But like Corbyn’s proposals in 2019, Starmer’s proposals assume no change in behaviour from companies: a rather unlikely outcome, given the 10 percentage point increase to corporation tax the Labour Party is proposing for these businesses.

That change of behaviour isn’t simply about where companies might relocate: it’s about investment too. Would a company that experiences a windfall tax decide to invest more in the UK, or elsewhere?

Could the money that goes to the state have been used instead for green investment?

Labour’s plans are also designed for energy bills as they stand in the here and now, despite wide consensus that the energy price cap will be going up again in October, when Ofgem next reassesses market prices.

When bills go up again, what happens? Another “one off” tax, or will Labour simply propose borrowing the money? A rather dangerous game, at a time of soaring inflation, with interest rates expected to rise again.

A one-off windfall tax for an ever-changing economic situation can hardly be described as serious public policy; nor can the public take much confidence that such a policy would really cover their rising bills.

Money grabs increasingly seem to be Labour’s fallback policy. The party stands firm against the National Insurance hike that came in this week to pay first for NHS catch-up, and then for social care. 

Its alternative funding stream, however, has been to consider taxing wealth: the kind of tax that has been tried across Europe, with a majority of countries who applied such a tax repealing it, as the consequences of the policy vastly outweighed the income it brought in.

Even if Labour could funnel an extra few billion into the Treasury’s coffers, likely at great cost, it would by no means solve the problems inflation is causing now, and it would leave no room for manoeuvre when the situation worsens in the near future. 

Selling windfall taxes as a solution to price hikes might be fulfilling Labour’s political remit, but certainly not its policy remit.