Reducing the cost of living should be the Tories' priority
Peter Hoskin 12:36pm
Hm. I'm not sure about Cameron's 'green' speech today. Not because I have anything hugely against the green agenda per se. But I am concerned about how the current Government's environmental taxes have trickled downwards and hit the public hard in the pocket. Of course, Cameron says that he is too. Although this passage, in particular, could create the opposite impression:
"I understand that right now the cost of living is the number one concern for Britain's families. And I understand, with that backdrop, why people might think fighting climate change seems a costly diversion. But those who say we've got to choose either the environment or the economy, who say, 'look, we can't tackle climate change. Going green will cost too much when the cost of living is already too high. Tough emissions targets will damage our industry and business…' they've got it exactly wrong.The truth is: it's not that we can't afford to go green - it's that we can't afford not to go green. When oil is moving towards $140 a barrel, when families are being hit hard every time they pay their gas bill, fill up their cars or do the weekly shop, are you telling me we shouldn't - we can't - go green? We've got to.
The era of cheap oil is well and truly over. So whether we need to cut our carbon or not - which we do. Whether you believe in climate change or not - which you should. For the sake of our future prosperity and our current cost of living, we must wean ourselves off our dependence on fossil fuels and go green."
The problem? It’s too forgiving of Brown’s parasitic tax regime. Perhaps the prime reason why families are “being hit hard” when they fill up their cars is because taxes account for around 66p of each £1.10 litre of petrol. To me, that doesn’t suggest people will be most helped by being weaned off fossil fuels - at least not in the short term. Instead, they’ll be most helped by significant reductions in fuel duty. But that’s an option the Tories don’t seem to be offering.
Maybe they should hire Fern Britton as a speechwriter...
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Comments
Bruce, UK
June 16th, 2008 12:50pm"people might think fighting climate change seems a costly diversion".
And they'd be right.
John W
June 16th, 2008 1:09pmThis is silly nitpicking Peter.
Pete
June 16th, 2008 1:22pmGoing 'green' and fighting 'climate change' has been utterly tarnished by Labour's taxes and regulations.
If politicians want people to change to save the planet all they have to do is provide cheaper and easier options.
Most people would then be quite happy to change their behaviour.
Peeved Perry
June 16th, 2008 1:29pmBut where is any forthright castigation of Noo-Lie-Bore waste, corruption, greed, and the nefarious uses to which punitive taxation is put?
The effects of Noo-Lie-Bore lie heavy on the land, not least in disgraceful planning and unmitigated attempts to concrete over the south of England by that figurehead of Noo-Lie-Bore-in-Action, the genius Prescott.
If there be any greening to do, it should be first on the anodyne Cameron’s list to try to recover this green and pleasant land! THEN the dainty talk can follow for G*d’s sake!
David
June 16th, 2008 1:37pmReducing the cost of living should not be done at the expense of the green agenda. It's stupidly short termist, and may result in a much worse increase in the longer run.
Pete
June 16th, 2008 1:53pm"Reducing the cost of living should not be done at the expense of the green agenda. It's stupidly short termist, and may result in a much worse increase in the longer run."
Surely that depends on your strategic point of view.
Are you more likely to achieve your desired goal by punishment or incentive?
Given the growing perception of a correlation between 'climate change' and punative taxes I personally think that incentives would work better.
Tiberius
June 16th, 2008 2:05pmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_7451000/7451549.stm
It's not an irrelevance as this story shows.
Mrs Thatcher moved a chunk taxation from direct to indirect. Cameron has already said he would shift the burden to green from family taxes.
I'm sure that is what he will do.
Nicholas
June 16th, 2008 2:08pmThe "Green Agenda" has been thoroughly undermined and discredited by the government using it as a weak masquerade for stealth tax and by the fascist tendencies of its own proponents, like the ghastly uber-hippy Sian Berry. That is before the question of how real is climate change even comes under scrutiny.
For DC to jump on this bandwagon at this point in time is ridiculous, because another thing that the "Green Agenda" underpins is the nannyism of local government, which in turn underpins and is sponsored by the creeping erosion of civil liberties by New Labour.
Verity
June 16th, 2008 2:25pm"Fighting" climate change is a giant con and as such slots neatly into a public relations practitioner's facile thinking mechanism.
Given that "climate change" has been going on for some millions of years, as it is in the nature of our solar system, David Cameron would be wise to pipe down and devote attention to repealing 100% of this awful government's destruction of British freedom of speech. (I see that three respectable, professional, middle aged people yesterday narrowly escaped arrest because the message on their t-shirts was "inflamatory". (It was about a new runway somewhere.) This totalitarianism, whereby the government is in charge of what their bosses, the electorate, may say, is shocking. And it has happened so quickly!
