DON'T DO AS I DO, DO AS I SAY

The department fighting climate change has spent more than £1 million on air travel in less than a year

Gordon Brown only created the Department of Energy and Climate Change in October of last year, but it has been getting through taxpayers' money at quite a rate ever since.

The Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes wondered how much of it had been spent on gas-guzzling journeys and has just had this answer back from the junior minister, Joan Ruddock:

"DECC has spent the following since its inception: (a) ministerial cars and drivers £166,305; (b) taxis for the whole Department £202,249; (c) train travel for the whole Department £557,637; and (e) air fares for the whole Department £1,179,390. The Department is not able to separately identify the use of helicopters or chartered aircraft except at disproportionate cost."

That's more than £100,000 a month on air travel - not to mention the equivalent of 5,500 return train journeys from London to Edinburgh over that eleven month period.

I daresay even more of our money is being spent on off-setting all those carbon emissions...

CONDOMS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

According to research by the London School of Economics contraception is almost 5 times cheaper as a means of limiting CO2 emissions than conventional green technologies. Every £4 spent on family planning over the next 40 years would reduce global CO2 by more than a ton, whereas a minimum of £19 would have to be spent on low-carbon technologies to achieve the same result, according to researchers. The report concluded that family planning should be seen as one of the primary methods of emission reduction. The UN estimate that 40% of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended. If these basic family planning need were met, 34 gigatons of CO2 would be saved that's almost 60 times Britain's annual total.

Working Out !

According to local radio station KMFM Ashford bosses of a regional quango accepted gifts and hospitality valued at nearly £8,000 in a year, including tickets to Wimbledon, top rugby international fixtures, the opera and music festivals.

Senior managers and directors of the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) received £7,836 in gifts and hospitality in 2008-09, according to details disclosed to KM Group under the Freedom of Information Act.

Almost 25% of students were not in full time jobs more than 3 years after leaving university.

A fifth of those failed to secure work in graduate professions, finding work in bars,supermarkets and restaurants according to a report from the Higher Education Statistics Agency ( the what? no, me neither).

They also found that more than one in 10 students who left university in 2004-5 had been out of work at least once. The worst part of all of this is that these figures reflect the situation BEFORE the recession was in full swing.

It's getting worse, statistics published by the agency in July showed that 16,835 students leaving full time first degree courses last year were still not employed six months after graduation.

Ramblings and roundups

Payback time
The debt owed by consumers has fallen for the first time since records began in 1993, £635 million more was paid back than borrowed in July. Total outstanding debt dipped to £1.46 trillion

According to Lucy Cockcroft, writing in the Daily Telegraph, Ruth Reed,the President of the Royal Institute of Architects, believes that the Prince of Wales is abusing his position attempting to influence planning decisions.

When oil was trading at $140 per barrel we were paying £1.08 per litre at the pumps. Now that oil prices have fallen to $72 per barrel we are paying.......er...that's right £1.08 per litre. This is due to tax rises ( of course the VAT collected also goes up and in January when VAT returns to 17.5% it will go up again). Now 80% of the price of a litre of fuel at the pumps is tax.

More protests are to be staged against the new Kingsnorth clean coal power station. Obviously our Eco hippy friends don't do reading, research, investigation and certainly aren't aware of the reports yesterday about the looming energy crisis. I'm sure the rest of the country, especially our pensioners, are really pleased that these people can push up the price of our domestic fuel so that they can look right on and cool to their mates. Rather than protesting why not do something constructive? How about putting together your own power generation project? Might I suggest giant hamster wheels that you can run around in.

SKY News is to stage a debate amongst the leaders of the "three main parties". Interestingly I wonder how SKY have decided who the 3 main parties are. In Scotland that would be SNP, Labour and LibDems. In England ( based on the last national election) that would be Conservatives, UKIP and the LibDems. Or do they mean just the same old, same old?

Libertarian Musings

Coming soon some articles on what's occurring in the field of UK politics.

To be going on with, some thoughts.

The Labour governments UK Low Carbon Technology document has finally admitted what a lot of people have been saying for a long time, there will be power cuts and shortages by 2015 owing to the lack of investment in viable power generation and an over emphasis on fringe, at best, wind technology.

Alex Salmond, Scottish First Minister, is pushing to bring forward the referendum on Scottish Independence. Still no sign from any British mainstream political party for a say on anything for England.

The EU ban on 100 watt incandescent bulbs comes into force today. Lot's of people finally admitting that the new style bulbs actually do take too long to warm up, don't give off as much light and due to the mercury content are toxic to dispose of. Bit like the EU then expensive,slow, dim and toxic.

On other EU matters, it's been revealed that Britain's contribution to the project is to rise to £6 billion per year......bargain.

A £30 million Supercomputer, designed to predict climate change, has been named as one of Britain's worst polluters in the latest embarrassment for the met office.

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