If Labour ditch green fund, what will it offer Scotland?

Nothing that happens at the next general election will bring anywhere close to the joy of watching Ed Miliband standing in a car park in Hastings in 2015 beside his newly unveiled EdStone.

Some people called it the Milstone, others the pledge menhir. Boris Johnson described it as a “weird commie slab”.

Whatever you want to call it, at some point somebody in the Labour Party campaign team went, “ach, let’s literally carve our six, vaguely worded key asks into an 8ft 6" tall lump of Portuguese moleanos limestone.”

Had Labour been elected, the plan was to put the Edstone in the Rose Garden at No 10, if they could get planning permission from Westminster Council.

Of course, they did not. 

Five days later, David Cameron’s Conservatives swept to victory, winning 331 seats to Labour’s 232. 

There were rumours the prop was destroyed, others reportedly spotted it in the shrubbery of some fancy London restaurant. 

Wherever it is, it is no more and Ed Miliband, now his party's Shadow Secretary of State of Climate Change and Net Zero, is likely no longer allowed anywhere near a chisel. 

Which is probably just as well, because his latest pledge looks like it’s going the way of the EdStone, with Labour set to ditch its £28 billion green prosperity plan.

The plan was to put the Edstone in the Rose Garden at No 10, until five days later when David Cameron's Conservatives swept to victory (Image: Newsquest)
They might still have a green prosperity plan, according to ITV’s Robert Peston, the party will still keep their green pledges, including the promise to build a new state-owned power company, Great British Energy. 

But the £28 billion a year spending commitment looks set to be, well, uncommitted. 

In fairness, it’s been in the balance for months now, ever since Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said a Labour government would bring down debt as a percentage of GDP within five years.

It used to be that meant the spending would be ramped up to £28bn per year at some point in the second half of the next parliament.

Earlier this month, Sir Keir Starmer said it was just “a confident ambition”.

He’s obviously lost confidence.  

That may be because the Tories have been using it to beat Labour with for some time. Proof, they say, that Starmer in No 10 and Reeves in No 11 would be reckless, prepared to borrow billions with all the dangers that brings.

Despite the latest YouGov poll, out on Tuesday morning, putting Labour on 49%, up eight points since last month, and 22 points ahead of the Tories, these attacks are clearly bothering the leader of the opposition. 

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A senior Labour source told Peston: “Rachel [Reeves] is quite clear that it’s the green initiatives that matter, not the symbolism of £28 billion. That’s why it makes sense to ditch any part of the policy that can be abused to damage us.”

The party’s problem may be that by escaping Tory abuse, they open themselves up to SNP abuse. 

The Green Prosperity Plan was one of their biggest offers to voters in Scotland. I wrote in this column earlier this month about what looked like a move away from the promise to create “over 50,000 new direct and indirect jobs in Scotland in a decade in the clean power sector alone”.

That’s impossible without the £28bn, not just because of the lack of cash, but because of the lack of stability for the industry.

GB Energy was always going to be headquartered in Scotland, but what does it mean if it's just a quango with a brass plaque somewhere on Aberdeen's Union Street?

Humza Yousaf’s party has already accused Starmer of abandoning and betraying voters in Scotland with the u-turn. 

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According to reports over the weekend, Morgan McSweeney, Labour’s campaign chief, told an away day of several hundred party staff in Westminster that they should prepare for an election to be called for as early as March 16.

Rishi Sunak could, he warned, head to the palace any day now. 

The strategy whizz is maybe just trying to keep his troops on their toes, and most pols I’ve spoken to still think autumn, after at least one tax-cutting fiscal event, is more likely than not.

But the party is clearly ready to enter short campaign mode. 

The £28bn may not have been carved into stone, but it’s not going to be easily forgotten any time soon.