A pretty comprehensive story in today’s Independent shows how split the Tories are on Copenhagen and climate change policies. The article is refreshing in that it names names, most of whom are the usual right wing suspects. For quite some time Nigel Lawson has been touring the Country pushing his Climate Change denial message and he seems to have drawn some heavyweight Tories with him (if you can call John Redwood, Peter Lilley and Ann Widdicome heavyweight).
David Davis on the other hand in a two column article produces a much more balance view. When you have waded through all the usual rhetoric about the destruction of life as ‘we know it’ if we go completely green, his arguments about doing what we can sensibly do, to reduce energy use and our dependence on oil and gas, strikes a chord with this LibDem.
Where this leaves the 23 Tory councils who have signed up to the 10:10 Climate Change Campaign (to reduce emissions by 10% in 2010) I don’t know. They are already trailing LibDem and Labour councils and this may reflect Tory scepticism at local level as well. As for Zac Goldsmith, poor chap, all he is left with is LibDems plagiarising his greatideas on climate change, and a political career suffering two hammer blows within one week. As Harold Macmillan once said ‘Events dear boy events’.
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Excuse me? which ideas have the Lib Dems “plagiarised” from Zac Goldsmith? Be specific.
I think you’ll find that in areas like energy efficiency, the Tories have done the lifting of ideas.
Well, I dunno – Zac-the-strife did do a 600 page report on the greening of business, with John Gummer as I recall. Maybe there were some ideas in it.
However, that reminds me that Gummer’s seat (Suffolk Coastal) is just across a county boundary from climate change denier Douglas Carswell’s (Harwich). It really is important that we hammer home this Tory split on climate change message ad nauseum for the next few months. Thanks to David Pollard for a timely reminder.