Two birds, one stone

Two stories caught eye today and we can’t help but link the two.

First,  Reuters reports that the UK trade deficit fell to a mere £4.4bns in the three months to January 2015,  largely due to the fall in oil prices.  To put it simply,  lower oil prices means more money stays in the hands of UK consumers and businesses and rather less in the hands of smug Norwegians,  troublemaking Russians and despotic Gulf States.  This is all good.  This gives us a taste of what prosperity we could enjoy if we weaned ourselves off oil imports entirely.  

Trade deficit facts and figures here 

Then we saw the Cambridge Econometrics study which concerns itself with electric cars.  It claims that a popular uptake of electric cars would cut oil imports by 40% by 2030,  delivering £1000.00 of fuel saving and a 47% reduction in carbon emissions  per driver.  Now we’re not convinced that those drivers will be too concerned about the lower carbon output but we reckon that £1000.00 will come in handy down at  the local Wetherspoons.