It’s a bit hard to take the recent utterances of Michael Gove, UK’s Minister of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (I’m not making that up) too seriously. He’s now telling everyone that tackling climate change should not be treated as a religious crusade and that the UK has gone a bit too far with the net-zero dogma. Let’s not forget that he was the man who convinced the then prime minister, Theresa May, to legislate the net-zero target in the dying days of her leadership.

And just recently, Gove refused to approve the demolition of the Marks and Spencer store on Oxford Street to be replaced with a new, state-of-the-art edifice, on environmental grounds! That’s right, repurposing the existing building would be better for the planet.

The stand-out feature of the list of extreme and zany green measures in the UK I am about to provide is that they have largely been undertaken by a conservative government. To say that it beggars belief is to understate the astonishment we should all feel.

It’s hard to know quite how this collective insanity gripped so many conservative politicians, including Boris. After all, the UK’s emissions are trivial and anything it does won’t have the slightest impact on the world’s climate. It’s not as if the UK stands so tall in the global pecking order that other countries would take any notice of what its government gets up to.

After the surprise retention of Boris’s seat in north London, there is no doubt that some Tories are now thinking that the way to win the next election is to campaign against any extension of the Ultra Low Emission Zone  (ULEZ) to the middle and outer suburbs of London as well as walk back from the net-zero commitment.

The true believers within the Conservative party will quote meaningless survey results that point to the public’s continued support for net zero. That’s until they are asked a question about bearing the cost of measures undertaken in the name of net zero.  At that point, support falls off a cliff.

But let me run through some of the lunatic policies that litter the net-zero landscape in the UK. Getting rid of gas/oil boilers to heat homes is top of the list. By 2025, the plan is that it will be illegal for any new boilers to be installed. The alternative is expensive heat pumps, which run on electricity but don’t actually work well when the temperature is too low. This is complete insanity, particularly as a number of rural folk must continue to rely on oil boilers for many years to come. In any case, there are not enough installers for the heat pumps and given the cost-of-living pressures that UK householders are facing, it’s hardly surprising that the pace of new installation has been snail-like.

(I did read a priceless story about a bloke with a heritage-listed house – several hundred years old – looking into the option of installing a heat pump only to have it knocked back by the heritage authorities as being incompatible with the historical characteristics of the house, which must be preserved!)

Then there is the crazy idea of rating properties according to their emissions and then insisting that all rental properties meet an EPC of at least C. What you ask is an EPC? It’s an Energy Performance Certificate which necessarily involves paid certifiers.  Even at the moment, landlords who wish to rent out a property with an EPC of E, F or G have to apply for a specific exemption.

The current plan is that from 2025, all new tenancies can only be signed for properties with an EPC of at least C and from 2028, for existing tenancies. Needless to say, achieving a ‘better’ EPC requires considerable outlays by the owner which will necessarily translate into higher rents.

In light of the housing affordability crisis affecting many parts of the UK, the policy looks particularly cack-handed and that’s being kind. There are also plans afoot to restrict the sale of homes to those with an EPC less than C, but the timing of this move is still uncertain.

Then there’s the UK government’s continued support for wind and solar power.  Solar in the UK? Surely, you’ve got that one wrong, Judith. But, no, a relatively large solar installation is planned for the Thames estuary. Because the wholesale price being offered is so high, it doesn’t really matter that no power will be generated for great slabs of the year. The eye-watering guaranteed price is 100 pounds per megawatt hour or around 190 in real Aussie dollars. That’s close to double the current wholesale price here and that’s highway robbery.

Having decided that the political angst generated from onshore wind turbines was not worth the candle, the Tories decided a while ago that the way forward was to locate these expanding turbines off the coast in windy places. Of course, the investors in these monstrous towers, that can be clearly seen from the coast, needed to be ‘incentivised’ with guaranteed cash flows courtesy of electricity customers and the compulsory green levies.

But as they say, all good things come to an end at some stage, and a large project off the coast of Norfolk operated by Swedish company, Vattenfall, has now been pulled because of rapidly rising costs. According to the company spokesman, ‘the incentives offered no longer reflected the current market conditions. It simply doesn’t make sense to continue with this project’. The Swedish government this week also turned down another Vattenfall wind farm proposal off its own coast because it is ‘against the national interest’ and will ‘damage the environment’!

The new renewable energy requires new transmission lines. And like in Australia, there is fierce opposition to the construction of huge pylons through England’s pristine countryside. The government’s latest wheeze is simply to compel landowners to provide the required easements, which is a very strange way of gathering voters for the conservative side of politics.

There is also the proposed banning of petrol/diesel cars – timing now a bit uncertain – and the ongoing subsidies being thrown at electric vehicles. Did I mention the piles of taxpayer money being thrown at batteries and the development of hydrogen?

And then along comes Sir Tony Blair, former Labour PM, who weirdly has started telling everyone that the burden of net zero shouldn’t be shouldered by households and that anything that the UK does won’t be shifting any climate dial given what China is up to. It’s pretty clear that this message hasn’t been received by the current leader of the opposition, Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer. (Even Labour types can’t get enough of the Sir thingy.)

But the real tragedy is that Blair’s message has never sunk into the thick skulls of very many Tory politicians, including its chain of recent leaders. Perhaps the ULEZ extension will be a wake-up call: fining Mrs Postlethwaite over ten quid for driving to church each Sunday won’t be a good look.

The fear with all these hare-brained, freedom-sapping and highly regressive schemes is that some federal or state politicians in Australia will decide to copy them.

If the UK is contributing to saving the planet, then we need to get on board too, the argument will go. Watch this space.