I saw a post on Linkedin that a single state owned power company in China emits more CO2 each year than the entire UK economy. If this is correct, perhaps it should be considered further in a cost/benefit analysis of how to reduce global CO2 emissions. Why is the burden of reducing global CO2 emissions be put in any way on poor people in the UK ? If rich people in the UK want to pay more tax to get to net zero then fine, but they don't have an appetite to do that. The benefits to them of the policy on cars is to get poor people with their crap polluting cars off the road to make way for for their EV's bought with government tax breaks, reducing congestion etc. It just looks to me like a disturbing form of class war.
"Poppy Simister-Thomas" is pretty good, though. Could only ever be a Tory candidate.
Really? A classic LibDem name, surely? Double barelled and the rather wet "Poppy"...
Reginald SiNister-Thomas would be a good wicked Tory though…
My year's PPE group of about 16 in my Oxford college produced 2 MPs both Tory -Tim Smith (recipient of Al Fayed envelopes) and Gyles Brandreth -enough said!
Sunak will go down as a worse Prime Minister than Truss.
What’s really remarkable is that he seems to have no understanding or appreciation of what business wants either. It just shows how far the Tory fuck business attitude has gone, and how mutual it’s become.
This is like the multiple u turns on tax this time last year under Truss. Utterly tin eared and terrible for investment confidence. I’d been starting to feel things were calming down and the focus of political risk of my clients was no longer on the UK. Now we’ve gone and done it again, especially for automotives.
Even if Sunak u turns on his u turn the damage is done.
"Poppy Simister-Thomas" is pretty good, though. Could only ever be a Tory candidate.
Really? A classic LibDem name, surely? Double barelled and the rather wet "Poppy"...
Reginald SiNister-Thomas would be a good wicked Tory though…
My year's PPE group of about 16 in my Oxford college produced 2 MPs both Tory -Tim Smith (recipient of Al Fayed envelopes) and Gyles Brandreth -enough said!
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
It’s a massive problem for the second quintile, who can’t afford to live in the city but also can’t afford to not work there. You’re telling those people to either buy an EV or get the bus, and that message is slowly getting out to them.
Remember that Inner London is pretty much unique in having brilliant public transport options. No other UK city does, outside of very defined routes along which property prices have risen well above inflation.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
With a reasonable expectation of a 15 year life, there will be significant numbers of ICE hybrid* vehicles to about 2050. There may be some demand for them, tempered by decreasing ability to get fuel, as few petrol stations would be viable.
As electric vehicles get cheaper, longer range and better each year there isn't going to be much demand. It will be like trying to buy a film camera in a digital world.
*from 2030 its only plug-in hybrids allowed I think.
Noticed that Mike Pence pledged to provide Ukraine all the support it needs in the war with Russia at a campaign event yesterday. He seems to be making this a central part of his campaign.
Even if his campaign is doomed, does this approach from Pence help to prevent the issue of providing support to Ukraine from becoming hopelessly polarised along political lines? Or has this polarisation already proceeded so far that it only makes it easier for his opponents to paint him as a Democrat in everything but name?
I saw a post on Linkedin that a single state owned power company in China emits more CO2 each year than the entire UK economy. If this is correct, perhaps it should be considered further in a cost/benefit analysis of how to reduce global CO2 emissions. Why is the burden of reducing global CO2 emissions be put in any way on poor people in the UK ? If rich people in the UK want to pay more tax to get to net zero then fine, but they don't have an appetite to do that. The benefits to them of the policy on cars is to get poor people with their crap polluting cars off the road to make way for for their EV's bought with government tax breaks, reducing congestion etc. It just looks to me like a disturbing form of class war.
China is building more renewables capacity annually (indeed more solar alone) than the entire UK’s installed renewables base.
The US IRA gives more in tax breaks for green investment than the entire UK corporate tax base.
This is an industrial race and we’re going to blow it. It’s like saying the US has more traditional vaccine output than the entire UK medicines industry therefore we shouldn’t invest in mRNA.
Britain is such a Luddite little kingdom of asset sweaters and accountants. What happened to the Britain that launched the Industrial Revolution? Where’s our zest for innovation gone? We really want to end up like Russia?
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
It’s a massive problem for the second quintile, who can’t afford to live in the city but also can’t afford to not work there. You’re telling those people to either buy an EV or get the bus, and that message is slowly getting out to them.
Remember that Inner London is pretty much unique in having brilliant public transport options. No other UK city does, outside of very defined routes along which property prices have risen well above inflation.
The second quintile aren't buying brand new cars. I have a higher than average salary and own a 10 year old car.
Nobody is telling anybody anything. This is what a disrupted market economy looks like. That it's taking us decades to make this transition is frankly a bit pathetic. No wonder the Victorians pulled off significantly higher productivity growth.
CPI 6.7%, down from 6.8% last month and below the BoE’s 7.1% forecast.
UK inflation remains above average but is converging again with small upticks elsewhere compared with a tiny fall here. We may see one more 0.25% increase but it must be touch and go now.
The key is the oil price, which crashed in November last year, and is now 20% higher than the early December trough of $76. Q1 2024 could see inflation rising again.
Agreed, That is the fly in the ointment as food price inflation moderates. We don't seem to have got the same fracking boost from the US that we had the last time. Normally they have been able to produce new oil in substantial quantities fairly quickly.
The oil price is being driven by some very high-level realpolitik, as always, but right now the East is beating the West in this regard. We’re seeing China buying oil priced in Yuan, and China and India washing dodgy Russian oil back into the global markets to keep funding the war in Ukraine.
The crux of it, is that the key relationship between the Biden administration and the Saudis has deteriorated, and the President is in hock to the environmental lobby over the fracking lobby locally. At some point, his advisors are going to point out that the ‘gas’ price in the States is perhaps the single most correlated issue with his prospects of re-election next year. Sunak needs to get on that train too. They need to assertively point out that Putin is no friend, and has every intention of starving the MENA region of food this winter.
There’s also been a desire by shareholders for increased capital allocation discipline for frackers
"Poppy Simister-Thomas" is pretty good, though. Could only ever be a Tory candidate.
Really? A classic LibDem name, surely? Double barelled and the rather wet "Poppy"...
Reginald SiNister-Thomas would be a good wicked Tory though…
My year's PPE group of about 16 in my Oxford college produced 2 MPs both Tory -Tim Smith (recipient of Al Fayed envelopes) and Gyles Brandreth -enough said!
Wasn't Anne Widdecombe in that same cohort?
In the 60s colleges were single sex!
You dodged a bullet.
Gyles Brandreth tells a story that at university his future wife’s neighbours were Mary Archer and Anne Widdecombe 👀
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
It might for some cars but it certainly won't be all of them. Who the fuck will want a 2015 Corsa in 2030? Nobody.
ICE will inevitably become just an enthusiast thing because they will become a pain in the dick for normal people to own once petrol stations and mechanics start to disappear. My local BMW dealer has already let most of the actual mechanics go. They have minium wage drones who can do oil/filter changes and plug in a laptop for diagnostics and that's it. Any complex repairs are tackled by an increasing small number of service centres or mobile techs who go from dealer to dealer replacing fucked oil pumps or whatever.
Spent yesterday in Mid Beds - Everyone I spoke to wanted to discuss the best way of defeating the Tories. The voters of Mid Beds have decided, partly because of Nadine but also Boris and Truss that they need a kicking. Quite possible that the Conservatives will end up fourth -behind the independent candidate!
Postal votes expected to go out next Tuesday. Often postal voters haven't had much literature when they cast their votes but because the campaign has been going on for some time already, thanks to Nadine's delayed resignation, those with postal votes know who to vote for. Only posters evident were Lib Dem diamonds in Barton-le-Clay. The Lib Dem campaign is firing on all cylinders.
The longer this goes on, the stronger the feeling that the Lab/LD race doesn't threaten a Tory win. They are finishing 3rd. Look at the two polls yesterday showing -4% and -5% drops in their national tally.
So screw it. All hail Emma Holland-Lindsay. Have at the red menace.
Good decision politically by Sunak to delay some of the Net Zero targets by a few years.
Maybe the Conservatives are actually going to make a bit of a fight of Election 24 after all...
Anti business policies never work electorally long term. As Corbyn found out.
Yeah, but all Rishi is interested in is winning the Election in 12 months time...
This policy (u-turn) is very likely to start firming up some of those Conservative 2019 voters Mike has been talking about in the thread headers who are currently Don't Know/Won't Say, IMO.
I saw a post on Linkedin that a single state owned power company in China emits more CO2 each year than the entire UK economy. If this is correct, perhaps it should be considered further in a cost/benefit analysis of how to reduce global CO2 emissions. Why is the burden of reducing global CO2 emissions be put in any way on poor people in the UK ? If rich people in the UK want to pay more tax to get to net zero then fine, but they don't have an appetite to do that. The benefits to them of the policy on cars is to get poor people with their crap polluting cars off the road to make way for for their EV's bought with government tax breaks, reducing congestion etc. It just looks to me like a disturbing form of class war.
