Rachel Reeves has been forced to drop a major policy announcement from her Labour Party Conference speech after top Tories including Jeremy Hunt ran interference.
The shadow chancellor was planning to unveil a British infrastructure council in Liverpool next week, as part of a campaign to show the party can be trusted with the economy.
But five companies involved, Aviva, Lloyds, Fidelity, Phoenix and Blackstone, pulled out after the Tories got wind of the move.
According to the Times, Mr Hunt, the Chancellor, rang senior executives at one first personally to argue that such a move would be seen as political.