I haven’t dug up the post, but I’m sure in the past I said that what we’ve got to do against “Chelsea tractors” is ensure that the bottom falls out of the second-hand market and then people will stop buying them.

And it is happening – prices and plummeting and sales are following:

Glass’s Guide, the leading guide to second-hand car prices, said that 4x4s were depreciating much faster this year than in previous years. A one-year-old BMW X5 is now worth only £38,800, compared with a purchase price of £63,397. A year ago a one-year-old X5, which cost £62,542 new, was worth £40,450.
Ian Archer, owner of Harringtons of Fulham, West London, said the high cost of fuel was also a factor.“It is always a difficult thing to tell an owner that their car is losing £1,000 a month.

And that Sian Berry, our Green Party candidate in tomorrow’s Kentish Town by-election, is quoted in The Times front page story is only icing on the cake…

POSTSCRIPT: Sian also appeared on Channel Four News and on Radio Two on the same subject today.

Walking the streets of Kentish Town tonight – yet more canvassing, or at least visiting Green voters we haven’t yet seen this time around – I was enjoying the pleasure – and it actually was quite pleasant, of wind-driven but very small rain droplets. Micro-abrasion for the complexion anyone?

But visiting Greens is a pleasant job – they’re a nice, characterful bunch, almost without exception.

… and the penguins just might win.

On Tuesday, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife Service to classify twelve kinds of penguins as “endangered” or “threatened.” The Center says the change could create legal leverage against activities that contribute to climate change or otherwise threaten the birds.

“We… believe that if and when penguins are listed,” said CBD staff attorney Kassie Siegel, “US entities that are responsible for large sources of greenhouse emissions will also be responsible for analyzing the impact of those emissions on listed species like penguins.”

I’m now fully experiencing the “Kentish Town crane”, a stiffness and soreness in the neck that comes from tilting your head back at an impossible angle while attempting to yell in a friendly manner to someone at least two floors up to convince them to vote for the Green Party.

“Kentish Town”, because that piece of the London Borough of Camden contains lots of Victorian terraced houses now split into flats, but with upper-floor flats that often don’t have intercoms. And inhabitants are understandably disinclined to run down two flights of stairs for some unknown stranger on their doorstep.

Hence the bellowing, and the stiff neck…

It is always easy to mock the Prince of Wales, but he does support some good stuff:

THE Prince of Wales plans to label his Duchy Originals range with details of the greenhouse gases emitted in making the products, which range from sausages to shampoos.
Under the scheme, to be announced by Prince Charles this week, every stage will be analysed to quantify how much climate-changing gas is released in producing each of the 200 items.
… A Clarence House official said the idea was to give consumers the most comprehensive green information available on any product in Britain. Prince Charles wants “people to know the cost of their food in greenhouse gas terms as well as in terms of pounds and pence”, she said.

Royalty does at least have its uses for political purposes – had some other small green producer made the announcement I doubt it would have got this sort of publicity.

I spent nearly four hours on a Green Party stall on Kentish Town Road this morning, and for the first time in this by-election campaign (before Thursday’s poll) the Tories also had a stall, which was an entertaining three-ring circus.

There was a mob of Young Tory males, looking terribly like, well, young Tories, and the assemblage of the stall – unfolding the table etc – nearly defeated the combined efforts of a dozen Tory brains. (It was suggested to me that perhaps they really should have brought their maids.)

Then there was the challenge of blowing up balloons. No quite sure how they managed it, but it seemed at least half ended up bursting, so there were regular fusillades echoing down the high street – you wouldn’t want to have been of a nervous disposition or you’d have been hitting the deck.

Politics can be so much fun…