China is building more renewables capacity annually (indeed more solar alone) than the entire UK’s installed renewables base.
The US IRA gives more in tax breaks for green investment than the entire UK corporate tax base.
This is an industrial race and we’re going to blow it. It’s like saying the US has more traditional vaccine output than the entire UK medicines industry therefore we shouldn’t invest in mRNA.
Britain is such a Luddite little kingdom of asset sweaters and accountants. What happened to the Britain that launched the Industrial Revolution? Where’s our zest for innovation gone? We really want to end up like Russia?
I don't disagree with any of this. The issue is that net zero policies just seem to be manifesting themselves in new regulation that benefit the rich and disproportionately hurt the poor whilst deliberately avoiding any of the necessary structural changes (ie rapid construction of green infrastructure). A 'luddite little kingdom of asset sweaters and accountants' sums it up well.
Noticed that Mike Pence pledged to provide Ukraine all the support it needs in the war with Russia at a campaign event yesterday. He seems to be making this a central part of his campaign.
Even if his campaign is doomed, does this approach from Pence help to prevent the issue of providing support to Ukraine from becoming hopelessly polarised along political lines? Or has this polarisation already proceeded so far that it only makes it easier for his opponents to paint him as a Democrat in everything but name?
The problem is the way the US debate over Ukraine is already framed in terms of money, and the political decision between funding foreign and domestic priorities.
The federal government recently announced several *million* dollars in federal aid to the victims of the Maui fires in Hawaii, at the same time as announcing several *billion* dollars in aid to Ukraine.
Now, most of the Ukraine ‘funding’ isn’t actual funding at all, it’s the transfer of near-obsolete weapons, alongside training and logistics - but the optics look terrible and the Administration doesn’t seem to want to try and explain things properly.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
This is a weird issue for the tories to go culture wars on as the future of cars is largely shaped by global commercial pressures that are outside their control. People who get an EV generally like them. Lots more people don't give a fuck one way or the other so the target audience for this nonsense is a small group people with an ideological attachment to ICE cars.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
It’s a massive problem for the second quintile, who can’t afford to live in the city but also can’t afford to not work there. You’re telling those people to either buy an EV or get the bus, and that message is slowly getting out to them.
Remember that Inner London is pretty much unique in having brilliant public transport options. No other UK city does, outside of very defined routes along which property prices have risen well above inflation.
The second quintile aren't buying brand new cars. I have a higher than average salary and own a 10 year old car.
Nobody is telling anybody anything. This is what a disrupted market economy looks like. That it's taking us decades to make this transition is frankly a bit pathetic. No wonder the Victorians pulled off significantly higher productivity growth.
That’s the whole point of my argument. That second quintile own 10-year-old cars, and they’re being told they need to pay £3,000 a year to drive to work in the city, or to pick up their kids from school, in areas where there’s no public transport options.
Spent yesterday in Mid Beds - Everyone I spoke to wanted to discuss the best way of defeating the Tories. The voters of Mid Beds have decided, partly because of Nadine but also Boris and Truss that they need a kicking. Quite possible that the Conservatives will end up fourth -behind the independent candidate!
Postal votes expected to go out next Tuesday. Often postal voters haven't had much literature when they cast their votes but because the campaign has been going on for some time already, thanks to Nadine's delayed resignation, those with postal votes know who to vote for. Only posters evident were Lib Dem diamonds in Barton-le-Clay. The Lib Dem campaign is firing on all cylinders.
The longer this goes on, the stronger the feeling that the Lab/LD race doesn't threaten a Tory win. They are finishing 3rd. Look at the two polls yesterday showing -4% and -5% drops in their national tally.
So screw it. All hail Emma Holland-Lindsay. Have at the red menace.
It really doesn't matter who wins. Let's see who can do best in such constituencies when all are going for it. It is useful information for next year.
Also the possibility of complete humiliation of the Tories in 3rd place in what used to be amongst its safest seats.
"Poppy Simister-Thomas" is pretty good, though. Could only ever be a Tory candidate.
Really? A classic LibDem name, surely? Double barelled and the rather wet "Poppy"...
Reginald SiNister-Thomas would be a good wicked Tory though…
My year's PPE group of about 16 in my Oxford college produced 2 MPs both Tory -Tim Smith (recipient of Al Fayed envelopes) and Gyles Brandreth -enough said!
Wasn't Anne Widdecombe in that same cohort?
In the 60s colleges were single sex!
As the Girton College Songbook put it (to the tune of My Darling Clementine);
Hundred rooms with running water, Tell me, who could ask for more? That's unless you have a boyfriend Who is over five foot four.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
It’s a massive problem for the second quintile, who can’t afford to live in the city but also can’t afford to not work there. You’re telling those people to either buy an EV or get the bus, and that message is slowly getting out to them.
Remember that Inner London is pretty much unique in having brilliant public transport options. No other UK city does, outside of very defined routes along which property prices have risen well above inflation.
The second quintile aren't buying brand new cars. I have a higher than average salary and own a 10 year old car.
Nobody is telling anybody anything. This is what a disrupted market economy looks like. That it's taking us decades to make this transition is frankly a bit pathetic. No wonder the Victorians pulled off significantly higher productivity growth.
That’s the whole point of my argument. That second quintile own 10-year-old cars, and they’re being told they need to pay £3,000 a year to drive to work in the city, or to pick up their kids from school, in areas where there’s no public transport options.
No they are not.
All petrol cars have been ULEZ compatible for over a decade, and diesels since 2016. In another few years there will be nearly none of the high polluting old bangers on the road.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
It’s a massive problem for the second quintile, who can’t afford to live in the city but also can’t afford to not work there. You’re telling those people to either buy an EV or get the bus, and that message is slowly getting out to them.
Remember that Inner London is pretty much unique in having brilliant public transport options. No other UK city does, outside of very defined routes along which property prices have risen well above inflation.
The second quintile aren't buying brand new cars. I have a higher than average salary and own a 10 year old car.
Nobody is telling anybody anything. This is what a disrupted market economy looks like. That it's taking us decades to make this transition is frankly a bit pathetic. No wonder the Victorians pulled off significantly higher productivity growth.
That’s the whole point of my argument. That second quintile own 10-year-old cars, and they’re being told they need to pay £3,000 a year to drive to work in the city, or to pick up their kids from school, in areas where there’s no public transport options.
No, they aren't. ULEZ affects a vanishingly small number of cars, and isn't related to Net Zero at all.
That's why the VED on my parents car is so small, despite being a 2l diesel.
Chris Skidmore repeatedly refuses to rule out the prospect of submitting a no confidence letter in Rishi Sunak if he waters down net zero pledges
The intervention that made me chortle was from Simon "I'll Sue You" Clarke. He wrote a strident thread on X pointing to how the Tories should lead on net zero and pointing to the job opportunities. Its popular in the red wall, he thinks.
This angle is one that luddite / libertarian / amoral rat-fuck Tories should be careful of. If we do net zero properly there is an economic bonanza to be won, new technologies and new jobs and new wealth.
For run into the ground by Thatcher and left to rot by Blair communities, that is hope. Scrapping the green crap to return to the previous policies does nothing for these communities. They just continue to rot.
Amazing. I am speaking in favour of Ding Dong Clarke.
Good decision politically by Sunak to delay some of the Net Zero targets by a few years.
Maybe the Conservatives are actually going to make a bit of a fight of Election 24 after all...
If you want to maximise the anti-Tory vote, you do what Sunak is doing.
The problem with focusing on sharp dividing lines to fight a culture war is that they have two sides, so when picking them you have to be very careful that: 1. You’re in the bigger section; and 2. You’ll motivate your side to vote while demotivating the other lot.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
It’s a massive problem for the second quintile, who can’t afford to live in the city but also can’t afford to not work there. You’re telling those people to either buy an EV or get the bus, and that message is slowly getting out to them.
Remember that Inner London is pretty much unique in having brilliant public transport options. No other UK city does, outside of very defined routes along which property prices have risen well above inflation.
The second quintile aren't buying brand new cars. I have a higher than average salary and own a 10 year old car.
Nobody is telling anybody anything. This is what a disrupted market economy looks like. That it's taking us decades to make this transition is frankly a bit pathetic. No wonder the Victorians pulled off significantly higher productivity growth.
That’s the whole point of my argument. That second quintile own 10-year-old cars, and they’re being told they need to pay £3,000 a year to drive to work in the city, or to pick up their kids from school, in areas where there’s no public transport options.
The more useful question is- why is this so?
How have we ended up with a country where second quintile = Just About Managing?
It's housing, isn't it? People paying a fortune to live miles from their jobs.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
It might for some cars but it certainly won't be all of them. Who the fuck will want a 2015 Corsa in 2030? Nobody.
ICE will inevitably become just an enthusiast thing because they will become a pain in the dick for normal people to own once petrol stations and mechanics start to disappear. My local BMW dealer has already let most of the actual mechanics go. They have minium wage drones who can do oil/filter changes and plug in a laptop for diagnostics and that's it. Any complex repairs are tackled by an increasing small number of service centres or mobile techs who go from dealer to dealer replacing fucked oil pumps or whatever.
