Why is it that some lies get endlessly repeated without ever being challenged, even though they are quite obviously wrong? In her pro-growth speech today, Rachel Reeves asserted: 'There is no trade-off between economic growth and net zero'. Government ministers, advisers and many others have been saying such things for years - and hardly ever do they get properly challenged.
It is easy to see why, for political reasons, you might want to argue that committing Britain to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 will not make us poorer and indeed might make us wealthier. You want to impress on the public that they can have their cake and eat it. Yet it makes no logical sense. You can say that there is no trade-off between the pursuit of energy efficiency and economic growth because the former is focused on cutting costs, which helps to achieve the latter. But cutting carbon emissions to zero is an act of deprivation.