The foreword is signed by Cameron and Clegg, and then by Huhne, and we could happily live with the idea of a lower carbon ration in government, if it meant eliminating these three carbon-based life-forms.
The greater problem though is that very few will want to crawl through 220 pages of government-inspired bilge, and the press was never going to give the plan anything more than superficial coverage, which means most people will remain unaware of the insanity of their rulers.
While the majority of people might thus think that Cameron is doing his best to mitigate the effects of the growing recession, he is writing in his "plan" that, "even in these tough times, moving to a low carbon economy is the right thing to do, for our economy, our society and the planet".
These, of course, are not provable facts, but merely assertions, and ones that can easily be falsified. But in a democracy, the test is one of electoral consent – one given through the ballot box.
Not only have these assertions never thus been tested – which means the hugely expensive "remedies" lack the legitimacy of consent – it is very hard to see how they could be. It seems (and most likely is) inconceivable that a general election could be called on this specific issue. Thus any messages sent by the electorate are blurred.
That notwithstanding, nothing offered by the electorate can be in any way construed as consent. Furthermore, given that the coalition was an ad hoc response to a split vote, there was never any manifesto on which the basis of consent could be assumed.
Whatever Cameron and his partner in crime Clegg might think of their "plan" therefore, it does lack legitimacy. This, like the European Union, makes a mockery of democracy, as public consent has neither been asked for nor given.
Without even needing to entertain the scientific or economic issues, therefore, it is sufficient to say that the plan is anti-democratic. It should be opposed simply for that reason, and that reason alone. There is no way by which any one of us should feel obliged to endorse it, or co-operate with its progenitors.
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