Electric politics

THE Ministers of Environment and Regional Development have come up with a cunning wheeze to stave off global warming and save thousands of pounds of motorist’s fuel bills with a bid to have electric car fuelling points (that is plugs!) across Northern Ireland.

We say yes to this innovative approach...errr well we sort of do! The Minister of the Environment is hardly known as a massive mate of the green movement, nor are his party colleagues such as the Finance Minister. And did the Minister for Regional Development sign up just because he saw the word “green” in the press release?

Whatever the reasoning, we do wonder whether they bothered to ask the brains in the country (those in our universities not doing media or politics degrees) whether this was really the best way forward, or whether hydrogen cell cars were more environmentally friendly?

But we suspect that the real solution to solving the carbon crisis is to find a way to tap the hot air generated by MLAs. Once that is achieved we can even sell-off said hot air and be a net exporter of hot air, as opposed to direct rule days when we were a net importer of hot air.

Tapping the collective carbon dioxide deposits generated by MLAs and culling the dozens of ministerial press release writers will probably save planet earth, by offsetting the entire CO2 production of China and India combined!

However, in the interests of being a ‘right on’, animal friendly, anti-cruelty column we urge that the culling of press officers is done in a humane manner, without the use of clubs or big sticks of any kind. And the journalists unable to cope without a daily fix from Government press releases should have state-sponsored counselling to help them cope!