Chris Huhne, LibDem climate change minister announced yesterday:

A plan to create almost 250,000 jobs in green industries, including nuclear power and home insulation, will turbo-charge the economy and help offset budget cuts.

The "green deal" will lead to thousands of workers modernising some 26 million homes to make them more energy efficient as part of the coalition's ambition to be the "greenest government ever".

Setting out the plan, Huhne said:

"Since there is no money left, my department is pioneering new ways of turning this government into the greenest ever.

"We use more energy to heat our homes than Sweden, where it's seven degrees colder in January. We might as well be standing outside burning £50 notes. By stopping this waste, we can make big savings on bills, and use them to pay businesses for the cost of insulation. This is the green deal."

But unfortunately Huhne was unable to give any news on whether there will be public funds for the proposed green investment bank or whether the Treasury will provide any start-up funds for up to four pioneering carbon capture and storage plants.

That’s another policy I’ve helped create the Coalition has adopted )along with domicile rule changes and a General Anti-Avoidance Principle. But it’s not all good news. The real Green New Deal did of course set out why cuts were not needed, how tax could pay for the investment, how things should go much faster than this government is planning and why this would solve the deficit.

A half hearted attempt won’t deliver all that.

And that’s their mistake.

Which leaves Labour to do the real thing. Will it?