![]() ![]() The slight easing announced last week in the windfall profits tax regime, effectively halving the tax burden should the oil price fall sustainably below a certain level, is in this regard a step in the right direction. It therefore makes perfect sense to be trying to extend the life of North Sea production for as long as possible. Yet there is now widespread acceptance that fossil fuels have a rather longer future than previously thought, and not just because of the practicalities and costs of going wholly green in an economy which is still 80pc dependent on fossil fuels for its energy needs.Ĭoncern over security after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is giving hydrocarbons a new lease of life. Britain would be a pariah if it tore up the objective. The international pressure, moreover, makes repudiation all but impossible. This doesn’t mean the Tory leadership has abandoned the goal, even if there is not a snowball’s chance in Hades of meeting it. Belatedly, the Tories have become a little more pragmatic on net zero even as Labour seems determined to double down on its demands. Culture wars and populism rather than the needs of the economy all too frequently seem to dictate the Conservative policy agenda.Įxcept in this regard. Some of the same thinking colours business attitudes to the Tories post the “original sin” of Brexit. The Democrats, by contrast, represented the future – the new money and mores of big tech. ![]() There is a line in the TV drama/comedy Succession where one of the siblings, Roman Roy, questions why his father’s media interests still support the Republicans, who as far as he could see, were now the party of the “working class”. Boris Johnson’s infamous “f- business” remark has not been forgotten however effective Rishi Sunak and his Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, may have been in rebuilding bridges, the Tories are widely thought by business and City elites to have lost the plot on the economy and much else besides. The lobbying goes both ways: Labour wants credibility with the business community, but for business lobbies, it’s mainly about stopping an incoming Labour government from doing stupid things. If business is leaning towards Labour, it is mainly about cynical recognition of the way the electoral winds are blowing, not because Labour policies are finding favour. Labour leads heavily in the polls, but this is much more down to disillusionment with the incumbents than any enthusiasm there might be for the alternative.Īs part of their attempt to sanitise the brand after its near-death experience under Jeremy Corbyn, Sir Keir Starmer and his shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have been cosying up to business in the same way as Tony Blair and his entourage did in the run-up to Labour’s landslide election victory in 1997.īut this time is different there is very little sense of a new beginning, as there was back then, or any genuine warming to what Labour has to offer. With not much more than a year to go before the likely date of the next general election, a little clear water is finally emerging between the ruling Conservative Government and the Labour Opposition on tax, spend and net zero. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |