Comparative Of The Week

From the BBC:

More could be done to prevent the early deaths of up to 50,000 people each year hastened by air pollution, MPs say. A Commons Environmental Audit Committee report said failure to reduce pollution had put "enormous" cost on the NHS and could cost millions in EU fines....

EAC chairman Tim Yeo* said: "Air pollution probably causes more deaths than passive smoking, traffic accidents or obesity, yet it receives very little attention from government or the media. In the worst affected areas this invisible killer could be taking years off the lives of people most at risk, such as those with asthma."

Oooh! "more deaths than passive smoking", so pick a number greater than zero, eh? "traffic accidents", that's a known figure, about two or three thousand a year, nowhere near "up to 50,000". How many people die of obesity? No idea. That must be what it's like in the Westminster bubble - the people in there actually see things like passive smoking or obesity as threats to life and limb.

* Lest ye forget, Tim Yeo is a Conservative MP. A company called AFC Energy pay him £3,750 a month for doing one day's work (from They Work For You). AFC Energy do all this clean coal, hydrogen fuel cells and all that nonsense, i.e. are exactly the sort of people who are claiming to have technology which will reduce 'air pollution'.

This is just to illustrate that the daily rate requested by Stephen Byers MP was quite realistic.