Whitewavemark2
freya your posts are very Trumpian in their opinions. Is that deliberate or accidental?
Your posts are very opinionated, is that deliberate, or just your normal manner.
“UK CO2 has decreased by2.4% and greenhouse gas by 2.2% that was in 2022 so would be more now. Until people start throwing aspersions on China, “
Only because we now import so many of our goods from overseas, we do not consume less we’ve just exported our pollution.
When we actually consume less we can claim credit, I’m not expecting that to happen soon
Freya5
Whatever Labour say,if they push ulez in every city and town as rayner suggests, their vote will drop. People will not vote for a party that will destroy their livelihoods and business, because they cant afford a new car or van. Air pollution in London underground, where many people travel on a daily basis, is at an all time high ,but what is kahn doing about that,nothing. Ulez is a cash cow for kahn, and all of those councils that are enforcing it, nothing to do with climate change, as they are pushing more cars into concentrated areas, causing more pollution, because people cannot afford the charges..
Beeb journalist jetting to Spain to record a high temp, couldn't find it among the usual temp for Spain.then hypocritical saying we shouldn't fly.what.
Greece have stated that the fires were started through human carelessness, or deliberately. Of course high temp of fires, raise temp. Climate change is happening, I'm not denying that,it has done since the earth was formed. UK CO2 has decreased by2.4% and greenhouse gas by 2.2% that was in 2022 so would be more now. Until people start throwing aspersions on China, India and other high polluting countries, I'll do what I can,but terrifying people as the UN are trying to do, a way to force countries into their ideology.
What??!!
Expanding on Freyas post I think it is inevitable that emission zones are going to expand, Bristol has one, has Birmingham been activated yet, not sure. Moreover because EVs don’t pay fuel tax we will see road pricing, new cars already have the technology to record where and when you travel.
Also speed can be controlled automatically, so exceeding speed limits will not be possible, that will take the fun out of motoring for many, maybe reduce the number of high performance gas guzzlers too.
freya your posts are very Trumpian in their opinions. Is that deliberate or accidental?
Remind you, yet again, Freya, that ULEZ was tory policy, devised by Johnson when he was Mayor of London and its expansion into the London suburbs ordered by Grant Shapps, the then tory transport minister, in return for money to support TfL during lockdown.
Such very short and unretentive memories you tory folks have...
Whatever Labour say,if they push ulez in every city and town as rayner suggests, their vote will drop. People will not vote for a party that will destroy their livelihoods and business, because they cant afford a new car or van. Air pollution in London underground, where many people travel on a daily basis, is at an all time high ,but what is kahn doing about that,nothing. Ulez is a cash cow for kahn, and all of those councils that are enforcing it, nothing to do with climate change, as they are pushing more cars into concentrated areas, causing more pollution, because people cannot afford the charges..
Beeb journalist jetting to Spain to record a high temp, couldn't find it among the usual temp for Spain.then hypocritical saying we shouldn't fly.what.
Greece have stated that the fires were started through human carelessness, or deliberately. Of course high temp of fires, raise temp. Climate change is happening, I'm not denying that,it has done since the earth was formed. UK CO2 has decreased by2.4% and greenhouse gas by 2.2% that was in 2022 so would be more now. Until people start throwing aspersions on China, India and other high polluting countries, I'll do what I can,but terrifying people as the UN are trying to do, a way to force countries into their ideology.
This government is full of empty promises. Its a no from me
The thrust of Tory policy seems to be spend less on environmental policies, pushing back on liberal policies, immigration as well and they are banking on that being a vote winner.
It certainly is a clear alternative to Labours likely policies, it will appeal to many who voted for Brexit.
CrochetBliss
Grantanow
Lord Frost says warming will be good for the UK. Where do the Tories get these people?
Hopefully lord frost will melt
😄😄
Grantanow
Lord Frost says warming will be good for the UK. Where do the Tories get these people?
Hopefully lord frost will melt 
Lord Frost says warming will be good for the UK. Where do the Tories get these people?
I have just heard the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres plead for immediate radical action on climate change, saying that record-shattering July temperatures show Earth has passed from a warming phase into an “era of global boiling”.
A blistering heatwave is sweeping the northern hemisphere, including parts of Europe and the Americas, with record-high temperatures triggering devastating wildfires in countries such as Greece, Italy and Algeria along the Mediterranean.
“For the entire planet, it is a disaster,” he said, noting that “short of a mini-Ice Age over the next days, July 2023 will shatter records across the board.”
“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”
According to ERA5 data from the European Union-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service, the first three weeks of July have been the warmest three-week period on record and the month is on track to be the hottest July and the hottest month on record.
The previous hottest month on record was July 2019.