When wifey's Ioniq EV lease was up I went out and bought a 2009 i30 as an airport car. When we're both at home it can spend a full week just sat parked here. Or it gets dumped at the airport when I am away. Either way, it was low cost, it is low concern. A perfect an car.
But - its an absolute dinosaur. And I am already wondering if it will end up being chopped in for something electric in a few years as the old used market really gets going.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
It’s a massive problem for the second quintile, who can’t afford to live in the city but also can’t afford to not work there. You’re telling those people to either buy an EV or get the bus, and that message is slowly getting out to them.
Remember that Inner London is pretty much unique in having brilliant public transport options. No other UK city does, outside of very defined routes along which property prices have risen well above inflation.
The second quintile aren't buying brand new cars. I have a higher than average salary and own a 10 year old car.
Nobody is telling anybody anything. This is what a disrupted market economy looks like. That it's taking us decades to make this transition is frankly a bit pathetic. No wonder the Victorians pulled off significantly higher productivity growth.
That’s the whole point of my argument. That second quintile own 10-year-old cars, and they’re being told they need to pay £3,000 a year to drive to work in the city, or to pick up their kids from school, in areas where there’s no public transport options.
The more useful question is- why is this so?
How have we ended up with a country where second quintile = Just About Managing?
It's housing, isn't it? People paying a fortune to live miles from their jobs.
If it isn't housing, what is it?
Housing Lack of business investment Exchange rate depreciation No investment in public transport Patchy skills eduction
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
This is a weird issue for the tories to go culture wars on as the future of cars is largely shaped by global commercial pressures that are outside their control. People who get an EV generally like them. Lots more people don't give a fuck one way or the other so the target audience for this nonsense is a small group people with an ideological attachment to ICE cars.
Our hybrid is great. Really like it. It is a big improvement on the ICE car we had before.
But I do think this is sensible from the govt as the infrastructure is just not there to support the rollout of EV's and unless they really got their skates on with regards to charging points and energy generation it won't be there in time for 2030.
I already get limited, at times, at the rate at which I can charge my EV. That will only get worse.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
It’s a massive problem for the second quintile, who can’t afford to live in the city but also can’t afford to not work there. You’re telling those people to either buy an EV or get the bus, and that message is slowly getting out to them.
Remember that Inner London is pretty much unique in having brilliant public transport options. No other UK city does, outside of very defined routes along which property prices have risen well above inflation.
The second quintile aren't buying brand new cars. I have a higher than average salary and own a 10 year old car.
Nobody is telling anybody anything. This is what a disrupted market economy looks like. That it's taking us decades to make this transition is frankly a bit pathetic. No wonder the Victorians pulled off significantly higher productivity growth.
That’s the whole point of my argument. That second quintile own 10-year-old cars, and they’re being told they need to pay £3,000 a year to drive to work in the city, or to pick up their kids from school, in areas where there’s no public transport options.
The more useful question is- why is this so?
How have we ended up with a country where second quintile = Just About Managing?
It's housing, isn't it? People paying a fortune to live miles from their jobs.
If it isn't housing, what is it?
The cost of housing is definitely top of the list, yes.
It’s the single biggest issue holding the UK back at the moment.
Good decision politically by Sunak to delay some of the Net Zero targets by a few years.
Maybe the Conservatives are actually going to make a bit of a fight of Election 24 after all...
If you want to maximise the anti-Tory vote, you do what Sunak is doing.
The problem with focusing on sharp dividing lines to fight a culture war is that they have two sides, so when picking them you have to be very careful that: 1. You’re in the bigger section; and 2. You’ll motivate your side to vote while demotivating the other lot.
Sunak is just very bad at politics.
Yes. People who are in favour of green policies will be put off voting Tory. For those who oppose green policies, it feels pretty minimal: we’re still going to take your car away from you, but just slightly later.
Good decision politically by Sunak to delay some of the Net Zero targets by a few years.
Maybe the Conservatives are actually going to make a bit of a fight of Election 24 after all...
If you want to maximise the anti-Tory vote, you do what Sunak is doing.
The problem with focusing on sharp dividing lines to fight a culture war is that they have two sides, so when picking them you have to be very careful that: 1. You’re in the bigger section; and 2. You’ll motivate your side to vote while demotivating the other lot.
Sunak is just very bad at politics.
Culture wars? The Green agenda is much more serious than culture wars. This rapid drive to decarbonize is very much connected to the economic policy especially in the cost of living crisis...
It's interesting because I saw an interview with Ken Clarke a week or so ago and he was saying the government would have to scale back on some of their green targets... Clearly he'd got wind of something...
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
It’s a massive problem for the second quintile, who can’t afford to live in the city but also can’t afford to not work there. You’re telling those people to either buy an EV or get the bus, and that message is slowly getting out to them.
Remember that Inner London is pretty much unique in having brilliant public transport options. No other UK city does, outside of very defined routes along which property prices have risen well above inflation.
The second quintile aren't buying brand new cars. I have a higher than average salary and own a 10 year old car.
Nobody is telling anybody anything. This is what a disrupted market economy looks like. That it's taking us decades to make this transition is frankly a bit pathetic. No wonder the Victorians pulled off significantly higher productivity growth.
That’s the whole point of my argument. That second quintile own 10-year-old cars, and they’re being told they need to pay £3,000 a year to drive to work in the city, or to pick up their kids from school, in areas where there’s no public transport options.
The more useful question is- why is this so?
How have we ended up with a country where second quintile = Just About Managing?
It's housing, isn't it? People paying a fortune to live miles from their jobs.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
This is a weird issue for the tories to go culture wars on as the future of cars is largely shaped by global commercial pressures that are outside their control. People who get an EV generally like them. Lots more people don't give a fuck one way or the other so the target audience for this nonsense is a small group people with an ideological attachment to ICE cars.
Our hybrid is great. Really like it. It is a big improvement on the ICE car we had before.
But I do think this is sensible from the govt as the infrastructure is just not there to support the rollout of EV's and unless they really got their skates on with regards to charging points and energy generation it won't be there in time for 2030.
I already get limited, at times, at the rate at which I can charge my EV. That will only get worse.
Entirely predictable that Britain will fail to build the infrastructure needed for EVs by 2030.
We haven't learned a thing. It's going to be RAAC and HS2 all over again.
Chris Skidmore repeatedly refuses to rule out the prospect of submitting a no confidence letter in Rishi Sunak if he waters down net zero pledges
The intervention that made me chortle was from Simon "I'll Sue You" Clarke. He wrote a strident thread on X pointing to how the Tories should lead on net zero and pointing to the job opportunities. Its popular in the red wall, he thinks.
This angle is one that luddite / libertarian / amoral rat-fuck Tories should be careful of. If we do net zero properly there is an economic bonanza to be won, new technologies and new jobs and new wealth.
For run into the ground by Thatcher and left to rot by Blair communities, that is hope. Scrapping the green crap to return to the previous policies does nothing for these communities. They just continue to rot.
Amazing. I am speaking in favour of Ding Dong Clarke.
This is something both the US and the EU have realised and embraced.
We are playing at it. Battery production in Blyth, Hydrogen hub on Teesside. There are opportunities but they are not fully being embraced.
We are just playing catch up at the moment.
We should, as a nation, lead on Net Zero. It makes sense to do this anyway, for the sake of our own energy security.
I saw a post on Linkedin that a single state owned power company in China emits more CO2 each year than the entire UK economy. If this is correct, perhaps it should be considered further in a cost/benefit analysis of how to reduce global CO2 emissions. Why is the burden of reducing global CO2 emissions be put in any way on poor people in the UK ? If rich people in the UK want to pay more tax to get to net zero then fine, but they don't have an appetite to do that. The benefits to them of the policy on cars is to get poor people with their crap polluting cars off the road to make way for for their EV's bought with government tax breaks, reducing congestion etc. It just looks to me like a disturbing form of class war.
China is building more renewables capacity annually (indeed more solar alone) than the entire UK’s installed renewables base.
The US IRA gives more in tax breaks for green investment than the entire UK corporate tax base.
This is an industrial race and we’re going to blow it. It’s like saying the US has more traditional vaccine output than the entire UK medicines industry therefore we shouldn’t invest in mRNA.
Britain is such a Luddite little kingdom of asset sweaters and accountants. What happened to the Britain that launched the Industrial Revolution? Where’s our zest for innovation gone? We really want to end up like Russia?
I don't disagree with any of this. The issue is that net zero policies just seem to be manifesting themselves in new regulation that benefit the rich and disproportionately hurt the poor whilst deliberately avoiding any of the necessary structural changes (ie rapid construction of green infrastructure). A 'luddite little kingdom of asset sweaters and accountants' sums it up well.
The absurdly regressive tax system around cars at the moment needs to go.
Sunak will go down as a worse Prime Minister than Truss.
