Really? You want to destroy a million jobs? Vote Reform UK for mass unemployment: is that your pitch? Hammer these questions home whenever you meet a supporter of the party. Or, for that matter, a Conservative, as their party now takes an almost identical line.

The figures are stark. They were compiled not by Just Stop Oil or the Green party, but by that bastion of conservatism, the Confederation of British Industry. They show that the net zero economy now directly employs more than 300,000 full-time workers, while supporting the jobs of 1.1 million. The net zero sector is worth £100bn to the UK already, and is likely to grow by hundreds of billions more. The rest of the green economy directly employs a further 600,000.

This is just the start. In October, the government announced plans to create another 400,000 jobs through its green energy plan, particularly for people leaving the fossil fuel industry, school leavers, ex-offenders, veterans and the unemployed. Training centres and colleges will be built in places badly hit by deindustrialisation. It’s the first realistic plan for a vast increase in skilled manual jobs in many years.

By contrast, in 2023 the UK’s oil and gas industry provided 27,500 jobs, and supported a total of 205,000. In other words, depending on where you draw the line, oil and gas provided between one-tenth and one-fifth of the employment generated by the alternatives. These figures are likely to be even lower today, as they’ve been tumbling rapidly for years. Despite the new licensing rounds and tax breaks the Conservatives gave the industry, it shed........

© The Guardian