Government to review car tax plan

Following the revelation yesterday that the Prime Minister 'mis-spoke' when he said in Parliament that the majority of drivers would benefit from proposed car tax changes, Chancellor Alistair Darling has appeared in Parliament this morning to answer questions about the plans.

Finally confirming what other ministers and backbench MPs had already been pushing for, he indicated that the plan will be reviewed before the Pre-Budget Report, due in the Autumn.

Official estimates given yesterday to Conservative shadow Treasury minister Justine Greening in a Parliamentary answer revealed that vehicle excise duty will rise for 44% of vehicles made since 2001 - by up to £245 for the most polluting ones - but will fall for 33%.

An estimated nine million car users would have to pay more under the reforms.

Answering for the Treasury, Angela Eagle MP also admitted that five of the UK's 30 most popular cars would pay more.

So if you drive a 2.2l diesel Land Rover Freelander, a 1.6l unleaded Toyota Auris, a 2.2l diesel Honda CR-V, a 1.8l unleaded Vauxhall Vectra or a 1.6l unleaded Vauxhall Zafira, prepare for a wallet-bashing.

Most interestingly, the government's difficulties with getting the plan through Parliament seem to be greater than first envisaged.

Complaints from Labour backbenchers don't just seem to relate to the backdating of the changes to older cars made after March 2001 - thought to be the most contentious part of the proposals.

Speaking on the BBC News channel, Martin Salter - far from among the most rebellious of Labour MPs - complained that even "two years" was not enough time to give people a chance to change their car-buying behaviour.

This would suggest that the government faces problems getting the proposals through Parliament if they make the changes applicable to anything other than brand new cars.

But then, that would mean people are given a chance to dodge the higher charges by making alternative choices, and make the proposals actually 'green' - rather than the great fundraiser for the Treasury that they are actually designed to be.

What a dilemma, Darling!

The man's on a roll

The Evening Standard reports today that London's new mayor Boris Johnson has scrapped Ken Livingstone's plan to hit 'gas-guzzlers' with a £25 congestion charge.

The news follows reports that, in September, Boris will consult the public on scrapping the westward extension of the zone.

According to the Standard, the High Court has confirmed today that the paperwork needed to end former London mayor Ken Livingstone's key policy had been completed.

Band G injustice

The scheme was due to change in October this year. But now there will be no increase in charge to £25 for drivers of Band G vehicles.

Band G doesn't just include expensive sports cars or 4x4s but many typical mid-size family cars, including estate cars and people carriers. So the £25 daily charge would have hit families the hardest.

Targetting Band G for excessively punitive charges would also have threatened the jobs of tens of thousands of people working in Britain's sports and executive car industry, by making their products financially unviable to run.

The discount for cars in Bands A and B, which would have resulted in thousands of cars driving into the zone for free and adding to congestion, has also been removed.

TfL study slammed plans

As we reported back in October, Livingstone's proposed changes to the congestion charge scheme were slammed by Transport for London's (TfL) own study into the plans.

Their Impact Assessment, authored by environmental consultants AEA, pointed out that not only would the effect of the changes be "an increase in cars moving within the zone" - defeating the purpose of an anti-congestion scheme - but that "Increased congestion would mean that all vehicles would move more slowly leading to increases in CO2 emissions."

Outbreak of sense

So Boris's actions are a welcome sign that he is being guided by the advice of experts in the best interests of limiting congestion and, therefore, emissions.

Rather than the pursuit of blinkered class warfare, or the twisted idea of a link between emissions and 4x4s exclusively, demonstrated by his predecessor.

TfL commissioner Peter Hendy said: "We will be working with the Mayor to strive to cut CO2 emissions from transport in London by promoting cycling and walking, encouraging people to drive in a more efficient way and by cutting Transport for London's own CO2 emissions."

Let's hope this new outbreak of sense in London starts to spread throughout the country. But what next for Boris? May we suggest another look at this.

Car tax row hots up

The debate over plans for a drastic hike in car tax is starting to get interesting, amid increasing fears within government that the revised scheme could prove as politically damaging as the storm over the abolition of the 10p income tax band.

The plans, announced in Alistair Darling's first Budget back in March, will create six additional car tax bands and introduce an up to £950 graduated ‘showroom tax’ on cars in the upper tax bands.

Despite being spun as a 'green' move that will persuade people to buy lower-emission, lower-taxed cars, the Treasury has already admitted that once the revised system is in force more than £700m extra a year will be delivered into the government's coffers.

