Keir Starmer: Labour ditches £28bn green investment pledge

the plan, which includes creating a publicly-owned green power company, is not being dropped

I could be wrong, but it sounds like they're still going to have a green industrial strategy, but they're going to invest on a case-by-case basis rather than having a flat amount they're going to invest. This seems fine. If they'd just announced that in the first place, we'd all be happy with it. There is no scientific or fiscal or any other reason that £28 billion is the actual right amount of money and anything less than that is a disaster.

I'm not sure "we are not the Tories" is enough of a platform to ensure the lead they have in the polls is replicated by people going to the polling stations on election day. The stupid thing is there is an argument that this investment pays for itself by reducing costs and making us more productive as a country.

Labour really sounds like they just do whatever the tories tell them to with basically any pressure

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Labour's plan to spend £28bn a year on green energy projects, like offshore wind farms and developing electric vehicles, was first announced by shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves in September 2021.

At the time Ms Reeves said the party needed to be "responsible" with the public finances, given the poor economic backdrop and rising cost of borrowing.

"Sadly, there is a huge gap emerging between the scale of the economic and environmental crises facing us, and the solutions being offered by a Labour leadership afraid of its own shadow."

Barry Gardiner - Labour MP and a former shadow environment secretary - told the BBC's Today programme: "It's economically illiterate, it's environmentally irresponsible and it's politically jejune."

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Laura Trott said: "This is a serious moment which confirms Labour have no plan for the UK, creating uncertainty for business and our economy.

"On the day that Labour are finalising their manifesto, Keir Starmer is torpedoing what he has claimed to be his central economic policy purely for short-term campaigning reasons."

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