What’s really remarkable is that he seems to have no understanding or appreciation of what business wants either. It just shows how far the Tory fuck business attitude has gone, and how mutual it’s become.
This is like the multiple u turns on tax this time last year under Truss. Utterly tin eared and terrible for investment confidence. I’d been starting to feel things were calming down and the focus of political risk of my clients was no longer on the UK. Now we’ve gone and done it again, especially for automotives.
Even if Sunak u turns on his u turn the damage is done.
The issue isn't simply that Sunak and his Tories have given up on business, they've given up on aspiration too.
There has always been an element of the right that is about protecting pre existing wealth, see HYUFD and his early 19th century values about simply caring about inherited wealth over all others.
But the modern Conservatives at their best have twinned that with aspiration. The idea anyone, regardless of background, can work their way up and then keep more of what they work for.
The Tories have given up on the latter part of the equation. Pre existing wealth without aspiration too is not a worthwhile party and should not be supported.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
This is a weird issue for the tories to go culture wars on as the future of cars is largely shaped by global commercial pressures that are outside their control. People who get an EV generally like them. Lots more people don't give a fuck one way or the other so the target audience for this nonsense is a small group people with an ideological attachment to ICE cars.
Our hybrid is great. Really like it. It is a big improvement on the ICE car we had before.
But I do think this is sensible from the govt as the infrastructure is just not there to support the rollout of EV's and unless they really got their skates on with regards to charging points and energy generation it won't be there in time for 2030.
I already get limited, at times, at the rate at which I can charge my EV. That will only get worse.
The infrastructure thing is I imagine the reason that the timescales have been moved from 2030 to 2035. People keep talking about EVs being 20% of all cars sold but the installation of new communal charging points continues at a snails pace. A company like I work for should be installing thousands of EV charging points each year, so far in 2023 we have installed 4. We work for Councils who publish documentation that they will be carbon zero by 2040, yet the projects such as rewires that we are quoting on for them do not include EV charging at public buildings such as schools, museums etc. or even their own works depots.So much talk, so little action.
Braverman framing it in terms of bankrupting the country is uncomfortably strident framing, that hints at further watering down if it politically suits them. One could almost say disgusting. Par for the Braverman course.
Why drop all these things 7 years out, and extend by 5. Seems arbitrary. Try your damnedest to get there, there is space for pragmatism in delivery, but backslide less and a little closer to the time and on minimal elements. Thus, political culture war timing.
Imagine if May had said Brexit was too hard at the outset and had managed to get the EU had agreed a 7 year timeframe for A50 talks. You know that may have had a seed of truth, but politically.... imagine. A bit more of the Brexit get on with it spirit for net zero please (but not Boris style).
If net zero opportunities there are too be, then this is managed declinist.
All in all, pragmatism is all well and good, but yuck.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
This is a weird issue for the tories to go culture wars on as the future of cars is largely shaped by global commercial pressures that are outside their control. People who get an EV generally like them. Lots more people don't give a fuck one way or the other so the target audience for this nonsense is a small group people with an ideological attachment to ICE cars.
Our hybrid is great. Really like it. It is a big improvement on the ICE car we had before.
But I do think this is sensible from the govt as the infrastructure is just not there to support the rollout of EV's and unless they really got their skates on with regards to charging points and energy generation it won't be there in time for 2030.
I already get limited, at times, at the rate at which I can charge my EV. That will only get worse.
Entirely predictable that Britain will fail to build the infrastructure needed for EVs by 2030.
We haven't learned a thing. It's going to be RAAC and HS2 all over again.
We were visited recently by friends who have recently bought a hybrid with which they are very pleased. However while they can top up at home, being able to do so when away is, they say, much more problematic. Until that is sorted, then people who would otherwise be enthusiastic will b3 cautious.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
It’s a massive problem for the second quintile, who can’t afford to live in the city but also can’t afford to not work there. You’re telling those people to either buy an EV or get the bus, and that message is slowly getting out to them.
Remember that Inner London is pretty much unique in having brilliant public transport options. No other UK city does, outside of very defined routes along which property prices have risen well above inflation.
The second quintile aren't buying brand new cars. I have a higher than average salary and own a 10 year old car.
Nobody is telling anybody anything. This is what a disrupted market economy looks like. That it's taking us decades to make this transition is frankly a bit pathetic. No wonder the Victorians pulled off significantly higher productivity growth.
That’s the whole point of my argument. That second quintile own 10-year-old cars, and they’re being told they need to pay £3,000 a year to drive to work in the city, or to pick up their kids from school, in areas where there’s no public transport options.
The more useful question is- why is this so?
How have we ended up with a country where second quintile = Just About Managing?
It's housing, isn't it? People paying a fortune to live miles from their jobs.
If it isn't housing, what is it?
Housing is a big part of it, but also Britain simply isn't as rich as it thinks it is, is reliant on imports, and so is harmed by long-term depreciation of the currency, which results from long-term weakness in the economy. Lots of the economy has been sold off to foreign rent-seekers, so the whole country has to work to provide a return for that foreign capital.
I confess to being a bit vague on the current net zero targets, particularly regarding housing and heating. Is there a simple accurate summary anywhere of what the targets are, e.g. for gas an oil boilers?
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
It’s a massive problem for the second quintile, who can’t afford to live in the city but also can’t afford to not work there. You’re telling those people to either buy an EV or get the bus, and that message is slowly getting out to them.
Remember that Inner London is pretty much unique in having brilliant public transport options. No other UK city does, outside of very defined routes along which property prices have risen well above inflation.
The second quintile aren't buying brand new cars. I have a higher than average salary and own a 10 year old car.
Nobody is telling anybody anything. This is what a disrupted market economy looks like. That it's taking us decades to make this transition is frankly a bit pathetic. No wonder the Victorians pulled off significantly higher productivity growth.
That’s the whole point of my argument. That second quintile own 10-year-old cars, and they’re being told they need to pay £3,000 a year to drive to work in the city, or to pick up their kids from school, in areas where there’s no public transport options.
Nobody is telling this. Because it isn't true. If this scare story is working, how come the Tories have just dropped 5%?
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
This is a weird issue for the tories to go culture wars on as the future of cars is largely shaped by global commercial pressures that are outside their control. People who get an EV generally like them. Lots more people don't give a fuck one way or the other so the target audience for this nonsense is a small group people with an ideological attachment to ICE cars.
You are assuming people who this will please understand it is a pointless to change the date. They don't. It is just a headline to please the base with no actual impact on the sale of cars.
Braverman framing it in terms of bankrupting the country is uncomfortably strident framing, that hints at further watering down if it politically suits them. One could almost say disgusting. Par for the Braverman course.
Why drop all these things 7 years out, and extend by 5. Seems arbitrary. Try your damnedest to get there, there is space for pragmatism in delivery, but backslide less and a little closer to the time and on minimal elements. Thus, political culture war timing.
Imagine if May had said Brexit was too hard at the outset and had managed to get the EU had agreed a 7 year timeframe for A50 talks. You know that may have had a seed of truth, but politically.... imagine. A bit more of the Brexit get on with it spirit for net zero please (but not Boris style).
If net zero opportunities there are too be, then this is managed declinist.
All in all, pragmatism is all well and good, but yuck.
Good post. It's clearly all about 'virtue' signalling to the core vote as TSE notes.
I really hope the electorate at large see through this. It's interesting the number of Tory MPs who have already raised concerns.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
This is a weird issue for the tories to go culture wars on as the future of cars is largely shaped by global commercial pressures that are outside their control. People who get an EV generally like them. Lots more people don't give a fuck one way or the other so the target audience for this nonsense is a small group people with an ideological attachment to ICE cars.
You are assuming people who this will please understand it is a pointless to change the date. They don't. It is just a headline to please the base with no actual impact on the sale of cars.
As usual TSE says what I said better and with fewer words.
Good decision politically by Sunak to delay some of the Net Zero targets by a few years.
Maybe the Conservatives are actually going to make a bit of a fight of Election 24 after all...
If you want to maximise the anti-Tory vote, you do what Sunak is doing.
The problem with focusing on sharp dividing lines to fight a culture war is that they have two sides, so when picking them you have to be very careful that: 1. You’re in the bigger section; and 2. You’ll motivate your side to vote while demotivating the other lot.
Sunak is just very bad at politics.
Culture wars? The Green agenda is much more serious than culture wars. This rapid drive to decarbonize is very much connected to the economic policy especially in the cost of living crisis...
It's interesting because I saw an interview with Ken Clarke a week or so ago and he was saying the government would have to scale back on some of their green targets... Clearly he'd got wind of something...
Yep, culture wars. Sunak is looking for dividing lines with Labour to motivate the Tory vote. This is all a (massive over) reaction to Uxbridge, nothing more.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
It’s a massive problem for the second quintile, who can’t afford to live in the city but also can’t afford to not work there. You’re telling those people to either buy an EV or get the bus, and that message is slowly getting out to them.
