If we can’t use the bus, why can’t we use each other’s cars?

So there I was last Monday at 12.20, standing outside All Saints Church in Elton, in the Peak District of Derbyshire where I live, with a small suitcase, on my way to London. The bus to Matlock meets the train, and a No. 172 Hulley’s bus was due at 12.22. It’s a five-mile journey.

Silly as it may sound, the new green edge to David Cameron’s blue has caused me, as a Conservative, to think a bit more before I drive. We really do have to rescue the ideal of environmental responsibility from the left-tinged puritans for whom threats about global warming are just a weapon with which to beat free-market economics. Be under no illusions: these eco-apocalypticists don’t want there to be any way we could carry on living as we do. They would be positively disappointed if a carbon-neutral 4×4 were invented. They bridle when research suggests that washable nappies consume as much energy as the disposable kind.