Pull the other one, Mr Clegg, it has got bells on it

Dave Powell

07 August 2012

That 'thunk' sound you may have heard yesterday morning was my chin thudding into the desk. Nick Clegg had just stood up and utterly absolutely promised that - check this out - the whole of the Government is "unreservedly committed" to the green economy.

Well you could have poked me with a turbine blade and called me Samantha. I couldn't believe it, and neither could most other  folk.

Now, it may well be the case that some players in Government really are committed to a green economy. Foreign Secretary William Hague, for example, has challenged the Prime Minister to take much stronger leadership on the environment.  And there are good things going on. According to the CBI, green business is now responsible for some 8 per cent of UK GDP - even though, as the CBI implies, this is as much in spite of Government policy as because of it.

But come off it, Mr Clegg: all of Government? Unreservedly committed?  

This is a Government where not long after taking up his new job, Energy Secretary Ed Davey gave the green light to new gas power stations that could belch forth without emissions restrictions until 2045. Where the Prime Minister, despite the occasion flash of helpful intervention, has in general gone rather quiet on climate change.

And as for 'unreservedly'? The Chancellor happily expresses reservation after reservation about the green economy whenever he opens his mouth, whilst making come-hither noises and pretty-eyes in the direction of companies that want to dig oil and gas out of the ground and set fire to it: 

• Budget 2012: Osborne says "gas is cheap", that renewables aren't, and that since getting out his chequebook gives him a rash, he won't be rushing to support them
• Conservative conference 2011: Osborne says if he has anything to do with it the UK won't go any faster than the rest of Europe (which doesn't have the UK's legally binding carbon targets) in cutting emissions
• Autumn financial statement 2011: Osborne says protecting nature can impose "ridiculous costs on British business"

It took 24 hours for Clegg's claim to be undermined by the Government itself. This morning Osborne, Davey,  and Business Secretary Vince Cable stood proudly alongside the oil and gas industry as swathes of new fossil fuel investment was revealed. A lot of that investment is only happening in the first place because of the Chancellor's exceedingly generous tax breaks for fossil fuels.

So Clegg's statement was and is bobbins.  I can only presume one of the following is going on:

1. Mr Clegg is coming over all peculiar and might need to sit down in a dark room for a bit
2. Mr Clegg has a rather different working definition of a "green economy" to me: maybe he thinks as long as there's a few wind turbines around the place, that's the green economy sorted
3. Mr Clegg has a rather different working definition of "unreservedly" to the rest of us
4. Mr Clegg is up to something.

Suffice it to say, I hope it's the latter. Fingers crossed Clegg was deliberately standing up for one of the few areas in which, perhaps, the Liberal Democrats retain a good name - the environment. With the coalition arrangements in bother, I hope Clegg was whumping a flag in the sand - a gimlet-eyed challenge to coalition colleagues to stand up for the green economy, rather than a strictly accurate assessment of what's actually going on at the moment.

That's exactly what we're asking him to do, after all. So yes, I hope it's that.

Otherwise he's just being silly.