A very clear indication from the horse's mouth that people will not, in fact, switch to the lower-emissions cars that attract reductions in the tax rate and the scheme is therefore largely useless in 'green' terms (but clearly very useful in government fundraising terms).

No surprise, then, that Chancellor Alistair Darling decided to try to introduce the scheme regardless.

Money or popularity?

Already reeling from severe public slapdowns in recent elections, ministers and MPs are now starting to worry that both the scale of the increases combined with the number of people set to be affected to some degree will be an explosive recipe, capable of triggering a further dramatic slide in the government's popularity.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw and Business Secretary John Hutton have been the first to break ranks with the Prime Minister and his puppet Chancellor to suggest that it may not be the best plan to pile severe extra costs on people right when they're feeling the pinch.

They have hinted that the Autumn pre-Budget statement would be a good opportunity to take a 'fresh look' at the plans.

Backbenchers are also asserting themselves over the issue, with 35 Labour MPs (and others to make 42 in total) so far having backed a Commons motion by Ronnie Campbell MP urging ministers to reconsider.

Retrospective tax on older cars

A particular target for review is the most controversial element of the scheme - to impose tax at the new highest rate retrospectively to cars bought between 2001 and 2006.

A host of family cars bought before March 2006, many used everyday for the school run, will see their road tax double from £210 to more than £430 unless the plans are changed.

This double-whammy aspect of the scheme will hit those who bought cars in good faith a few years ago, not knowing the government would drastically increase the road tax on them. And make it harder for those people to switch to lower-emissions cars, as the new excessively punitive tax rate will severely cut their existing car's value.

Good time for pause

Given his already pretty significant woes, and the growing controversy over out-of-control fuel prices, does Gordon Brown really want to further wind up 18m 'middle Britain' car users?

As the 'consensus' over climate change is brought ever further into doubt by severe wintery conditions across the globe and growing lists of scientists contradicting the man-made global warming orthodoxy, now would be the perfect time for Brown to demonstrate responsible leadership and pause for a re-think.

Richmond at it again

Hot on the heels of their bizarre 'emissions-cutting' scheme that encourages people to drive their cars to work rather than leave them parked at home (an allegedly 'green' scheme that pushes people to concrete over their gardens in order to park their cars off ridiculously over-charged streets) Richmond Council in south London have come up with a new wheeze.

This time the plan to separate the borough's car users from yet more of their cash involves charges for 'drop-off' parking permits at local schools.

And once again they seem set on trying to daub this blatant tax hike as 'green'.

Top charge of £75

At the moment, parents can use a free permit provided by schools allowing them to park on double yellow lines or bays for ten minutes while they deliver or collect their children.

So far, so reasonable.

But the council have announced that, from September, a 'sliding scale' will be used to charge parents for these currently free permits, based on the CO2 emissions produced by their vehicles.

The top charge is reportedly going to be an outrageous £75 for dropping your kids off at school in anything from an average-sized family car upwards.

'Green' paint stripped

While the full details of the sliding scale have not yet been revealed (a bit of standard PR that tries to get the headlines out of the way before the gruesome details are exposed), the council's past form makes it likely that the vast majority of parents driving even the smallest cars will have to fork out extra cash where they don't have to currently.

The council's similar emissions-based scheme for residents' parking permits penalises with greatly increased charges those with cars in tax Band D and upwards.

That includes some models of small city cars like the Mini, Ford Fiesta and Nissan Micra. A very different story beyond the oft-used spin about attacking 'gas-guzzling 4x4s', and one that utterly strips away any claim that the scheme is actually about the environment rather than raising cash yet again from soft-target car users.

Sadly, going by the headlines, "4x4s" are the furthest the spin-vulnerable traditional media ever read into such plans.

Scheme condemned as 'unfair'

The council's plan has been roundly condemned by representatives of parent teacher and car user groups.

Margaret Morrissey of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations has called the scheme "unfair and unrealistic", quite rightly pointing out, "Many families have three or four children, and they need the space to fit child seats that the Government insists on."

And the AA's Paul Watters said: "People carriers are very efficient at getting kids to school, considering many are seven-seaters. It might be a better idea to remove the many smaller cars."

Lib Dem warning

As a Liberal Democrat-run council, Richmond's actions give a worrying indication of what sort of faux-green financial repression car users big and small can expect if the Lib Dems achieve any governing power.

