WE MOTORISTS ARE BEING DRIVEN MAD

THE older I get, the greater my suspicion that government, for all the apparent seriousness of its pronouncements, is an elaborate practical joke played on the electorate.

And in the area of climate change policy, I am one of many who feel as though a series of pies has been pushed in our faces by a succession of clowns in Downing Street.

In 2005, I sold our petrol car and bought a diesel-powered one. This was a direct result of the then Labour government encouraging us to do so by tilting the fuel duty system to favour diesel — justified on the grounds that diesel produces fewer carbon emissions per unit of energy than petrol.

But diesel also produces about 20 times more lung-infesting sooty particulates than petrol. This had been known for decades by scientists, despite what the policy-makers later claimed.

Anyway, in due course we were told we’d have to pay heavy charges if we drove our once allegedly environmentally superior diesel cars into cities.

So, two years ago, I did as encouraged by the last government and bought a petrol-electric hybrid, selling the diesel (for a pathetic price, given the new policy to make them uneconomic).

I’m very happy with our new — or rather 12-year-old, second-hand — hybrid. And it was pleasing, in a smug sort of way, to drive a car parading its ecological virtue with ‘hybrid’ emblazoned on its side.

But now look what they’ve done. The latest government is telling us that hybrids, too, are bad for the planet, and that in 15 years’ time we will actually be banned by law from buying any new ones: only fully electric vehicles will be tolerated. So, the (admittedly depreciated) value of my hybrid will plummet.

Doubtless, when we’ve all got electric vehicles, the government of the day will say it has suddenly realised that the batteries required are wrecking the planet because of the vast amount of cobalt mining required for their manufacture — and so we must buy cars fuelled by hydrogen.

As I say, this is beginning to look like a practical joke played on motorists — and a very expensive one, too.