Green lectures make me fume

LATE last night, I heard a woman from the Caravan Club defending the hordes of people who clog up the roads with their mobile sardine cans.

The perennial argument has been made all the more relevant this year by the fact that our jet-setting foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, has just taken off on her hols with caravan in tow.

Just at the point when a Middle East ceasefire is on the cards and our foreign secretary has upped sticks and headed off on hols - with her security guards not far behind in something similar.

You can almost imagine the scenes when the police started handing out the summer assignments to their elite. Caravan with Beckett or Caribbean with Blair?

But, anyway, I was quite impressed with Mrs Beckett for her decision to go on holiday in a caravan, assuming that she'd headed off somewhere in the UK. At least she'd be close by if all hell kicked off and George 'W' Bush decided he actually wanted UK input into the Middle East solution, rather than just the opinion of his new best friends in France.

So imagine my disappointment when I read - in the Daily Mail - that she'd actually hopped on to a Channel ferry - and bought baguettes in the Duty Free! - and was staying somewhere in France!

Silly me for thinking that the former secretary of state for the environment - whose responsibility included rural affairs and farmers - had finally realised the importance of helping the countryside by spending money on it, and staying on a campsite being run by a farm family which had diversified in the wake of the foot and mouth crisis.

But at least she wasn't on our airwaves from first thing this morning trying to encourage me to turn the thermostat down by 1 degree a day to help reduce the level of carbon emissions going out into the world.

No, that would be Tony Blair, who should be on holiday by now, but isn't because he thought Dubya might want to chat with him on world affairs - a situation which makes him look rather desperate, doesn't it?

The same Tony Blair who, instead of making the relatively short hop by plane from American to the Caribbean, opted instead to fly back to the UK because he didn't want to 'be out of contact on a long-haul flight' at such a critical time in the peace negotiations.

That's peace negotiations which he appears to be have been sidelined on. That critical time was last Thursday and Friday. It's now Monday and the bombs are still falling.

So presumably Mr Blair intends to fly out of London to the Caribbean sometime this week. That's two long-haul journeys which have replaced one relatively short-hop as a result of burst of self-importance.
And he has the cheek to start lecturing us on how to save the planet!

Going green appears to be trendy again, thanks largely to David Cameron's Tory Party. But surely the likes of Blair should start practising what they preach. Fewer long-haul flights would tackle carbon emission problems to a degree. Think of the pollution reduction we'd all benefit from if senior politicians from all sides stopped gladhanding around the country whenever an election - be it local, national or byelection - for the sake of a few votes.

Imagine if Mr Blair started using video conferencing. If Blackburn with Darwen Council can set it up so people can watch meetings taking place in one of its two town halls at various locations, I don't see why government hasn't embraced it.

Mr Blair also needs to consider who he is preaching too. It doesn't matter how many of us turn the TV off rather than leave it on standby, or how many of us opt for cooler homes (global warming = higher temperatures = no need for heating!), if his mate at the White House doesn't promise to tackle America's polluting industries.

But perhaps his mate at the White House isn't listening to him that closely any more.