New estimates show that for more than a decade China’s greenhouse gas emissions have been overestimated by international agencies, while the country’s energy consumption has been underestimated.

The research, published today in Nature, shows that from 2000 to 2013 China produced 2.9 gigatonnes less carbon than previous estimates of its culmulative emissions, meaning that its true emissions may have been around 14% lower than calculated.

Meanwhile, with a population of almost 1.4 billion, China’s energy consumption grew 10% faster during 2000-12 than reported by its national statistics.

As the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, China’s recent pledge to peak its emissions by 2030 has been praised as responsible leadership on the climate issue, but its faster-than-expected energy consumption growth means meeting this target may present an even bigger challenge.

The researchers, led by Dabo Guan, of UEA’s School of International Development, used independently assessed data on the amount of fuel burned, and new measurements of emissions factors to re-evaluate emissions of two major sources of China’s carbon dioxide emissions – the burning of fossil fuels and cement production – from 1950-2013.

Guan said the new estimates were compiled by considering fuel quality when establishing emissions inventories – something that had previously been overlooked by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and most international data sources.

“While China is the largest coal consumer in the world, it burns much lower-quality coal, such as brown coal, which has a lower heat value and carbon content compared to the coal burned in the US and Europe”, said Guan.

Counting coal

According to the paper, “We find that total energy consumption in China was 10 per cent higher in 2000-2012 than the value reported by China’s national statistics, that emission factors for Chinese coal are on average 40 per cent lower than the default values recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and that emissions from China’s cement production are 45 per cent less than recent estimates.

“Altogether, our revised estimate of China’s CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production is 2.49 gigatonnes of carbon in 2013, which is 14 per cent lower than the emissions reported by other prominent inventories. Over the full period 2000 to 2013, our revised estimates are 2.9 gigatonnes of carbon less than previous estimates of China’s cumulative carbon emissions.”

Pep Canadell, Executive director of the Global Carbon Project at CSIRO, who was not involved in the study, said a lack of research resources meant that estimates of China’s emissions relied on default values from global databases.

Guan’s research team “visited thousands of mines and by actually exploring the coal they found there was less emissions”, Canadell said.

This is a process done by many countries, but for developing nations like China the important task of compiling detailed emissions inventories has historically been too expensive.

“The default values can be quite far away from the real values”, Canadell said. “In the future we would need real values for other places such as India.”

Corinne Le Quéré, director of the UAE Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said there were a lot of uncertainties in China’s data, especially given the discrepancies between national and provincial figures.

“The strong message here is that as we refine our estimates of carbon emissions we get closer to an accurate picture of what is going on and we can improve our climate projections and better inform policy on climate change.”

The good news and the bad news

The new findings are a positive step towards accurately measuring emissions, but their effect on climate policy requires acknowledging the negatives – China’s rapidly growing energy needs.

Frank Jotzo, director of the ANU Centre for Climate Economics and Policy, described continued work on primary data as important but said the findings that emissions were overestimated does not change the challenge China faces in moving away from coal.

“For global climate change mitigation to succeed, a shift from coal to other energy sources in China is essential.” he said. “China is making good progress towards that goal.”

With the Paris meeting of the UNFCCC in November this year, China’s pledge to peak emissions from all activities by 2030 requires addressing its demand for electricity generation in production, transport and industrial systems.

According to Canadell, cement production accounts for about 5% of global greenhouse emissions, but because China is “building so much” it is a much bigger fraction. China produces more than half of global production of steel and cement. Yet China’s cement emissions, as the study found, are 45% lower than previously estimated.

“I don’t think this news is making it easier or harder” for China to meet its climate targets, said Canadell. “The most important thing is to measure the speed and trends of energy consumption.”

The paper: ‘Reduced carbon emission estimates from fossil fuel combustion and cement production in China‘ is by Zhu Liu et al, and published in Nature.

Eliza Berlage is Editor at The Conversation.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

New estimates show that for more than a decade China’s greenhouse gas emissions have been overestimated by international agencies, while the country’s energy consumption has been underestimated.