Something for us all to bear in mind with local elections looming and even a general election on the horizon.

But spare a thought for the poor car-using residents of Richmond, who clearly face endless demands on their wallets between now and their next local elections in 2010.

Unless they fight back against blatant rip off tax hikes, even when they are labelled 'green'.

BMW boss slams 'ludicrous' anti-car schemes

The out-spoken boss of BMW UK has slammed the growing number of local anti-car schemes as 'unfair' and 'ludicrous'.

The intervention, which came at the BMW Group's recent Annual Press Dinner, is another sign of the growing backlash from the car industry against excessive and unjustified attacks on the car and car-users in the name of alleged man-made global warming.

Echoing a common theme on this blog, he also raised the prospect of British manufacturers Jaguar and Land Rover being taxed out of the UK.

In a hard-hitting speech, half of which was devoted to environmental issues, Jim O'Donnell directed much of his scorn at local politicians, singling out London mayor Ken Livingstone over his plan to raise the congestion charge from £8 to £25 a day for higher-polluting cars.

He said that the initiative would save just 8,100 tonnes of carbon each year - the equivalent of three hours of emissions from Heathrow.

"It was introduced as a congestion charge - now it's a green tax. Make up your mind, Ken" he said.

O'Donnell also rounded on Richmond Borough Council, the wealthy London suburb that's targeting top-end cars owned by residents.

The cost of parking two band G cars has this year risen from £150 to £500, and similar schemes are now popping up all over the country.

Councils 'out of control'

"The government must stamp out this regional tax spree by out-of-control councils now. It must restore some sort of respect for CO2 tax planning by leading from the front and putting the petty local politicians back in their boxes," he said.

"We are dealing with a serious global issue, not a local tax-raising initiative designed to further a public servant's career through old-fashioned 'soak the rich' schemes."

The BMW MD insisted he wasn't anti-green, and was firmly behind his company's own Efficient Dynamics measures for cleaner engines.

He quipped: "The automotive world is turning green more rapidly than a bunch of teenagers on alcopops."

Big cars debut latest technology

Big cars are an easy target for green-minded politicians but, O'Donnell argued, there are relatively few of them in use, and they had a plus side that was all too easily overlooked.

He made the excellent point that anti-lock brakes, catalytic converters, airbags and stability control were among the features that had debuted on top-end cars before trickling down to the mainstream, warning "The enforced demise of such cars will bring a slow-down in the development of such technology in future."

Attacks on big, thirsty cars could also, he added, be a blow to Jaguar and Land Rover.

"Do our political leaders really want to kill off major contributors to the UK economy and major employers? The UK needs both Jaguar and Land Rover as strong competitors in the global marketplace", he said.

BMW UK has vehicle manufacturing plants in Oxford (Mini) and Goodwood (Rolls Royce) with a body pressings plant in Swindon and an engine plant in Hamms Hall, Birmingham from which all production is exported.

In total the company employs around 8,000 people, with thousands more jobs involved in supplier companies.

Let's hope the politicians start listening - especially those with constituencies in Swindon and Birmingham - before excessive actions in response to climate changes that there is no proof we are causing provoke an economic tragedy affecting thousands of people.

Car emissions are wrong target

Following on from the previous post, an interesting contribution on the EU's plans to enforce excessively strict emissions limits for cars has come from Roger Helmer, the 'straight-talking' Conservative MEP.

Making the potential damage the plans could do to Britain's sports and executive car-makers even more galling, it turns out they're far from the most effective action that could be taken.

That's according to the body EU Commission itself set up to study technologies to combat climate change.

Helmer highlights that the cost of the EU's car emissions proposals has been calculated to be between €132 and €233 per ton of CO2 they will save.

However, the European Climate Change Panel has established a series of cost effective measures that could more than achieve the EU's emissions targets for less than €20 per ton.

So for the EU to be obsessing over car emissions is not just economically damaging and threatening tens of thousands of British car industry jobs, but also incredibly wasteful and inefficient.

Bad choices

Of course, some will say that cost is not such a big consideration, given the importance they place on the task of tackling climate change. But this overlooks the reality that there is only so much money available to spend on such measures.

Helmer puts it like this: if you have €200 to spend on the environment, would you rather stop one ton of CO2 with auto legislation, or 10 tons through more efficient projects?

