Motorists are used to being pushed around by the government. Since the mid-1990s they’ve been subjected to a concerted campaign to make their lives difficult, adding insult to injury given their huge contribution to the Treasury via fuel duty.

From road humps and cycle lanes to speed cameras and more traffic lights, a whole host of measures have been introduced to hinder their journeys and “encourage” them to use public transport. Little regard has been given to the vast economic costs of the resulting delays.

But even by these authoritarian standards, the government’s plan to ban new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2040 comes as quite a shock. It makes heroic assumptions about politicians’ ability to predict the state of technology in 23 years’ time. And in particular it shows that they are prepared to impose huge costs on consumers for environmental benefits that are far from certain.