Early evening summary
Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, has told MPs that Britain should “speed up, not slow down” in the drive to net zero. (See 5.24pm.) Giving evidence to the Commons environmental audit committee, he also said that, even if the government does approve a third runway at Heathrow (the announcement, all but confirmed already, is officially due on Wednesday), that did not automatically mean the runway would be built. This is from Helena Horton.
Ed Miliband tells Environment Audit Committee the Heathrow Airport expansion may not happen: “Any aviation expansion must be justified within carbon budgets and if it cannot be justified it will not take place.”
As Helena reports, Miliband also claimed that the UK and Trump administration could work together on climate policy.
On Trump and climate, Ed Miliband tells the Environment Audit Committee: “We will seek to reach common ground with the new US administration - renewables investment actually went up in the first Trump term.”
Keir Starmer did not discuss US plans to impose tariffs on British imports in his first call with President Trump since the inauguration, it has emerged. (See 1.40pm.) Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey discus the call on the Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast.
Some readers have asked for more information about Craft, the company responsible for the polling used by Channel 4 in its report saying 52% of Generation Z saying Britain would be “a better place if a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”. (See 9.32am.)
Craft are a research agency, and their website is here. They have worked on similar projects for Channel 4 before, like this one.
Channel 4 says the polling was based on a sample involving 3,000 people – 2,000 Gen Z people (aged 13 to 27), with people aged 28 to 65 making up the remaining 1,000.
And here is the Channel 4 summary of the results written up by the Times
A significant shift towards authoritarianism and radicalism in Gen Z:
1) A third (33%) of Gen Z (13 to 27-year-olds) believe ‘the UK would be a be a better place if the army was in charge’ – compared to just 18% of 45-65-year-olds
2) More than half (52%) of Gen Z think “the UK would be a better place if a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with parliament and elections’
3) 47% agree that ‘the entire way our society is organised must be radically changed through revolution’ – compared to just 33% of 45 to 65-year-olds
A stark and growing gender divergence amongst the young:
1) 45% of male respondents aged 13-27 think that ‘we have gone so far in promoting women’s equality that we are discriminating against men’
2) 44% agree that ‘when it comes to giving women equal rights, things have gone far enough’
Gen Z faces growing uncertainty in who and what to trust and they have a ‘flatter’ trust hierarchy, valuing mainstream outlets, influencers, and peers more or less equally:
1) Social media posts from friends (58%) and influencers (42%) are as – sometimes more - trusted than established journalism (although trust in the BBC is higher than older generations - 43% vs 38% of 28-65s – so maybe some green shoots for them) and one third (33%) trust alternative internet-based media personalities (vs 12% of 28-65s)
2) 36% of 13-27s trust broadsheet newspapers and their websites vs 23% of 28-65s
3) Counterintuitively, Gen Z actually trust politicians way more than other generations – 27% vs just 9% for over 28s
