Rather like Brigadier Anquetil and the 44th Foot, Rishi Sunak took command of an army that was already defeated. For Anquetil the options were die now, or die later; famously only one of his group ever made it back to safety, if memory serves after surviving a sabre blow to the head because he had stuffed newspaper into his hat to keep warm. For Rishi the options were rather better. For him there was still a chance to rally his forces and finally to outflank the enemy.

His chance to do so came when he blunk. He had the chance then to take a pragmatic approach to Net Zero, an approach that would put freedom and affordability, if not survivability, at its heart. He could have taken the state’s boot off the public’s face, and dared the opposition to promise to reinstate it as its prospectus for government. It is my belief that the subsequent debate would have given him his best shot of winning an election that is presently hurtling towards us. [Although the Rwanda debacle might have sunk his chances anyway.]

Here’s what he said back in September regarding the imposition of electric vehicles on an unwilling populace:

But we can do all this in a fairer, better way – and today I can set out the details of what our new approach will mean for people.

That starts with electric vehicles.

We’re working hard to make the UK a world-leader.

I’m proud that we’ve already attracted billions of new investments from companies like Tata’s Jaguar Land Rover gigafactory.

And I expect that by 2030, the vast majority of cars sold will be electric. Why?

Because the costs are reducing; the range is improving; the charging infrastructure is growing.

People are already choosing electric vehicles to such an extent that we’re registering a new one every 60 seconds.

But I also think that at least for now, it should be you the consumer that makes that choice, not government forcing you to do it.

Because the upfront cost is still high – especially for families struggling with the cost of living.

Small businesses are worried about the practicalities.

And we’ve got further to go to get that charging infrastructure truly nationwide.

And we need to strengthen our own auto industry, so we aren’t reliant on heavily subsidised, carbon intensive imports, from countries like China.

So, to give us more time to prepare, I’m announcing today that we’re going to ease the transition to electric vehicles.

You’ll still be able to buy petrol and diesel cars and vans until 2035.Even after that, you’ll still be able to buy and sell them second-hand.

Let me just repeat one bit:

And I expect that by 2030, the vast majority of cars sold will be electric. Why?

Er – wait, I know this one. Me me me me!

Yes, Jit?

Is it because he’s going to compel every car manufacturer to sell four EVs to every one ICE vehicle in 2030, or else pay a crippling fine on every ICE vehicle out of quota?

Wrong. The vast majority of new cars would be electric…

Because the costs are reducing; the range is improving; the charging infrastructure is growing.

Note the big fat “because” there. Of course, if Rishi believed that, he wouldn’t force the punters to buy EVs. But he did. It was a sort of “any colo[u]r you like so long as it’s black” offer.

Here’s how the SoS for Transport, Mark Harper, put it in the Commons on October 16th:

We have cut emissions faster than any G7 country, pledged a decarbonised transport sector by 2050—the first major economy to do so—and today we have laid another world-leading piece of legislation: the zero-emission vehicle mandate. Manufacturers will now meet minimum targets of clean car production, starting with 22% next year and reaching 80% by 2030. It stands to be one of the largest carbon-saving policies across Government, and manufacturers are on board. They will deliver a mandate that they helped shape, a product of partnership between this Government and industry that has been not months but years in the making. These targets are now embedded in their forecasts, and that certainty has inspired investment, protected existing jobs and paved the way for new jobs, too. Look at the past few months: BMW, Stellantis and Tata are expanding their electric vehicle operations right across the UK, from Oxford to Merseyside.

Thereby exposing what Rishi had said as, er, empty rhetoric. The freedom of choice of his offer was an illusion, just like Henry Ford’s. And as for “the largest carbon-saving” policy? Balderdash. Tripe. We will be lucky if this measure saves the equivalent of a sack of coal.

At least the Opposition plunged in, announcing its intention to defend the average punter from this Galaxy-scale governmental overreach.

Ha! As if. They actually skipped that part of Harper’s statement altogether. It was neatly bundled up with the announcement that HS2 was going to be shortened (not, in this author’s prescription, eliminated totally), and that was what most of the debate centred on.

