Victories galore

Total of British Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan = 278

A victory of science over the muscle of wealthy prejudice.

A reform of our rotten libel laws will follow. Simon Singh can rely on a "fair comment" defence of his statements about chiropractors, for which he is being sued. He does not have to proved the scientific fact - often 'proof' is impossible to  demonstrate.

Singh criticised the  British Chiropractic Association (BCA) over an opinion piece he wrote in the Guardian in April 2008. In the article, he criticised the BCA for claiming its members could use spinal manipulation to treat children with colic, ear infections, asthma, sleeping and feeding conditions and prolonged crying. Singh described the treatments as "bogus" and based on insufficient evidence and criticised the BCA for "happily promoting" them.

I was involved in a libel action by a company seeking to silence me in 2005. The cost were mounting so horrendously that I had to give in or face the risk of finnancial ruin. I was entirely in the right and making a fair criticism. Singh was doing the same thing. The claims of the BCA certainly appear to be bogus. The only chiropractor I know well once whispered in my ear, 'It's all in the mind.' I took that to mean that health changes resulting from their manipulations are psychosomatic.

Mark Stephens, a media lawyer, said the judges should be "warmly applauded for avoiding turning court 13 into an Orwellian Ministry of Truth". He said libel lawyers had tried to make litigation over what is an opinion "increasingly technical" and "increasingly expensive". Since the ruling, he had already advised a client facing a libel suit that he was in a better position than before.

Allen Green, the writer of the 2010 Orwell Prize-longlisted blog Jack of Kent, said of Singh's appeal: "His victory is cheering, but for him to have got here has been a complex, depressing, and obscenely expensive journey.

"This is not an example of the English libel laws working. Instead it is a horrifying example of how bad they really are. For him to have to struggle to win in this way signals the urgent need for libel reform."

Expansion halted

Another court has beneficially helped the environment. In essence, the High Court ruled that the Heathrow decision set out in 2003 and 2009 had no legal substance. The implication of this is that the Government must conduct further consultation on the key issues – such as climate change, the economic case, and the plan for surface access, before they can proceed with Heathrow. The Judge is asking the SoS to sign a legally binding undertaking that this further consultation will take place.

The airport expansion is a nonsense and probably obsolete because it conflicst with the Climate Change Act 2008. Not that's the end of the good news

Green progress

The new Green Investment Bank will help make sure that low-carbon infrastructure projects get the funding they need.

Two  global companies, GE and Siemens, have announced they will be building new offshore wind turbine manufacturing facilities in the UK - creating up to 2,700 new green jobs. That makes four new wind turbine manufacturing companies in all - a huge vote of confidence in our drive for clean energy and green jobs.

 Nissan has recently announced they will build Europe's first mass-produced electric car in Britain. Today the important feed-in tariffs are available. Thanks to MP Alan Simpson the successful German subsidies to home generated electricity are available here.

The low carbon economy is emerging.

from Electoral Calculus

Newport West 
County/Area: Mid Glamorgan and Gwent (Wales) 
MP Paul Flynn  (LAB)

Electorate	60,286	Turnout	59.27%	Top
	2005 Votes	2005 Share	Predicted Votes		Chance of winning
LAB	16,020	44.84%	37.81%		57.5%
CON	10,563	29.56%	33.73%		38.6%
LIB	6,398	17.91%	14.62%		3.1%
OTH	1,472	4.12%	10.54%		0.8%
NAT	1,277	3.57%	3.30%		0.0%
LAB Majority	5,457	15.27%	Pred Maj	4.07%

 

Comments

[HuwOS]

First candidate financed illegal and immoral wars and continues to do so

Second candidate supported illegal and immoral wars and will continue to do so.

Choose the man who managed the runaway capitalist thatcher dream economy with everyone relying on credit and light touch regulation.
Or the man who would have done all that and then some.

The Lib Dems may only have one thing right but they have it very right
Voting New Labservatives is a vote for more of the same please.

[Paul Flynn]

Lucky there is no 'Labservative' candidate in Newport West. But it could be : Vote LibDem, Get Tory.

