The cavalier way in which the latest U-turn has been presented reveals a government and a PM scrabbling for survivalfter all the turmoil of recent years, you might think British politics had lost its capacity to shock. But a week in which some of the angriest voices raised against this week’s shameful climbdown on net zero come not just from passionate greens, but from car manufacturers and the energy industry? Now we really are through the looking-glass.
Though the death of the levelling up dream may be less emotive than the junking of plans to save the planet, both U-turns represent the torching of what credibility thehad among the people most likely to give the party the benefit of the doubt, and both have much deeper consequences for where the country is heading.
The general air of chaos surrounding the announcement may seem trivial compared with the substance of it, but both have a direct impact on the future of the planet: as Pinchbeck pointed out, up to 70% of the cost of reaching net zero is supposed to be stumped up by a private sector that now doesn’t know what to believe, and won’t risk pumping billions into products for which the market may suddenly disappear.
The scrapping of an obligation on landlords to fit insulation and other energy-efficiency measures is seriously bad news not just for the climate but for renters left to shiver in cold, damp housing; delaying the cutoff date after which homeowners won’t be able to get a new gas boiler will also have an impact. But new, more generous grants for homeowners buying heat pumps look like an attempt to speed up their adoption by other means.