Strangely the EU is going for the first option when, in reality, energy conservation is a less high-profile but much more cost effective approach.

More EU hypocrisy

But what caps it all is the EU's on-going hypocrisy.

All the while they're preaching about climate change and (in institutions beyond meaningful democratic control) making harsh laws that will have very personal implications for many of us, MEPs continue their monthly circus of travelling between two EU 'parliament' buildings ... one in Brussels, and one in Strasbourg.

Keeping the EU 'parliament' on one site in Brussels would not just save a handy €200 million (£142m) a year, but also 90,000 tons of CO2!

So howabout the EU busies itself with reducing the emissions resulting from its own excessive behaviour first, before dreaming up hugely damaging and expensive other ways to cut emissions.

Squabbles continue over car emissions targets

The wrangling between EU institutions continues over the setting of medium and long-term emissions limits for cars.

The outcome could have very serious implications for Britain's executive, sports and off-road car makers, and the tens of thousands of people they employ - both directly and indirectly.

In a European Parliament resolution of 24 October 2007, MEPs responded to the EU Commission's aspiration to set an average emissions limit of 120g/km of CO2 by 2012.

This limit would require car-makers to reduce average emissions to 130g/km CO2 through improved vehicle technology, with the further 10g/km reduction permitted to come from use of alternative fuels, improved tyres etc.

However, in their response, MEPs demanded a more stringent emissions limit, albeit conceding an extended deadline by three years. They want average emissions reduced to 125g/km of CO2 by 2015, to be achieved through technological changes alone.

EU's "kneejerk" timescale

Bearing in mind that average car emissions last year were 160g/km of CO2, such dramatic reductions in the space of a few years are extremely ambitious targets and have been described by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders as a "kneejerk" response that doesn't give the car industry time to plan.

Biting back at the European 'Parliament', the Commission has struck a note of defiance.

Spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich said the EU would stick by its targets for overall fleet-wide averages of 120g/km by 2012 and aimed to come forward with the proposals for legislation by the end of the year.

"We have done our homework and we think the industry will be able to afford these measures," Helfferich says.


Kelly's noises off

Most recently, Ruth Kelly - the Transport Secretary - has intervened in the debate. In an interview in The Times, she says that she will urge the European Union to adopt an even tougher target of 100g of CO2 per kilometre for the average new car, but wants the compliance deadline extended further to between 2020 and 2025.

Kelly also said she would seek exemptions from the limits for elements of Britain's car industry which produced relatively small numbers of high-emission cars.

Time will tell how successful she ends up being. In truth, our Transport Secretrary has been reduced to the status of chief lobbyist to the real decision-makers, which will be the EU institutions.

Being brought forward as an environmental measure, this issue will ultimately be decided by majority voting. So if our elected government minister isn't given what she wants, there's nothing she or anyone will be able to do about it anyway. She'll get out-voted, and we'll have to impose the law regardless.


Predictable outcome

How this sorry saga will end is already all too predictable.

I'll stick my neck out and predict that Kelly will not get the deadline extended as far as she wants. Neither will she get Britain's specialist car makers permanently excluded from the limits.

What she may get, as a face-saving gesture, is some kind of temporary derogation from the limits for Britain. This will basically be a stay of execution for Britain's specialist car industry, as it isn't likely companies such as Rolls Royce, Bentley or Aston Martin will be able to comply with the average emissions limit in their model range in any likely extended term, nor have the kind of money necessary to develop technology that will bring about such a rapid cut in the emissions of their products.

So not only will large sections of our industry and tens of thousands of workers very likely suffer due to a blinkered obsession with the dodgy science apparently linking CO2 emissions to global warming, but their fate will be decided by people sitting in Brussels that none of us can hold accountable for their decisions in any meaningful way.

Hardly good for prosperity, nor what most people would understand by the idea of living in a democracy.

Official report slams CO2-linked 'congestion-charge' plans

A report published by Transport for London (TfL) has demolished the claimed benefits of Ken Livingstone's plans for emissions-based road charging.

Livingstone's latest not-so-bright idea is to switch away from charging cars simply for entering central London and over to charging according to their emissions, starting next year.

This will herald the conversion of the C-charge - originally sold to Londoners on the grounds of combatting congestion - into simply an additional emissions-linked road tax.

The key differences of the new scheme are that cars emitting up to 120g/km of CO2 will be able to enter London without charge - the aim being to encourage people to switch to such lower-emissions cars.

