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Thursday, 10 January, 2008

  • Newsnight
  • 10 Jan 08, 05:24 PM

GOING NUCLEAR

hutton203x100.jpgAs widely predicted, the government has given the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power plants. John Hutton told MPs the programme was crucial to maintaining a safe and consistent power supply. Our Science Editor Susan Watts will be examining exactly what today's announcement means. Can we be certain there won't be hidden costs for the taxpayer? We'll be hearing from the minister responsible for taking things forward.


DONATIONS

The ongoing story of how Peter Hain failed to declare more than 拢100,000 in donations to his deputy leadership campaign; did he know about the money? And can he survive? Michael Crick has the full story.

MADRASSAS

David Loyn reports on how the Afghan government is attempting to bring madrassas, the religious schools that inspired a generation of fundamentalists, back into the state system. The government wants to reduce the teaching of Islamic philosophy to less than half of the curriculum, and introduce subjects like history, geography, science and languages. The new policy is a direct challenge to neighbouring Pakistan, where madrassas are the main recruiting ground for the Taliban.

MOTORING FOR THE MASSES

The world's cheapest car has been launched at India's biggest auto show in Delhi; it will cost about 拢1,200. It's estimated that up to 60 million more people in India could now afford a car, but is this a good idea considering the impact it will have on CO2 emissions?


Comments  Post your comment

DONOR FIDES

Surely the value of a politician must be inversely proportional to the amount they have to spend to bring that 鈥渨orth鈥 to the attention of those they wish to seduce?
(The same being true for parties at election-time.) No wonder Hain was not in a hurry for his expensive worthlessness to be revealed.

  • 2.
  • At 07:15 PM on 10 Jan 2008,
  • Bob Goodall wrote:

Hi Newsnight

not sure if my last comment appeared?

Is the nuclear option like the national debt- the price will be paid by future generations,

Perhaps you might look at any politicians or former politicians who may have links with the nuclear industry and companies?

not suggesting coal as an alternative,

its easy to consume more, but the benefits may lie in consuming less though this may leave a big hole in peoples lives that the god of consumerism currently fills or infills?

best wishes
Bob

  • 3.
  • At 08:55 PM on 10 Jan 2008,
  • Peter Du Reitz wrote:

Hain has now discovered that over 100,000 pounds has not been declared, exactly what percentage of his campaign funds does this equate too?.

This is an absolute disgrace, coming at the same time as Wendy Alexander in Scotland something seems to be rotten within the Labour party.

Yet reading the 主播大秀 websites and listening to the 主播大秀 on the radio regarding this scandal you would be hard put to find out anything, the 主播大秀 has a duty to report the NEWS not the SPIN put out by a discredited Labour party.

Labour sleaze is now of a higher level than anything the Conservatives managed, yet the 主播大秀 continues to downplay this story.

Shame on Labour and shame on the 主播大秀 who seem to be living up to there hardwon reputation of being BIASED and in the thrall of the Labour party.

I really dispair about the future of the 主播大秀 and by allowing Labour to keep spinning it's collective way of scandals does nothing to diminish my fears that the 主播大秀 is an outmoded and out of touch media organisation.

With the size of the alleged discrepancies in Peter Hain's deputy leadership campaign fund I can't help speculating that he was set up by the stock market parasites. It would be all too easy to knobble his campaign financial controllers in order to ensue career sensitive revelations at the appropriate time. Perhaps they have got good jobs in the city ( with bonuses ) recently,Blair has already cashed in on his reward for being fat cat friendly during his premiership.

  • 5.
  • At 11:47 PM on 10 Jan 2008,
  • Nick Thornsby wrote:

Just watching this report about this cheap car in India- why do we forget how valuable a car is- it allows people to have a freedom that is just not available without a decent form of transport- and never has public transport provided this.

However the Indian economy is booming so why don't they take the initiative like our govt refuses to do and throw some money at developing the hydrogen fuel cell system.

jeremy just virtually repeated what I said at the top of here, but anyway I said it first.