However, time moved on, and last week time moved on far enough that the vote on the relevant Order was due. Even knowing that it was due, I still missed it in Hansard. How so? It was filed in an obscure place, under Commons Chamber / Business Without Debate. Well, it happened on Tuesday. Without debate. You can find the record of who voted what in Hansard here.

The vote was carried 381 to 37, thus ensuring motorist misery until at least 2029, when [in my fever-dream] the Starmer government loses the election to a Conservative Party running on a populist manifesto. [Why is populism so unpopular? That’s something that has always confused me.]

In my kinder moments, I think of those 381 as well-meaning but dull, as daisy-chewing quadrupeds following one another down a curious single-file run that terminates in a building that sells hot sausages from a hatch on its opposite side. At other times, the things I think of them are not fit to print. But what of the Rebels, the few remaining members willing to stand up for their constituents against the green tyranny? I immortalise their names below, or at least, place them here for safe keeping for a while.

Afriyie, Adam
Bradley, Ben
Braverman, rh Suella
Bridgen, Andrew
Campbell, Mr Gregory
Cash, Sir William
Cates, Miriam
Chope, Sir Christopher
Davies, Philip
Donaldson, rh Sir Jeffrey M.
Drax, Richard
Duncan Smith, rh Sir Iain
Fysh, Mr Marcus
Girvan, Paul
Green, Chris
Gullis, Jonathan
Hayes, rh Sir John
Holloway, Adam
Jenkyns, Dame Andrea
Jones, rh Mr David
Liddell-Grainger, Mr Ian
Lockhart, Carla
Mackinlay, Craig (Proxy vote cast by Mr Marcus Jones)
Mills, Nigel
Morris, Anne Marie
Nici, Lia
Paisley, Ian
Patel, rh Priti
Redwood, rh John
Rees-Mogg, rh Sir Jacob
Roberts, Mr Rob
Robinson, Gavin
Shannon, Jim
Tomlinson, Justin
Wiggin, Sir Bill
Wilson, rh Sammy

I happened to notice that Cash, Sir William apparently walked through both lobbies. Does this voting irregularity invalidate the entire process? I really hope so. I’m saying he meant to vote “No.” Along with the loyal blue Yesses we had the likes of Corbyn, Jeremy and Lucas, Caroline. And yet nothing seemed to twig in the Conservatives’ minds. Bizarre.

History records that Brigadier Anquetil went down sword in hand. Sunak’s defeat will be rather more easy to bear. But when he is doing whatever he does once the removal van has taken his things from Downing Street, he might think back to his chance to steer the green avalanche away from the little people who are just trying to get on with their lives, and wonder what might have been.

The Last Stand by William Barnes Wollen, via wiki
Tags: , ,

36 Comments

  3. Jit, thank you for this article; it addresses a question that has been worrying me since Sunak has signally failed to live up to the promise of his September speech during which he said, “But we can do all this in a fairer, better way – and today I can set out the details of … our new approach …”

    But where is that fairer approach? What, in your words, has he made of “his chance to steer the green avalanche away from the little people”? Clealry, he has greatly increased the severity of the coming avalanche with this Zero Emissions Mandate … but why? What are the influences that moved him towards the Mandate and away from fairness? In what sense, to use the sub-title of your article, was the light too bright? Is this simply the hugely influential “green” lobby in action?

    Or is he prone, as Braverman suggested in her resignation letter IIRC, to magical thinking?

    I had thought that with the unexpected Tory win at the Uxbridge & South Ruislip by-election in July, Sunak had thoroughly understood that paying for the ‘luxury beliefs’ of the elites was not popular with ordinary voters. It seems I was wrong, but I don’t really know why I was wrong. And I am not sure that the opposition parties have much of a clue either – unless it is to pile yet more unstable snow at the top of the piste …

    Piste – I like that word. It rather desribes our UK politics of the last couple of decades … and perhaps much of the Western world’s too.