At the other end of the new charging scale, those with cars that emit more than 226g/km CO2 will be hit with a highly punitive £25 daily tax to enter the C-charge zone - and will also lose their current 90% 'residents discount' if they live inside the zone.

So any cars within this emissions bracket that 'live' inside the zone will become punitively and unreasonably expensive to move during the charging hours.

All cars with emissions in between will continue to be subject to the current £8 daily charge.

More cars = more emissions

However the TfL-commissioned Impact Assessement for the revisions, authored by environmental consultants AEA, has pointed out that not only will the effect of the changes be "an increase in cars moving within the zone" - defeating the purpose of an anti-congestion scheme - but that "Increased congestion would mean that all vehicles would move more slowly leading to increases in CO2 emissions."

So if the scheme is successful on Livingstone's own terms - encouraging people to switch to lower emissions cars - the result is clearly going to be more cars in central London, more congestion and ultimately more, erm, emissions.

Even the AEA report's best case scenario (before the congestion has a chance to start building) is a tiny reduction in CO2 emissions of "between 0.3% and 2%" for 2009.

The likelihood of more cars hitting the roads has been backed by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), which recently revealed independent research showing the change in the C-charge rules would lead to 4,000-10,000 extra car users being tempted to drive in London.


Ken's class war

If Livingstone goes ahead with the revised scheme, regardless of such a projected failure to either curb congestion or reduce emissions, the real justification could only be that he simply wants to engineer a way to financially attack the owners of what he perceives as 'big' cars with that punitive £25 charge, because he thinks they're likely to be wealthy people.

In other words - another indicator that he's still prosecuting the same old class war that he has a long reputation for, but this time wrapping his plans in green and trying to invoke the 'emissions' bogeyman as justification.

But using car emissions to target the wealthy just doesn't work. Anti-capitalists trying to disguise their objectives by wearing green clothes, like Livingstone, don't realise it because none are remotely interested in cars and none have bothered to look at the facts.

Far from the hype, the upper emissions bracket which Livingstone intends to slam with the £25 charge and loss of the residents discount includes modest family cars like the 1.8l Skoda Superb, people carriers like the 1.8l VW Sharan, family saloons like the 2.2l Fiat Croma and medium-sized estate cars like the 2.4 Honda Accord Tourer and Mercedes-Benz C230.

Hardly the Chelsea 'gas guzzlers' or (gasp!) 4x4s that the likes of Red Ken and 'green' cronies seem to get so excited about. Rather, normal family transport that any family with a couple of kids is likely to need.


Car industry's green progress

The SMMT's Christopher Macgowan has countered these on-going efforts to slap excessively punitive taxes on car users by pointing out the considerable progress being made by the car industry to reduce the impact their products make on the environment.

In the last four years the industry has cut CO2 emissions by more than 36%, equivalent to 0.78 million tonnes, and average car emissions have fallen by 12% since 1997.

Doesn't London deserve a mayor who will act primarily in the interests of the city rather than in pursuing out-dated class war at any cost to hard-working families and reducing congestion?

Rolls flat out

Rolls-Royce has announced the creation of several hundred new jobs, as its factory at Goodwood is now working flat-out to meet demand for the luxury car.

With the recently announced 101EX coupe model and the smaller Roller that will follow, plans are being laid to expand capacity at the West Sussex site.

Sales for the third quarter of the year were up 22% on the same period in 2006, and workers at the factory are set to rake in the overtime for the rest of 2007.

The waiting list for the regular and long-wheelbase Phantoms reaches well into next year and orders for the Phantom Drophead Coupe now stretch into 2009.

Chairman and chief executive Ian Robertson said: "These are exciting times for Rolls-Royce. With the success of Phantom, the recent addition of the convertible and last week's announcement of a new coupe in the Phantom family, our challenge is to cope with exceptional customer demand.

"The changes that will soon take place mark a significant investment in Goodwood, in the future of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and in the future of manufacturing in the UK."

4x4 sales rise

Meanwhile up in Solihull, the good news continues for Land Rover.

Once again hammering the hype of an anti-4x4 'backlash', the company has announced that September was its best sales month in its entire 60-year history.

With the diesel Range Rover and all-new Freelander 2 leading the charge, globally the company sold 26,000 4x4s - 34% more than the previous September.

And so far in 2007 sales have reached 167,400 - 15.7% up on the same period in 2006.

