Keir Starmer launches green mission in Edinburgh while party hits the doorstep

Good morning. Today Keir Starmer will launch the fourth of his five ‘missions‘, focusing on green energy and Labour’s green prosperity plan. Speaking in Edinburgh alongside Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Shadow Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband and Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Starmer will pledge to make Britain a “clean energy superpower”. He will set his sights on a (for anyone paying close attention to the party’s recent push on housing) now familiar enemy: the planning system, namely as a key factor preventing the building of wind farms. The Labour leader will argue that we need to “roll up our sleeves” and take on the barriers to clean energy – “I’m not going to accept a situation where our planning system means it takes thirteen years to build an offshore wind-farm”.

Much of what’s to be discussed today– Great British Energy, the warm homes plan and national wealth fund – has already been announced, and so the question will likely be not what’s on show, but what if anything is conspicuous by its absence. The party has been rolling back on some of its bolder commitments around climate of late (like ramping up to, rather than starting at, £28bn a year on green transition spending) and so any claims of big and drastic action are now at risk of being met with a degree of scepticism.

If the Caledonian location of today’s mission speech was decided with at least half an eye on the forthcoming and, for Labour, eminently winnable Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election (no date has yet been formally set, but given Margaret Ferrier’s repeated appeal failures, it’s very much in the post), it’s only further evidence that we are very much in the age of the by-election. With the news yesterday that David Warburton will stand down with immediate effect, a fifth by-election in his Somerset and Frome seat loomed into frame.Labour came a distant third there in 2019, but the Liberal Democrats are surely in with a very good shout in the disgraced MP’s West Country constituency.

If you’ve contracted by-election fever and fancy a sunny afternoon (or evening) of canvassing in one of the seats up for grabs, there’s a rolling list of canvassing sessions searchable by area here. I went to Uxbridge yesterday and had a smashing time. If you live or canvass in one of the seats, keep us posted on how it’s going at [email protected].

Elsewhere, the man responsible for everything that’s wrong with this country will at last face some scrutiny later today. No, I don’t mean Boris Johnson (although the afternoon’s vote on the report of the privileges committee is likely to be a sour birthday present indeed for the former Prime Minister) – former Chancellor George Osborne will take the stand at the Covid inquiry, along with his old boss David Cameron. TUC general secretary Paul Nowak says they have “serious questions” to answer  over their “brutal” and “unnecessary” cuts to public services: “Make no mistake, austerity was a political choice – and one that left the UK hugely exposed to the pandemic.Their policies weakened the foundations of our society by hollowing out our public services and shredding our safety net.”

Meanwhilen LabourList today, journalist Paul Mason reviews the film “Oh Jeremy Corbyn: The Big Lie”. He’s not a fan.”The film presents a full-blown conspiracy theory about Corbyn’s opponents, conflating Zionists, Jews and Israel as part of a force that “orchestrated” his overthrow”, Mason argues, further stating that it “appears to match at least two examples of antisemitism in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition, and should raise legal and ethical questions for any venue considering screening it”.