Labour MP for Hartlepool Jonathan Brash

Progress, Yes — But Whose Mr Brash?

The Real Story Behind Hartlepool’s Latest Announcements & The MP Attempting to Take Credit for Them !

27th December 2025

Hartlepool Labour MP Jonathan Brash is fast gaining a reputation for being a political 'Walter Mitty', following claims he's re-branding inherited projects as Labour triumphs — whilst dismissing documented scrutiny as “lies”.

From a primary school rebuild approved years ago to a nuclear project still on the drawing board, a pattern has emerged: announce, amplify, and airbrush those previously involved in the schemes as if they were never there.

SCHOOL REBUILD: A RE-ANNOUNCEMENT SOLD AS A BREAKTHROUGH

St Helen's Primary School was a project announced under the Conservatives as far back as 2022

Brash has hailed the rebuilding of St Helen’s Primary School on Hartlepool's Headland as proof that Labour is “finally listening” to Hartlepool — pointing to Labour’s first Budget and the recent granting of planning permission.

But the official record tells a very different story.

St Helen’s was selected for rebuilding under the Department for Education’s School Rebuilding Programme in December 2022 — when the Conservatives were still in government. That selection is the critical funding decision. Without it, there is simply no project. Labour’s Budget didn't create the scheme either. It merely referenced the existing one in a bid to claim it as their own.

Planning permission — repeatedly cited by Brash — is a local regulatory step, not a funding approval. It allows the construction process to proceed; more importantly, it does not conjure new money.

Labours former 'Spin Doctor' would be proud of what Brash is attempting to achieve

The result is a familiar political sleight of hand for Mr Brash & his cohort of writers trying to 'Big Him Up' behind the scenes: progress on a pre-approved project is then presented as a brand-new Labour achievement, while the original decision quietly disappears from the narrative, its the type of political spin that even labour's Alistair Campbell would have been proud of.

NUCLEAR PROMISES: NATIONAL STRATEGY, LOCAL CREDIT

The AMR project was actually started under the Conservatives as far back as 2022 by the then Hartlepool Conservative MP Jill Mortimer according to parliamentary records.

If the school claims stretch the truth, the nuclear claims strain it to the max.

This is because Brash has described a proposed deployment of Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs) at Hartlepool as “the biggest deal in Hartlepool’s history”, declaring that “we have secured a landmark UK–US deal”. The reality is more modest — and perhaps more honest.

The proposal stems from a commercial Joint Development Agreement between Centrica and US firm X-Energy, operating within a national UK–US nuclear cooperation framework.

This is not a constituency-level negotiation led by a single MP. It is part of national energy policy, involving central government, regulators, and private investors — with timelines stretching into the mid-2030s.

At Present There is:

• No final investment decision

• No planning consent

• No construction start date

  
  

The headline figures — £12 billion, 2,500 jobs, power for 1.5 million homes — are currently projections, not delivered outcomes.

Yet Brash’s messaging collapses years of policy, regulation and private-sector planning into a single claim of personal delivery.

A PATTERN, NOT A ONE-OFF..

The pattern emerging is that both Labour & Brash simply have nothing to offer Hartlepool other than recycled projects created from previous governments & then gift wrapped as their own.

Looking at the two cases side by side and a pattern is clear, A project is approved or initiated before Labour takes office in 2024, Labour then re-announces or references it, Credit is then reassigned to the 'Walter Mitty' who's now championing it !

When challenged with documents and official announcements, criticism is dismissed — not rebutted, with the Labour MP for Hartlepool branding it 'lies' & even going so far as to block the Teesside & Durham Post when the stark reality of his misinformation is put in front of him as he's done with a large number of his constituents.

Hartlepool has been forced to endure decades of failed regeneration promises and 'artists impressions' which never materialised, as a result, residents know the difference between announcements and achievements.

When an MP blurs those lines — claiming authorship of inherited projects — it erodes trust and weakens accountability, its very much the issue our very own publications have suffered at the hands of a number of local newspapers, where our stories have been wrapped up as someone else's when they were publications clearly made by ourselves.

No one's going to dispute that a new school is needed, or that Nuclear investment in the town could be transformative, But ambition shouldn't rely on rewriting history & claiming projects previously undertaken by a previous government as your own.

Jonathan Brash is entitled to support projects that benefit Hartlepool. What he's not entitled to do is to surreptitiously claim that he created them.

There's clear line between backing delivery and claiming credit. On school rebuilding and nuclear investment alike, that line's been crossed.