Milliband ups the ante in mythical promises

It is a rule in modern politics that if you want to bury a story or cover up how useless you are at something, commit to an even more grandiose scheme to be done far in the future, like this one. The media class isn't interested in what you have (or haven't) done about something, but they lap stuff like this up.

In a letter to Mr Miliband, Lord Turner said the tougher target would be "challenging but feasible", and could be achieved at a cost of 1% to 2% of GDP in 2050.

Not challenging for Lord Turner and the rest of the extremely comfortable political class, of course.

Anyway, the bit about 1% to 2% in 2050 is extremely misleading - the implication is that it will cost 1 or 2% of GDP only in 2050. Of course, this is rubbish - it will cost 1% to 2% of GDP every year until 2050. Doesn't sound much? Well, average growth of the UK economy is about 2.5% per year, on average. To meet this ludicrous target, however, 1% to 2% will be lost per year, in other words a 1-2% contraction in the economy. That means little or no overall growth for the next forty years. Government projections of spending (on health, welfare, etc) rely on the economy expanding, not contracting or stagnating. You can have a welfare state or a green utopia (which it won't be, of course), but not both. Meanwhile, India and China laugh at our suicidal politics and plough on regardless industrialising their billion or two billion population economies. The irony is that we will beggar our economies, while the pittance in CO2 we save over forty years will be wiped out by about nine months of Sino-Indian economic growth.

Oh, and this forecast of 1% or 2% is by the same people who brought you the estimates for the Olympic games, i.e. born liars. Expect the true cost to be 4% or more, or a fucking economic disaster, in other words.