Remember that Inner London is pretty much unique in having brilliant public transport options. No other UK city does, outside of very defined routes along which property prices have risen well above inflation.
The second quintile aren't buying brand new cars. I have a higher than average salary and own a 10 year old car.
Nobody is telling anybody anything. This is what a disrupted market economy looks like. That it's taking us decades to make this transition is frankly a bit pathetic. No wonder the Victorians pulled off significantly higher productivity growth.
That’s the whole point of my argument. That second quintile own 10-year-old cars, and they’re being told they need to pay £3,000 a year to drive to work in the city, or to pick up their kids from school, in areas where there’s no public transport options.
Nobody is telling this. Because it isn't true. If this scare story is working, how come the Tories have just dropped 5%?
Petrol prices, there has always been a correlation between petrol prices and poll performance, petrol goes up, Governing party's poll rating goes down.
Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.
As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.
The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?
2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier
Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.
This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.
Jim Pickard 🐋 @PickardJE · 19m is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?
This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.
Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.
The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.
Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.
What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.
Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).
A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍
That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.
Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.
It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.
Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.
This is a weird issue for the tories to go culture wars on as the future of cars is largely shaped by global commercial pressures that are outside their control. People who get an EV generally like them. Lots more people don't give a fuck one way or the other so the target audience for this nonsense is a small group people with an ideological attachment to ICE cars.
Our hybrid is great. Really like it. It is a big improvement on the ICE car we had before.
But I do think this is sensible from the govt as the infrastructure is just not there to support the rollout of EV's and unless they really got their skates on with regards to charging points and energy generation it won't be there in time for 2030.
I already get limited, at times, at the rate at which I can charge my EV. That will only get worse.
The infrastructure thing is I imagine the reason that the timescales have been moved from 2030 to 2035. People keep talking about EVs being 20% of all cars sold but the installation of new communal charging points continues at a snails pace. A company like I work for should be installing thousands of EV charging points each year, so far in 2023 we have installed 4. We work for Councils who publish documentation that they will be carbon zero by 2040, yet the projects such as rewires that we are quoting on for them do not include EV charging at public buildings such as schools, museums etc. or even their own works depots.So much talk, so little action.
Easily answered, given how local government funding has been run down. It's not social care or some other *immediate* legal obligation? Forget it.
In any case, schools and museums don't currently provide petrol for the public. (There is a good case for them providing EV charging for their own vehicles, of course. Edit: but that assumes they have any.)
Braverman framing it in terms of bankrupting the country is uncomfortably strident framing, that hints at further watering down if it politically suits them. One could almost say disgusting. Par for the Braverman course.
Why drop all these things 7 years out, and extend by 5. Seems arbitrary. Try your damnedest to get there, there is space for pragmatism in delivery, but backslide less and a little closer to the time and on minimal elements. Thus, political culture war timing.
Imagine if May had said Brexit was too hard at the outset and had managed to get the EU had agreed a 7 year timeframe for A50 talks. You know that may have had a seed of truth, but politically.... imagine. A bit more of the Brexit get on with it spirit for net zero please (but not Boris style).
If net zero opportunities there are too be, then this is managed declinist.
All in all, pragmatism is all well and good, but yuck.
Nah. It's them being sensible. 2030 was always ridiculous. No charging points, cars too expensive, range issues. The reaction to the ULEZ swap your £7k at the time govt-approved diesel for £2k cash scheme always pointed to this decision.
People were nervous that with boilers and cars they would somehow soon be facing a bill of several thousand pounds to stay where they are, lifestyle-wise. Those who are rich would have shrugged it off and gone on marches (or flown over from LA to go on marches) while those struggling would have struggled.
Mr. Waters, not super up on Armenia but I believe the post-WWI plan was to have a larger Greater Armenia in much of what's now eastern Turkey (although not as big, I think, as Tigranes the Great's realm). This didn't happen as Turkey asserted itself. In turn, this has meant Azerbaijan has a fellow enemy of Armenia in Turkey and the two have a good relationship (perhaps including military hardware etc). I believe Azerbaijan also has security arrangements with Israel. And it has lots of oil in the Caspian Sea.
Armenia, meanwhile, is forced by circumstance to have alliances with Iran and Russia, but the former's mostly been spending its strength in Syria (and has/had internal ructions) while the latter's three day special military operation has culminated in Putin's former best friend marching on Moscow, and very accidentally having his plane blow up a short time thereafter.
In short, from the little I've read, it seems Armenia is utterly boned.
The car companies will end production of ICE-only vehicles well before 2030, right? So what's the problem?
ICE is a dead technology. Not only have the legacy manufacturers stopped investing in it, they're increasingly nervously looking over their shoulder at new manufacturers mainly from China.
EVs have the ability to utterly crush legacy manufacturers. Build a car which is relatively simple - very few moving parts, very few parts of any description vs a mechanical car. No service needed so no survival for expensive dealerships ripping people off with absurd service plans.
The only way they can hope to stay relevant or even survive is to transform their businesses. Legacy manufacturers are trying to maintain their high cost high faff production and service set-up, and are getting rapidly outpaced. So they will need to innovate or die.
What does that mean for the amoral rat-fuck Tories? They are literally howling at the moon. Lets say they push the cut-off date for sale of ICE back - who will be offering cars with those engines? The industry is not about to reverse course just because that lot want to cling to power in the UK.
We have made ourselves irrelevant in so many ways to global markets - it is happening. As a nation our chance was to lead this change. Instead we will be dragged kicking and screaming, then wondering why we are so poor whilst our neighbours have become so rich.
Braverman framing it in terms of bankrupting the country is uncomfortably strident framing, that hints at further watering down if it politically suits them. One could almost say disgusting. Par for the Braverman course.
Why drop all these things 7 years out, and extend by 5. Seems arbitrary. Try your damnedest to get there, there is space for pragmatism in delivery, but backslide less and a little closer to the time and on minimal elements. Thus, political culture war timing.
Imagine if May had said Brexit was too hard at the outset and had managed to get the EU had agreed a 7 year timeframe for A50 talks. You know that may have had a seed of truth, but politically.... imagine. A bit more of the Brexit get on with it spirit for net zero please (but not Boris style).
If net zero opportunities there are too be, then this is managed declinist.
All in all, pragmatism is all well and good, but yuck.
Nah. It's them being sensible. 2030 was always ridiculous. No charging points, cars too expensive, range issues. The reaction to the ULEZ swap your £7k at the time govt-approved diesel for £2k cash scheme always pointed to this decision.
People were nervous that with boilers and cars they would somehow soon be facing a bill of several thousand pounds to stay where they are, lifestyle-wise. Those who are rich would have shrugged it off and gone on marches (or flown over from LA to go on marches) while those struggling would have struggled.
The net zero by 2030 policy (Johnson's I believe) is pure pie-in-the-sky. The number of people who would be affected by phasing out ice cars and gas boilers is huge. The mooted alternatives for them quite unpalatable given the absence of suitable infrastructure for their replacements. The imagined kudos from being a "world leader" as always is pathetic and laughable. This little step to bring UK in line with Europe is inevitable, as it the pearl-clutching response of anti-tories on this site and elsewhere.
Braverman framing it in terms of bankrupting the country is uncomfortably strident framing, that hints at further watering down if it politically suits them. One could almost say disgusting. Par for the Braverman course.
Why drop all these things 7 years out, and extend by 5. Seems arbitrary. Try your damnedest to get there, there is space for pragmatism in delivery, but backslide less and a little closer to the time and on minimal elements. Thus, political culture war timing.
Imagine if May had said Brexit was too hard at the outset and had managed to get the EU had agreed a 7 year timeframe for A50 talks. You know that may have had a seed of truth, but politically.... imagine. A bit more of the Brexit get on with it spirit for net zero please (but not Boris style).
If net zero opportunities there are too be, then this is managed declinist.
All in all, pragmatism is all well and good, but yuck.
Nah. It's them being sensible. 2030 was always ridiculous. No charging points, cars too expensive, range issues. The reaction to the ULEZ swap your £7k at the time govt-approved diesel for £2k cash scheme always pointed to this decision.
People were nervous that with boilers and cars they would somehow soon be facing a bill of several thousand pounds to stay where they are, lifestyle-wise. Those who are rich would have shrugged it off and gone on marches (or flown over from LA to go on marches) while those struggling would have struggled.
The market will set the date whether we push it back or not. Whatever ICE cars are still offered will be old and outdated because its already seen as a dead technology by the manufacturers.
The net zero by 2030 policy (Johnson's I believe) is pure pie-in-the-sky. The number of people who would be affected by phasing out ice cars and gas boilers is huge. The mooted alternatives for them quite unpalatable given the absence of suitable infrastructure for their replacements. The imagined kudos from being a "world leader" as always is pathetic and laughable. This little step to bring UK in line with Europe is inevitable, as it the pearl-clutching response of anti-tories on this site and elsewhere.
It's quite amusing to see so many people on here are upset about a Boris Johnson policy being delayed lol
"The Rock" is on ITV. It's still on the SanFran bits so there's still time to jump in. Damn, Michael Biehn was good looking, before alcoholism robbed him of his looks and voice.
