{"id":83837,"date":"2025-07-09T08:20:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T07:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=83837"},"modified":"2025-07-09T08:20:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T07:20:12","slug":"the-reckless-irresponsibility-of-right-wing-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/07\/09\/the-reckless-irresponsibility-of-right-wing-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"The reckless irresponsibility of right-wing politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Telegraph reports this morning that the new <a href=\"https:\/\/obr.uk\/frs\/fiscal-risks-and-sustainability-july-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fiscal Risks and Sustainability Report<\/a> from the Office for Budget Responsibility suggests that there will be what it obviously thinks to be a horrendous cost from tackling climate change:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Britain\u2019s move to a\u00a0<a class=\"ck-custom-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/business\/2025\/07\/06\/how-net-zero-stupidity-inspired-an-nhs-spending-spree\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">net zero economy<\/a>\u00a0will cost taxpayers more than \u00a3800bn over the next two decades, the UK\u2019s fiscal watchdog has said.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"ck-custom-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/business\/2025\/07\/08\/britain-vulnerable-pension-triple-lock-costs-treble\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)<\/a>\u00a0said government plans to limit climate change will cost the public purse \u00a330bn every year until at least 2051, as tax revenue from the sale of petrol and diesel fuel dries up.<\/p>\n<p>This includes nearly \u00a39.9bn of spending every year on tech investments \u2013 for example updating the electricity grid \u2013 as well as \u00a320.5bn in revenue losses from declining fuel duty from petrol cars, as electric vehicles (EV) become more common.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What it fails to adequately note is that the cost of inaction is vastly higher. Even the scenario they note allows for a rise in temperature that will produce fundamental climate change, change to agriculture and massive inward migration as many in the world have to flee uninhabitable areas. But no action will, in the opinion of the OBR, result in scenarios where there is \"an additional [cost of] 137 per cent of GDP (if there is higher damage to GDP from climate change), compared to the 2024 <i>FRS <\/i>long-term baseline projections.\"\u00a0 To put that in context, that is a cost of more than \u00a33,3 trillion, and an entirely unliveable country.<\/p>\n<p>Fraage, Badenoch and the Telegraph are future deniers. I chose the \u00a3800 billion. They clearly want none of it, and that is the reckless irresponsibility of right-wing politics writ large for all to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Telegraph reports this morning that the new Fiscal Risks and Sustainability Report from the Office for Budget Responsibility suggests that there will be what<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/07\/09\/the-reckless-irresponsibility-of-right-wing-politics\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,204,212,35,108,106,214],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-economic-justice","category-economic-truths","category-economics","category-environment","category-politics","category-reform"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83838,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83837\/revisions\/83838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}