    Regards, John.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Back when Sunak made his statement about a new and fairer approach, I thought he would be well served to understand and communicate that the risks of rapid energy transistion far exceed risks from climate change. Clearly he did not do that, either out of lack of interest or capacity. It is still the case that caving in on the science ends with him hoisted on his own petard.

    Notes for Sunak: Energy Transition Risk Vs. Climate Change Risk

    Liked by 1 person

  5. John C,

    I don’t think any of us can work out what Sunak thinks he’s doing. I am totally baffled. He can’t win votes by playing net zero one-upmanship, since he will always be outflanked on the issue by Labour, Lib Dems and Greens. He won’t retain the votes of disgruntled Tory voters by saying he is going to ameliorate the costly and damaging aspects of net zero, then failing to do so. He seems determined to achieve the worst of all worlds.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. “I don’t think any of us can work out what Sunak thinks he’s doing.”
    He is doing what his WEF masters have told him to do, ensure that the UK continues its trajectory of (un)managed decline.
    What else?

    Liked by 1 person

  7. The other point is that Starmer seems to be frightened of net zero – if so, there is a reason for his fear (caution might be a fairer word): he knows it’s expensive and potentially very unpopular, once net zero chickens come home to roost.

    “The Guardian view on Labour and the climate crisis: the £28bn question deserves an answer
    Editorial”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/10/the-guardian-view-on-labour-and-the-climate-crisis-the-28bn-question-deserves-an-answer

    For all the spin in that Guardian editorial, one truth is touched on:

    …Reaching net zero will be costly and disruptive. …

    Goodness only knows what’s wrong with Sunak – the blindingly obvious is staring him in the face. Even Starmer can apparently see it.

    Like

  8. For all the Guardian’s posturing about the supposed popularity of net zero, this is the reality:

    “Devon beauty spot threatened with wind turbine ‘disaster’ in name of net zero
    Villagers near Saunton Sands speak out against plans to dig up landscape to lay power cables”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/09/saunton-sands-residents-saving-from-net-zero-wind-farm/

    Saunton Sands is accustomed to bearing the brunt of the Atlantic Ocean, but it is a net zero wind farm that threatens to whip up a storm at the Devon beauty spot.

    Developers want to dig up and drill through parts of the historic landscape, a favourite for Hollywood filmmakers, celebrities and hundreds of thousands of tourists – to link electric cables to new offshore wind turbines.

    Villagers are rising up against the plans, which they say spell environmental “disaster” for one of Britain’s finest coastal destinations.

    The row captures a growing feeling in Conservative heartlands that crusades against climate change risk doing more harm than good….

    Like

  9. I don’t know what lies behind Sunak’s decision making. We can all speculate on that. I suppose some observations that are relevant are:

    Sceptics are very sure that Net Zero is a very damaging project, somewhere between decades of stagnation and suicide for the UK. This seems so obvious to us that we question the motives of anyone who gainsays us. They must see it! That being the case, they must have motivations beyond saving the planet. Is that true? Probably not. There is no malicious motivation. They really believe in their project.

    But Net Zero is obviously destructive and futile. The key word being “obviously.” So we believe, and we believe that this opinion is a rational one based on a thorough canvas of the data. I am sure that an intelligent disinterested observer would agree, but we should always test the grounds for such certainty. What factors weigh on the other side? The cranky uncle practicalities are set against the moral urge to take action. We see up and down the land the latter motivation winning out in the minds of many. The battle is right vs wrong and correct vs incorrect. And we are all too aware of the psychological traps that litter the ground of thought. It is relatively easy to construct scenarios in which intelligent people reach opposite conclusions from the same available data. The propaganda is relentless. We believe those we trust. There is a moral imperative to act. You don’t think it will work? Shut up.

    Who stands behind Sunak, and who stands against him? He may genuinely see weakness on Net Zero as a club the opposition can beat him with. We see it differently. That is because, as we think, we have torn back the curtain to reveal the nothing behind it. But whatever happens, however correct or incorrect Net Zero is, its adherents still win the day on the axis of right vs wrong. Only a rump of the Conservative MPs push back. The rest of them are rather to the left of their members. You only have to see who they voted for in the leadership election to get that. You only have to see who joined them in the lobbies in the vote for the electric vehicle mandate. A skin-deep understanding means that media old and new would bring a typhoon if Sunak took a step backwards. His strides towards an illusory utopia barely stuttered, and the response was a severe warning. The voices in support were few.

