Clean Air

In the present parlous state of British politics, the motives behind certain actions by our lords and masters can be a little difficult to fathom. Is the ID card scheme an overreaction to terrorism, a symptom of political control-freakery, a calculated preparation for the social meltdown which will occur when the lights go off and the water stops coming out of the taps, or simply a boondoggle to augment the profits of yet another, probably foreign, private corporation? Is the reappearance of Ruth Kelly, bearing glad tidings of how Gordon Brown plans to slice eighty per cent off our carbon emissions by expanding Heathrow, an attempt to bury the wreck of another PR exercise or a valiant effort to remind us that there are, even now, ministers yet more inept than the Chancellor, the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Defence and the First Lord of the Treasury? The fact that Kelly's latest eructation took the form of a written statement to Parliament seems to indicate the former, but one never knows; the results when she wields the ministerial pen are hardly less brilliant than when she deploys the ministerial mouth. If flights from Heathrow are not increased by another two hundred thousand a year, "jobs will be lost and the economy will suffer" - much the same dire consequences as would ensue from capping fat-cat payoffs, retaining people's right to a decent pension, compelling corporations to clean up after themselves, keeping workers' wages in line with inflation or, indeed, doing anything at all which might not altogether suit Gordon and those who pull his strings. Evidently, despite the massive if somewhat vaguely specified benefits to the environment, the million or so British workers whom Gordon plans to shunt into green British jobs over the next twenty years will not have enough positive impact to counter our economic losses should Heathrow Airport be forbidden to metastasize as far as Dover. Still, the public has until 27 February to make its views on the third runway known, and if the idea proves unpopular the Government will, of course, do its best to manage without. Meanwhile, remember to turn off the taps when brushing your teeth and keep your thermostat turned down to within levels which could reasonably be considered not overly excessive.