Nudged skint

It has been chilly recently, being January, but the Nudge Unit, an influential policy outfit officially known as the Behavioural Insight Team, wants us to cough up a tax on clothing, in pursuit of net zero. The more layers, the more tax. With an allied aim, the Mayor of London is setting the bounds of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone wider still and wider. So nurses who, to find a place to live, had moved from central London where they work, will, each day they drive in, pay a tax if they own an older car; this will gobble up the salary settlement they agree on. In France, they manage these things differently. In Marseilles, union members have been winding back the electricity meters of bakers in order to save the traditional baguette. Of course that is outside the law. But in Britain, new net zero laws are beginning to look like daylight robbery.