[Kevin Ward]

You're quite right that our chilling libel laws need reform, not least in the form of CFAs.
What a shame then that backbench Labour MPs are doing their best to scupper reforms proposed by Jack Straw.
Read more about it here http://bit.ly/bL20Jw

[Kay Tie]

"Choose the man who managed the runaway capitalist thatcher dream economy with everyone relying on credit and light touch regulation."

Shocking idea: being able to get credit by simply asking for it. How evil of Mrs. Thatcher. My parents had to queue for a mortgage, and after failing at that, had to suck up to the estate agent who played golf with the local bank manager.

Ah, things were so much nicer in the days when Labour were in charge, looking after the common man, erecting a bureaucracy that could only be overcome by corruption.

[Kay Tie]

"Nissan has recently announced they will build Europe's first mass-produced electric car in Britain."

Any idea of the life-cycle CO2 emissions of an electric car? If you look into it, you'll see that the Toyota Prius has higher CO2 emissions over its life than a VW Passat.

Don't expect a politician to care that much, though, no matter how much they profess their support for science and "evidence-based" policy.

[Ad]

'Any idea of the life-cycle CO2 emissions of an electric car? If you look into it, you'll see that the Toyota Prius has higher CO2 emissions over its life than a VW Passat.'

Got to be the way forward in the long term though? I'm not a car enthusiast so I don't know if the VW Passat is a high or low CO2 producer.

[Paul Flynn]

Thanks Kevin. Those who are opposing Jack Straw are among the best of backbench MPs who probably have good reasons for their stand. I will have a word with them.

Singh has a good piece in the Guardian emphasising that much work has to be done. I hope be in the next parliament to do it.

[Paul Flynn]

KayTie can I state my position as a politician who allegedly does not care about these things. The only car my family has is nine year old Skoda in which I have driven 180,000 miles since new. That's reasonably good for the environment. I do use public transport but I should use it more often.

Where did you get this stuff about the Prius? I suspect that 'over the lifetime' is intended to complicate things.

[HuwOS]

You never know with KayTie, Paul, her understanding of truth appears to be faith based as opposed to evidence based.

We don't actually have any idea what she is referring to as she omitted to provide any links or anything else that might be perceived as being evidence which may or may not have informed her comment.

"If you look into it, you'll see that the Toyota Prius has higher CO2 emissions over its life than a VW Passat."

In this case she may be commenting on the Prius being ever so slightly less green than the Volkswagen Passat EcoFuel, if that is the case then neglecting to mention that the comparison is between two intentionally green cars could make a false impression along the lines that a standard car is more green than a car both designed to be and sold as a green car.
An impression I am sure she would never have intended to make without some kind of supporting evidence.

http://green.autoblog.com/2010/01/06/volkswagen-passat-ecofuel-squeaks-past-prius-as-greenest-car-in/

http://www.mibz.com/4011-volkswagen-passat-1-4-tsi-ecofuel-as-green-as-toyota-prius.html

Of course, it is entirely possible that KayTie was referring to something else entirely.
Certainly we must hope so.

Otherwise, the reason why she felt the need to share the earth shaking news that one green car is ever so slightly less/more green than another green car, by one system of measurement, will remain a mystery.
A mystery, which surely only the most suspicious minds would consider an effort to mislead and misinform.

[Kay Tie]

Up pops the mindless HuwOS, who welcomes green politics only because it gives him cover for his repellent ideology of State Control.

Since it was a short comment I didn't bother to cite a source, the wider point being that popular perceptions, championed by politicians, are nearly always wrong. But since bitter old Trots are somewhat undermined by reality, I should have known that I would rattle the bars of cages in deepest Trotskyshire.

I used whatgreencar.com for the figures. They have a method for rating cars that includes lifecycle costs as well as fuel lifecycle costs:

http://www.whatgreencar.com/emissionsanalysis.php

You can search the database. There are lots of cars that are better than the Prius, and plenty that are nicer to drive. I test drove a Prius for an extended drive and the fuel economy figures in reality are very far from the official EU combined-cycle figures quoted. If you want to drive an economical green car, get an efficient diesel with a particulate filter, and as small as practical.

