Hunt’s approach is based on the presumption that if you give incentives to the private sector, they will invest and therefore the economy will grow.

They have been trying this for 14 years and it hasn’t worked.

The alternative approach, of state led investment to generate positive economic activity which, because it is state led, can follow social and environmental imperatives, has worked remarkably well for China – which has a growth rate double that of the USA and five times that of the UK.

There was an element of that in Labour’s £28 billion investment pledge.

Their decision to back off from this to put themselves in the same fiscal rules straitjacket as the Conservatives, means they will get similar results unless they break from them – so we will remain in the economic doldrums AND slip back away from meeting absolutely imperative climate targets.