The limits of green - by Richard... Saturday, October 22, 2011

The limits of green - by Richard... Saturday, October 22, 2011

Offer a car at three times the price of a normal run-around, with the acceleration of a one-legged squirrel and the range of an inebriated slug, and what do you get?

Well, despite the government offering £5,000 of our money to every idiot who is prepared to buy one (excluding the corporates who are using other people's money), you end up selling just 308 models during the third quarter of the year. Just 465 electric vehicles were registered in the first quarter, and the number more than halved to 215 in the second.

Earlier, it was understood that around three quarters were bought by businesses, and if that figure holds up, it means that less than 250 private individuals have actually been stupid enough to part with money.

The real stupidity, therefore, has been on the part of the Cleggerons, who have allocated £400 million for this madcap project, covering not only car subsidies but a network of charging points.

With a national car fleet of 28 million vehicles, though, it is going to take just a little bit of time to replace it with electric vehicles … at this rate, more than 20,000 years – assuming none are scrapped of written off in the interim.

This has not stopped Boris the Buffoon planning to spend about £60 million of Londoners' money on a network of at least 1,300 public charging points across London by 2013. This man is seriously expecting London to have 100,000 electric vehicles "as soon as possible", although even a hundred years would be wildly optimistic.

Nor is it entirely a question of money. Just 85 electric vehicles were purchased in Belgium in the first half of 2011, despite the available €10,907 (£9,496) subsidy.

Over the same period, a mere 850 EVs found homes in Norway, as most buyers ignored a hefty €17,524 (£15,256) incentive. And 238 cars were bought in Denmark where the government tempts buyers with an incredible €20,588 (£17,924) in grants and subsidies.

What this shows up all too plainly is that there are real limits to the commitment to the green agenda, when it comes to expecting people to cough up their own money. You can thus see why the Greens are so keen on compulsion. People may support the madness in principle, but they are not prepared to pay for it.

A contribution from Lord Willoughby de Broke, via Helen.

Lord Willoughby de Broke in the Daily Express

A fine fighting piece from Lord Willoughby de Broke in the Daily Express. He and I have agreed to disagree on whether a referendum is a good thing at this stage and the piece does not mention that the Motion for the debate suggests a referendum of three parts, which makes it even less likely that those of us who want to leave that political construct would get much support.

However, he does have a point that, possibly, the debate on Monday [the Express sub-editors should have changed that in line with the new decision] will cover such important issues as to who actually legislates in this country and where most of our regulation comes from. Whether the MPs will actually speak about this or whether they will drone on about the need to consult the people, nobody has been asked for generations, blah-blah, remains to be seen.

Nor will the referendum be exactly now with legislation being introduced, if the Motion is passed, in the next Session, which will not open till the spring.

I did, however, like these paragraphs:

My own family has had the honour of sitting in Parliament on and off since 1290. In all that time, despite wars, famines and pestilence, this country has never been led by politicians who felt we would be better governed from abroad.

Our political class forgets that it does not have the right to throw away our liberties. They are freedoms that the peoples of these islands fought for over centuries. They are our forefathers’ gifts for us to enjoy and build upon so that we have something to give to our own children and grandchildren.

They are in many ways simple things. The right to vote for and remove your government. The expectation that you will be protected from arrest and deportation to foreign lands without evidence. The right to think that your taxes are spent here in Britain for the benefit of your people, rather than have them thrown away to prop up the failing euro experiment.

Every word of that is true. It's just that many of us think that this Motion is designed to prevent those developments to take place.

Shades of '38? - by Richard...

For sure, we do not have Fascist dictatorships astride Europe (yet), or the gathering storm of war, but there is a sense of the old order breaking down. While the Tories piffle away with their half-witted referendum motion, great events are shaping up, the nature of which we know not, but have every reason to fear.

But in change, there is opportunity. As political tectonic plates move, we need to look beyond the current superficialities and decide whether we are going to attempt to shape events, or be shaped by them. History is in the making here, and history will be our judge.