Dave's Big Idea: Zac Goldsmith Backtracks

It doesn't matter how rich your daddy is, you should ALWAYS put an executive summary in your reports.

I hope Zac Goldsmith is learning this lesson. If his mammoth enviro-report had an executive summary, he would never have had to backpedal so drastically on Conservative Home.

Or perhaps he would. In the ConHome piece, Goldsmith rows away from just about everything in his policy working party's paper that had attracted any media coverage.

One can be confident - very confident - that journalists are the last people to actually READ a 529-page policy paper. They did not write their pieces based on thorough consideration of the facts. Particularly not their pieces early in the week before the report was even released. All of those reports would have been based on briefing - and almost certainly CCHQ briefing.

So why, now, is Goldsmith denying that he wants extra green taxes, more regulation and a ban on electrical products on standby? Or alternatively, why did the Conservatives give people that idea in briefing last week? Is it that they don't know what they're doing, or that they took one look at the public reaction and then changed their minds?

NB: Goldsmith also denies any interest in the "Happy Planet Index". Why then give it a glowing write-up in the report, one far more extensive than any other potential way of measuring wealth?

I think Goldsmith's answer to the "So do you like the Happy Planet Index" is also quite interesting...

"We don’t say anything of the sort. We point out that despite huge material gains for most people in recent decades, our children are among the unhappiest in the world. We base this view on the results of a large number of studies including UNICEF and the so-called Happy Planet Index. This is a huge issue. Our view is that greater access to the outdoors, better food, stronger communities is part of the answer"

So it's now the "so-called" Happy Planet Index; as if he doesn't actually like it, you'll note. However, the last sentence is the best. Nothing about equality, opportunity, education, self-discipline, etc. Access to the outdoors and better food is what will make a happier planet.

Inspired by this, I am going to get on the bus to Brixton and take the drug-dealers off on a walking holiday in the Lake District and feed them muesli. This is clearly just what they need.