PERHAPS before making his latest U-turn on climate commitments, Rishi Sunak should have listened to his own family.
If he wants to spare himself a bit of embarrassment, he certainly won’t want to listen back to his own words during the Tory leadership election.
During a debate with Liz Truss, Sunak was asked to show his environmental credentials and his answer seems even more laughable now than it did at the time.
It was his moment. His chance to show the world how he could solve the climate crisis.
Instead, this is what we heard: “I will tell you advice from my two young daughters who are the experts of this in my household.
READ MORE: SNP MP Mhairi Black warns of Rutherglen by-election voter ID concerns
“And what they say to me is reducing energy usage and the benefit of that is that it saves us money as well, so government should do more of that.”
Yes Rishi, perhaps governments should indeed do that. Maybe, just maybe, you should have even listened to your own daughters prior to this latest rollback.
He even said it was important to "leave things better for our children" but it seems that's been abandoned as well.
Or maybe the Prime Minister (below) simply doesn’t care anymore.
In the same groundbreaking response, he stressed the importance of recycling even though “you need lots of bins” and placed a focus on “innovation”.
At this rate, it would be innovative to see any of the UK Government simply stick to what they said they were going to do in the first place.
It was an all-round dark day for climate debate on that occasion in fairness, as all Truss could muster up was that she was an environmentalist “before it was cool”.
It’s been reported that the PM is currently holding an emergency Cabinet meeting over the reaction to the net zero U-turn – maybe he should have his daughters join via Zoom seen as that’s where he was meant to be getting his advice from.
At this rate, maybe they should just give the speech later today.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here