Ministers should get electric cars to avoid backlash against climate strategy, warns pollster

Boris Johnson should order the minister in charge of the Cop26 climate change conference to replace his diesel car with an electric one within a month to avoid a backlash against the net zero strategy and the Government, according to an influential pollster.

Writing in The Telegraph, James Frayne, whose firm Public First has been used by Downing Street to test public opinion, warned that Alok Sharma is leaving the Government open to the criticism that ministers "say one thing but do another".

"In politics, this attack line is as devastating as it gets," he wrote. "It destroyed Matt Hancock's career and it will destroy many others."

Mr Frayne's intervention comes after Mr Sharma admitted he still owns a diesel car but said his next one "will most certainly be an electric vehicle".

Mr Sharma's admission came in an interview with BBC Newsnight on the day of a damning report about the scale of climate change. He added: "I don't drive it very much. I take public transport from Reading [his constituency] into London every day."

Mr Frayne wrote: "Alok Sharma told the BBC last week that he drives a diesel car. Unless he replaces it with an electric car within a month, he should be fired from his job overseeing Government preparations for COP26, this autumn’s global summit on the environment.

"Other Government ministers should have three months – pony up for a Tesla or go to the backbenches.

"Pretty soon, Government ministers are going to be accused of hypocrisy on an epic scale, and the Government will pay a political price. As we approach the final weeks before Cop26, ministers are going to declare a  "climate emergency", calling for massive changes to our lifestyles.

"But it will be revealed that few of them personally behave as if there was even a mild threat from climate change.

"Stories about Alok Sharma’s diesel car and other similar ones seem to have been written off by the Government as trivia. This is wrong. These stories will return in much bigger forms very shortly; they will make people angry and could derail not only the net zero strategy but seriously undermine the popularity of the Government full stop."

In March, Ed Miliband, the shadow business and energy secretary, was mocked for calling for an electric car revolution while not owning one himself.