Business is booming in Russia and China in particular, where September sales were up by 105 and 249% respectively.

Land Rover MD Phil Popham said "This year we shall sell around 40,000 cars in countries where we didn't even have a presence five years ago.

"We're on track with plans to fit technology to improve the environmental performance of our cars and we've given a hint of new, exciting design. A great future is shaping up."

This month Land Rover has also revealed plans to cut the CO2 emissions of its model range by an impressive nearly 20% by 2012.

Two more great success stories for the British car industry - and a useful guide as to what's being risked by those advocating oppressive financial attacks on car makers and users on un-proven 'global warming' grounds.

Treasury misses chance of big cut in emissions

The great clunking fist hammered down on millions of hard-pressed car users yet again today, as Gordon Brown's fuel tax rise announced in his last budget as Chancellor reaches the forecourts.

Prices will rise by 2p a litre but, taking into account VAT, the rise will actually top 2.3p.

Further rises are on the way, with another 2p a litre scheduled for next April and 1.84p more in April 2009.

But it wasn't just motorists getting a hammering, as the announcement also left the government's claim that 'urgent' action is necessary to halt climate change badly bruised.

Speaking to the BBC, a Treasury spokesman claimed that the tax rise sent "the right environmental signals in our fight against climate change".

But because the increase has been applied to all grades of fuel, including more efficient fuels on the market like BP Ultimate, the only signal that has actually been sent is 'we could give car users a real choice to cut emissions, but we'd rather just pocket a bit more cash'.


Brown's choice: pounds or planet?

Due to its cleaning power and greater efficiency, BP claims that if everyone used their Ultimate range, emissions equivalent to one million cars would be extinguished.

That'd be like removing all the cars from a city like Newcastle. The benefit to the environment would be quick and considerable.

With more efficient fuels upwards of 6p a litre more expensive than ordinary unleaded, few car users currently opt to shoulder the extra costs.

However, when 70% of the price of a litre of fuel is tax - about 68p a litre - the government has considerable scope to equalise the price of greener fuels with ordinary unleaded without losing too much income.

After all, can the government seriously expect only us to make the sacrifices they claim are needed to cut emissions? Can taxes only be 'green' if they go up? Clearly not.


Rhetoric or action?

The only conclusion to draw from this apparent unwillingness to take a very simple and effective action to reduce emissions - albeit one involving the government cutting its income slightly - is that the government doesn't believe its own hype about the 'urgency' of climate change.

So why should we? No wonder so many are coming to suspect that climate change is simply being used as a bogus justification for government to grab an even bigger share of people's earnings.

The result of today's change is that most car users still can't afford to take action to reduce their carbon footprint, even if they wanted to.

Right environmental signals? Hardly.

Land Rover to add to SUV range

Solihull-based 4x4 manufacturer Land Rover has announced plans to build a small SUV-hatchback crossover in the mould of the successful Nissan Qashqai.

The new model, the only picture of which that's currently available is shown above, is about three years away from production and would enter the current line up below the Freelander.

It would be aimed more at on-road use than Land Rover's traditional heavyweight 4x4s, and so potentially offer much lower CO2 emissions.

This week Land Rover has also announced further steps in its programme to make its vehicles more environmentally-friendly.

Beyond the company's contributions to environmental charities and scheme to offset the emissions related to the manufacture of every vehicle and its first 45,000 miles of use, from early 2009 a stop-start system will be fitted as standard to all Freelander 2 TD4 manual vehicles.

The system turns off the engine when the vehicle is stationary and automatically restarts it when the driver is ready to move off, cutting CO2 emissions by 7% from 194 g/km to 179 g/km.

In addition, Land Rover announced a charitable partnership between the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the Land Rover G4 Challenge.

Land Rover is committed to generating £1m for the Federation.

100mph cars to be banned by the EU?

Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies (pictured) has revealed himself to be a leading candidate for this blog's Idiot of the Year.

Davies - who last year had to resign as Lib Dem leader in the European Parliament over offensive comments he made in a letter to a Jewish constituent - has evidently been keeping himself busy helping to draft a new EU proposal that calls for a ban on the making of cars capable of more than 101mph, to help cut CO2 emissions.

Only military, emergency and police cars would be exempt from the law, which is being voted on in the European Parliament this month and could come into force in four years' time.

Davies argues that "between 1994 and 2004 the power of new cars went up by 28%, making them a lot heavier, and so increasing the amount of CO2 they put out, even though no country raised its speed limit to allow cars to use this increased power".

