It takes hide of a certain thickness for someone whose blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Premiership still managed to precipitate an economic crisis to stand on a stage criticising other people, but then no-one does lack of self-awareness quite like Liz Truss. Yesterday, during her keynote speech at the launch of PopCon, the latest Conservative splinter group, she lashed out at ‘Net Zero zealots’.

Now let’s rewind back to those disastrous 50 days in 2022 when Truss was in charge. Faced with ambitious Net Zero targets set by her predecessors, she appointed Chris Skidmore to review the Government’s approach to Net Zero with a view to making it “more pragmatic”, seen as code for watering down policies. Skidmore, a dry-as-dust economic Tory, reported back in Jan 2023 recommending that the Government should go further, faster on the low carbon transition, for environmental and economic reasons. Skidmore eventually stepped down as an MP last month in protest at the Government continuing to pursue North Sea oil & gas exploration. Sadly, all his hard work at her behest was sadly lost on Liz.

It has also emerged recently that Big Oil sponsored climate research in 1954 long before Exxon’s 1970s research. This appears to have been ahead of its time in its conclusions, but instead of raising the alarm bell, the oil industry suppressed their own results, as did Exxon a couple of decades later. Worse than this, the companies subsequently actively sponsored climate misinformation in the late 1980s/early 1990s when the issue exploded on the global political stage. They knew that those ringing the alarm bell were right to be doing so.

Everybody who looks at climate science objectively concludes it is robust and alarming – you have to be go deep into tin foil hat territory to believe that climate change is a vast conspiracy of eminent scientists and policy makers trying to introduce communism by the back door. I suspect for a certain brand of free marketeer, their attacks on Net Zero originate from a confluence of confirmation bias, delusion and mendacity. Maybe one day they will listen to the facts – I live in hope.

Photo credit: Official Portrait of Prime Minister Liz Truss in No10 Downing Street. 10 Downing Street. Picture by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street