Net Zero - Tories Lying AGAIN

The desperation of The Blue Team, as a General Election looms ever closer and the polls get ever worse, has now extended to flat-out lying about their main opposition. This has necessitated quoting the lobby groups in and around Tufton Street as if they were reliable sources, and not yet more highly partisan bad faith actors. Today has brought an excellent example.

Just after 0800 this morning, the Conservatives feed on Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat is calling it this week, declared “Labour’s green pledge costs over 4X MORE than they previously admitted, according to new reports. Energy experts this morning say Labour’s flagship policy is now ‘infeasible’". And how many “new reports” was that, then? Er, just the one, actually.

Could we have a source for that? Here is where the balloon of remaining Tory credibility was instantly deflated. The “source” was an article on the website of the Daily Brexit, still called the Express. And the article did not contain a citation, or link to the “report” quoted. But it did tell readers “Energy experts unveil 'true' £116bn cost of Labour's 'infeasible' 2030 net zero plan”.

And there is the warning sign, the hint that this may not actually be true: the use of quote marks to do the heavy lifting. Even the supporting article doesn’t make sense: “The money required is more than double the funds required under a net zero by 2035 scenario, modelling by Aurora Energy Research for think tank Policy Exchange has said”. TUFTON STREET ALERT! Do go on.

“Iain Mansfield, director of research at Policy Exchange, said: ‘To decarbonise the power grid by 2030 is simply not feasible. Given the state of the public finances it is hard to see how any Government could find the additional £93 billion required ‘ but even if the money were made available, it is simply not possible to build new renewable generation at the pace required’”.

But that assumes all the funding in the Labour proposal will be provided out of taxpayer funds, which it will not. Even the idea that the name Aurora Energy Research makes the Policy Exchange stance credible is rendered useless when we read “The paper’s author, Thomas Cabot, research fellow at Policy Exchange”. ONE OF THEIR OWN RESEARCH FELLOWS WROTE IT.

How much credibility does Policy Exchange have in the bank? Very little, sadly - ever since Tim Leunig’s wacko assertion that cities in the north of England, like Liverpool, had failed, and therefore their inhabitants should all move to London. Another fact not helping its credibility is that one of the group that founded Policy Exchange was Michael “Oiky” Gove.

Nor is this snippet from Policy Exchange’s Wiki entry: “Transparify's report ‘How Transparent are Think Tanks about Who Funds Them 2016?’ rated them as 'highly opaque,' one of 'a handful of think tanks that refuse to reveal even the identities of their donors’ … In 2022 it was revealed that the organisation is partially funded by ExxonMobil”.

Worse, and a sure sign that the Tories really, really want this hokum to be true, at 1100 hours came the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog to tell anyone not yet asleep “Labour’s bonkers £116 Billion Black Hole … LABOUR’S BLACK HOLE JUST GOT BIGGER”.

It did? How so? “Analysis by Aurora Energy Research has found that Starmer’s pledge to decarbonise Britain’s electricity grid by 2030 will cost £116 billion over the next 11 years. More than double the cost of the government’s current target of 2035 … The report concluded that even if Labour scraped the funds together, the policy is still ‘unfeasible’ due to the supply chain constraints, skills shortages and lead times”. There was more.

“No one believes going green is possible by 2030, though Starmer will bankrupt us trying. As Bim Afolami said, ‘Labour’s unfunded spending commitments just got bigger’”. No citation. Not even for the quote from Afolami. No mention of Policy Exchange. So much for the provisional wing of CCHQ and its dubiously talented convocation of lame propagandists.

Thus the true level of Tory desperation. It still won’t move the poll numbers.

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