With large swathes of the United States facing a record-breaking heatwave, President Joe Biden on Thursday called the soaring temperatures from climate change an “existential threat”.
“I don’t think anybody can deny the impact of climate change anymore,” he said at the White House.
The Conservative war on Big Everything
By Robert Shrimsley
The torch has been dropped by a new generation. A decade after David Cameron told his party to “get rid of all the green crap”, Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives are again ready to water down their environmentalism.
Following a by-election win in Uxbridge attributed to a backlash against the Ulez tax, imposed by London’s Labour mayor on polluting vehicles, the Tories see an opportunity and a wider strategy. Standing firm against costly green policies might not only work electorally but could also be the glue that cements a political campaign against liberal orthodoxy, or what one might call the battle with Big Everything.
To explain this strategy one must first look at the Tory electoral predicament. Sunak has two problems. The first is that parties win elections by finding dragons to slay. But voters appear to have concluded that his government is the problem that needs solving. The second threat is that disillusioned supporters simply don’t vote. So Sunak needs a new dragon to energise his base.
All of which brings us to Big Everything, the outlines of which are already apparent in Sunak’s attacks on Labour. It formalises the Tory assaults against the “blob”, a term that now encompasses all of Whitehall, “lefty” lawyers and judges, the media, green campaigners, regulators, universities and trans-rights campaigners. In short, the woke liberal establishment. Brexit, they argue, freed the UK from Brussels, but its leftist ideologies are still embedded. Naturally, it is these dark forces rather than any governmental failings that hold back Britain.
The argument was put most recently by Paul Goodman, the influential editor of ConservativeHome, who said that the Tories need to be democracy’s champions against an “Ascendancy” — “a new ruling class of cartel capitalists, change-resistant public services, quangocrats, regulators, government-funded lobbyists and . . . judicial review”. Also on his list were environmental lobbyists.
Hence Big Everything. It is the Big State, Big Media, Big Quango, Big Finance, Big Judiciary, Big Green — big anything else you don’t like. There are many problems with this, not least that the Tories have already had 13 years in power to fix it. What’s more, Conservative policy is itself increasingly centralised and big state. But the big state is OK when it speaks through the voice of Michael Gove. And elections are rarely about ideological consistency.
Of course, Tories have been denouncing the “blob” for years with little impact. That is why net zero is crucial. It brings an immediacy and direct financial impact to the argument. The Ulez fight has persuaded Conservatives that voters can be mobilised against heavy-handed green policies that cost them money and that this can be built up into a wider attack on left elites forcing unnecessary costs on the public.
There are risks in this for the Tories, given clear public support for the climate agenda backed by every Tory premier from Margaret Thatcher to Boris Johnson. Many Tory MPs also fear a retreat from net zero. But Sunak, in the words of one friend, is “not that interested” in the issue. So his tactic is to insist he remains committed to net zero goals while not doing enough to meet them, what he calls “proportionate and pragmatic” progress. The upshot is that new oil licences will be approved, costly green measures delayed.
The strategy carries an obvious threat to opponents. Keir Starmer may have cut back Labour’s green ambitions for financial reasons but they remain central to the party’s offer. Referring to Ulez, Starmer warned that Labour should think hard about any policy the Tories highlight in their own leaflets. Climate policy will no longer go unchallenged, so measures with costs will need to be rigorous, charges well justified and compensation schemes more generous.
If the Conservatives can depict Labour as the political wing of Big Everything, a party in thrall to statist interference, climate and liberal ideologues, they have a strategy. Sunak is already trying to tar Starmer by equating him with disruptive Just Stop Oil protesters and immigration lawyers.
More broadly, the attack has power because it contains a kernel of truth. Voters can see the areas where liberal political values have morphed into unchallengeable articles of faith. Before Ulez, the argument seemed abstract; now Tories can put a price on it.
Mishandled green policy offers Tories the tip of the spear if they can depict a lack of moderation as heralding extra taxes. Only they, the argument will run, can restrain the well-heeled liberal elites from piling costs and regulations on ordinary people. The appeal of pragmatism over dogma is obvious. We’d all prefer a pathway to heaven that doesn’t involve dying.
On its own, the green issue is not enough, especially since the Tories must tread carefully and not appear to be climate change sceptics. But the attack can widen. So the Tories are pragmatists while Labour lapses into the elitist ideologies that raise costs and taxes on drivers, on pensions or on inheritance.
You don’t have to buy the argument, or forget the Tories’ own ideological rigidities, to see its potential power. Can it save the Conservatives? Probably not, but it might give them a dragon.
Labour, meanwhile, will be forced to do more work testing and justifying its policies. But then, that is no bad thing for a party that aspires to govern.
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