Too Hot a Take

Displaying its customary treachery, the Office for National Statistics has attempted to undermine the bipartisan consensus on rowing back the green crap with a tactlessly timed release of mere facts about the impact of the climate emergency. Heat-related deaths are on the increase, with over 4500 expendables succumbing in England last year, which was the UK's most baskable since records began; and over seventeen thousand in the last seven years. Of course this lying down on the job is deeply inconsiderate and un-British at a time when both Team Starmer and its policymakers in Downing Street are doing their mutual utmost to lighten the burden of hard-working fossil fuel corporations. On the bright side, more people are still dying from cold than from the heatwaves, doubtless thanks in part to the Government's pragmatism over fuel poverty; but the ONS clearly has much to learn about flagging up data in an appropriately patriotic manner.