    There is no political capital left. The faux reset was the last chance, the last deployment of a dwindling force. Too much had been spent pushing the other way for any politicians party to it to renounce it fully. It had to be coached in terms of a softening, in terms of a goal still held, a destination still aimed at, but the journey made easier. A mincing step instead of a stride.

    But even the neutered reset turned out to be no reset of any sort. It was the announcement of a reset, with nothing behind it, with business as usual behind it. Who was it designed to fool? Was it worse to have done it than to have carried on as planned in word and deed? There were howls of outrage – confected? Were the howls secretly accompanied by satisfied smirks? The cynic in me says yes. The fangs were bared, but there was no need to use them. What was the point of promising an easing where none existed? For the headlines?

    The problem now is that there is no scope for a second attempt at a reset. The chance is gone for this government. It will be left to another generation of politicians to bring the battle.

    Liked by 2 people

  11. Jit,

    “That being the case, they must have motivations beyond saving the planet. Is that true? Probably not. There is no malicious motivation. They really believe in their project.”

    This is the application of Hanlon’s Razor:

    “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity [or in this case delusion/religious conviction].”

    The implicit assumption here is that the government would never do anything to intentionally harm the population and lots of people still believe this, even after the events of the last 4 years and the sham ongoing Hallett Enquiry which seeks to perpetuate the myth that the government only made ‘understandable mistakes’ in the face of a unique and very real threat. Stupidity or delusion does not adequately explain the behaviour of our politicians, not by a long chalk, not now, not then. Malign intent however, in the pursuit of political and/or financial goals, in league with private corporate entities, does. It adequately explains Covid and climate policy, and it explains their considerable overlap. I for one shall believe that the government is quite capable of intentionally inflicting very serious harm upon the populace (and indeed upon the environment which it purports to be ‘saving’) in the pursuit of its objectives, not because they are stupid (though many are), not because they are captured by cult-like groupthink, but because they are following a prescribed agenda.

    Like

  13. “pro tip: calling yourselves “the experts” and demanding that everyone follow your diktat as you go against 100 years of evidence based guidelines and then saying “oops, sorry, how could we have known?” after running the world into a ditch and inflicting the greatest set of needless iatrogenic death and economic disruption in human history is not a terribly compelling position.”

    Covid was as much a “pseudoscientific moral crusade” as is Net Zero.

    “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
    —Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter & Forgetting: A Novel

    Let’s not forget that, as Chancellor, Sunak literally nuked the economy by authorising endless extensions of furlough so people could work from home and avoid catching a nasty cold whilst they developed the ‘safe and effective’ vaccine. Sunak has previous form in inflicting serious damage upon the economy and upon us, in fact, in the pursuit of a pseudoscientific moral crusade whilst following the advice of ‘the experts’; we should not expect him to act differently now, as PM overseeing Net Zero, only to be absolved of blame in 20 years time by a public enquiry which concludes, “Oops, sorry, we destroyed the country. We were doing our best. Let’s give a little grace and forgiveness.”

    https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/letter-to-the-amnesty-demanders

    Like

  14. From an outsider’s viewpoint, Sunak seems to regard being the PM as just another line in his CV.

    Like

  15. Jaime as someone who caught Covid early and was hospitalised for it, I take exception to your mischaracterising of this commonly devastating and commonly fatal disease as “a nasty cold”

    Like

  16. Good to see that you’re commenting again Alan, after all the problems. Fortunately, despite your unfortunate personal experience with this virus, for the vast majority of the populace, it was, and is, at worst, a nasty, if somewhat unusual cold and is not “commonly fatal”. That is not a mischaracterisation; it’s the plain facts. They are out there now, for all to see, so there’s no need to get into bitter disagreements here anymore. Our government vastly overreacted to a perceived ‘health crisis’ and indeed took steps to increase the fear of Covid in order to justify that overreaction – the same as they are now doing by hugely overreacting and implementing wildly disproportionate and damaging policies to save the planet from an imaginary ‘climate crisis’. Their behaviour in that respect was purposeful and malign, just as the behaviour of the Met Office and others in exaggerating the threat of global warming by using misinformation, disinformation and propaganda is purposeful and malign.

