There was a period during which some traditional conservatives took on ‘economic rationalism’. John Carroll and Robert Manne were involved in the publication of ‘Shutdown’. Manne has now pretty much disowned that lamentable project of his, though his own contributions were pretty OK, as they did not – like Carroll’s propose particular policies like higher tariffs. (I’m speaking from memory here and may have to be corrected).

Manne’s gripe was the arrogance of economists in the way they pursued the debate – a charge that I think he demonstrated well in the pieces of his that I read at the time.

I still think environmentalism figures in the political psyche as a kind of ‘negative’. It’s a shadow of progress and that’s its psychological and ideological role. Thus we see ‘the economy and the environment’ as opposites. There’s something quite powerful going on psychologically, but I don’t think it stands up too well to scrutiny. it’s pretty unhelpful.