The Labour leader Keir Starmer is criticised in some quarters for lacking a clear world-view. “Starmerism” is inchoate. Its offer is seen as managerial rather than visionary or transformative. But the beginnings of a positive programme have begun to emerge from sections of the shadow front bench.
On Tuesday 28 March, in a speech in Westminster**,** Ed Miliband, the shadow climate change and net zero secretary, signalled a clearer direction of travel for the party on the economy and the green transition, policy areas that are now inextricably linked. After the party leadership outlined its stance on law and order – in a bid to prove to socially conservative voters that it isn’t held back by a liberal aversion to tougher policing, prisons or sentencing – Miliband touted a “Green Prosperity Plan”. The aim, Miliband told the audience of business people, think tankers and politicos, is to mirror the US president Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The government is preparing its own "Green Day" of policy announcements, expected this week.
