BBC Newsnight just revived a clip of Rishi Sunak advocating for a lot of recycling bins after the prime minister promised yesterday he would “stop” such a strict, green policies.
The prime minister controversially rowed back on the UK’s environmental commitments on Wednesday in a last-minute press conference.
He also shared a graphic online which promised “we’re stopping heavy-handed measures” in the bid to reach net zero by 2050.
That supposedly includes taxes on eating meat, new taxes to discourage flying, sorting your rubbish into seven different bins, compulsory car sharing and expensive insulation upgrades.
However, these claims have caused a significant amount of confusion, as these are not well-known, current government policies.
And, as BBC Newsnight pointed out during its show on Wednesday night, Sunak has actively supported having a lot of recycling bins in the past.
Newsnight political editor, Nicholas Watt, began: “I have to say, I don’t think many powerful people were talking about putting taxes on meat or forcing you to share your car.
“But I do have to say, we did manage to track down one quite powerful person who quite liked the idea of sorting your rubbish into lots of bins.”
Newsnight then played a clip from July 25, 2022, of Sunak in one of the Conservative leadership debates.
“Recycling – that is one of the things that in our house, we are obsessive about,” the future PM said with enthusiasm.
″I know it’s a pain, you need lots of bins, but it is something that is very good for the environment.”
As members of the Conservative Party were questioned about where the prime minister got these policies from last night, former environment secretary George Eustice blamed the government’s independent climate advisers.
“The government – and including in my time – was endlessly assailed by the climate change committee to do things, some of which actually, didn’t make sense,” Eustice told Channel 4 News.
Anchor Krishnan Guru-Murthy put it to him that it was a “bit of rhetoric” from the government, but Eustice just claimed that the Climate Change Committee used to repeatedly call on the government to run ads meant – for example – to discourage people to eat meat.