Environmental Tories

Keir Hardly points out the hypocrisy of the Tories claim to be an environmentally friendly party by drawing attention to research from Friends of the Earth that shows that the British Conservatives and UKIP have the worst record on supporting environmental issues of all parties throughout the European Union. Our own Welsh Conservative MEP Jonathan Evans was ranked 585 out of 685 MEPs, voting for only 14 per cent of positive environmental measures passed.

I'm sure that it was an unintentional oversight by Keir, but he failed to mention that two Welsh MEPs appear at the very top of the table with the best possible record.

At the very top of the list, soaring way ahead of all Lib Dem, Labour and Tory MEPs are Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans and former Plaid MEP Eurig Wyn both of whom have a 100% record. (The Green Party, of course, and the DUP also scored 100%)

I was very unimpressed with David Cameron's environmental policy announcements today, they may sound good but I can't see them having much affect. The idea that fewer people will use domestic flight if VAT is added to the cost, in particular, will have hardly any impact.

Habit changing taxes have been tried and tried again by governments but they have little impact. Take the tax on fags as an example - most smokers can find the extra 50p or so that goes on a packet every year - so they don't give up smoking. To make a real difference the government would have to add, say, £5 extra on a packet each year, but that would prove to be just too unpopular. The same is true on VAT on domestic flights, an extra £30 or so isn't enough to discourage people from flying but Cameron daren't suggest a punitive tax level that would effectively discourage domestic flying.