Going Dutch means that each person has to pay their own expenses. In a restaurant, if one person chooses the expensive lobster and the other three have a pizza or pasta then most people would think that the extravagant individual should pay their fair share rather than receive a subsidy from the others.
The Government has subsidised electric cars for years but, now that the market is sufficiently mature, why should working class people subsidise the wealthy so that their second car is electric? Why, indeed, should we want the British car industry, as we recognise it today, be shut down in the hope that it will be replaced en masse.
I have often spoken out against a certain type of fanatical activist environmentalist belief system. Money is no challenge to them because they insist on spending your money. Often, these activists are the beneficiaries of position, power or money.
We only have to look at one of the founders of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, Dale Vince, who donated £1.5 million to the Labour Party. His company received massive taxpayer subsidies since Labour introduced them in 2002 and were later overseen by Ed Miliband when he was Secretary of State for the Environment.
Politicians should be cautious of the people wishing to pedal influence and their motivations.
People can now clearly see that they are being scammed. If some people want to feel virtuous about drawing power from wind turbines then fine but the should not expect their neighbours to subsidise their choice. These same people will likely not tell you that, once they breakdown, wind turbines and solar panels cannot be recycled and so have to go into land fill.
Expensive energy adds to your cost of living and puts unfair pressure on working class families. It also forces British industry overseas and so costs us good quality jobs in manufacturing.
As he does not drink, the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has not had to reply upon Dutch courage but has done the sums and is cautiously but robustly challenging the agenda.
When the electricity generation and grid infrastructure needed for electric cars and heat pumps does not exist, we should be cautious, as the Prime Minister is, of forcing everyone down that path. That they are expensive options for transport and home heating should be a caution also.
There is a lesson from the Netherlands and there has been a revolt leading the remarkable success of a farmers protest party who opposes their Government’s anti-farming agenda.
There is a sense of hubris in so many politicians that they think the people just have to do as they are told, that they are mighty enough to save the planet or can even control its climate to the correct temperature.
Centuries ago, the Dutch built their dykes to claim land from the sea. They sought to understand and cope with nature not to be her master.
The Prime Minister has chosen pragmatism over ideology and vested interests.
This article was originally published in the Wigan Observer on 30th September: https://www.wigantoday.net/news/politics/chris-green-mp-our-pm-is-chall…