Michael Biehn is closer in age to Joe Biden than to Sadiq Khan
Tom Cruise is 61. Brad Pitt is 59. The world turns, and we turn with it...
Braverman framing it in terms of bankrupting the country is uncomfortably strident framing, that hints at further watering down if it politically suits them. One could almost say disgusting. Par for the Braverman course.
Why drop all these things 7 years out, and extend by 5. Seems arbitrary. Try your damnedest to get there, there is space for pragmatism in delivery, but backslide less and a little closer to the time and on minimal elements. Thus, political culture war timing.
Imagine if May had said Brexit was too hard at the outset and had managed to get the EU had agreed a 7 year timeframe for A50 talks. You know that may have had a seed of truth, but politically.... imagine. A bit more of the Brexit get on with it spirit for net zero please (but not Boris style).
If net zero opportunities there are too be, then this is managed declinist.
All in all, pragmatism is all well and good, but yuck.
Nah. It's them being sensible. 2030 was always ridiculous. No charging points, cars too expensive, range issues. The reaction to the ULEZ swap your £7k at the time govt-approved diesel for £2k cash scheme always pointed to this decision.
People were nervous that with boilers and cars they would somehow soon be facing a bill of several thousand pounds to stay where they are, lifestyle-wise. Those who are rich would have shrugged it off and gone on marches (or flown over from LA to go on marches) while those struggling would have struggled.
I suspect that the entire political class vastly underestimates the number of people who class themselves as JAMS, who can’t afford that massive bill when it simply arrives one day, in response to a boiler or a car breaking down.
A tropical wave exiting West Africa later today has been consistently forecast by some (not yet all) global weather models to develop into a hurricane in the mid Tropical Atlantic by sometime next week. What's interesting is what it does then.
Last night's GFS run had it crossing the lesser Antilles then sweeping past Southern Haiti, then Cuba then the Bahamas. This morning's has it crossing Barbados - unusually far South for a hurricane - as a borderline Cat 3 (GFS tends to undermodel so I would expect it to be Cat 3+ if it develops that far), then deepening further, skirting Haiti, slamming Jamaica head on before deepening again to a comfortable Category 5 and moving into the Gulf of Mexico, where it noodles around for a bit then heads up to New Orleans.
Very unlikely to happen exactly like this, but one to watch. SSTs are at all time record levels across much of the storm track, as is ocean heat content (of course).
Braverman framing it in terms of bankrupting the country is uncomfortably strident framing, that hints at further watering down if it politically suits them. One could almost say disgusting. Par for the Braverman course.
Why drop all these things 7 years out, and extend by 5. Seems arbitrary. Try your damnedest to get there, there is space for pragmatism in delivery, but backslide less and a little closer to the time and on minimal elements. Thus, political culture war timing.
Imagine if May had said Brexit was too hard at the outset and had managed to get the EU had agreed a 7 year timeframe for A50 talks. You know that may have had a seed of truth, but politically.... imagine. A bit more of the Brexit get on with it spirit for net zero please (but not Boris style).
If net zero opportunities there are too be, then this is managed declinist.
All in all, pragmatism is all well and good, but yuck.
Nah. It's them being sensible. 2030 was always ridiculous. No charging points, cars too expensive, range issues. The reaction to the ULEZ swap your £7k at the time govt-approved diesel for £2k cash scheme always pointed to this decision.
People were nervous that with boilers and cars they would somehow soon be facing a bill of several thousand pounds to stay where they are, lifestyle-wise. Those who are rich would have shrugged it off and gone on marches (or flown over from LA to go on marches) while those struggling would have struggled.
Hmmm - removing the obligation for wealthy landlords to install energy efficient boilers and better insulation means that their cash-strapped tenants will pay higher energy bills.
The net zero by 2030 policy (Johnson's I believe) is pure pie-in-the-sky. The number of people who would be affected by phasing out ice cars and gas boilers is huge. The mooted alternatives for them quite unpalatable given the absence of suitable infrastructure for their replacements. The imagined kudos from being a "world leader" as always is pathetic and laughable. This little step to bring UK in line with Europe is inevitable, as it the pearl-clutching response of anti-tories on this site and elsewhere.
The problem for the Tories is that there are an awful lot of anti-Tories.
The net zero by 2030 policy (Johnson's I believe) is pure pie-in-the-sky. The number of people who would be affected by phasing out ice cars and gas boilers is huge. The mooted alternatives for them quite unpalatable given the absence of suitable infrastructure for their replacements. The imagined kudos from being a "world leader" as always is pathetic and laughable. This little step to bring UK in line with Europe is inevitable, as it the pearl-clutching response of anti-tories on this site and elsewhere.
If we want to bring the UK in line with Europe then we need to be banning all ICE by 2035, rather than allowing hybrids (which is what the current policy does by 2030).
Really this story is 100% speed humps man from Outnumbered, 0% actual concern for the consumer let alone business which is yet again discovering Britain is not a reliable partner. I wonder what JLR feel about those promises they were made when they agreed to build the battery plant in Somerset.
The car companies will end production of ICE-only vehicles well before 2030, right? So what's the problem?
ICE is a dead technology. Not only have the legacy manufacturers stopped investing in it, they're increasingly nervously looking over their shoulder at new manufacturers mainly from China.
EVs have the ability to utterly crush legacy manufacturers. Build a car which is relatively simple - very few moving parts, very few parts of any description vs a mechanical car. No service needed so no survival for expensive dealerships ripping people off with absurd service plans.
The only way they can hope to stay relevant or even survive is to transform their businesses. Legacy manufacturers are trying to maintain their high cost high faff production and service set-up, and are getting rapidly outpaced. So they will need to innovate or die.
What does that mean for the amoral rat-fuck Tories? They are literally howling at the moon. Lets say they push the cut-off date for sale of ICE back - who will be offering cars with those engines? The industry is not about to reverse course just because that lot want to cling to power in the UK.
We have made ourselves irrelevant in so many ways to global markets - it is happening. As a nation our chance was to lead this change. Instead we will be dragged kicking and screaming, then wondering why we are so poor whilst our neighbours have become so rich.
What does “rat-fuck” mean? Is it “rat” as in grass or informant”? Are these people informants/rats? Is it a short way of writing “Tories who fuck rats” so “rat-fucking”? Is it a regional insult or a favoured insult by the youth? Just never heard it before and as you use it quite a lot I thought I would find out what it means. Thanks
"'Ministers are understood to have promised BMW that they would not relax targets as part of negotiations to secure a £600 million investment to build electric Minis in Oxford rather than China'."
Braverman framing it in terms of bankrupting the country is uncomfortably strident framing, that hints at further watering down if it politically suits them. One could almost say disgusting. Par for the Braverman course.
Why drop all these things 7 years out, and extend by 5. Seems arbitrary. Try your damnedest to get there, there is space for pragmatism in delivery, but backslide less and a little closer to the time and on minimal elements. Thus, political culture war timing.
Imagine if May had said Brexit was too hard at the outset and had managed to get the EU had agreed a 7 year timeframe for A50 talks. You know that may have had a seed of truth, but politically.... imagine. A bit more of the Brexit get on with it spirit for net zero please (but not Boris style).
If net zero opportunities there are too be, then this is managed declinist.
All in all, pragmatism is all well and good, but yuck.
Nah. It's them being sensible. 2030 was always ridiculous. No charging points, cars too expensive, range issues. The reaction to the ULEZ swap your £7k at the time govt-approved diesel for £2k cash scheme always pointed to this decision.
People were nervous that with boilers and cars they would somehow soon be facing a bill of several thousand pounds to stay where they are, lifestyle-wise. Those who are rich would have shrugged it off and gone on marches (or flown over from LA to go on marches) while those struggling would have struggled.
Good morning. Nice post!
tyvm
I don't think PB is a good demographic to opine on the "rat fuck Tories" who don't want to spend £40k on an EV.
Even our lefties have oodles of cash and embody the term champagne socialism.
Braverman framing it in terms of bankrupting the country is uncomfortably strident framing, that hints at further watering down if it politically suits them. One could almost say disgusting. Par for the Braverman course.
Why drop all these things 7 years out, and extend by 5. Seems arbitrary. Try your damnedest to get there, there is space for pragmatism in delivery, but backslide less and a little closer to the time and on minimal elements. Thus, political culture war timing.
Imagine if May had said Brexit was too hard at the outset and had managed to get the EU had agreed a 7 year timeframe for A50 talks. You know that may have had a seed of truth, but politically.... imagine. A bit more of the Brexit get on with it spirit for net zero please (but not Boris style).
If net zero opportunities there are too be, then this is managed declinist.
All in all, pragmatism is all well and good, but yuck.
Nah. It's them being sensible. 2030 was always ridiculous. No charging points, cars too expensive, range issues. The reaction to the ULEZ swap your £7k at the time govt-approved diesel for £2k cash scheme always pointed to this decision.