    Like

  17. Jaime and Alan,

    At the risk of de-railing this thread, I understand where you are both coming from.

    Alan was extremely ill as a result of catching covid. The number of deaths from covid is uncertain, and possibly not as high as the claimed figures running into hundreds of thousands, but that it killed a lot of people is beyond doubt. I know people who it killed, and I know at least one person who was extremely ill indeed, almost died, and is still not terribly well (“long covid”, I suppose).

    On the other hand, all of these examples of which I am aware were during the early days of covid, before the virus mutated into something less dangerous. It seems clear to me that the later mutations eventually turned it into something similar to the common cold.

    The great covid debate (which really should be on view at the Inquiry, yet I see little sign of it there to date) ought to be about the benefits -v- collateral damage caused by lockdowns and the heavy push to vaccination. That lockdowns were hugely damaging – to the nation’s finances, but also to health, physical and mental, to education, to personal finances and businesses – seems to me to be blindingly obvious. There also seems to me to be increasing evidence that the vaccines may have caused death and illness, and certainly that they weren’t effective, or at least weren’t as effective as we were told they would be. I caught (a later, mild, form of) covid despite being triple vaccinated. Nearly everyone I know who caught it after vaccines became available caught it despite being fully vaccinated – some caught it multiple times. I have never been a “Big Pharma” conspiracy theorist, but the whole covid experience leaves me thinking the jury is out this time.

    As regards the central question and its connection to climate policies – namely, why did Governments all around the world respond as they did? – I don’t believe it was due to some nefarious conspiracy. Rather I think it was simply panic and incompetence, combined with over-reliance on “experts”, and a profound misunderstanding and misapplication of the precautionary principle. The parallels with climate policies seem obvious.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. “UK government backs plan to ban gas and ‘hydrogen-ready’ boilers
    Delayed consultation could lead to heat pumps being installed as standard in newbuilds in England from 2025”

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/13/uk-government-backs-plan-ban-gas-hydrogen-ready-boilers-newbuilds-2025

    The UK government has formally backed plans to ban gas and “hydrogen-ready” boilers from newbuild homes in England from 2025, in a long-delayed consultation on low-carbon building standards.

    The proposals could mean heat pumps being installed as standard as part of measures to make all new homes “net zero ready” from 2025.

    The consultation rules out the use by housebuilders of all fossil fuel heating systems including gas, hybrid heat pumps and hydrogen-ready boilers, after a finding that there was “no practical way to allow the installation of fossil fuel boilers while also delivering significant carbon savings”.

    The net zero standards are considered key to the government’s plan to meet its legally binding target of net zero emissions by 2050. However, the consultation has been delayed amid growing controversy over the government’s links to the housebuilding sector.

    The consultation was originally expected in March, before it was delayed to the summer and then scheduled for the end of the year. The plans will be finalised by next March….

    Like

  20. “The UK government has formally backed plans to ban gas and “hydrogen-ready” boilers from newbuild homes in England from 2025, in a long-delayed consultation on low-carbon building standards.
    The proposals could mean heat pumps being installed as standard as part of measures to make all new homes “net zero ready” from 2025.”

    Looking for a new house, do it in winter & stand on the back patio & listen to the silence.

    Like

  21. Francis Menton rephrases Hanlon’s Razor in the specific case of the renewable energy scheme on the Canary island of El Hierro and he concludes that stupidity can almost certainly be ruled out:

    “It’s the question that must always be front and center in your mind when you read anything generated by advocates of energy transition as a supposed solution to “climate change”: Is this just rank incompetence, or is it intentional fraud? (The third possibility — reasonable, good faith advocacy — can generally be ruled out in the first few nanoseconds.). As between the options that the advocate is completely incompetent or an intentional fraudster, I suppose it would be better to be merely incompetent. However, often the misdirection is so blatant that it borders on impossible to believe that the author could be so stupid as to actually believe what he or she is saying.

