IT is impossible to get chewing gum anywhere in the Houses of Parliament.
As someone who can get through a packet of Extra like Alex Ferguson on the touchline at a European final, it’s one of the many little quirks of Westminster that really get under my skin.
There are other strange traditions and rules around here: MPs take priority on escalators when votes are called; male reporters must wear suit jackets in the press gallery; only MPs can buy drinks in the Parliament bar if the Speaker is present; and every few weeks or so, well-placed Labour sources will brief of the demise of the £28 billion green spending plan.
It's becoming as regular as the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace.
For those mercifully shielded from the tedium of Labour Party policy, a short recap. The policy was first announced by Rachel Reeves in 2021, who boasted of her ambition of being the “first green chancellor”.
READ MORE: 'What's the point?': Former Tony Blair adviser exasperated with Keir Starmer
A while later, she decided she didn’t want to be the first green chancellor anymore and would settle for just chancellor. The pledge was revised down from £28bn every year to a spending target for the latter part of a future Labour government.
Since then, it has become tradition for Labour sources to brief the papers every couple of weeks or so that the £28bn is dead and buried. An albatross, they call it.
The official stance is that Labour hope/aim/dream of reaching £28bn of green investment by the end of their first term in government – but only if Reeves’s iron-clad fiscal rules allow it.
It may have been your commitment to do Dry January this year, but that dissolved into a mere ambition when the thought of a wee Burns Night dram crossed your mind. See how those things are different?
READ MORE: Labour U-turn on bankers' bonuses after taking millions from city firms
But the endless flip-flopping is evidently starting to grate. Unlikely Starmer critic John McTernan, a former adviser to Tony Blair in the fag end of his premiership, expressed his exasperation with the (non) policy this week.
Tweeting a link to a story about Labour apparently dropping the pledge, McTernan (above) said: “There are days when you have to wonder, what is the point.”
Noting the change reportedly came in response to “a spate of recent Government attacks”, McTernan added: “No 10 must love that at least someone takes them seriously.”
During an address to businesspeople in central London on Thursday, Reeves failed to mention the policy. But on the campaign trail for the Kingswood by-election (yes another one) the same day, Starmer did.
Your guess is as good as ours whether it will actually make it into Labour's election manifesto. At this rate, you’ll probably be able to fit that on the menu of a Finnieston small-plates restaurant.
A few things are certain: Its inclusion or exclusion from the manifesto will not determine the next election. The Tories will bleat about it regardless. The SNP can use Labour’s dissembling to attack Starmer and shore up support with left-wing voters in Scotland.
What remains to be seen: Can Labour become the first political party ever to win power by promising virtually nothing?
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