I was going to open this newsletter with the absence of shame in our politics (yes, it was going to be about Liz Truss) and then last night it leaked that on Friday Rishi Sunak is going to be giving a speech where he comprehensively disassembles several key pillars of the nation’s environmental policies.
Now, I know why the government has decided to do this, I just don’t think it’s a smart move.
The logic - such as it is - is part of a concerted effort to paint Labour as extreme on climate policy, and in the pocket of protest groups like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion.
That’s what this backing down on petrol and diesel cars is about, it’s what the ULEZ argument is about, and it’s definitely what Grant Shapps ‘invoicing’ Starmer for damage done by protestors was about.
This is tragic on two levels.
One, serious people would recognise that it takes effort to build consensus around important things, and we’re in the fortunate position in this country that there is, in fact, consensus around climate change.
In the latest YouGov trackers, 65% of the public believe concerns have not been exaggerated and “the threat is every bit as real as scientists have said”, 70% believe “the world’s climate is changing as a result of human activity”.
Damaging that consensus for political ends is shortsighted, dangerous and deeply unserious.
Two, it’s tragic because back tracking on the environment is not even a popular thing to do.
61% of the public think the government is handling the issue of the environment badly, including 43% of Conservative voters, and 64% of people in the North.
Half (49%) think the government is not spending or doing enough to try to reduce carbon emissions, including 30% of Tory voters and 46% of people in the North.
Why, in the name of whichever deity, have they chosen to make their dividing issue something they are bad at?
And why, when the public want them to do more, have they decided to do less?
I don’t see how it’s a move which wins any votes the Conservative Party wasn’t already going to win. It maybe shores up some, but at the expense of more elsewhere, especially younger voters who more than average tend to want more money spent on climate issues.
It’s chopping and changing, it creates uncertainty, it pisses off businesses making investment decisions.
And these are the policies of a Conservative government, one from not even three years ago. On 18th November 2020, they announced the ban on new petrol and diesel cars form 2030 and called it “another historic step”, and Shapps was quoted as saying we were “leading the charge when it comes to the transition to zero emission vehicles”, and Alok Sharma - then President of COP26 said “I hope other nations will follow suit as the UK makes another ambitious commitment”.
Shapps also said how bringing forward the plans could create 40,000 new jobs by 2030, “particularly in our manufacturing heartlands of the North East and across the Midlands”.
Guess we’re not getting those then? What's changed other than political circumstance?
In my view, all this does is cede the high ground on one of the key issues in the public’s consciousness to the Labour Party.
The Tories look indecisive, poorly coordinated, and disconnected from reality.
And they are doing that in an effort to paint the Labour Party as a bunch of radicals.
I know, right? The Labour Party.
That group of people so deeply, almost methodically boring, it’s almost impossible to imagine them taking a position on anything, let alone a radical one.
STAT OF THE WEEK
25
The number of centenarians per 100,000 population living in Northumberland, according to the Census 2021. That’s the highest rate in the North East, and above the national average of 23 per 100,000. There are 13,924 people over the age of 100 living in England and Wales.
£17,663 per head - the North East’s disposable income
Gross Disposable Household Income is the amount of money people have after taxation and receipt of any benefits.
So, it’s not how much cash you have left at the end of the month, it’s how much cash you have for everything.
Latest figures show that in the North East, that amounted to £17,633 per head in 2021, which is 81.5% of the UK average.
That’s the lowest in England - only Northern Ireland’s figure is lower across the whole of the UK - and with a rate of growth of 3.0% since last year, the North East’s figure is also growing slower than the national average (UK=3.6%) and at the slowest rate in England.
The average EU-born migrant to the North East is 36 years old
And the average non-EU-born migrant is 37 years old, according to some new Census analysis (there’s been lots of that analysis again this week).
We’ve got a fairly old median age here in the North East - 43 - and I would assume this disparity in age is at least partially the result of a fairly small population with fairly sizable student cohorts.
Across the country, the regional splits look like this.
Across the UK, there were 10 million non-UK born residents on Census day in 2021, of which 43% held a UK passport.
The same proportion (43%) lived in owner-occupied accommodation - which is lower than the UK-born figure, but increases as time spent in the UK increases.