    And yet, despite having such a rare near-perfect site for a large pumped hydro storage facility, the El Hierro system does not have nearly the energy storage needed to provide full-time electricity from the wind/storage system. It would need to multiply its storage capacity by at least an order of magnitude to come close to 100% electricity from this system. Meanwhile, most of its electricity comes from a backup diesel generator — a fact nowhere mentioned in Ms. Mendicott’s piece.

    So, is the piece mere incompetence, or intentional fraud? Several factors would seem to give strong support to the inference of intentional fraud — failure to mention the diesel backup at all; failure to mention the number of hours in each recent year where the diesel backup had to be called into activity to keep the lights on, and whether that number of hours was trending up or down; failure even to consider how much energy storage would be needed to enable the system to operate full time without the diesel backup, and whether there are any plans to provide that amount of storage or at what cost. Is it possible that someone could write a piece on this subject without even being aware of these issues? You be the judge!”

    https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-12-14-climate-advocacy-incompetence-or-intentional-fraud

    Like

  23. Who is the bigger flip-flopper?

    “Keir Starmer considers scaling back Labour’s £28bn green plans
    Insiders fear further watering down of party’s flagship economic policy could leave leader open to charges of ‘flip-flopping’ by Tories”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/22/keir-starmer-considers-scaling-back-labour-28bn-pounds-green-plans

    Labour is considering scaling back ambitious plans to borrow £28bn a year to invest in green jobs and industry amid fears the Conservatives will use the policy as a central line of attack in the general election campaign.

    The Guardian understands that Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves will discuss the party’s flagship economic policy next month, with senior Labour figures pushing to drop the £28bn commitment entirely while others want to retain key elements of the plan.

    Labour officials say they intend to keep central parts of their green policy, but want to recast them in a way that allows them to stop talking so much about what they cost, focusing instead on what the policies will achieve….

    Memo to Sunak: Labour is nervous that net zero is a big vote-loser. For goodness’ sake wake up!

    Liked by 2 people

  24. £28,000,000,000 / 68,000,000 people in the UK ~£400 each

    You and everyone in your family can each keep £400, or you can have Labour spend it on windmills. Your choice.

    Liked by 3 people

  25. Jit,

    Or put it another way, with approximately 27,000,000 households in the UK, that’s more than £1,000 per household. Every year

    Liked by 1 person

  26. Will this run and run? Is Labour serious about net zero? Are we being gaslighted (gaslit?)?

    “Starmer rules out breaking Labour’s fiscal rules to meet £28bn green target
    Statement is clearest sign yet party is willing to drop one of its headline policies in face of Conservative attacks”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/04/keir-starmer-labour-fiscal-rules-green-investment-targets

    Keir Starmer has ruled out breaking Labour’s fiscal rules to meet its green investment targets if it wins the election this year, in the clearest sign yet that the party is willing to scale back one of its headline policies in the face of Conservative attacks.

    The Labour leader told an audience in Bristol on Thursday that he would not borrow £28bn to spend on green projects if it meant breaking a separate promise to reduce government debt as a proportion of economic output.

    The £28bn policy has been at the centre of a tussle between senior Labour figures for months, with some wanting to drop it and others arguing it is an essential part of the party’s growth plan.

    Starmer said on Thursday that the £28bn promise was not sacrosanct, and that the party’s main green policy was instead to have zero-carbon power by 2030. “There is no question of pushing back on the mission – the mission is clean power by 2030,” he said.

    But he added: “The money that is needed for the investment … will be subject to our fiscal rules. And that means that if the money is for borrowing … but the fiscal rules don’t allow it, then we will borrow less.”…

    What to make of it? Certainly it’s the usual equivocal flip-flopping mixed messaging. He’s trying to appease everyone. Yes, “clean” power by 2030, but er, don’t worry, we won’t break the bank to do it. Does he understand what he’s saying? Is this a recognition that wrecking the economy striving for an unachievable ambition might be a vote-loser? Whatever it is – wake up Sunak. Starmer is nervous about this. Drive that wedge!

