Great British Energy is among the best examples of these amorphous pledges, not least because very few people seem to know what it actually is. According to Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, GB Energy will be a Scotland-based publicly owned energy generation company. However, ask Keir Starmer and he’ll tell you it’s not an energy company at all, but an investment vehicle in the energy of the future. Labour’s manifesto offers little clarity, stating GB Energy will be a “new publicly owned company” to drive forward investment in clean, home-grown energy production. Setting up GB energy may be one of six “first step” priorities for Starmer’s government, but few have bothered to explain how it will work.

Starmer’s characterisation of the policy, surprisingly given his casual relationship with the truth, appears more accurate than Sarwar’s on closer inspection. Allocated £8 billion of funding for the next parliamentary term, GB Energy will do two things. The first £3bn has been set aside for Labour’s local power plan, a pot of money to which local government can apply to construct local and community energy projects. The second £5bn will make small investments alongside the private sector in less attractive onshore wind, solar and tidal energy projects to make them more palatable for shareholders. Eyeing an opportunity to obtain state subsidies, many private energy providers have lent their backing to the policy.

Reportedly, Labour hopes GB Energy can eventually develop projects independently of the private sector, but the relatively small sums of money allocated to the policy look to preclude any chance of state ownership for the foreseeable future. Rather, the state will support private actors who stand ready to reap the profits. The remains of Labour’s junked £28bn green prosperity plan, GB Energy has become the catch-all crutch for shadow ministers to lean on when quizzed about their party’s plans to address the climate emergency, accelerate the just transition and lower the cost of living.

Asked how GB Energy would bring down bills given it will be anonymous to households, Yvette Cooper let the cat out of the bag. “GB Energy will work in partnership with the private sector to drive investment into new renewables and get the benefits for the taxpayer as well,” replied Labour’s shadow home secretary.

Today, we live amid the crumbling legacy of New Labour’s PFI agenda. In 2009, as chief secretary to the Treasury, Cooper offered £2bn of taxpayers’ money to bail out private corporations’ failing efforts to build public infrastructure. Fifteen years later, Starmer is preparing a different initiative, but one that will initiate the same transfer of public wealth to private hands.

The Labour manifesto promises that Scotland will be the powerhouse of our clean energy mission, with Great British Energy headquartered there, probably in Aberdeen,

Labour also promises that our Green Prosperity Plan will lead to more than 69,000 new jobs in Scotland, by comparison, the current Scottish offshore energy workforce is around 79,000 – though many of these workers are not Scottish. So adding another 69,000 to the green workforce is a very bold claim, especially if it is to be delivered by 2030 in order to meet Labour’s new generating targets.

As for these promised HQ jobs as a comparison, the state owned Green Investment Bank (created in 2012 and privatised in 2015} had its formal HQ in Morrison Street in Edinburgh. But only 50 of the Green Banks 113 staff worked there. The important and highly paid financial dealmakers were all based in Millbank Tower in London so its difficult to see that there would be any difference with GB energy