Isn't Rishi Sunak shooting himself in the foot?

[DavidGYoung]

If you were in Rishi Sunak's shoes, would you do what he has done regarding his apparent dilution of net-zero strategy?

He could double down on net zero and shout his proposals from the rooftop. After he loses the next election, the moment Labour compromise in any way for the sake of the economy he can dine out on his green credentials for the rest of his political career. Does Rishi understand party politics or does he really think he is in with a chance of winning the next election?

 

[Athanasius]

A man who doesn't know the price of a loaf of bread? Both parties should burn for passing the OSB, nevermind any of the other evil-with-a-smile they've performed.

[RabbiKnife]

Is there any reason any rational human would expect any politician of any political stripe to do anything other than pander or speak or act only because of what the latest internal polling data suggests?

The world lost statesmen and actual leaders years ago.

Same thing happened in the Roman Senate, and that didn't turn out too well.

[DavidGYoung]

That, RabbiKnife, is precisely my point. A conscience-free politician in Rishi Sunak's shoes would see that, on the basis of previous polling data alone, he is definitely missing a trick here.

[Fenris]

A conscience-free politician in Rishi Sunak's shoes

It is unclear to me what "conscience" has anything to do with this situation, could you elaborate?

[DavidGYoung]

Let's imagine that instead of Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister of the UK was simply a 'Me, me, me!' opportunist with no ethical values whatsoever. It would still make sense to keep to net-zero pledges when faced with almost-certain election defeat.

It follows that the strategy would work for any other politician facing defeat, with or without any scruples. It's simply a standard play in party politics.

[Athanasius]

Scrapping the net zero pledges will win the Tories some votes, especially if Labour plan to put them back. With a CO2 emissions rate of ~<1% of the world's total, last I checked, a lot of the policies were utterly stupid to begin with.

But the UK is known for doing utterly stupid things. Like Brexit, and the OSB being passed, and RAAC, and all those unelected Prime Ministers from a parasitical political party. All sorts of fun stuff.

[Fenris]

It would still make sense to keep to net-zero pledges when faced with almost-certain election defeat.

So it's a shill for votes, basically.