Voters are finally waking up to net zero’s miserable impact, says Ann Widdecombe

Anti-Ulez protest (Image: Getty) Three cheers for the citizens of Uxbridge who gave both Sadiq Khan and Keir Starmer a severely bruised nose over Ulez (ultra low emissions zones). We can expect the London mayoral election next year to show a similar preoccupation with the impact of green policies on ordinary lives and the only candidate for the post so far to have done a proper cost-benefit study of Ulez is Howard Cox of Reform UK and founder of Fair Fuel. His study showed a cost to London businesses of approximately £200million. At last voters are waking up to the miserable and disproportionate impact of the Gadarene rush to embrace net zero. People who are already anxious over their budgets do not want to have to contemplate costly new boilers and electric cars. Furthermore, people know that Britain contributes only about 1 percent towards global carbon emissions while China contributes over a quarter. What is the point of wearing the hairiest shirt when we are already so little to blame? You might as well chuck a sugar cube in Loch Ness and claim to have sweetened the water. In theory, net zero is fine but when it impacts adversely on ordinary lives people are justified in rejecting it. Of course, we all want to curate the planet properly but at the moment Britain is busy destroying it with mounds of plastic waste. We might do a better job for mankind if we focused on that instead of fussing about our minimal carbon footprint. Voters are also waking up to the fact that we are not all going to be burnt to a crisp by Tuesday afternoon. Climate alarmism is already beginning to cause scepticism, with the BBC routinely attributing every sneeze to climate change. Those of a certain age can remember the great freeze of 1963, the summer of 1976 drought and other one-offs and are not inclined to believe armageddon is nigh every time the weather behaves freakishly. You do not have to be drawing your state pension to remember the 15-year pause in global warming, which the scientists failed to predict and which occurred just when China and India were belting record levels of carbon into the atmosphere. None of this is to deny that the earth is currently in a warming phase and that carbon has an impact but Britain is too small a contributor for us to go overboard with arbitrary targets and deadlines to the detriment of struggling families. Quite apart from China, we can hardly limit the impact of solar activity itself. Meanwhile, our cupboards are full of plastic. A protester holds a ‘Free Carla Foster’ placard (Image: Getty) I am not one of those who rejoiced in the freeing from prison of Carla Foster, the woman who lied to obtain abortion tablets to end a pregnancy already approaching full term when the Court of Appeal said it was a case for compassion. What compassion was there for the baby who was 32 to 34 weeks’ gestation? What message does this decision send about society’s willingness to protect babies who if born would almost certainly live? Why does a premature babe in a cot have full civil rights and the same child an hour before birth has none? Why is it a case of compassion if a woman kills a child in the womb but murder the instant it is born? Do those judges have any thoughts for the small victim of this wretched saga? Until 1990 the Infant Life Preservation Act protected unborn children of 28 weeks’ or more gestation. Now they are treated as disposable. I might have had compassion had the mother been facing some terrible trauma such as a serious disability or had she been a young teenager too afraid to tell her parents. But the only reason this child was killed was because Carla Foster was uncertain who the father was. She is a grown-up who can reasonably be held responsible for her actions. The Court of Appeal does not seem to set much value on human life. I believe that future generations will look back in disbelief at what we did to babies. I loathe tattoos almost as much as I loathe nose rings and tongue piercings and, of course, I believe it is theologically impossible for a woman to be a priest but I can’t help thinking that the Reverend Wendy Dalrymple has been given a most unnecessary hard time over her tattoos, being accused of vanity and adornment, when every single one of those tattoos portrays a Christian message. In other words, instead of carrying the gospel under her arm, Rev Dalrymple carries it on her arms. It is easy to imagine the young asking her what her tattoos represent, thus providing a golden opportunity for her to spread the Word, which is what vicars are meant to do, is it not? OK, I can’t imagine Christ nipping into the nearest tattoo parlour, but all those brawny fishermen who became his apostles? I bet some of them would have, had tattoos been available 2,000 years ago! Coutts bank banned Nigel Farage for his political views (Image: Getty) The government has reacted swiftly and decisively to the scandal of the banks closing customers’ accounts because they do not like their views, indeed so swiftly and so uncharacteristically decisively that I suspect ministers themselves fear they may be the next victims. I can only hope that the flood of subject access requests, which is now likely to swamp the smug so-and-sos, teaches them a much-needed lesson in humility and democracy. But why, oh why, just the banks? We already have government action to safeguard free speech in universities and now the banks but what about the myriad businesses in this country, both great and small, that discriminate against employees and customers because of their views? What about theatres that ‘cancel’ scheduled appearances when someone has expressed a controversial view? We need an overarching free speech law that guarantees that once we take as much for granted as the air we breathe. reddie Sayers and Konstantin Kisin, right (Image: Dave Benett/Getty Images for UnHerd) It was my colleague Fergus Kelly who alerted readers to a terrific book called An Immigrant’s Love Letter To The West by Konstantin Kisin who grew up in Russia and urges us to beware the loss of free speech and to appreciate what we have. It is powerful and persuasive and reminds me of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Warning To The Western World which was published back in 1976. It is exactly the kind of book I should like to give my five great-nephews and nieces who are now aged between 11 and 18. Sadly, I can’t because the language is so awful and it contains a Holocaust joke which froze me into shock. And that is a pity because the message is one that every young person succumbing to woke needs to hear.