    Liked by 2 people

  28. It’s Groundhog Day regarding this story (or possibly non-story):

    “Labour to hold crunch talks on future of £28bn green investment plan
    Sources say no decisions taken but Keir Starmer could abandon plan if it is deemed damaging to election chances”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/19/labour-to-hold-crunch-talks-on-future-of-28bn-green-investment-plan

    Senior Labour officials are to hold crunch meetings on the future of the party’s pledge to spend £28bn a year on green investment, amid reports Keir Starmer is preparing to ditch the entire plan.

    Party sources said on Friday that officials would meet in the coming days to discuss the green prosperity plan, which would see a Labour government spend £28bn on environmental schemes each year by the second half of the next parliament.

    A Labour spokesperson said Starmer remained committed to the plan after the Sun reported he had decided to drop it altogether. Sources have told the Guardian that the Labour leadership is still considering abandoning it if they decide it is likely to damage them in an election campaign…./blockquote>

    Really, Guardian? “Green” investment promises might be electorally damaging? I thought that poll after poll showed that the UK electorate is right behind net zero. Or might it just be that chickens are coming home to roost – expensive energy, increasingly expensive cars, unpopular badgering of us into heat pumps that we don’t want, holidays abroad becoming more expensive, job losses aplenty, a trashed environment. The list goes on.

    Wake up, Sunak! Labour is running scared on this issue, with good reason.

    Like

  30. Maybe Starmer has blinked, after all?

    “Labour to ditch £28bn annual green investment pledge, party sources say
    Exclusive: Party will keep plan to invest in green infrastructure but will in effect cut green ambitions by about two-thirds”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/01/labour-to-ditch-annual-green-investment-pledge-party-sources-say

    Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are ditching Labour’s flagship policy pledge to spend £28bn a year on green investment, party sources have said.

    The sources said the party would keep the core mission of investing in green infrastructure, as well as already announced plans such as the creation of GB Energy, a publicly owned clean energy company, and a mass home insulation programme.

    But it will in effect cut its green ambitions by about two-thirds, given that the previously announced schemes are set to cost just under £10bn a year by the end of the parliament.

    The change, after a spate of recent government attacks portraying the £28bn figure as a likely tax rise, has been pushed for by key figures around Starmer including Morgan McSweeney, Labour’s director of campaigns, and Pat McFadden, the party’s campaigns coordinator….

    Which suggests that the party’s campaign co-ordinators recognise that it’s a vote-loser. Wake up Sunak.

    Liked by 1 person

  32. It appears that “flip flop” doesn’t begin to describe the ongoing farce within the Labour Party:

    “Starmer ‘unwavering’ over Labour green pledge despite claims party dropping it
    Labour leader says £28bn green investment ‘desperately needed’ after sources said last week Labour were planning to ditch policy”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/06/keir-starmer-labours-28bn-green-investment-desperately-needed

    Keir Starmer has said Labour’s policy pledge to spend £28bn a year on green investment is “desperately needed,” as he re-opened an issue that has become a source of tension in the party.

    Starmer and the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, were planning to ditch the pledge, party sources had said as recently as last week, while the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury all but confirmed the move a day later.

    However, comments from Starmer broadcast on Tuesday morning were welcomed by advocates of the pledge as a “recommitment” at a time when other senior party figures had declined to use the figure.

    The Labour leader said in an interview with Times Radio that he had been “unwavering” in relation to the party’s green energy plans and denied he was “scaling back” policies as this year’s general election looms.

    “We’re going to need investment, that’s where the £28bn comes in. That investment that is desperately needed for that mission,” he said

    “You can only understand the investment argument by understanding that we want to have clean power by 2030 … We need to borrow to invest to do that.