The research, published today in Nature, shows that from 2000 to 2013 China produced 2.9 gigatonnes less carbon than previous estimates of its culmulative emissions, meaning that its true emissions may have been around 14% lower than calculated.

Meanwhile, with a population of almost 1.4 billion, China’s energy consumption grew 10% faster during 2000-12 than reported by its national statistics.

As the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, China’s recent pledge to peak its emissions by 2030 has been praised as responsible leadership on the climate issue, but its faster-than-expected energy consumption growth means meeting this target may present an even bigger challenge.

The researchers, led by Dabo Guan, of UEA’s School of International Development, used independently assessed data on the amount of fuel burned, and new measurements of emissions factors to re-evaluate emissions of two major sources of China’s carbon dioxide emissions – the burning of fossil fuels and cement production – from 1950-2013.

Guan said the new estimates were compiled by considering fuel quality when establishing emissions inventories – something that had previously been overlooked by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and most international data sources.

“While China is the largest coal consumer in the world, it burns much lower-quality coal, such as brown coal, which has a lower heat value and carbon content compared to the coal burned in the US and Europe”, said Guan.

Counting coal

According to the paper, “We find that total energy consumption in China was 10 per cent higher in 2000-2012 than the value reported by China’s national statistics, that emission factors for Chinese coal are on average 40 per cent lower than the default values recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and that emissions from China’s cement production are 45 per cent less than recent estimates.

“Altogether, our revised estimate of China’s CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production is 2.49 gigatonnes of carbon in 2013, which is 14 per cent lower than the emissions reported by other prominent inventories. Over the full period 2000 to 2013, our revised estimates are 2.9 gigatonnes of carbon less than previous estimates of China’s cumulative carbon emissions.”

Pep Canadell, Executive director of the Global Carbon Project at CSIRO, who was not involved in the study, said a lack of research resources meant that estimates of China’s emissions relied on default values from global databases.

Guan’s research team “visited thousands of mines and by actually exploring the coal they found there was less emissions”, Canadell said.

This is a process done by many countries, but for developing nations like China the important task of compiling detailed emissions inventories has historically been too expensive.

“The default values can be quite far away from the real values”, Canadell said. “In the future we would need real values for other places such as India.”

Corinne Le Quéré, director of the UAE Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said there were a lot of uncertainties in China’s data, especially given the discrepancies between national and provincial figures.

“The strong message here is that as we refine our estimates of carbon emissions we get closer to an accurate picture of what is going on and we can improve our climate projections and better inform policy on climate change.”

The good news and the bad news

The new findings are a positive step towards accurately measuring emissions, but their effect on climate policy requires acknowledging the negatives – China’s rapidly growing energy needs.

Frank Jotzo, director of the ANU Centre for Climate Economics and Policy, described continued work on primary data as important but said the findings that emissions were overestimated does not change the challenge China faces in moving away from coal.

“For global climate change mitigation to succeed, a shift from coal to other energy sources in China is essential.” he said. “China is making good progress towards that goal.”

With the Paris meeting of the UNFCCC in November this year, China’s pledge to peak emissions from all activities by 2030 requires addressing its demand for electricity generation in production, transport and industrial systems.

According to Canadell, cement production accounts for about 5% of global greenhouse emissions, but because China is “building so much” it is a much bigger fraction. China produces more than half of global production of steel and cement. Yet China’s cement emissions, as the study found, are 45% lower than previously estimated.

“I don’t think this news is making it easier or harder” for China to meet its climate targets, said Canadell. “The most important thing is to measure the speed and trends of energy consumption.”

The paper: ‘Reduced carbon emission estimates from fossil fuel combustion and cement production in China‘ is by Zhu Liu et al, and published in Nature.

Eliza Berlage is Editor at The Conversation.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Cows invading supermarkets last week and milk Ice bucket challenges spreading across the UK this week.

It’s clear farmers are up for a protest with something louder than placards about ‘every day’ low prices for their milk.

Alarming headlines such as “Milk cheaper than water”, “Dairy farmers state of emergency”, filled the media.

