Rishi Sunak spent the start of this week in Aberdeen where he announced new licences for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea. It followed full-throated opposition to Labour’s London low-emission zone and a renewed zeal for taking on “anti-motorist” councils.
As the Guardian’s political correspondent Kiran Stacey tells Nosheen Iqbal it marks a new phase in Sunak’s premiership. Having pulled off an unexpected victory in the Uxbridge byelection (dominated by the London emissions zone issue), he has deftly pivoted to big announcements criticised as anti-environment. And those criticisms are not coming just from the opposition but within his own party too.
With perhaps less than a year until the next election, how voters prioritise the climate crisis as an issue could be critical to the result. And Sunak is gambling that there are enough who would prefer to pay less to drive polluting vehicles.
Photograph: Euan Duff/PA
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