International migrants tend to be of better health than UK-born residents, and 44% have a higher education qualification, compared to 31% of UK-born residents.
29% of Newcastle’s travel to work area is graduates
There’s a concept known as ‘travel to work areas’, which has a proper definition, but in general terms means drawing a shape around a place where most people who live inside that shape work inside it too.
For example, Newcastle’s travel to work area covers the city, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, as far west as Corbridge, and south as far as the northern suburbs of the city of Durham, and north up into bits of Northumberland…places where lots of people work locally or travel into the city.
The ONS published some analysis yesterday looking at travel to work areas in 2018/19.
A key indicator is the proportion of graduates in the area. For Newcastle and for Hexham, it's 29%, so above the English median of 25%. For Boro and Darlo, it's 25%…so on the average…and for the rest of the region it's below it.
Shout out to Berwick (and Carlisle in the North West) who don't have any data, presumably because their travel to work areas crossover into Scotland and the data must be different.
Another regional inequality to worry about, the fact they don't even colour in North Northumberland.
What I've been thinking about this week
This week has mostly been reflections on 2000s culture, the misogyny which underpinned it and the way that enabled Russell Brand - and countless others like him.
This piece by Zoe Williams in the Guardian runs through some of the worst bits of the media environment of the time, and Marina Hyde covers her own response to ‘Sachsgate’ (which missed putting the actual victim, Georgina Baillie, at the centre) in her column this week.
The reflective mood the media has been in put me in mind of a monologue from the Scottish comedian Craig Ferguson. He hosted the Late Late Show (the US talk show which James Corden just left) from 2005 to 2014. During one of his monologues, from 2007, he explains he's uncomfortable doing what he and everyone else has been doing, attacking and making fun of celebrities - he says comedy is supposed to be about attacking powerful people, not the vulnerable ones and “my aim’s been off”.
What's remarkable is that throughout what is a heartfelt 12 minutes, he has to manage the audience…because they keep thinking it's a joke. They've been conditioned to laugh. Because it's a comedy show, because he talks about Britney shaving her head, and because that's how we were all conditioned to respond to these stories. Even when he wasn't telling jokes.
“The kind of weekend she's just had where she was checking in and out of rehab, shaving her head and getting tattoos. That's what she was doing this weekend; this Sunday I was 15 years sober.”
We were all indoctrinated, impacted one way or another - I was 19 in early 2007 when Britney was shaving her head. I remember sort of shrugging at it all, rather than responding how I should have - and hope I would now - that it was horrific. She was 25, vulnerable, and under such white hot scrutiny.
The majority of the victims who came forward for the Russell Brand investigation were younger than that either still now or when incidents happened. The power imbalance between him and them was already huge, before you add his financial weight, and before you add in the weight of prevailing culture on top of that.
We were all indoctrinated, and as men, we're all culpable.
We need to do better. So, if anyone starts questioning any of this, starts spouting the ludicrous conspiracies, or questioning motivations, or asking why now…tell them to shut the fuck up and listen to the women who've relived trauma and risked everything to come forward and tell their story.
What’s coming up in the next week or so?
Parliament is back in recess until mid-October, for party conferences, so no PMQs or anything
Reaction to yesterday's bonkers green policy stuff - maybe they'll backtrack on the backtrack?
Reaction to this morning's inflation figures - 6.7% in Aug, down from 6.8% in Jul…it had been expected to rise, so that's a positive development
House Price Index a little later today
Interest rate announcement tomorrow
Retail sales data on Friday
European comparisons with local level mortality data on the 25th - that'll be cheerful
Working with me
I’d love to hear from you if you've got any policy-aligned bits of work coming up. I've got one giant project kicking off in October, and another significant one I'm expecting to start, but I still have time for probably one more thing next month and into November.
The sort of thing I do is…
Write you some excellent content - especially on projects that are in and around policy-issues - that could be blogs, case studies, white papers, stakeholder comms, anything like that
Advise on how to present what you do to different audiences - again, I’m at my very best when that relates to policy or societal issues…or when you’re trying to speak to policymakers or the business community
Interview people for features, research or case studies
You can find out more about me on my website.
You can email me on worroom@substack.com or arlen@arlenpettitt.co.uk
I’m @arlenpettitt on Twitter, and you’ll find me on LinkedIn.