Care about the climate crisis? Then applaud Labour’s row back on their £28bn green pledge

A meaningless number has become a distraction from an otherwise optimistic environmental message, writes John Rentoul

(PA)

I once overheard two political journalists engaged in an urgent conversation about how to report a story. After arguing over the details, one of them said in frustration: “We’ve got to get it right.” The other said: “No, no, we’ve got to get it the same.”

So it is with politicians. What was most striking about yesterday’s Labour conference of business people at the Oval cricket ground was not that Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves disagreed on the substance of Labour’s green plans, but that they said different things.

The shadow chancellor stubbornly refused to allow the £28bn figure to pass her lips, so obviously that Sky News counted 10 times she dodged a question about the number. Yet the Labour leader happily said it out loud, while qualifying it in such a way as to make it meaningless. “We will ramp up to that £28bn during the second half of the parliament, subject to of course what the government has already allocated and subject to our fiscal rules,” he said to the BBC.