[HuwOS]

What a bizarre answer. Two paragraphs of fantasy rant before avoiding dealing with the issue she herself raised.
Then we are treated to the wonderful news that KayTie prefers driving other cars to the Prius and buried in the last sentence of the last paragraph is an argument that might actually be meaningful and sustainable, albeit unconnected to the comment she made previously.

It really is quite simple.

Kaytie stated,
"If you look into it, you'll see that the Toyota Prius has higher CO2 emissions over its life than a VW Passat."

As the claim was made it reads as if the implication is that any standard VW Passat has lower CO2 emissions over its life than a Prius.
All I can find that could make the statement true is if the statement is about the VW Passat EcoFuel, specifically.
If that was the case then the originator of the comment should come clean about it and acknowledge that the statement as written could be misleading without that key piece of information.

On the site KayTie links to,
http://www.whatgreencar.com/emissionsanalysis.php
I can find Diesel Passats scoring between 41 and 45 on the WhatGreenCar scale
http://www.whatgreencar.com/view-car/22824/vw-passat_cc-manual_6-speed

With the Prius scoring between 33 and 39 on the same scale it is clear that a diesel VW Passat might come close but is definitively not scoring more highly on greenness or lower on emissions.
http://www.whatgreencar.com/view-car/25541/toyota-prius-continuously_variable

Odd that she even chose to run with VW Passat when a Citroen C1 scores better than a Prius on the whatgreencar scale and it's a petrol car, albeit 998cc.
http://www.whatgreencar.com/view-car/24887/citroen-c1-manual_5-speed

Interesting to note as well
that KayTie began her Passat more green than Prius with
"Any idea of the life-cycle CO2 emissions of an electric car? "
Given that the site she links to shows an electric car, the little G Whiz as the most green according to the WhatGreenCar standard, scoring 6 it seems odd she neglected to mention that when commenting on electric cars.

I suggest that if KayTie wants to make an argument that certain types of standard car are more affordable to the consumer are fuel efficient and may be the best way for many who are concerned about green-ness to go at this particular time,
that she do so without making comments that are incorrect on the face of them and could be considered to be intentionally misleading.
Also, when it is pointed out that she has made such a comment, she should if she expects to be taken seriously make the necessary clarifications.

[Kay Tie]

The G-Wiz is not an electric car. It is a toy. But exactly the kind of joke box that the socialists would have us drive, a Trabant for the 21st century.

[HuwOS]

Ah KayTie completes her journey to utter pointlessness.
Refusing to answer the question put to her about the source for her bizarre and evidently false statement and finishing off with her classic, words mean what I want them to mean whether anyone else agrees or not and lastly having another random go at imaginary socialist(which is also a term that she has her own unique definition for and no understanding of) aims.

[Kay Tie]

"Refusing to answer the question put to her about the source"

I gave you the source. If you can't operate a web browser that's not my fault.

[HuwOS]

You pointed to a website.

I checked said website and found nothing to support your statement.
I linked to what I did find, which clearly shows the exact opposite of your statement.

I have given you the option of saying that you were in fact talking about a very specific model of VW Passat and gave links about those.

You have not taken the option, you have not attempted to link to anything that supports your statement.
You have avoided doing so in fact and attempted to redirect peoples attention.

You have, in short, done everything I would expect someone who was attempting to spread disinformation to do.

Unless you come up with something to back up your statement or retract it and you have already had ample opportunity to do so, then I cannot see how anyone could view you as anything other than knowingly dishonest.

[Kay Tie]

"I checked said website and found nothing to support your statement."

You didn't look very hard. Emulating Nelson and his blind eye? Or just a bit thick? If the latter, you probably looked at the wrong Prius or the wrong Passat. If the former, you probably compared a G-Wiz with a 3.0 V6 4WD Passat.

[HuwOS]

And still KayTie throws out garbage without linking to anything to support her apparently fraudulent statement.

Hissing and spitting like a cornered feral cat is not providing evidence or supporting KayTie's statement in any way.

