Fewer than one in five Scots can reliably be expected to vote for the Conservative party, but a poll this weekend showed that well over half are in favour of his delay on the banning of the sale of new petrol and diesel cars. In rural areas, much of which is still considered SNP territory, this is nearer 70 per cent. The Tories aren’t popular north of the border — but Rishi Sunak’s green pushback rhetoric is making an impact on Scotland.
Our electric vehicle charging infrastructure in Scotland is very poor. The government built a network which is now both dismally slow and almost unfeasibly unreliable.
Now, the Prime Minister is not seriously a climate sceptic. His change of tone on climate change since his party’s surprising win at the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election was just that: a change of tone. Not, as some would describe it, a particularly significant policy shift. After all climate scepticism is poor long-term politics, which the polls make no secret of. YouGov data from this year has shown that 70 per cent are in favour of the government’s net zero target, a figure that rises to 80 per cent amongst people under 50. And figures from June and July this year, published by the Office for National Statistics, found two-thirds of British adults said that they had been worried about the impact of climate change.
But while Sunak’s shift on his government’s climate targets may not have the doomsday implications some are predicting, it is equally important to remember that, right now, Sunak is not engaged in long-term politics. He is engaged in politics lasting for one year, to be quite specific. And after that unexpected Uxbridge victory — credited by the Tories and blamed by Labour on Sadiq Khan’s Ulez plans — the government spotted an opportunity and has since been on a relentless mission to reduce the cost of going ‘net zero’.
The electoral theory is sound. There are substantial up-front costs to individuals for aspects of the green transition, despite the long-term benefits. Ground source heat pumps or electric boilers to replace mains gas infrastructure, for instance, can involve a five-figure cost which very few households can afford. And electric vehicles will remain more expensive than an equivalent internal combustion car until nearer the end of this decade, primarily driven by the advancement of battery technology.
It is no real surprise that Sunak’s rhetoric is resonating with Scots. The Scottish government can harp on about cutting petrol and diesel car use, but they need to first ensure the alternatives are workable. As a driver of an electric vehicle I can tell you that, right now, they’re not.
Firstly, our electric vehicle charging infrastructure in Scotland is very poor. The government made the well-trodden and well-intentioned (but ultimately cardinal sin) of interfering in the market for on-the-go charging, by building a network which is now both dismally slow and almost unfeasibly unreliable, and which inevitably deterred innovative private sector investment in the network.
Reaching a charger in Scotland is also more of a battle; investment in trunk road infrastructure has intentionally slowed and, as a result of the SNP’s coalition with the Greens, is now effectively dormant. England’s infrastructure is hardly world-leading, but is certainly Britain-leading.
The stretched car-owner in Scotland is, of course, more stretched than they are south of the border. Anyone in Scotland who earns over £28,000 pays more income tax than they would in England, a measure that polling earlier this month showed is supported by a mere 10 per cent of the population. There is lacking evidence that this enforced investment is yielding any discernible improvement in Scotland’s public services, making this a one-way transaction with which voters are increasingly uneasy.
People living in Scotland are increasingly hoping a leader will pop up and tell us that we’ve paid enough, for the moment, and that instead of continually taking more money out of our pockets, they are ready to put a little bit back in. But that hasn’t happened yet. Public transport services are just about bearable in cities like Edinburgh and Glasgow — but stray too far from a train station any place more rural and the chances of being stranded for hours aren’t slim. There is no incentive for drivers to trade in their petrol-fuelled cars for public transport or electric vehicles when it worsens their commuting prospects.
The Conservatives have six Westminster seats in Scotland and, with a weakened SNP being second in all of them, and the other parties nowhere to be seen, it is almost inevitable that they will hold them all — despite the equal inevitability that their nationwide vote share will plummet. Furthermore, with at least another two SNP seats in sight, it is entirely possible that the Tories will return upwards of eight seats. There is certainly optimism within the party: Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross recently told The Spectator that he thinks his party ‘could have a really good general election.’
It might feel somewhat awkward to many Scots that the leader talking their language — on boilers, on oil and gas, on electric vehicles — has a blue rosette. But, as the poll showed this weekend, he might just convince them anyway.
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