Labour is sacrificing all to the god of GDP-and mocking objections

I can scarcely believe I'm writing this, but it's hard to dodge the conclusion. After 14 years of environmental vandalism, it might seem impossible for Labour to offer anything but improvement. But on green issues, this government is worse than the Tories.

- George Monbiot

The last prime minister to insist that growth should override every other consideration, and to fling insults at anyone who disagreed, was Liz Truss. She called those of us seeking to defend the living world an "anti-growth coalition", "voices of decline" and "enemies of enterprise" who "don't understand aspiration".

Now Keir Starmer has picked up her theme and run with it. Those who challenge government policies that might promote GDP growth, however destructive and irrational, such as the planned expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Doncaster Sheffield airports, are "time-wasting nimbys", "zealots" and "blockers", engaged in "self-righteous virtue-signalling".

After all, these are the kind of people who might send "congratulations to the climate campaigners" whose legal challenge stopped plans to build a third Heathrow runway at the court of appeal. Or who insist that Heathrow expansion should be blocked because "there is no more important challenge than the climate emergency". Oh, hang on, that was Starmer, writing in 2020. The one you voted for, not the new model, channelling the worst Tory prime minister of modern times.

Now his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, insists that growth "trumps other things", including the government's environmental commitments. The verb is unfortunate.