My comment with comparisons and links is still there to be read and is reasonably clearly laid out.
If KayTie has trouble with reading or comprehension I suggest getting a grown up to help.

[Kay Tie]

By simply asking the web site to list large family cars you see this:

http://www.whatgreencar.com/view-car/24580/VW-Passat_Estate

A rating of 32, which is lower than 33. And lower than 41.

An apology for your unfounded tirade would be welcome. None will be forthcoming of course: socialists don't apologise because they do what they thought was right and acted with good intentions.

[HuwOS]

Kudos to Kaytie for finally after many requests, giving some specific information as to what it was she had in mind when she commented that
"you'll see that the Toyota Prius has higher CO2 emissions over its life than a VW Passat"

We have now learned that this is what she had in mind.
http://www.whatgreencar.com/view-car/24580/VW-Passat_Estate

Now she has done that, admittedly for a very specific model of Passat, those badged as Bluemotion
As VW state
"Our BlueMotion Technologies let you enjoy driving while knowing you’re helping to lessen your impact on the environment. The badge already identifies the cleanest, most eco-friendly cars in our range"

In my very first response to that comment I noted that I could find nothing to back that up generally but I could find a specifically green model, the ecofuel which does score better than the Prius on co2 emissions
I went on to say that
"if that is the case then neglecting to mention that the comparison is between two intentionally green cars could make a false impression along the lines that a standard car is more green than a car both designed to be and sold as a green car."

I am afraid that the same point stands with the bluemotion badged cars from VW.
They are specifically intended and designed to be green.
Information on Bluemotion here
http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/technology/bluemotion

Will KayTie now accept that her original statement appears to be about any VW Passat and that is what I queried.
Does she acknowledge that the better performance than the hybrid intentionally green Prius (which rates a very light green on the whatgreencar website) is only from intentionally green VW Passat models.

Despite KayTie's belief that green is socialist and that as a controlling socialist I desire that everyone drives G-Wiz electric cars I actually have no particular view on what the best car type for people right now is.
I suspect that for most buyers fuel efficiency is going to be of primary importance and would go along with the idea that something like the cars using bluemotion technology or whatever non VW companies would call their equivalants if they have them are quite possibly amongst the best choices.

I do agree with Ad that on the basis that the running of cars on fossil fuels will at some point become an impossibility due to the finite nature of those fuels and the increasing demand for those fuels for every purpose worldwide that research and development is vitally necessary on alternate means of powering vehicles for the future.
I also believe that if such technologies can be developed before we reach the end of our sources of fossil fuels then being able to bring them onstream at that point would obviously be beneficial in allowing us to use said finite resources for other things than transport.
I do not know what form these non fossil fuel burning vehicles will take, but in my ignorance it seems likely that electricity will be one option so long as we are able to generate electricity by sustainable methods.
Whether that would then be battery driven or using hydrogen or no doubt many other possibilities for delivery I also do not know.

[Kay Tie]

I simple "sorry" would have been quicker to type.

[HuwOS]

I cannot help but feel that I am much more deserving of an apology along with everyone else than you are.

Your initial statement implied any VW Passat was more green than a Prius (which is only a little green in itself)

I went out of my way to be generous to you in allowing that you may have meant some particularly green model of the Passat.
It took you many many comments before you finally linked to a Passat that would score better, albeit you did not choose to acknowledge as you still choose not to acknowledge that it is a very particular "green" model of the Passat.

You very much owe everyone an apology.
Or at the very least a cranky recognition that querying your initial statement was utterly justified.
Acknowledging that you had meant a particularly green model could have been done in your very next comment after my response to your statement.

We will no doubt never know exactly why you did not then and still have not now acknowledged that a standard Passat would not have lower CO2 emissions than a Prius.

Surely it is worth celebrating that car companies are now putting major efforts into improving fuel efficiency and lowering emissions.
VW Passat BlueMotion or Ecofuel
Both have lower emissions than both a Prius and other VW Passats.

The entire thread could have been spared all this if you had simply used some precision in your comment in the first place, or even if you had clarified when asked.