Former Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson had a ‘concrete-growing’ moment at the Popular Conservatives launch today.
The Ashfield MP spoke at a rally of the new faction, dubbed the PopCons in Westminster – in central London on Tuesday.
The event also featured former prime minister Liz Truss, who sought to galvanise Britain’s “secret” Conservatives, and ex-Cabinet minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, who declared that the “age of Davos man is over”.
Nigel Farage, the former Brexit Party leader, was watching from the side.
Anderson used his speech to argue that Britons did not care about the net-zero emissions strategy.
He said: “I am an ex-coal miner and I’m one of these people that want to see our pits open. I want to see us frack.
“We’re burning coal in our power stations but it’s foreign coal that comes over on big tankers. How is that contributing to net zero? It’s an absolute nonsense. It gets me very, very angry.”
Anderson then claimed that the burning of imported wood pellets at Drax Power Station in Yorkshire was less sustainable than burning coal from UK mines, adding:
“I’m pretty sure that coal 100 million years ago was trees and plants.. it was, well I would argue that’s sustainable.”
The comments have been compared to an incident on Talk Radio in 2021 when Mike Graham told an Insulate Britain protestor that cement grows on trees.
Graham sparked bemusement for his interview with activist Cameron Ford – in which he quizzed the environmentalist on how “safe” his job is for the planet.
Ford – a carpenter – explained that he works for a sustainable building practice, telling Graham: “Wood is regenerative, you can grow trees. You can’t grow concrete.”
But Graham was not to be beaten, responding: “Yes you can.”
Stunned silence followed, before Graham promptly ended the one-minute interview, concluding: “That was Cameron, he grows trees, cuts them down and then makes things from them. I don’t think I ever want to talk to any of those people.”
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