On Tuesday, the Tories, still ahead in the opinion polls and widely expected to gain power in an election, which must be held by June 2010, went on a green charm offensive.

It’s unlikely to steal the election, but it nevertheless got heads turning and newspapers gnashing.

The centrepiece of their eye-catching plans to tackle global warming was a scheme where households will be rewarded cash incentives to recycle mountains of trash.

UK households generate around 35 millions of tonnes of waste a year, according to the party. Only around a fifth of that rubbish is recycled - less than half the proportion managed in Germany.

The novel, if not original, idea is that families will accumulate points for all the waste they diligently box up. The points can then be used to claim up to 130 pounds a year in vouchers from big stores like Marks & Spencer, which has already signed up to the scheme.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne in a keynote speech said the savings made in landfill taxes would pay for the vouchers, thereby saving the need for any extra government spending. He has some evidence to prove that it works too.

The scheme has already been piloted by a Tory-run local council with recycling rates rising by 30 percent. Osborne also reported that over half of all eligible households in Windsor and Maidenhead, in Berkshire had chosen to participate.

Moreover, Recyclebank, the American firm behind the idea which is working closely with the local authorities here, says it has successfully increased recycling rates by up to 200 percent in 500 cities and communities across America.

The Tories say Labour’s desire to encourage more recycling has backfired with the threatened use of dustbin taxes that penalise householders who do nothing to recycle. “Carrots work better than sticks,” Osborne said.

Do you think the sweetener would work nationally? And will it encourage you to recycle, to eventually go out and do even more, er, shopping?

-- Neil Collins is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own --

LONDON, April 16 (Reuters) - Poor old Alistair Darling. The Chancellor is girding himself to deliver a truly ghastly Budget, and lined up a crowd-pleasing headline-grabber to distract attention from the financial horrors ahead.

Then his colleague transport minister Geoff Hoon goes and grabs the headlines for himself, revealing plans to bribe motorists to ditch the gas-guzzler for an electric car.

From 2011, buyers are promised 5,000 pounds towards the cost. Smug drivers pottering along in a subsidised electric car, powered by juice generated from subsidised wind farms, can feel in perfect harmony with nature.

This is an illusion. Carbon dioxide, which is all modern conventional cars emit, is generated by electric cars too, but it's out of sight and out of mind at the power station. In terms of the total energy needed to propel the occupants around, there is no saving from going electric.

There are other snags. Sales of the G-Wiz, a toy car which will still cost 4,000 pounds even with the subsidy, are unlikely to be helped by this*. Drivers will be reluctant to venture far from the comfort of a friendly power point, for fear of being stranded. The exotic metals in the batteries present a sitting target for thieves. If enough people go electric, the concessions like avoidance of parking and road use charges will quickly disappear.

Subsidies distort behaviour, and today's subsidy is tomorrow's tax loophole. Cars use valuable public space, and energy of all kinds is going to get more expensive. If Darling has any strategic sense, he will take advantage of the low oil price to raise the tax on road fuel.

But that wouldn't be popular, would it?

*http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/?bcpid=4464161001&bctid=1655754070
((Edited by David Evans))

Chef Gordon Ramsay is never shy of courting controversy and he is back in the headlines again calling for restaurants to be fined if they sell out-of-season vegetables or fruit.

You could forgive the public for being confused when it comes to knowing where to eat, where to shop and what to buy.

Almost daily we are bombarded with conflicting information about whether food is healthy or not, or good or bad for the environment. For example, some groups say supermarkets should not give out free plastic bags (this week Marks and Spencer brought in a 5p charge), while other stores, such as Sainsbury’s say that is not the answer and will not bring lasting benefit to the environment.

Ramsay’s latest target is food flown in from abroad. “I don’t want to see asparagus in the middle of December,” he says. Most people over 30 can probably remember when a strawberry would never have been seen except during the British summer and the celebrity chef would like to see a return to the culture of eating home-grown produce.

What’s more, environmentalists argue that it is better for the planet, as according to the Department for Food and Rural Affairs, air freight emits more greenhouse gases per food mile than any other form of transport.

Ah, but what about the farmers in some of the poorest countries in the world who are producing the food for our supermarkets? That trade is vital to their wellbeing, with a million farmers and their families in Africa depending on it, according to the Department for International Development.

What’s more DFID says driving six and half miles to buy your shopping emits more carbon than flying a pack of Kenyan green beans to the UK. “Do we, in rich countries, help poor countries to trade their way out of poverty by buying their exports, or do we say no to air-freighting and buy local produce instead?,” DFID asks.

But then the champions of organic food, the Soil Association, argue that DFID has got it wrong and the government is being irresponsible.

So, is Ramsay just serving up a hot topic to help publicise his new TV show? Or is he right, and restaurants should be forced to use local produce?
Send us your comments

By Francesca Lagerberg, head of the national tax office, Grant Thornton

Most Budgets have all the attraction of being slapped in the face with a wet kipper and sadly this one is unlikely to reverse the trend. As expected, from today up goes the cost of booze (4p on a pint) and fags (11p on a packet). Also for those who like driving larger less-green new cars there is a “showroom” tax coming in from 2009 that could cost them around 950 pounds.

However, for the entrepreneur there was a little cheer. After strong representations from business, Chancellor Alistair Darling has deferred the “income shifting” rules that were due to start from this April. These were a direct attack on family-owned businesses that include lower tax paying family members who take out dividends or profits but make a less significant contribution to the business. A case last year (Jones v Garnett) went against the government and it was looking to legislate to get the result it wanted. The proposals were wide-ranging and ill-targeted. A deferral will hopefully allow time to revisit this whole approach.

The working family got several name-checks in the Budget speech and this broadly amounts to an increase in child benefit (20 pounds per week for the first child) and the child element of child tax credit, but this will not take effect until April 2009.

There was no further change to the capital gains tax (CGT) regime so that from April 6 all individuals will be paying at a flat rate of 18 percent with the only hope of reducing the charge being a special entrepreneurs’ relief that has stringent qualifying conditions, but may help the smaller business to take their charge down to an effective rate of 10 percent. However, some others clearly benefit under the new regime. For example, those looking to sell a buy-to-let property after April will find that the new rules help them as the best tax rate they would get under the existing legislation would be 24 percent.

For non-domiciled individuals, the Chancellor provided further details on the radical changes taking effect from April 6. If they want to continue to get the tax advantages of being non-domiciled in the UK after then they will have to pay 30,000 pounds for the privilege once they are resident here for seven out of the past 10 years. However, for those who would not remotely be able to pay such a high levy remitting just small amounts of foreign income (2,000 pounds) will not be caught. This is a slight increase on the original 1,000 pound proposal. There is also a new test of where you were at midnight to work out what days you were really present in the UK, which may be more useful to internationally mobile workers than the rules we heard of last October at the pre-Budget report.

So, overall Darling’s first Budget was short on drama, but long on minor detail. A massive 207 pages of back-up notes support the Budget Red Book. For most people this event will provide little to cheer, but equally little to passionately dislike.