In reality, dairy farmers are in a dire situation. Over the past year alone, nine dairy farmers went bust each week (a loss of 421 dairy farmers). Sadly, the outcome of their protest is likely to be weak.

Fragile or empty promises from a food industry structurally incapable of delivering a sustained fair deal to farmers here or overseas and limp statements from a Government disinclined to upset big food businesses.

Also looming over farmers is the threat of more and cheaper US dairy imports produced at lower standards under the new trade agreement – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – currently being negotiated between the US and EU. Farmers have already raised alarm bells at the risk – including the National Farmers Union.

A wider crisis in food

Headlines and short lived price promises aside, it is clear that farmers (and consumers) are stuck in an impossibly unfair system. And they have been for decades.

Farmer protests – often involving manure or pallets full of peaches dumped on ministry doorsteps – have long been a common sight in Europe as farmers resort to desperate tactics to try and gain attention for their plight.

Thousands of small businesses (farms) are stuck in one end of an hourglass and millions of consumers in the other end with a tiny handful of supermarket buyers and dairy companies in control the middle. To extend the comparison, the hourglass gets shaken regularly as the global price for dairy commodities is managed by a handful of multinational corporations.

Shifts in global demand add the final uncertainty to the market. China for instance has created a dairy industry of its own so buys less of ours. Russia’s sanctions against EU farm imports have also wiped out what used to be a major export market for dairy and other produce.

Somewhere in all this complex system, ordinary farmers (and their animals) get left behind. As a result they are forced to sell up, so bigger farms are created which have to produce more and sell it for a lower price; pushing the land and animals ever harder to gain even less of the food pound.

We can buy cheaper produce but at a hidden high cost to public health, pollution of natural resources, rural decline and severe hardship for farm communities here and overseas.

The true extent of corporate control of food commodities – or milk to you and me – is huge. They don’t just want to have a say in the global price. They work hard to influence how food is produced. They want cheaper raw materials from wherever they can get them. TTIP may deliver..

New trade rules – in whose interest?

It is these largely unaccountable bodies that will benefit from trade negotiations like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Anxious to weaken food regulations by ‘mutual recognition’ of different standards or ‘harmonizing’ standards to the ones they like, they are very active in the TTIP debate.

As noted by The Ecologist, in food that means pushing to end food border inspections, controls on chemicals, antibiotics and hormone use in livestock production, and allowing GM crops. US meat and dairy industries are pushing to eliminate or weaken animal welfare standards that they say are ‘barriers to trade’.

In dairy it’s all about animal health and milk quality. The US dairy exporters would like to see EU limits on somatic cell counts (in effect, pus) in milk removed – yet the cell count indicates mastitis, a painful infection of the breast tissue in cows. The EU standard requires better herd health so lessens the likelihood of herds being unhealthy, but means higher costs.

Protecting consumers, farmers, the environment and animals is central to a resilient, safe and healthy food system. War on Want advocates a new way to manage our food system – based on food sovereignty – an alternative food system that creates practical, sustainable and democratic solutions to the failed industrialised food model.

But if farmers, like those dairy farmers, are unable to make a living and the very companies that are squeezing them to oblivion are setting the rules in a new trade treaty, our food system will go downhill faster than M&S can push a cow out of the chilled yogurt section.

Please Join the TTIP campaign now to promote a healthy, sustainable food system which is good for us and farmers worldwide.

Vicki Hird (@vickihird) is Director of Policy and Campaigns at War on Want. She has over 20 years’ experience working on environment, justice, food and farming issues. She is an expert consultant for NGOs and institutions and was Senior Campaigner heading up the Land use, Food and Water Programme for Friends of the Earth. Previously she was Policy Director of Sustain and Coordinator of the SAFE Alliance. She has an academic background in pest management and is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society and the RSA. Vicki is Chair of Eating Better, a trustee of Pesticides Action Network and the Keo Foundation.

Deep in the bowels of the UK Government’s Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) are probably some very stressed civil servants.

