Empty climate gestures, Peter Hitchens' timezone crusade, and the big questions about New Towns

Let Barry have his solar panels!

Hey everyone!

The latest episode of my new podcast, The Abundance Agenda is out now – wherever you get your podcasts.

In the third episode of The Abundance Agenda, hosts James O’Malley and Martin Robbins dig into the maddening story of Barry Thompson, an 80 year old from Braintree who is being denied planning permission to install solar panels on his own home, despite the council’s declaration of a “climate emergency”. Just what is it that is driving these empty gestures?

Plus we go down the rabbit-hole of Peter Hitchens’s obsession with timezones – and wonder if we should follow his advice, and stay on GMT, or maybe switch to permanent BST.

And we’re joined by Lord Ben Gascoigne, former Deputy Chief of Staff to Boris Johnson in Downing Street, who today is chairing the Lords’ Built Environment Committee’s inquiry into New Towns, to find out what it is that he wants to find out.

The Abundance Agenda is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Substack and hopefully wherever you get your podcasts!

You can find James on Bluesky here, and Martin here.

If you want to contribute to the New Towns inquiry, you can do so here.

Find out more and buy tickets to the event with James and Anya here.

And don’t worry, your regularly scheduled essay and links newsletters will be along later this week!