Keir Starmer’s £28 billion problem

Another day, another story about Labour’s plans to ditch its pledge to spend £28 billion a year on green investment. The Guardian reports that party sources say the policy is destined for the chopping block – despite Keir Starmer saying on Thursday at the party’s business conference that the plan to spend £28 billion a year on green investment in the second half of the parliament remains in place so long as it meets the party’s fiscal rules. Notably, his shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves was less effusive, refusing to commit to the policy despite being asked ten times in a Sky News interview.

As I say in this week’s magazine, the general expectation in both the Labour party and Conservative HQ is that Starmer and Reeves will junk the headline figure after the spring Budget, blaming the Tories for using up all the fiscal headroom. Reeves appeared to hint at this sort of timing on Thursday when she spoke about how Labour would need to see what the Tories did in its remaining fiscal events (the spring Budget being the main one) before confirming its plans more widely.