Tough on flowers, tough on the causes of flowers

Valentine's Day became the latest target of Norman Baker's ongoing quest for newspaper headlines this week. He says buying imported roses is causing global warming and we should all be buying British roses.

Apart from the surprise that Baker should be enraged by Valentine's Day, his call for action is nonsense.

Figures from the Policy Exchange think tank show that while importing 10,000 Indian or Keynan roses uses one barrel of oil, the energy used growing the same amount of roses in heated greenhouses in the UK is equivalent to four barrels of oil. So Baker's plan would actually cause more global warming than his alleged solution.

And that's before anyone even mentions the poverty his barmy plan would inflict on the workers in developing countries who would lose their jobs if Baker got his way.

Another ill-thought out policy from Baker then.