Only a few days ago I made the analogy of the Labour government driving us off a cliff because they wouldn't invest in a bridge.
Today Labour have announced the Budget for 2009. And one striking initiative is to reward people buying new cars with a £2,000 contribution if their old car is over 10 years old.
That's £2,000 towards any new car, efficient or not. It's about getting money going through the car industry, nothing to do with encouraging movement towards switching to higher efficiency cars.
This initiative is predicted to cost in the region of £300 million. £375m is being invested into energy efficiency and £525 into offshore wind farms - which is great, but not really enough, especially with a new pledge to cut carbon emissions by 2020 by 34%. It would be so much better to invest the £300m going to the car industry into the energy efficiency or wind farm fund. Allow the car industry to die off and encourage the renewable energy sector to develop and flourish.
A few foundations might be getting dug for this bridge, but as it is we'll still be driving off the cliff. Albeit in a new car.