Rishi Sunak has hastily announced delays to headline Tory ‘Net Zero’ policies in what’s being called an attempt to create dividing lines between his government and opposition parties.

That indicates two things to This Writer, immediately:

Firstly, he has realised that Keir Starmer’s Labour really is a Substitute Tory Party now – and is afraid that, untarnished by 13 years of disastrous policies that have failed the people of the UK, that STP will seize power and start taking money from the donors who have been paying him.

Secondly, creating dividing lines between his govenrment and other parties is a pathetically weak excuse for scrapping policies designed to save us from climate meltdown. Is there an ulterior motive – connected with cash from fossil fuel or automotive firms?

The rationalisations simply don’t ring true. According to the BBC:

The government could not impose “unacceptable costs” linked to reducing emissions on British families, he said.

But what is the direct cost to the public of banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in 2030? Why are electric vehicles assumed to be more expensive?

It’s not as if the national grid won’t be able to take the strain; we already have an assurance that it will:

Why is fossil fuel heating for off-gas-grid homes being extended by nine years, to 2035? Who complained – families who will have been planning to change their systems, or fossil fuel firms?

Why do poorer households require an exemption from the ban on the sale of new gas boilers in 2035? Won’t they just get something else and stretch out the payments to make them affordable as necessary? Isn’t that how such changes have always been managed in the past?

And why are landlords being let off a requirement to ensure all rental properties have an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) of grade C or higher, from 2025? That’s not helping poor people but rich landlords!

Raising the Boiler Upgrade Grant by 50 per cent to £7,500 to help households who want to replace their gas boilers appears to be the only sensible idea in the package.

Put it all together and the winners are the car companies, the fossil fuel firms and landlords – not the poor. Even if these corporate and business concerns aren’t actually handing over money to the Tories, one has to question what pressure they have exerted here.

Sunak himself went on the record to say democratic debate is required. But who did he ask to contribute to that debate before coming up with these decisions that will profit the polluters?

Remember: converting to renewable energy will be cheaper for the consumer. As Ash Sarkar points out in the clip immediately below (in spite of Andrea Jenkyns and her ignorance), fossil fuel supplies from abroad are subject to price shocks; home-produced energy won’t be:

The changes announced now – with more said to be on the way later in the autumn – mean uncertainty, not only for the public but for industry as well. Jamie Driscoll makes an excellent point about that:

Among the future announcements is said to be a refusal to tax air fares in order to discourage flying. Here’s why that is bad:

Still, what can you expect from an “ivory tower” Tory like Sunak who flies to the vast majority of his foreign engagement in a private jet that is 14 times more polluting than normal flights?

What’s really interesting is the implication that Sunak was pushed into delaying the ban on the sale of fossil fuel vehicles by Liz Truss – and the possibility that his fellow Tories are upset about it and may try to oust him because of it:

The headline on this article suggests that Sunak might be taking money somehow, in order to induce him to make these changes. The suggestion that his own MPs may try to push him out of Downing Street because of it makes this seem more likely.

I would sincerely like to be mistaken, for an obvious reason:

A bit of extra cash for one avaricious toad of a man is no justification for condemning a population to climate change hell.

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