  • 6.
  • At 11:58 PM on 10 Jan 2008,
  • Mistress76uk wrote:

Excellent Jeremy tonight (50/10), particularly with Malcolm Wicks on the nuclear debate, and somewhere in the UK, there's a community that wants nuclear waste on their land! I never knew nuclear waste lasts 20,000 years. Good grief! It is a pity that more isn't invested into renewable energy (Jeremy pointed out that the UK is the weakest in the industrial world) - why not have solar panels on roofs? It's not that expensive, or heavyweight, and it doesn't have the side effects nuclear waste potentially has.
Brilliant debate on the new Tata Nano (the cheapest car in the world!) I found the Green MEP utterly annoying - she failed to understand the difference between a Hummer and a Nano. Perhaps she should go and live back in the stone age.

  • 7.
  • At 11:59 PM on 10 Jan 2008,
  • Richard wrote:

Is there any reason why the word 'report' is no longer used to refer to a news story?. Having Michael Crick talking about his 'package' doesn't seem any clearer, although it certainly sounds interesting.

  • 8.
  • At 12:09 AM on 11 Jan 2008,
  • Bill Bradbury wrote:

Peter, Don't get your knickers in a twist in just over 2 years time you will have your squeeky clean Tory Government of self righteous paragons of virtue.

As for the real world most of us are more worried about the economy and paying our bills without worrying about Peter Hain or whether the Smug Tory spokeman's sole policy is in seeing on how many Labour ministers they can ask to resign. (One way of gaining power?)
I can't wait for this Tory Promised land. We may get hear their view on Nuclear energy or coal fired stations, but that may upset some they may be relying upon to vote them in. As we always follow America, Cameron's new election slogan will be "change". For what? We will find out once they are in.

  • 9.
  • At 12:12 AM on 11 Jan 2008,
  • Kitty Hawk wrote:

The debate over Tata's Nano car this evening is to miss the point of the dynamics of the Indian context in relation to cars entirely. Cars are not desirable as Paxman put it - simply because they are personally convenient, nor is it the case that the Nano will hardly be noticed as it's only a 700cc engine as Mr Patel put it, or the case that the solution is mass rapid public transport systems. Why?

The issue is class.

Buses remain the transport of the majority in cities such as Delhi (Bombay is blessed with an efficient urban rail network), and for anyone with upwardly mobile aspirations - this is precisely the problem. Buses involve mixing with the masses. Where an increasingly visceral suspicion of the urban poor (repeatedly classed depicted as criminal and dirty) by the middle classes, drives a determined effort to remove oneself from mixing outside of ones status group, this is mixed with a strong narrative of female honour and removing ones family, especially women, sees from the need to use forms of private transport increasingly. The car removes the need to mix even with autorickshaw drivers, street hawkers -or even the air, not filtered by AC.

Mr Paxman is wrong to say it is purely convenience on these grounds.

Where the Delhi Metro Rail project has slowly crept out along through the city (priced slightly more than the bus - already having a filtering effect on class and enforced by ticket barrier and a police presence), it has not, and cannot keep pace with the expanse of cars. Unfortunately for Caroline Lucas, mass transport bus systems are pondered, part launched and abandoned with regularity (and pressure from the present bus lobby).

In the last 5 years traffic has increased hugely on Delhi's roads, and as more people have cars, the car needed to denote upper classness has got bigger and bigger, in '05 I saw the first mammoth size Chrysler monsters, and a friend recently reckons she saw a Humvee - all in a country with heavily subsidised fuel, and in cities like Delhi where there are aprx 2000 road deaths a year. Alikesh Patel can tout new technology that will emerge all he likes, but none of these reasons address the underlying reasons for the number of cars on Delhi's roads, nor the problem that will surely pull them up first; space.

If you want to see more on India's public transport problems, Google 'Delhi' and 'bluelines' (as they're colloquially known - they were once red, but that proved problematic owing to the number of people they kill), or one of India's environmental group: www.cseindia.org

  • 10.
  • At 12:13 AM on 11 Jan 2008,
  • Bill Bradbury wrote:

Peter, Don't get your knickers in a twist in just over 2 years time you will have your squeeky clean Tory Government of self righteous paragons of virtue.

As for the real world most of us are more worried about the economy and paying our bills without worrying about Peter Hain or whether the Smug Tory spokeman's sole policy is in seeing on how many Labour ministers they can ask to resign. (One way of gaining power?)
I can't wait for this Tory Promised land. We may get hear their view on Nuclear energy or coal fired stations, but that may upset some they may be relying upon to vote them in. As we always follow America, Cameron's new election slogan will be "change". For what? We will find out once they are in.

