Tuesday 2 October 2007

Conservatives Fight Back

At the Conservative Party Conference, Cameron has been trying to persuade Britain that his party represented "the real change" (see here for more), and environment, as usual, is a key issue. An article in the Financial Times (1st October) discusses the environmental plans in the draft manifesto. The article states that manifesto policies have been accelerated due to the prospect of a snap Autumn election. A key theme that the tories would use to fight the election is making Britain safer from the threat of climate change. New green taxes would include a new aviation tax which would help to fund the removal of stamp duty for first time house buyers, and provide extra help through the tax system for couples. So it seems that these green taxes are not being used for environmental purposes, such as investing in green technology, but rather to allow tax benefits elsewhere.

Also, the more radical proposals from the Quality of Life Document, such as a tax on out-of-town supermarket shopping have been ditched.

This all leaves us wondering how much environmental change can we really expect?

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