Sussex Energy Group at SPRU

Why Rishi Sunak made yesterday’s announcement about delaying the ban on new petrol and diesel cars and weakening the gas boiler phase out is fairly obvious – an attempt to drive a wedge between the Conservatives and Labour. This strategy is also fairly obviously built on Tory success in using the ULEZ for this function in the Uxbridge by-election, and with the possibility that manipulation of social media can again play a part.

But the real question is why it has taken so long for such a strategy to emerge. The UK liberal economic model is built on flexible labour markets, for which read low pay and economic insecurity for a large section of the population, which in turn means that any suggestion of climate policies that impose costs on people is risky. The evidence is clear that people’s attention to these costs increases during phases of economic turmoil. At the same time, our first-past-the-post electoral system produces a highly competitive political culture and incentives for parties to attention to the demands of voters in marginal constituencies over delivering public goods.