  • 11.
  • At 03:35 AM on 11 Jan 2008,
  • A. S. wrote:

'Tata' "Nano"

I understand why the Green MEP was hysterical (she always is, by the way), however, she failed to explain at all what the response should be to the new 'Tata' car.

Should the Indian government ban it (the loony left always wants to ban things)?

Should the Indian government use high taxation to price it out of the reach of the target market?

Should it be banned from most roads, so making it an all-but-useless purchase?

Should the "International Community" call for it to be banned?

Should India be punished for daring to produce a car for the masses?

Should the U.N. set a minimum price for a car, high enough to prevent the majority of those in the developing world from buying one?

The Green MEP has, presumably, been hysterical about 'saving the planet' for many years, so should have, by now, formulated policies to deal with such situations as this.

Like it or not (and the only ones who don't like it are eco-nutters), cars are only going to become cheaper. No nation is ever going to ban it's people from buying and driving their cars.

Western manufacturers are also in on the act producing cars similar to the "Nano", but, in their case, they aren't for us but other developing nations - the more established ones - such as those of Eastern Europe and South America. These, or future incarnations of them, however, stand a far greater chance of one day being available here - hurrah!

  • 12.
  • At 03:38 AM on 11 Jan 2008,
  • A. S. wrote:

'Tata' "Nano"

I understand why the Green MEP was hysterical (she always is, by the way), however, she failed to explain at all what the response should be to the new 'Tata' car.

Should the Indian government ban it (the loony left always wants to ban things)?

Should the Indian government use high taxation to price it out of the reach of the target market?

Should it be banned from most roads, so making it an all-but-useless purchase?

Should the "International Community" call for it to be banned?

Should India be punished for daring to produce a car for the masses?

Should the U.N. set a minimum price for a car, high enough to prevent the majority of those in the developing world from buying one?

The Green MEP has, presumably, been hysterical about 'saving the planet' for many years, so should have, by now, formulated policies to deal with such situations as this.

Like it or not (and the only ones who don't like it are eco-nutters), cars are only going to become cheaper. No nation is ever going to ban it's people from buying and driving their cars.

Western manufacturers are also in on the act producing cars similar to the "Nano", but, in their case, they aren't for us but other developing nations - the more established ones - such as those of Eastern Europe and South America. These, or future incarnations of them, however, stand a far greater chance of one day being available here - hurrah!

  • 13.
  • At 12:19 PM on 11 Jan 2008,
  • Puzzled wrote:

Private cars fragment communities and cause unnecessary travel to work, entertainment and shopping. This leads to lack of exercise and to obesity. It also cuts people off from communicating face to face as well as destroying environments in which children can play in greater safety from accidents and abduction.
Support decreases for public transport and those who wish not to drive find life harder.
The planet is in danger from our own unwillingness to co-operate and growing objection to restraint. India will almost certainly go down the same unhealthy path as we have done but I guess we are in no position to criticise.

  • 14.
  • At 01:03 PM on 14 Jan 2008,
  • Trevor wrote:

I agree with posts 9 and 13. When you buy a car it has lots of unintended consequences. Fragmentation of communities and a tendency to promote the growth of suberbia. Car owners (well off) will lobby for more and better roads. The poor will suffer as a result as the bulldozers move in and air pollution increases.
I would advise that the Indian govermnent responds to the car by removing the state subsidy on fuel. Car drivers must be made to pay the full cost of the fuel (including hidden costs: to ensure that the polluter pays).
India needs to invest in public transport the railway network needs to be modernised. Mass car ownership is a huge threat to public transport. I suspect that the kind of prices we pay in western europe are the most realistic in the long term. Is the average aspiring Indian car owner prepared to pay 拢1 to 拢2 per litre for fuel?
If the Peak Oil pundits have it right then we could be at Peak now or will be in the next year or so. If this is the case then we can expect huge price increases for crude oil. Sensible governments will allow these huge increases to be reflected in pump prices to us the public.
The stark brutal fact that we may all need to embrace is that the planet simply cannot support a western style lifestyle for everyone on the planet.
For India to chase after the american car based social economic model will end in tragedy.

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