Flawed idea

But his idea that cars have only become heavier due to a pursuit of power and top speed have been condemned by many commentators as badly ill-informed.

In fact it's completely the opposite. Cars have mainly got heavier to accommodate compulsory new EU safety features, such as airbags and pedestrian impact zones, and to meet ever more stringent EU occupant safety requirements - measures in which Chris Davies himself has presumably also been involved in implementing.

Consequently, more power is then needed to maintain a heavier car's existing performance, particularly acceleration, and that will inevitably also result in a higher top speed.

So if he's worried about cars getting heavier and emitting more, Davies would do better to look a lot closer to home for the blame.

Second mistake

Beyond his mistake over the root causes of cars becoming more powerful, Davies also gaffes by making a simple link between power and more weight.

Often power outputs are increased merely by altering a car's computer chip, as with the Mini One to Mini Cooper, making no difference to weight whatsoever.

The big question is how does an MEP get to write proposals that could have such serious implications for the car industry, while evidently labouring under such fundamental ignorance?

Davies threatens tens of thousands of jobs

Elsewhere in the proposals, Mr Davies proves himself no friend to tens of thousands of British car industry workers and a major section of British industry, by suggesting that cars emitting double an average 120g/km of CO2 by 2015 should be banned.

That would very likely sound the death knell for major British sports and executive car-makers like Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin, which employ tens of thousands of people in this country and make a huge contribution to our economy.

What has Mr Davies got to say to them? Very little, probably.

Homes pollute more than cars

It's official! People produce less pollution while using their car than they do by watching TV, washing the dishes and keeping warm.

That's according to a new Government website, which allows users to work out their annual carbon footprint.

The Internet-based calculator takes into account the property you live in, the appliances you have and transport you use.

But car magazine Auto Express wanted to see exactly how much a car contributes to someone's total carbon output, so entered figures for one of their team who lives on his own in a two-bedroom flat in London.

The website found he created 4.06 tonnes of carbon a year heating and lighting his home and powering appliances such as TVs, a fridge and a dishwasher.

The transport section of the calculator works out the combined total for public transport use, flights and cars. Doing 10,000 miles a year in a 42mpg Ford Focus 1.6, the Auto Express writer's transport carbon footprint came out at 2.89 tonnes - 42% of the total.

Another clear illustration of how the relentless pursuit of car users to shoulder the burden of so-called 'green taxes' is so wilfully misdirected that it must be far more about raising extra cash from an easy target than helping the environment.

EU chief's hypocrisy on car emissions

The president of the EU Commission, José Manuel Barroso, has been forced to defend himself against charges of hypocrisy for owning a so-called 'gas-guzzling' 4x4.

While driving a 4x4 is not an activity that someone can come under fire for on this blog, the problem lies in Barroso's abject double standards.

For himself, he chooses the safety, style and driving experience of a 4x4.

But at work heading the European Commission, he piously lectures us all about the urgency of cutting car emissions. Worse, he busies himself making excessive laws aimed at forcing the rest of us who aren't paid out of an apparently bottomless pit of taxpayers' money into tiny city cars, by steadily making anything else unaffordable.

Barroso, who owns a Volkswagen Touareg, said: "I have never spoken of myself as an example to anybody - today's moralistic approach is not mine."

But this is more than a tad rich, coming from the head of a body that, despite its democratic illegitimacy, constantly makes moral choices in a wide range of policy areas and enforces them on us all through EU-wide laws.

Barroso's VW 4x4 emits an above-average level of CO2 of 356 g/km - well above a 130g limit Brussels is seeking to impose on the car industry by 2012. Taken as a whole, the EU Commission's car fleet of 85 vehicles has an average emissions level of more than 258g/km.

Are they doing anything about that? So why should we make sacrifices in our choices?

'Collective action' EU-style

In response to the hypocrisy charge, Mr Barroso bizarrely insisted that fighting climate change was about "collective action" and voiced concern that a focus on an individual's CO2 usage could be a "slippery slope".

Yet most people would understand the simple idea that 'collective action' actually results from the choices of large numbers of individuals.

And few are likely to heed 'encouragements' to make certain perceived pro-environment choices when those doing the encouraging (or more accurately in this case, enforcing through EU law) don't take their own words seriously enough to act on them.

