It is suicidal for Tories to bludgeon us into complying with Net Zero pledges
Boiling rage
THE Tories are grossly underestimating the price they will pay if they bludgeon the public into complying with “Net Zero” pledges they made too rashly.
It is suicidal to set arbitrary dates — for banning petrol car sales, gas boilers or for Net Zero itself — without thinking FIRST how to take the public with you.
In nine years battery cars will be the only new ones available. But they currently have derisory mileage ranges and are so overpriced even the Government grant barely makes a dent. That’s before the infamous charging problems.
With those key questions unanswered, No10’s attention flits to gas boilers.
For decades these have heated homes efficiently in a country where winters can be bitterly cold. Now every home will need to be rid of them by 2035.
Grants will be available to install a “heat pump”. But those are also eye- wateringly expensive — and arguably inadequate for many UK properties.
The Government has ruled out fining those refusing to switch. But it looks sure to fleece gas users in other ways, perhaps via punitive stealth taxes. But if we DO all shift to electricity, how will our power plants and windfarms cope?
Brits, including Sun readers, are very environmentally conscious. This country has made huge strides on the issue in the past decade, all ignored by Extinction Rebellion’s shrill saboteurs.
The Sun’s eco campaigns focus on cost-free or money-saving changes we can all make. But Brits cannot or will not find thousands of pounds to fulfil some random Government promise made to lure green votes or impress others at the COP26 climate conference.
Tory MP Steve Baker warns Downing Street is courting a Poll Tax-style backlash unless it levels with voters about the costs of achieving Net Zero.
Time to come clean, Boris.
Hotspot clots
IT has shot itself in the foot a few times over the past year. But the Government’s new fiasco over the “advice” to Indian variant hotspots is a bewildering blunder.
It may not be wrong to issue new edicts in, say, Bolton, where cases are soaring. Especially with hospitalisations there rising too, mainly among the unjabbed.
But, regardless of whether it’s justified, why merely update a website and keep schtum? And why such mixed messages?
No wonder locals are confused and their councils and MPs in open revolt.
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Nick of time
THE BBC rehired the man who tricked Princess Diana into the interview that ultimately changed the course of her life.
But it was ready to fire Nick Knowles from DIY SOS over a Shreddies ad.
See the problem? We’re glad they did in the end . . . after The Sun’s campaign.
The Beeb’s in enough bother without hammering another nail in its own coffin.