    “That’s a principle I believe in and I’m absolutely happy to go out and defend. And of course, what we’ve said as we’ve got closer to the operationalisation of this, is it has to be ramped up, the money has to be ramped up … and everything is subject to our fiscal rules.”

    Zoë Billingham, the director of the IPPR North thinktank, said on X after Starmer’s comments emerged: “It’s reassuring that ⁦@UKLabour have recommitted to their £28bn green investment pledge. It a cornerstone of meeting climate goals & regional growth.”…

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  33. Sir Flip Flop is apparently still flip flopping (or maybe that’s just the Guardian’s reportage):

    “Starmer to announce scaling back of £28bn green investment plan
    Labour leader to say move is down to economic uncertainty caused by Tory government, sources reveal”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/07/keir-starmer-to-announce-scaling-back-of-28bn-green-investment-plan

    Keir Starmer will announce on Thursday that he is scaling back Labour’s £28bn green investment programme, in his biggest policy U-turn since becoming party leader.

    Senior Labour sources have told the Guardian that Starmer will finally confirm the party is no longer planning to spend £28bn a year on environmental schemes, given the economic uncertainty caused by the Conservative government.

    It follows weeks of uncertainty about the policy as competing factions within Starmer’s senior team pushed him to keep the pledge or ditch it.

    Starmer has insisted for several weeks that he still intended to meet the pledge, which was first made in 2021 as part of a promise that Labour would be the greenest government in history. But doing so has become far more difficult since it was made, given that the worsening fiscal outlook has left less room to borrow more without long-term debt levels going up.

    Some shadow ministers have urged Starmer for months to drop the target, arguing that it plays into Conservative attacks about Labour’s fiscal credibility.

    Others have warned that doing so will only accentuate the feeling among many voters that Starmer cannot be trusted to stick to his word. It is the latest in a series of major policy reversals since he became Labour leader, including dropping a promise to scrap university tuition fees and to impose higher rates of income tax on top earners.

    Recent media briefings by shadow ministers have led to speculation of a split between Starmer and his shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves. Reeves was asked repeatedly about the pledge in an interview with Sky News last week but failed to mention the £28bn on 10 separate occasions….

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  35. “Wanted: Someone, anyone to sell climate policies to UK voters
    The government is on the hunt for “trusted messengers” to help promote the push to net zero.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/wanted-someone-sell-climate-policies-uk-voters-sunak-carbon-emissions-green-vision/

    Rishi Sunak needs all the help he can get selling his green vision to the British public.

    The U.K. prime minister reckons Britain can hit its headline climate goal — net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 — in a way which “brings people with us.” That’s easier said than done, as some European leaders have found at their peril.

    But contract documents reviewed by POLITICO show Sunak’s government is now on the hunt for the right messengers on hot-button issues from convincing homeowners to overhaul their heating systems to getting buy-in for more electricity pylons.

    The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has tapped up a consumer insights firm to identify “trusted messengers” to carry Sunak’s green message to voters.

    Researchers on the contract, worth around £80,000, will be asked to establish exactly who can be trusted to make the case for the contentious issues at the heart of the U.K.’s green overhaul.

    In doing so, they might have to look some way beyond Westminster.

    Veteran environmentalist David Attenborough is the most trusted figure with the public to discuss climate change, according to 2021 polling by the organization Climate Outreach, followed by fellow TV conservationist Chris Packham — then Prince William.

    Public trust in politicians to share climate information is far lower. Sunak sits third from bottom of the table…

    …Basis Research, a consumer insight firm, won a government contract for the work at the end of January. The company was contacted for comment but declined the opportunity.

    It comes as politicians fret over public buy-in for net zero policies, some of which require big changes in consumer behavior, including switching out dirty gas boilers for cleaner heat pumps. Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho previously told POLITICO politicians must brace for “difficult” conversations with voters about the changes brought with the green switch.

    A spokesperson for DESNZ said the research would help “inform future policy engagement, so that clear communication is shared with audiences to help them understand what government support and advice is available.”

    Asked whether Attenborough, Packham or the now Prince of Wales might feature in future campaigns for government climate policies, DESNZ said they had nothing more to add.

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