This was a letter I sent to Labour List last week. They didn’t publish it. Possibly too hot for them.

There was nothing in Andy Burnham’s speech about climate change at the end of two lethal heatwaves. The government should publish in full the Intelligence Services report Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security;suppressed last October because “the government was unwilling to face the issues raised.” 

The redacted 14-page version published in January warns that national security, financial prosperity and food security are under threat from the climate crisis and collapse of vital ecosystems that support food production, with six of nine planetary boundaries crucial to maintaining a liveable planet already crossed with every critical ecosystem on a “pathway to collapse”.

As this is the greatest threat both to national security and human survival more broadly, throwing our limited resources into the gaping maw of Trump’s demands for war spending is suicidal in more ways than one.

The appointment of John Healey as Chancellor means that war spending will have first dibs on everything; which will mean investing in anything that actually improves people’s lives will be squeezed through an eye dropper while BAE Systems and Lockheed suck in the cash as our infrastructure deteriorates, not least from the impacts of increasingly common extreme weather. 

Stick with these priorities and things can only get hotter.