Those who aren’t currently seeking alternative employment face what may be an even harder task; making the government’s energy sums add up in the face of changes to just about everything from the gas price to the UK’s willingness to build any more wind turbines.

The gas price has fallen – which makes subsidising nuclear (and offshore wind) much more expensive. Cheaper options for cutting emissions – like onshore wind and efficiency measures have, for various reasons, been parked. The spreadsheet must be all over the shop.

When we asked to see the modelling so far for the UK’s flagship Hinkley point C nuclear project we were told we could – but only after the deal was done and dusted.

Previous versions of the UK’s energy modelling have at times strained credulity on the speed of phaseout of coal power, or the construction of new nuclear power , but nonetheless they serve as a possible baseline for what might happen in future.

Now those modellers have some fresh, even tougher challenges. One is to demonstrate how the various policy changes and roll-backs recently announced – such as the end in support for onshore wind and solar power – can be squared with Prime Minister Cameron’s commitment to deliver on carbon budgets and Climate Change Act.

If it follows the publication schedule from last year, updated projections would be expected to come out in September, which if they model the current state of play, would be bad for UK climate credibility in the run-up to key talks on global climate change in Paris this December.

Why are these modelled projections particularly difficult? There are several reasons.

1) The cheap stuff is gone

First there’s policy, especially low carbon policy, which will drive change in the energy world. In UK that’s going through a meltdown which we haven’t previously experienced.

So for example the zero-carbon homes policy was due to produce carbon savings of 4.7million tonnes (p.28) in the key period of the UK 4th carbon budget (2023-27). That policy doesn’t exist any more.

Other savings in energy efficiency programmes and renewable heat are either on the back burner or already on the scrap-heap. So carbon savings will need to be found somewhere else to keep Cameron’s credibility in tact.

2) Everything about energy has changed (but DECC may not have noticed)

Secondly, from smart-grids to Tesla batteries, there is a wave of change running through energy globally (local examples are here and here) which other countries are relatively aware of, but which doesn’t seem to have had any impact on the policy discussion in UK Government. And so not in DECC modelling either.

These changes have been enough to cause energy giants like Centrica (slide 13 onwards) and EOn to restructure, and RWE to say we need to revamp the approach in UK. Perhaps those few civil servants who remain in post are too busy to read the papers.

3) Does anyone know what is happening with Europe?

Thirdly there’s the UK relationship with Europe. Much of the changes in UK energy and electricity systems have been driven by policy flowing from EU.

Efficiency standards in products and buildings and vehicles, the Emissions Trading Scheme, the renewables targets, and now interconnection targets all flow from Brussels.

They have not been unqualified successes but – for those concerned with reducing our use of fossil fuels – they have been an effective force overall. Will that drive still be in place as UK reconsiders its place in EU? If those EU policies don’t apply, what will take their place?

4) Some very dodgy assumptions – especially about the gas price

In that context, the fourth reason those projections are difficult is very relevant – policies and projections which UK has, but few really believe will ever happen. Assumptions, as they say, are the mother of all … mistakes.

One example would be the Carbon Floor Price, the key driver of removing existing coal stations from the electricity mix. In theory it rises to £70 per tonne of CO2 in 2030, but it is frozen at the 2015 level until 2020, with very little real genuine expectation that its rise will continue after that date.

Another example would be the continued build-out of clean energy which requires subsidy to top up the wholesale electricity price that these renewable projects get. But there’s no money on the table post 2020 and no clear timeline for producing it.

In fact there’s considerable lack of clarity on how much money is available pre-2020 as the state of the Levy Control Framework (as this fund is known) seems to have moved from being a bit tight to being in crisis in a few short months.

One reason why the money might be short is the (relatively) low gas price, which makes the clean energy ‘top-up’ more costly. But we don’t know what DECC is estimating for the price of gas in 2020s.

In fact, we don’t know a lot about how DECC justifies its actions because a lot of it is kept secret. Especially around another one of those policies which DECC thinks will happen but most people don’t – the 35% of power to be met by proposed nuclear new build programme by 2030, including the proposed new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C.