People were nervous that with boilers and cars they would somehow soon be facing a bill of several thousand pounds to stay where they are, lifestyle-wise. Those who are rich would have shrugged it off and gone on marches (or flown over from LA to go on marches) while those struggling would have struggled.
Hmmm - removing the obligation for wealthy landlords to install energy efficient boilers and better insulation means that their cash-strapped tenants will pay higher energy bills.
Yup this is a measure that benefits tenants and the government has thrown them under the bus. This whole move reeks of desperation and stupidity. Sure, people who value being able to drive past a school at 35mph and don't care if they bequeath their grandchildren a burning hellscape are the Tories' core voters, but is this really the way Sunak wants his sad little premiership to be remembered?
Nice to see my theory that Nandos bringing back their student discount is a signal that food price inflation is way down. August monthly rate of just 0.4% compared to August last year at 1.5% and next month will have an even bigger drop.
I think we have reached the end of the beginning of our inflation fight, wouldn't be surprised if the BoE paused interest rate rises for three months to see where core CPI ends up in December/January before taking a decision.
The net zero by 2030 policy (Johnson's I believe) is pure pie-in-the-sky. The number of people who would be affected by phasing out ice cars and gas boilers is huge. The mooted alternatives for them quite unpalatable given the absence of suitable infrastructure for their replacements. The imagined kudos from being a "world leader" as always is pathetic and laughable. This little step to bring UK in line with Europe is inevitable, as it the pearl-clutching response of anti-tories on this site and elsewhere.
The problem for the Tories is that there are an awful lot of anti-Tories.
Whatever. There are many non-committed "don't knows" who will see sense in this little u-turn
Braverman framing it in terms of bankrupting the country is uncomfortably strident framing, that hints at further watering down if it politically suits them. One could almost say disgusting. Par for the Braverman course.
Why drop all these things 7 years out, and extend by 5. Seems arbitrary. Try your damnedest to get there, there is space for pragmatism in delivery, but backslide less and a little closer to the time and on minimal elements. Thus, political culture war timing.
Imagine if May had said Brexit was too hard at the outset and had managed to get the EU had agreed a 7 year timeframe for A50 talks. You know that may have had a seed of truth, but politically.... imagine. A bit more of the Brexit get on with it spirit for net zero please (but not Boris style).
If net zero opportunities there are too be, then this is managed declinist.
All in all, pragmatism is all well and good, but yuck.
Nah. It's them being sensible. 2030 was always ridiculous. No charging points, cars too expensive, range issues. The reaction to the ULEZ swap your £7k at the time govt-approved diesel for £2k cash scheme always pointed to this decision.
People were nervous that with boilers and cars they would somehow soon be facing a bill of several thousand pounds to stay where they are, lifestyle-wise. Those who are rich would have shrugged it off and gone on marches (or flown over from LA to go on marches) while those struggling would have struggled.
Good morning. Nice post!
tyvm
I don't think PB is a good demographic to opine on the "rat fuck Tories" who don't want to spend £40k on an EV.
Even our lefties have oodles of cash and embody the term champagne socialism.
I hate champagne. Nobody will be buying a new ICE vehicle in 2030 anyway, and EVs won't cost £40k (they don't cost that now, and poor people don't buy new cars anyway) but whatevs.
Braverman framing it in terms of bankrupting the country is uncomfortably strident framing, that hints at further watering down if it politically suits them. One could almost say disgusting. Par for the Braverman course.
Why drop all these things 7 years out, and extend by 5. Seems arbitrary. Try your damnedest to get there, there is space for pragmatism in delivery, but backslide less and a little closer to the time and on minimal elements. Thus, political culture war timing.
Imagine if May had said Brexit was too hard at the outset and had managed to get the EU had agreed a 7 year timeframe for A50 talks. You know that may have had a seed of truth, but politically.... imagine. A bit more of the Brexit get on with it spirit for net zero please (but not Boris style).
If net zero opportunities there are too be, then this is managed declinist.
All in all, pragmatism is all well and good, but yuck.
Nah. It's them being sensible. 2030 was always ridiculous. No charging points, cars too expensive, range issues. The reaction to the ULEZ swap your £7k at the time govt-approved diesel for £2k cash scheme always pointed to this decision.
People were nervous that with boilers and cars they would somehow soon be facing a bill of several thousand pounds to stay where they are, lifestyle-wise. Those who are rich would have shrugged it off and gone on marches (or flown over from LA to go on marches) while those struggling would have struggled.
The market will set the date whether we push it back or not. Whatever ICE cars are still offered will be old and outdated because its already seen as a dead technology by the manufacturers.
It is a dead technology by the manufacturers but who on earth buys a new car. Increasingly fewer private households. Which is fine - let businesses support the initiative and that's great, so we are going in the right direction, of course we are.
But asking households to stump up thousands upon thousands for a new boiler and a new car in a few years time is ridiculous.
Not for you, though, you applaud it, with your second EV trilling around with no problem.
Braverman framing it in terms of bankrupting the country is uncomfortably strident framing, that hints at further watering down if it politically suits them. One could almost say disgusting. Par for the Braverman course.
Why drop all these things 7 years out, and extend by 5. Seems arbitrary. Try your damnedest to get there, there is space for pragmatism in delivery, but backslide less and a little closer to the time and on minimal elements. Thus, political culture war timing.
Imagine if May had said Brexit was too hard at the outset and had managed to get the EU had agreed a 7 year timeframe for A50 talks. You know that may have had a seed of truth, but politically.... imagine. A bit more of the Brexit get on with it spirit for net zero please (but not Boris style).
If net zero opportunities there are too be, then this is managed declinist.
All in all, pragmatism is all well and good, but yuck.
Nah. It's them being sensible. 2030 was always ridiculous. No charging points, cars too expensive, range issues. The reaction to the ULEZ swap your £7k at the time govt-approved diesel for £2k cash scheme always pointed to this decision.
People were nervous that with boilers and cars they would somehow soon be facing a bill of several thousand pounds to stay where they are, lifestyle-wise. Those who are rich would have shrugged it off and gone on marches (or flown over from LA to go on marches) while those struggling would have struggled.
Hmmm - removing the obligation for wealthy landlords to install energy efficient boilers and better insulation means that their cash-strapped tenants will pay higher energy bills.
Maybe. Do you think "wealthy landlords" will not pass on the cost of the new boilers to their tenants.
Comments
This is like the multiple u turns on tax this time last year under Truss. Utterly tin eared and terrible for investment confidence. I’d been starting to feel things were calming down and the focus of political risk of my clients was no longer on the UK. Now we’ve gone and done it again, especially for automotives.
Even if Sunak u turns on his u turn the damage is done.
Remember that Inner London is pretty much unique in having brilliant public transport options. No other UK city does, outside of very defined routes along which property prices have risen well above inflation.
As electric vehicles get cheaper, longer range and better each year there isn't going to be much demand. It will be like trying to buy a film camera in a digital world.
*from 2030 its only plug-in hybrids allowed I think.
Maybe the Conservatives are actually going to make a bit of a fight of Election 24 after all...
Even if his campaign is doomed, does this approach from Pence help to prevent the issue of providing support to Ukraine from becoming hopelessly polarised along political lines? Or has this polarisation already proceeded so far that it only makes it easier for his opponents to paint him as a Democrat in everything but name?
This is a huge moment, Rishi Sunak watering down the things he isn’t going to be here to do by 2030.
The US IRA gives more in tax breaks for green investment than the entire UK corporate tax base.
This is an industrial race and we’re going to blow it. It’s like saying the US has more traditional vaccine output than the entire UK medicines industry therefore we shouldn’t invest in mRNA.
Britain is such a Luddite little kingdom of asset sweaters and accountants. What happened to the Britain that launched the Industrial Revolution? Where’s our zest for innovation gone? We really want to end up like Russia?
Chris Skidmore repeatedly refuses to rule out the prospect of submitting a no confidence letter in Rishi Sunak if he waters down net zero pledges
Nobody is telling anybody anything. This is what a disrupted market economy looks like. That it's taking us decades to make this transition is frankly a bit pathetic. No wonder the Victorians pulled off significantly higher productivity growth.
Gyles Brandreth tells a story that at university his future wife’s neighbours were Mary Archer and Anne Widdecombe 👀
When gas prices were sky rocketing his view was we should not be extracting more to bring the price down.
ICE will inevitably become just an enthusiast thing because they will become a pain in the dick for normal people to own once petrol stations and mechanics start to disappear. My local BMW dealer has already let most of the actual mechanics go. They have minium wage drones who can do oil/filter changes and plug in a laptop for diagnostics and that's it. Any complex repairs are tackled by an increasing small number of service centres or mobile techs who go from dealer to dealer replacing fucked oil pumps or whatever.
So screw it. All hail Emma Holland-Lindsay. Have at the red menace.
This policy (u-turn) is very likely to start firming up some of those Conservative 2019 voters Mike has been talking about in the thread headers who are currently Don't Know/Won't Say, IMO.
