Millions of families could be barred from taking holidays abroad under a proposal to ration flights.Which sits a little oddly with the push to build another runway at Heathrow, but still, this ‘climate change’ must be battled, you know. We all have to make sacrifices...
Gordon Brown's 'environment tsar' is calling for limits on how many plane journeys travellers can take each year.
Lord Turner suggested that Britons might have to cut back on their overseas breaks.
He said the Government should urgently consider imposing individual restrictions to help reduce pollution caused by planes.
Lord Turner, chairman of Parliament's climate change committee, said: 'We will have to constrain demand in an absolute sense, with people not allowed to make as many journeys as they could in an unconstrained manner.'Wow, strong stuff! Unfortunately, it came out in the same day as this report:
Ministers and civil servants spent more than £18.5million on tens of thousands of flights last year, with more than half going on first and business class seats.So quangos and all those fakecharities get a chance to dip their snouts in that trough too, do they?
The first Whitehall-wide report on spending on air travel led to claims that huge sums of taxpayers’ money is being wasted on unnecessary journeys and expensive tickets.
The total bill for all public sector flights, including quangos and other bodies, is almost £70million a year.
Still no doubt there are government departments that have legitimate reasons to fly – those that do most of their work abroad, for instance:
The Department for International Development was the biggest spender among those studied, paying out more than £6.8million in both 2006-2007 and 2007-2008.Whoops!
Bizarrely, given the few obvious reasons for its staff to travel abroad, the Department for Work and Pensions was the second biggest spender.
It would be nice if the government took the lead on this - how about all first class flights are banned and they have to fly cattle class or get the train for every European trip?
ReplyDeleteCheeky sods, the lot of them.
Excuse me but Lord Turner can FUCK OFF! I used to fly 20-30 times short and long haul on business. I expect to resume such flying this year after a couple of years doing other stuff in the UK.
ReplyDeleteI bet government honchos will still be flying a lot and not using videolinks. Bastards! They do so hate us. Anyway, I still remain to be convinced of AGW owing to CO2 emissions.
Think back to exchange control (abolished by Mrs T in 1979). Part of my responsibilities at the bank where I worked at that time was administering the control regulations on behalf of my clients. In the real world, what this meant was phoning up the Bank of England, talking to one of the (knowledgeable and reasonable) staff there and getting permission to use the non-dollar premium market to buy/use foreign currency.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I recall permission was never refused. Why? Because the idea that exchange control somehow "preserved" our currency reserves for "vital" transactions was rubbish. I knew it - the BoE knew it: only the British governments (1939-1979) were in denial but it shored up the fiction that the government was "doing something" to prevent "misuse" of our currency reserves. "Doing nothing" was not an option apparently - now where have I recently heard that assertion . . . ?
As with Lord Turner - the "capitalist in name only" (where do the CBI, IoD etc find these useful idiots to chair their organisations?) - rationing=power: "you'll do what's good for you" (TM this health nazi).
O/T to this post but the non-Shandy Drinking Southern Poofs round here are now being stigmatised for further examples of appalling debauchery.
ReplyDeleteTime to take one of my travel rations (one way).
ReplyDeleteEmigreat!
"Cheeky sods, the lot of them."
ReplyDelete*nods*
"Anyway, I still remain to be convinced of AGW owing to CO2 emissions."
You and everyone else! Excepting the watermelons, and those like Gore and Monbiot with a financial interest in getting people to belive...
"..it shored up the fiction that the government was "doing something" to prevent "misuse" of our currency reserves. "
That explains a hell of a lot of recent government policy...
"...being stigmatised for further examples of appalling debauchery."
WTF..? I can just, just understand where the loons are coming from with the 'better not seen to be drinking in uniform', but as far as I'm aware, there's no evidence that smoking (cigarettes, that is) can affect your mental capacity! Sheesh...
Just as with duty free booze in Brussels, this would not, of course, apply to the Politburo.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that not just most, but all government proposals and action are restrictive, and destructive of liberty.
ReplyDeleteHow much rope do we need to begin reversing the process? Answers in feet or fathoms, please.