You excoriate the Labour leadership for “a humiliating rowback” on the green transition (Editorial, 8 February). But hold on! When the £28bn ambition was declared in the autumn of 2021, interest rates on government debt were about 1% but are now 4.5%, with repayments of debt coincidentally increasing by around the same proportion of GDP. Last December, the repayments hit £119bn. In realistic household terms, since 2021 your mortgage payments have soared, and your family income has stagnated, so don’t plan to buy a big electric car for some years.
What the statement by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves makes clear (Opinion, 8 February) is that they are not going to promise to spend £28bn using power that they don’t yet have and might not get access to because of the dire state of the economy and public finances that they will inherit. That’s not “hawkish”, it’s plain honesty. And it’s better than emulating the ostrich or repeating a boosterish Johnsonian pyramid of piffle.
