Don’t let the activists create the definition

We have to say this is a new one on us:

charging deserts

where a vehicle with only 10pc of its battery remaining would not be able to reach a site with at least six rapid or ultra-rapid devices

This strikes us as activists insisting upon entrenching their prejudices into the very language. We also insist that this is dangerous. For, by said entrenching into the language we’re all deprived of the ability to argue against the prejudice. Who, after all, would be in favour of “charging deserts”? Other than, you know, the people who might want to question the merits, costs, sensibility, of having 6 charging devices every 50 yards of the country’s roads?

There is also considerable form for this. Poverty these days means being on less than 60% of median household income. Low wages are less than 66% of median hourly wage. They’re both measures of inequality, not poverty - and make no reference at all to the actual standard of living. Fuel poverty is being unable to heat an entire house to 19 oC (we think we’ve got that right) on less than 10% of disposable income. That is, everyone before about 1980 was in fuel poverty.

We don’t object to people desiring such things even as we might disagree - desiring greater equality is valid even if we think that it’s wrong. But we do object to those prejudices becoming the definitions. We should not allow the activists to define the language for us that is. Despite it being obvious that only the activists are going to be willing to sit in the conclaves where such definitions are cooked up.

Charging deserts indeed - we’re absolutely certain that there are vast areas of the country many miles from a site with half a dozen petrol pumps….and to claim that a petrol pump is a more efficient machine than a charging station, well, yes, it is…..

Tim Worstall