'Not about the politics' Major policy shift was planned, claim insiders

Isaac Levido, the strategy guru behind Boris Johnson's 2019 victory, has spent much of the summer working on the overhaul of Rishi Sunak's green policies.

- Rowena Mason, Pippa Crerar, Kiran Stacey, Helena Horton

One of the goals has been to find that elusive dividing line with Labour that Tory strategists believe will present voters with a clear choice at next year's election.

Sunak's pitch over the coming months will be that he is saving "hard-pressed families from unacceptable costs" of green policies, while trying to present Labour as piling them on.

With the prime minister's electoral options narrowing, there is a desire to attack the opposition's planned £28bn of spending on the transition to net zero. Sources close to the discussions in No 10 over the past few weeks say this strategy gained traction after the Uxbridge byelection, when the Tories narrowly held on.

Tory advisers could see voter opposition to the Ulez tax on high emission vehicles in London though the final decision to delay the move to electric vehicles and non-gas boilers was taken far more recently. But No 10 sources insist the U-turn was not about pursuit of short-term political advantage. "This is not about the politics," Sunak claimed in his speech.