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Good morning. Keir Starmer faces PMQs a day after Tony Blair in effect fired a torpedo at his net zero strategy – an essential part of Labour’s Plan for Change. We covered the Blair comments on the blog yesterday and here is Jessica Elgot’s story.
Blair has been out of office for 15 years, but he is still an influential and knowledgeable figure and there is no one alive in British politics who has a better record at winning general elections. Until relatively recently, climate policy was an area on which all the main parties were broadly agreed. After Kemi Badenoch recently gave a speech saying that the government’s legal target of getting carbon emissions down to net zero by 2050 was unachievable (despite the fact the Tory government legislated for this, and Badenoch herself was one of the MPs who approved the secondary legislation without voting against), and with Nigel Farage now saying the government does not need to do anything about climate change, the Blair intervention is final proof that that consensus is now in tatters.
Badenoch is likely to raise this at PMQs today, not least because much of what Blair said sounded as if it could have come from one of her speeches. According to Politico, Farage is also due to get a question today too.
Steve Reed, the environment secretary, was doing a morning interview round, and he played down the significance of Blair’s intervention. He told Times Radio:
[Blair is] making a valid and important contribution to a very significant debate that we’re having. I agree with much of what he said, but not absolutely every word and dot and comma of it.
But this government is moving to clean energy because it’s best for Britain. It’s more energy security for Britain. It’s jobs and investment right across the United Kingdom. And those are all things we all want to see.
Reed was following Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, who said this when asked about the Blair comments in the Commons yesterday.
I agree with a lot of what [the report from Blair’s thinktank] says. It says that we should move ahead on carbon capture and storage, which the government are doing. It says that we should move ahead on the role of artificial intelligence, which the government are doing. It says that we should move ahead on nuclear, which the government are doing.
But, privately, Labour figures are not as relaxed about Blair’s intervention as these comments imply. This is what Sam Blewett and Noah Keate are reporting in their London Playbook briefing.
Anger in the Labour ranks was palpable last night, with one campaigner telling Playbook the foot soldiers “working their socks off” ahead of the locals are “incredibly pissed off.” The well-connected campaigner suggested it was the tantrum of “someone struggling for influence” … and even went on to point out the TBI has received funds from Saudi Arabia. (Blair’s think tank insisted it was “editorially independent.”)
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, speaks to the Scottish TUC conference in Dundee.
Morning: Adrian Ramsay, the Green party’s co-leader, is campaigning in Doncaster.
Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.
2pm: Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, gives evidence to the joint committee on human rights.
2pm: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, gives evidence to the Lords international relations and defence committee.
Afternoon: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is campaigning in Tunbridge Wells in Kent.
Afternoon: Kemi Badenoch is campaigning in Hertfordshire. She is also due to do an interview with GB News.
Afternoon: Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, is campaigning in south Yorkshire.
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