Meanwhile, bland Cameron, an utterly ignorant man, does not understand that all climate change comes from the surface of the Sun and there isn't a blasted thing he or anyone else can do about it. Mars is also on a slight warming pattern (matching ours) at the moment, and I read the other day that so is Jupiter.
There used to be swamps and dinosaurs in W Texas, for heavens' sake! Now there are plains and desert. The climate changed. Geddit? Millennia before the advent of the combustion engine. Greenland was so named because it was lush and green. Etc etc etc.
If David Cameron really believes in "man made climate change" he is a fool. If he knows better but is using it anyway to gain firmer control of the electorate, he is a knave.
Patrick, London
June 16th, 2008 3:07pmSome readers may be aware of a book called 'Energy Victory, by Robert Zubrin. It's causing something of a storm in the USA on energy policy.
It's basically saying that for a very minor modification all cars can run on ethanol, methanol or regular petrol or any mixture of the 3 - so called 'flex fuel' capable. This would enable a significant diversification away from oil as the only source of transport fuels.
Brazil is a huge country and they have just recently become energy independent - and 100% of new cars sold in Brazil are flex fuel capable (by law). They have a large ethanol industry to fuel their car fleet.
If other countries emulated this approach we could use biomass, coal, garbage, natural gas and good old oil to produce transport fuels.
This would break the oil monopoly, cut fuel prices, and enable huge CO2 savings.
It doesn't have to be 'either / or' if the policy is smart.
I'd honestly recommend anyone wanting to engage in energy policy debate to read the book. It's very engaging.
Pete
June 16th, 2008 4:22pmJust a small change to a car engine, but a huge change to Government psychology.
Using old vegetable oil was going to catch on here until Brown declared it as a fuel and therefore subject to tax.
Besides if someone invented a car that could run on water, he would just tax the water.
Changing to greener options is not about punishment taxes but about allowing the market to develop alternative cheaper and better options without the heavy hand of Government regulation, and taxation, squashing invention.
Cogito Ergosum
June 16th, 2008 4:48pmWell said, Verity 2:25pm. The problem with Cameron is that he listens to fashionable advice rather than sound advice.
TGF UKIP
June 16th, 2008 7:57pm"Whether you believe in climate change or not - which you should." This shows just where bossy, priggish, prissy pc Dave is coming from.
No acknowledgement anywhere in this speech that there are arguments on both sides from equally respectable scientists, just the New Labour/Blue Labour assertion that we should all be believers.
This speech once again demonstrates where Dave believes his audience and target market really is - the prissy, the priggish and above all the ultra green who are the quintessential Guardian readers. Dave obviously has as his great political ambition the conversion of Polly to the Cameron Tory Party.
From time to time I get a lot of stick from a number of you Coffee Housers but this speech makes very clear that on green issues, or should I more accurately say on green obsessions, a Cameron Tory Govenment is going to be every bit as bullying and coercive as a Labour one. That's one of the principal reasons why I so loathe the sod and why I'll continue to take every opportunity to put the boot in.
Rex Burr
June 16th, 2008 8:13pmYou also have my vote Verity.
Cameron is naive and if he thinks his climate change agenda will endear him to the voters he is mistaken.
Nicholas
June 16th, 2008 9:00pmTGF UKIP I take it all back and admit I was wrong about DC. Very, very disappointing. Or, as Ed Balls might say "so weak". His showing since 42 days, the Irish "No" and DD has been poor.
See also my response to you way back under the Europe thread.
And I concur with Verity, Rex et al, raising this issue at this point in time displays complete lack of appreciation for the prevailing public mood which is ready for a March on London.
Pete
June 16th, 2008 10:45pmLabour, in particular Brown, has killed this issue as a vote winner by imposing stealth taxes under the guise of 'climate change'.
As a headline vote winning issue it is dead, the public no longer trust the concept.
People are going to start asking really awkward questions which no party has been confronted with due to a pretty compliant and ignorant media.
What about China, India, the USA, etc, etc.
If DC thinks he can fix 'global climate change' by imposing, or rearranging, UK taxes he will very quickly find himself in the position of this Labour Government.
Pete
June 16th, 2008 10:55pmHere's a challenge to a government minister.
Declare that all alternative fuels will be tax free for the next 20 years.
You will see inventors come out of the woodwork, some privately, some through big companies.
We could become one of the biggest alternative fuel countries in world.
If only our Government didn't keep killing it all off with regulation and taxation.
TGF UKIP
June 17th, 2008 12:00amNicholas, perhaps one day it will dawn on even poor old dear deluded Tiberius (and Fraser Nelson for that matter) what a wrong un he's backing in Cameron. I fear, though, that his rude awakening will not come until around 2012 by which time we will be in the fifteenth consecutive year of an ultra politically correct social democrat government. The names will have changed in 2010 but nowt else.