Is the CBI’s about-face on the cost of net zero a case of shameless opportunism or an overdue conversion to common sense, asks James Ford

We are arguably living in an age of screeching political U-turns. The government’s abrupt volte-face over withdrawing the Winter Fuel Allowance is probably the most egregious example. Others would include Reform’s conversion to higher welfare spending and the Lib Dems sudden openness to amending the ECHR. But, last week, a much quieter one-eighty was being executed just off Trafalgar Square. Rain Newton-Smith, the CEO of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), used the organisation’s annual National Business Dinner to take aim at the government’s net zero agenda. If Ed Miliband felt a sudden sharp pain in his back, it was from the country’s biggest business organisation brutally sticking a knife in.

Some readers might be tempted to shrug at this news. A business lobby group urging action to reduce business costs is surely more ‘dog-bites-man’ than ‘man-bites-dog’ when it comes to headlines. But the........

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