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Welcome to The Spectator podcast. I'm Isabel Hardman. On this week's episode, we're investigating the truth about plastic, the environmental enemy du jour in 2018. We'll also be trying to find a compromise on tuition fees, if there is one,

and asking whether the Church of England are the most ruthless property tycoons in the country.

The single biggest television hit of 2017 was David Attenborough's Blue Planet 2, which

smashed the top of the ratings chart like a marlin cresting a wave,

but it also spawned a national outpouring of anti-plastic sentiment.

Can we do anything to stop our rivers and oceans being polluted with single-use plastic bags and coffee cups?

Or is the whole issue much more complicated than we ever thought?

Ross Clark looks at the government's new proposals in the magazine this week,

and I'm now joined to discuss this issue by Fraser Nelson and Jonathan Bartley,

co-leader of the Green Party.

So Fraser, is the government's war on plastic a mistake or are you just dubious about its efficacy?

I wouldn't say it's a mistake as such.

There's no doubt that politically is quite astute. There is a consumer backlash against plastics right now, quite a strong one. I mean, the reason, for example, that Iceland this week said it was phasing out packaging is not because the government's telling it to. It's because it sees quite rightly a way of getting a market advantage. The era of recycling means that millions of people are now

got these great big tubs they put out for recycling filled with packaging which they didn't really

want. And they're thinking to themselves, first of all, look at all of this stuff. I wanted to

buy broccoli. I didn't really want the plastic and the film that comes with it. And yet here I am

having to despoil the environment, good through all of his hassle.

It's a headache. And what the Conservatives have correctly worked out is that plastic is

becoming the new CO2. And 10 years ago, people who hadn't really thought about the carbon footprint

were suddenly starting to do so. And they wanted, it was a fashion. And the Conservatives

responded to that. David Cameron went off to

...