In January, for the first time, global warming exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels over the whole year. It hardly feels like the moment for the Labour party to be scaling back its ambitions for green growth. But that is exactly what Keir Starmer has done, putting an end to months of will-they/won’t-they speculation by announcing that Labour is no longer committed to investing £28bn a year in transitioning to a low-carbon economy.
The official explanation from Labour is that rising inflation and interest rates over the last two years have made the costs of borrowing more expensive, such that it is now virtually impossible to fund this level of green investment without breaking the fiscal credibility rule that shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged a Labour government will stick to.
That may be true, but there’s a lot more to it that is going unsaid. Labour is nervous that in the run-up to the election any large spending commitment will leave them open to a Conservative attack that they will inevitably raise taxes. Starmer and Reeves are playing a risk-averse strategy. To maximise their chances of getting into Number 10, they’re avoiding promising anything that could gift the Conservatives an effective campaign slogan.
While it might play into voter perceptions that Starmer shifts position and doesn’t know what he thinks, it’s unlikely to cost many votes. That’s because the truth is that beyond talking about the big numbers, shadow ministers haven’t done much to build public affection for the green prosperity plan.
That’s the politics, but what of the economics? The reversal represents a significant scaling-back in planned green investment: Labour’s original plan would have seen it invest £20bn more annually than the Conservatives. Under its new plans, this will amount to just £4.8bn more – most of which will be funded through a higher windfall tax on oil and gas, the rest through borrowing. While it’s still more than present levels, there’s no question that a Labour government will be able to do significantly less than planned as a result – in boosting the production of electric vehicles, for example, or insulating people’s homes to reduce energy bills and usage.
Labour’s reformulated plans for public investment are now only marginally higher than those of the Tories
But there are even bigger implications for Labour’s macroeconomic strategy. Labour’s reformulated plans for public investment are now only marginally higher than those of the Tories. Starmer’s narrative is that a Labour government will increase tax revenues by growing the economy, thus allowing Labour to invest more right across the struggling public sector. But the Labour growth plan was the green prosperity plan: it was the only area where Labour was planning to invest significantly more than the Conservatives. Without higher levels of public investment to stimulate private investment into the economy, it’s hard to see how a Labour government is going to generate accelerated growth, much needed after the stagnation we’ve seen in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. By mirroring Jeremy Hunt’s arbitrary commitment to ensuring that debt is forecast to be falling in five years’ time, Rachel Reeves is tying Labour to the Conservative’s view of the economy.
This sums up the Labour dilemma perfectly. By pursuing a risk-averse strategy, Starmer may be hemming himself in so tightly that it limits his ability to deliver the things the country so badly needs. In particular, the economic growth that is the key, not just to greater prosperity, but to sorting out Britain’s crumbling public services.
Keeping women and children safe
Unusually for a domestic violence story, the horrific chemical attack on a mother and her two small daughters (aged three and eight) in Clapham at the end of January dominated the headlines for days. The suspect is her ex-partner, Abdul Ezedi, who is still missing; at the time of writing, police think he is most likely dead.
This story pierced the public consciousness more than most incidences of male-on-female partner violence. This was partly because the corrosive liquid was thrown on the street with several witnesses, rather than behind closed doors, and partly because Ezedi evaded arrest. But there’s also the fact he’d been granted refugee status by the courts despite being a convicted sex offender. It made me wonder how much our conversation about male violence would change if every attack by a man on his current, or former, partner got the same amount of news coverage. The Femicide Census counts the number of women killed at the hands of men. In 2020, the latest year for which full data is available, 110 women died as a result of male violence.
Much of the debate following the Clapham attack focused on how to treat convicted criminals within the asylum system and how to regulate dangerous chemical substances. These are legitimate questions, but ones that must not be allowed to obscure the more fundamental challenge: how we prevent violent men targeting women and children. Too often people accept these killings as tragic but unpreventable. That’s plain wrong; research shows men do not seriously injure or kill partners, relatives and children out of the blue, but after an escalating pattern of dangerous and abusive behaviour. That so many women end up dead reflects a lack of investment in understanding how to identify these men – so that we can keep women and children safe from them.
Sonia Sodha is chief leader writer at the Observer and a Guardian/Observer columnist
