Sarah Ingham is author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.
From the celebration of seven decades of exemplary service by Her Majesty the Queen to that King of the North, Andy Burnham.
The interview that the Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester gave Radio 4’s Today a week ago should be required listening for all Conservatives. To summarise: he is championing White Van Man rather than green dogma.
Alive to the cost-of-living crisis, Burnham argued that now is not the time to impose extra taxes on Manchester with a Clean Air Zone levy. Replacing older vehicles with more eco-friendly wheels is beyond the pocket of many, including tradesfolk such as painters and decorators. And new vehicles are either unavailable because of supply chain disruption or their cost has spiralled. “The world has changed since these Clean Air Zones were imposed on councils across the country.”
This statement is clearly far from bleedin’ obvious to Tory ministers whose unchanging world view comes from the windows of their chauffeur-driven limousines rather than the 211 bus. George Eustice, the Environment Secretary, has ‘instructed’ Burnham to impose the charges.
Like London’s ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone), cities’ Clean Air Zones promise a reduction in air pollution and an increase in health benefits. Burnham’s interviewer suggested that some things are more important than paying ‘a few quid each day to go into the centre of the city.’ His BBC licence-payer funded annual salary is somewhere between £190,000 – £194,999.
“Manc of the People” Burnham has put himself on the side of solo and small traders. Instead of hitting them with unavoidable taxes, he is calling for more support for them to change their vehicles. Of course, this is a political play by someone who is surely Labour’s best leader-in-waiting, but fair play to him. He is speaking up for the self-employed and small business folk in the private sector.
Meanwhile, the Johnson government gives the impression that the only sort of decorators it cares about are those who are the purveyors of £800+ rolls of golden wallpaper to the gentry. White Van Man and other voters are viewed as walking-talking-driving ATMs, good for nothing except being clobbered to pay record high taxes, including policymakers’ pet green levies.
The Burnham interview touched on another justification for more environment-related taxes: air pollution. Like much of The Science recently, this seems immutable rather than open to review or challenge. We are being morally blackmailed into paying green levies.
The BBC told us the central Manchester area produces the UK’s highest number of asthma-related hospital admissions, an assertion not entirely confirmed by data. Although there were 21,125 emergency admissions for the illness in 2020/21 in England, Asthma UK suggests this could be mitigated by ensuring all have access to basic asthma care. And as the World Health Organisation states, ‘it is often difficult to find a single direct cause’ of the increased risk of developing asthma: obesity and genetics, for example, could play a part.
While the national government and local councils are busy blaming motorists for air pollution to justify taxing them, they are far less keen to gouge restaurants and fast-food outlets. Particulate matter (PM2.5) is a main contributor to London’s pollution. According to Clearing the Air, a 2021 report by the London Assembly’s Environment Committee, about one third of PM2.5 comes from road transport, “while the remaining emissions are derived from wood burning, construction and commercial kitchens.”
“Extra taxes with that?” If Conservative politicians wince in horror at the thought of imposing a polluter-pays levy on the punters at McDonald’s, they should pay attention to being out-flanked by Mayor Burnham.
Progress towards cleaner air and lower-emission vehicles over recent decades has been immense. But listening to the green lobby, anyone would think we were still stuck in an era of smoke-belching dark satanic mills and pea-souper smogs which killed 12,000 in four days in December 1952. Never mind carbon capture, the Gretas have captured policy-makers.
Technology and not taxes will save the planet. As the Office for National Statistics states: “Total fuel used for road transport in the UK remained relatively stable from 1990 to 2017 as the fuel efficiency of newer vehicles has improved.”
Net Zero should not be a substitute for a coherent national energy policy which prioritises consistent supply at the cheapest possible price for industrial and domestic users.
Thanks to the dash from gas – and coal, oil and nuclear – and the rush to renewables, allied with all the green-related extra levies, charges and taxes, Britain has some of the most expensive energy costs in Europe. This is not just hitting householders and motorists, but manufacturing industry.
The Energy Intensive Users Group represents sectors as steel, cement and ceramics. Long before the invasion of Ukraine, manufacturers warned that Britain’s high energy costs were placing them at a competitive disadvantage compared with their European counterparts.
These industries contribute an annual £29 billion to the economy and provide 210,000 jobs directly and 800,000 indirectly. However, these Red Wall jobs could soon be exported to coal-burning Red China, because domestic consumers rather than manufacturing will benefit from the government’s recent windfall tax.
The “Energy Profits Levy” on giants like BP makes little strategic economic sense, especially in the context of the absence of any similar retrospective tax on tech titans like Amazon.
The windfall tax represents nothing but a bail-out for this government of Net Zero zealots. It is ironic that these stellar energy firms, long castigated for not being green enough, are expected to come to the rescue of ministers who consider green gospel more important than keeping the lights on. F**k business, indeed: large, medium and small.
In the week when filling up the average family car edged towards £100, we reached for our knitting needles and wondered whether the Prime Minister was about to be shoved into a tumbril and driven to the political guillotine.
As voters tighten their belts, this profligate government makes no attempt to live within its means. But too many Conservative MPs have emulated their leader and turned into green Marie Antoinettes: “Let them drive Teslas.”