David Cameron: We are still a green government

One of the most intriguing things about last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions was David Cameron’s decision to say he suspected the recent severe weather in the United Kingdom was linked to climate change. It seemed to be an interesting restatement of where the Prime Minister personally stands on green issues – a position that his own Environment Secretary Owen Paterson refused to back the very next day. So today when David Cameron appeared before the Liaison Committee to talk about, among other things, green issues, its members were understandably keen to probe him on whether, after the Green Crap Removals Team had rolled up their sleeves and got to work on levies and taxes on energy bills this winter, this government is still green and committed to tackling climate change.

There were two sections to his response. One was rather wavering and packed with curious mixed metaphors – rolling back sleeves to roll back green levies (although the PM does talk about rolling back his sleeves so often that it’s hard not to wonder whether he would rather buy a load of short-sleeved shirts to save time), shaking trees (to distribute incentives for shale gas, apparently), and the very worst, his desire to ‘cement’ green achievements.