Moderate Conservative MPs welcomed the promotion of Claire Coutinho to the cabinet in Rishi Sunak’s very mini-reshuffle.
They regard the new energy and net zero secretary as “one of us”, pointing to her membership of the Conservative Environment Network (CEN) before she was a minister. But I suspect liberal Tories are clutching at straws.
Coutinho is thankfully not a net zero sceptic but, as a former special adviser and parliamentary aide to Sunak, is schooled in Treasury thinking, which includes an unhealthy scepticism about spending money on combating climate change.
