I switched to electric because I wanted to be environmentally responsible. This latest move feels like a betrayal of the families trying to reduce their carbon footprint.
As far as Mr Moore is concerned, being “environmentally sound” should go hand in hand with a lifetime of being exempt from road tax and fuel excise duty. Anything else is sheer betrayal:
Labour urgently needs cash, and EV drivers are easy targets [what, just like the rest of us? Ed.] I simply cannot see what they hope to achieve with this measure. The pay-per-mile tax is due to be announced by Rachel Reeves on November 26th, but I doubt it will survive contact with the public: it’s wildly unpopular and completely at odds with everything we’ve been told about Labour’s commitment to the environment.
Of course, it rather depends on what he means by “the public”. Most car owners are still driving ICE vehicles and more than a few of them don’t think too kindly of those who can afford EVs being exempt from stumping up like the rest of us. Suddenly, the plot thickens though:
I admit I have a personal stake. I’m Chairman of a local community energy company running three solar farms, and I firmly believe we need to minimise our dependence on fossil fuels and stop polluting the planet.
I bought a Nissan Leaf in 2020, as one of the early wave of EV owners. Back then, my wife Maura and I were running a company – I’m a retired biochemist – and at the time the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was offering good incentives to companies to adopt EVs, with low tax rates and a few thousand off the price.
Having an EV made “perfect sense”. Of course it did, just like the solar farms in his company which presumably benefited from taxpayer-funded subsidies:
For us, it made perfect sense as we mainly drove short distances and could charge the car overnight when electricity was cheaper. With no car tax and no petrol costs, it was economically and environmentally sound.
However, apparently unaware of the environmental cost of manufacturing EV cars and generating electricity on the numerous occasions when the sun is blotted out and the wind doesn’t blow, Mr Moore also seems to be unaware that the whole point of hybrids is not having to be stuck in a layby with a flat battery, because they handily include a petrol tank:...<<<Read More>>>....
