Don't Let the Facts Get in the Way of a Good Story

The BBC leapt into action, unable to resist any opportunity to get Steph McGovern out of a nice warm studio and into a factory, hospital or school (where do they get the kids from at that hour of the morning?) in order to “bring the story to life”.

And bring it to life she did, “Ooh, isn’t it quiet” purred Steph from behind the wheel of an electric car, while that chap from Warwick Manufacturing Group told us all it heralded a new dawn for British car manufacturing.

If you were thinking, whilst watching all of this, “hang on a minute”, rest assured you were not alone.

It’s not that I don’t want to save the planet, but I’ve been around long enough to know that there is a lot of work to be done to make all of this happen.

For example, I am told that if you live in Worcester, the nearest current recharging point for your Tesla is the service station at Junction 2 of the M42. In other words, we need more recharging points, in itself a big job.

No trouble, I hear the ever-optimists say, we’ll recharge at home. Only you can’t because your average house only has a 13-amp ring main which isn’t powerful enough. So, we’re all going to have to rewire our homes too.

It gets worse. The UK is already facing a power supply crunch in the early 2020s as old nuclear reactors are decommissioned and remaining coal-fired plants are phased out. New ones cost a lot of money, as we are finding out with Hinckley Point C which currently has a projected cost of £19.6 billion. I don’t know how many Hinckley Points we are going to need to recharge circa 26 million vehicles on a daily basis, but I’m fairly sure it’s more than one.

Why was this target made public with no plan? My suspicion is that it was made to appease the environmental lobby, fully in the knowledge that no Minister, currently in post, will be around to explain why we’ve missed it.