The Conservative Party has hit electoral pay dirt by delaying the transition to electric cars and the replacement of gas boilers.
The voters in a by election in July in Uxbridge, against the odds, narrowly voted in a Conservative candidate; it was said because the Labour, London Mayor’s ULEZ proposals are unpopular. And ULEZ is unpopular with Labour voters who drive old white vans belching pollution. That is a microcosm of a bigger picture in which many voters do not want to ditch petrol cars and gas boilers. Of course we all want net zero so long as we don’t have to run out of juice on a motorway, freeze in winter and pay a lot for eco-friendly measures that are, at a personal level, expensive and impractical.
And don’t say that science refutes my assertions. Voters are swayed by their perceptions not by the facts – whatever they are. I read that electric cars are the Betamax of motoring evolution and will be replaced by hydrogen fuel cell cars; Hyundai and Toyota already sell these in the UK. I read somewhere else they use more fossil fuels than electric cars. If I may digress, I am reading a novel set in the Spanish civil war and Madrid during World War Two (Winter in Madrid, CJ Sansom). It is historically as accurate as the author’s Tudor who-dunnits and it has gosogene cars spluttering through the streets. They were powered by wood boilers that made methane that propelled a vehicle at 20 mph max and did not go up hill. Come to think of it, it might be the perfect vehicle for 20 mph London with few hills.
I think if Sunak does delay these measures he will speak to many Labour and Conservative voters and leave Labour imprisoned in a virtuous circle of green pledges. Politics is a dirty game and Rishi recognises that putting the brake on will be motherhood and apple pie to the floating voters he so desperately needs if he is to be re-elected.