Euro corporatism exposed

Actually Barroso's response provides a chilling exposé of the corporatist mindset of those running the EU, in which 'collective action' comprised of individuals acting in common (for example, in voting for those who govern them) plays no part.

Rather, collective action EU-style is derived through the interaction of bodies taken to speak on behalf of groups of individuals. We individuals ourselves are expected to just do what the annointed 'collective' says.

Hence Barroso's idea that there's no need to focus on individuals, or being remotely credible in front of us.

Certainly, with such a 'don't drive what I do, drive what I say' mindset in evidence at the top of the EU and no appreciation of there being a problem in such an attitude, it's no wonder the EU-led way in which its member countries are increasingly governed is being described as 'neo-feudal'.

Richmond's 'green' parking permit con

Richmond upon Thames in south west London has seen the latest outbreak in efforts to ramp up taxes on the already over-burdened car user citing global warming.

Despite the fact that energy use in homes and businesses is by far the biggest reason for Britain's carbon emissions - and encouraging energy conservation therefore likely to make a far more productive contribution to reducing total emissions - Richmond council has joined the ranks of unimaginative politicians and unjustifiably decided to pick on the car user yet again.

That this idea comes from Richmond council is no surprise when we discover it is controlled by the Liberal Democrats. This is the party that signalled its intention to excessively victimise car users in an absurd car tax policy proposed at their recent conference.

Charges hit more than 'wealthy'

There are so many disturbing features about this latest proposal that it's hard to know where to begin.

First let's deal with the idea that this is a plan to 'make the wealthy pay more' for choosing big, polluting cars. In fact, its implications go far wider. Even best-selling small city cars like the Mini, Ford Fiesta and Nissan Micra are in the Band D set to be hit with a 10% increase in permit charges. That's an increase four times the rate of inflation.

Looking at the next band up, with permits due to cost 30% more under the new regime, even very average family cars like the 1.8 litre Ford Mondeo and Vauxhall Vectra appear.

So what exactly do Richmond council expect people to use in order to avoid these excessively increased charges? Or could the intention possibly be just to get their hands on more of people's hard-earned cash and global warming is just a handy excuse?

Because this plan, as it stands, will quite obviously hit not just the wealthy or owners of large cars, but the far larger number trying to get by on average incomes using a wide range of very normal, average cars.

Complicating factors

There are also several complicating factors. For example, the purchase price of all new Land Rovers - the dreaded 'polluting 4x4s' we hear so many complaints about - will from next year include the cost of off-setting three years worth of their carbon emissions.

So, actually, a brand new Land Rover is carbon neutral for its first 45,000 miles and so far better for the environment in that period than any other car. But is Richmond going to inspect the mileages of new Land Rovers and exempt all those showing under 45,000 from their new resident permit charges? They would, if they were really interested in promoting pro-environment action.

What's more, there is some debate about the real fuel economy under everyday conditions of the Toyota Prius, the only car in the council's proposed 50% reduction Band B which isn't too small to be suitable for average family use.

Even if this plan were to be focussed only on larger cars, let's be clear. Owners of 'gas guzzling' cars already pay much more for their choice, by definition. The more fuel a car uses, the more fuel tax is paid. And let's not forget, the government's share of the price of a litre of fuel is more than 70%. Car tax is also now graduated by emissions, meaning they also pay more for that too - far more than is ever spent on maintaining roads.

These are already massive 'green' taxes car users are paying, and have long been paying - the owners of 'gas guzzling' cars more than any. Yet is this massive existing government income already being used to help 'save' the environment? Hardly.

Council hypocrisy

But beyond the transparant real agenda of this plan, it's the blatant hypocrisy of Richmond council that's most galling. They're proposing to hammer thousands of middle income local car users over the cost of parking a car outside their own house (on which they presumably already pay a large slice of Council Tax) spouting solemn lectures about the threat of global warming while, according to the Times report on the proposal, not only maintaining car parking facilities for their own staff but even offering them subsidies.

If the threat of global warming were truly as urgent and action as necessary as they claim, then getting their own house in order is surely a pre-requisite of preaching to others - certainly of being taken seriously and avoiding a backlash come the next election.

It's very hard to avoid the conclusion that this plan is motivated not so much by concern for the environment as, yet again, by a desire to raise revenue from the already over-paying car user, hoping they won't complain if the plan is dressed up in a green banner.

Richmond Council is currently consulting on their plans and wants feedback. You can comment here.