Labour owes the City more detail on its plans for business
Well, that’s clear as mud, then. Labour’s big policy pronouncement yesterday confirmed that the party would stick by its pledge not to allow any further North Sea oil and gas development in the UK – but it wouldn’t change any decisions made by the Tories.
With a straight face, the party said the triangulation was designed to give ‘certainty’ to operators – despite the fact that, less than 18 months from the point at which they plan to enter government, there remains precious little idea of what a Starmer-led government would do.
There will be some in Labour that balk at this: they’ll say they’ve laid out a business-friendly plan focused on balancing the public and private sectors, with private capital unleashed to meet Labour’s policy objectives.
They will say they can bring order where this is chaos, and give international investors reasons to be cheerful. But detail remains thin on the ground.
Would the party, for instance, continue to levy a windfall tax on energy firms? They’ve previously criticised the Tories for not giving the current cash grab sufficient teeth.
There have been noises off from backbenchers about a levy on banks, too, amid high interest rates.
The plan for some kind of sovereign wealth fund is a lovely one, but there’s precious little detail on who would run it, where the cash would come from and (crucially) what it would be allowed to invest in.
It remains unclear what the party might do on taxation, but it is a fair bet it is not going to include a slashing of the headline rate. Spending is all but banned in the Labour leader’s speeches, but many in his party are itching to open the purse strings in the public sector.
In short, Labour is asking the country’s businesses to put their trust in a party that is largely yet to outline what it would do in office.
Not being the Tories may well have some electoral appeal, but winning over the business community will take a little bit more than that.