The federal government recently announced several *million* dollars in federal aid to the victims of the Maui fires in Hawaii, at the same time as announcing several *billion* dollars in aid to Ukraine.
Now, most of the Ukraine ‘funding’ isn’t actual funding at all, it’s the transfer of near-obsolete weapons, alongside training and logistics - but the optics look terrible and the Administration doesn’t seem to want to try and explain things properly.
A reasonably impartial article on the issue, from Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-federal-aid-maui-hawaii-ukraine-1820598
Conservative media are going very hard on Biden over the issue of aid to Maui. https://www.foxnews.com/media/maui-residents-biden-tone-deaf-multi-million-dollar-visit-outrageous
Also the possibility of complete humiliation of the Tories in 3rd place in what used to be amongst its safest seats.
Hundred rooms with running water,
Tell me, who could ask for more?
That's unless you have a boyfriend
Who is over five foot four.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/left-leaning-labour-mp-seeks-independent-review-of-selection-contest/ar-AA1gXVgc?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=5307228095bf410486fbb19b43788bf5&ei=8
All petrol cars have been ULEZ compatible for over a decade, and diesels since 2016. In another few years there will be nearly none of the high polluting old bangers on the road.
That's why the VED on my parents car is so small, despite being a 2l diesel.
This angle is one that luddite / libertarian / amoral rat-fuck Tories should be careful of. If we do net zero properly there is an economic bonanza to be won, new technologies and new jobs and new wealth.
For run into the ground by Thatcher and left to rot by Blair communities, that is hope. Scrapping the green crap to return to the previous policies does nothing for these communities. They just continue to rot.
Amazing. I am speaking in favour of Ding Dong Clarke.
The problem with focusing on sharp dividing lines to fight a culture war is that they have two sides, so when picking them you have to be very careful that: 1. You’re in the bigger section; and 2. You’ll motivate your side to vote while demotivating the other lot.
Sunak is just very bad at politics.
How have we ended up with a country where second quintile = Just About Managing?
It's housing, isn't it? People paying a fortune to live miles from their jobs.
If it isn't housing, what is it?
Either way, it was low cost, it is low concern. A perfect an car.
But - its an absolute dinosaur. And I am already wondering if it will end up being chopped in for something electric in a few years as the old used market really gets going.
Lack of business investment
Exchange rate depreciation
No investment in public transport
Patchy skills eduction
Etc
He might be happy enough if they win, but I think he would be happier if they lose
But I do think this is sensible from the govt as the infrastructure is just not there to support the rollout of EV's and unless they really got their skates on with regards to charging points and energy generation it won't be there in time for 2030.
I already get limited, at times, at the rate at which I can charge my EV. That will only get worse.
It’s the single biggest issue holding the UK back at the moment.
It's interesting because I saw an interview with Ken Clarke a week or so ago and he was saying the government would have to scale back on some of their green targets... Clearly he'd got wind of something...
We haven't learned a thing. It's going to be RAAC and HS2 all over again.
We are playing at it. Battery production in Blyth, Hydrogen hub on Teesside. There are opportunities but they are not fully being embraced.
We are just playing catch up at the moment.
We should, as a nation, lead on Net Zero. It makes sense to do this anyway, for the sake of our own energy security.
There has always been an element of the right that is about protecting pre existing wealth, see HYUFD and his early 19th century values about simply caring about inherited wealth over all others.
But the modern Conservatives at their best have twinned that with aspiration. The idea anyone, regardless of background, can work their way up and then keep more of what they work for.
The Tories have given up on the latter part of the equation. Pre existing wealth without aspiration too is not a worthwhile party and should not be supported.
Braverman framing it in terms of bankrupting the country is uncomfortably strident framing, that hints at further watering down if it politically suits them. One could almost say disgusting. Par for the Braverman course.
Why drop all these things 7 years out, and extend by 5. Seems arbitrary. Try your damnedest to get there, there is space for
pragmatism in delivery, but backslide less and a little closer to the time and on minimal elements. Thus, political culture war timing.
Imagine if May had said Brexit was too hard at the outset and had managed to get the EU had agreed a 7 year timeframe for A50 talks. You know that may have had a seed of truth, but politically.... imagine. A bit more of the Brexit get on with it spirit for net zero please (but not Boris style).
If net zero opportunities there are too be, then this is managed declinist.
All in all, pragmatism is all well and good, but yuck.
Until that is sorted, then people who would otherwise be enthusiastic will b3 cautious.
You cannot successfully govern like that.
I really hope the electorate at large see through this. It's interesting the number of Tory MPs who have already raised concerns.
In any case, schools and museums don't currently provide petrol for the public. (There is a good case for them providing EV charging for their own vehicles, of course. Edit: but that assumes they have any.)
People were nervous that with boilers and cars they would somehow soon be facing a bill of several thousand pounds to stay where they are, lifestyle-wise. Those who are rich would have shrugged it off and gone on marches (or flown over from LA to go on marches) while those struggling would have struggled.
Mr. Waters, not super up on Armenia but I believe the post-WWI plan was to have a larger Greater Armenia in much of what's now eastern Turkey (although not as big, I think, as Tigranes the Great's realm). This didn't happen as Turkey asserted itself. In turn, this has meant Azerbaijan has a fellow enemy of Armenia in Turkey and the two have a good relationship (perhaps including military hardware etc). I believe Azerbaijan also has security arrangements with Israel. And it has lots of oil in the Caspian Sea.
Armenia, meanwhile, is forced by circumstance to have alliances with Iran and Russia, but the former's mostly been spending its strength in Syria (and has/had internal ructions) while the latter's three day special military operation has culminated in Putin's former best friend marching on Moscow, and very accidentally having his plane blow up a short time thereafter.
In short, from the little I've read, it seems Armenia is utterly boned.
Dammed hard to engineer, though.
EVs have the ability to utterly crush legacy manufacturers. Build a car which is relatively simple - very few moving parts, very few parts of any description vs a mechanical car. No service needed so no survival for expensive dealerships ripping people off with absurd service plans.
The only way they can hope to stay relevant or even survive is to transform their businesses. Legacy manufacturers are trying to maintain their high cost high faff production and service set-up, and are getting rapidly outpaced. So they will need to innovate or die.
What does that mean for the amoral rat-fuck Tories? They are literally howling at the moon. Lets say they push the cut-off date for sale of ICE back - who will be offering cars with those engines? The industry is not about to reverse course just because that lot want to cling to power in the UK.
We have made ourselves irrelevant in so many ways to global markets - it is happening. As a nation our chance was to lead this change. Instead we will be dragged kicking and screaming, then wondering why we are so poor whilst our neighbours have become so rich.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66860535
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/20/former-mayor-of-london-ken-livingstone-diagnosed-with-alzheimers-disease
Last night's GFS run had it crossing the lesser Antilles then sweeping past Southern Haiti, then Cuba then the Bahamas. This morning's has it crossing Barbados - unusually far South for a hurricane - as a borderline Cat 3 (GFS tends to undermodel so I would expect it to be Cat 3+ if it develops that far), then deepening further, skirting Haiti, slamming Jamaica head on before deepening again to a comfortable Category 5 and moving into the Gulf of Mexico, where it noodles around for a bit then heads up to New Orleans.
Almost the perfect Hollywood track. Catch it sneaking just through the gap between Yucatan and Cuba as a Cat 5 here https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs/2023092000/gfs_mslp_pcpn_watl_54.png
Very unlikely to happen exactly like this, but one to watch. SSTs are at all time record levels across much of the storm track, as is ocean heat content (of course).
Really this story is 100% speed humps man from Outnumbered, 0% actual concern for the consumer let alone business which is yet again discovering Britain is not a reliable partner. I wonder what JLR feel about those promises they were made when they agreed to build the battery plant in Somerset.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-rejects-reprieve-for-petrol-and-diesel-cars-kcnxxl7kd
(September 16th 2023)
"'Ministers are understood to have promised BMW that they would not relax targets as part of negotiations to secure a £600 million investment to build electric Minis in Oxford rather than China'."
https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1704397950384791905?s=20
I don't think PB is a good demographic to opine on the "rat fuck Tories" who don't want to spend £40k on an EV.
Even our lefties have oodles of cash and embody the term champagne socialism.
This whole move reeks of desperation and stupidity. Sure, people who value being able to drive past a school at 35mph and don't care if they bequeath their grandchildren a burning hellscape are the Tories' core voters, but is this really the way Sunak wants his sad little premiership to be remembered?
I think we have reached the end of the beginning of our inflation fight, wouldn't be surprised if the BoE paused interest rate rises for three months to see where core CPI ends up in December/January before taking a decision.
Nobody will be buying a new ICE vehicle in 2030 anyway, and EVs won't cost £40k (they don't cost that now, and poor people don't buy new cars anyway) but whatevs.
But asking households to stump up thousands upon thousands for a new boiler and a new car in a few years time is ridiculous.
Not for you, though, you applaud it, with your second EV trilling around with no problem.