Zealot, crank or loser? Sunak and Starmer are locked in an election eco-war

Rishi Sunak is trying to put some clear green water between him and the Labour Party, writes John Rentoul

If Rishi Sunak can scare the voters with the huge costs of Keir Starmer’s plans, he could start to claw back some of Labour’s opinion-poll lead (Reuters)

At one level, the unexpected result in the Uxbridge by-election had nothing to do with policies on climate change. The ultra-low-emission zone (Ulez), which cost Labour the seat, is about local air quality, not net zero.

At another level, it was all about climate change. The vote – or enough of the vote to make a difference – was about the principle of paying for “green” objectives. It was seized on by net zero sceptics such as Lord Frost, Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, as evidence that British voters, although they say they agree with the target of carbon neutrality by 2050, will cease to support it if there is a price to be paid.

The result was noted in Downing Street. On Monday, Rishi Sunak was asked if he stood by the plan to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in 2030, one of the big intermediate targets between now and the middle of the century. He waffled about how “net zero is important to me”, which looked like an evasion but I don’t think it was meant to be.