Hinkley secrecy

A lot of modelling was seemingly done by DECC to justify why it was a good deal for the consumer, apparently saving households £75 a year and to justify to EU why it should be getting so much support from bill payers.

Unfortunately our civil servant friends are keeping it all secret, and the Freedom of Information request we submitted to see what modelling justified the investment has been rejected, so the data is being kept secret until the contract is signed.

It is not reassuring to know that when a 35 year contract involving payments of around £80 billion from UK consumers is irrevocably signed, we’ll be able to see the justification. It could be brilliant, of course, or it could be delusional.

The fact that the world is changing and that the government’s economic justification for Hinkley may therefore rest on foundations of sand is one of the reasons that HSBC and energy giant RWE have recently come out against it.

Even the ‘very pro-nuclear’ former energy minister in the government of Margaret Thatcher who gave the go-ahead to the last round of attempted new-build has said it’s “one of the worst deals ever”.

The high cost of the new nuclear programme is justified on by Secretary of State Amber Rudd on the basis that it provides reliable supply unlike that from renewables: this is undoubtedly an important additional value provided by nuclear, but because policy appears to be being made up as they go along, there is no underpinning justification to it.

Moreover the ‘always on’ property of nuclear power (except when it’s off) also has a downside: nuclear plants also providing lots of high-cost power at might when it’s least needed and prices are low.

So how valuable is that reliability, and what would the alternatives be to nuclear baseload? The International Renewable Energy Agency have already looked at this (see Fig 2.10 p.42) for 30-40% power provided by wind and concluded that, even including all the extra costs of ensuring you can keep the lights on when the wind doesn’t blow, onshore wind is still cheaper than Hinkley.

Also note that big stations like Hinkley also impose costs on the grid due to the need to secure 3.2GW of instant backup in the event of an unscheduled shutdown, which all consumers have to bear – and are generally much less talked about.

In short, DECC modelling is deeply challenging because there is no coherent or credible policy to model. But it is also behind the curve on technological development, and not taking a system-wide view, and often key material is kept secret.

Which risks leaves poor decisions being justified on the basis of soundbites. And remember, if you’re reading this in the UK, you’re paying.

Dr Doug Parr is Scientific Director of Greenpeace UK.

This article was originally published on Greenpeace EnergyDesk.

Deep in the bowels of the UK Government’s Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) are probably some very stressed civil servants.

Those who aren’t currently seeking alternative employment face what may be an even harder task; making the government’s energy sums add up in the face of changes to just about everything from the gas price to the UK’s willingness to build any more wind turbines.

The gas price has fallen – which makes subsidising nuclear (and offshore wind) much more expensive. Cheaper options for cutting emissions – like onshore wind and efficiency measures have, for various reasons, been parked. The spreadsheet must be all over the shop.

When we asked to see the modelling so far for the UK’s flagship Hinkley point C nuclear project we were told we could – but only after the deal was done and dusted.

Previous versions of the UK’s energy modelling have at times strained credulity on the speed of phaseout of coal power, or the construction of new nuclear power , but nonetheless they serve as a possible baseline for what might happen in future.

Now those modellers have some fresh, even tougher challenges. One is to demonstrate how the various policy changes and roll-backs recently announced – such as the end in support for onshore wind and solar power – can be squared with Prime Minister Cameron’s commitment to deliver on carbon budgets and Climate Change Act.

If it follows the publication schedule from last year, updated projections would be expected to come out in September, which if they model the current state of play, would be bad for UK climate credibility in the run-up to key talks on global climate change in Paris this December.

Why are these modelled projections particularly difficult? There are several reasons.

1) The cheap stuff is gone

First there’s policy, especially low carbon policy, which will drive change in the energy world. In UK that’s going through a meltdown which we haven’t previously experienced.

So for example the zero-carbon homes policy was due to produce carbon savings of 4.7million tonnes (p.28) in the key period of the UK 4th carbon budget (2023-27). That policy doesn’t exist any more.

Other savings in energy efficiency programmes and renewable heat are either on the back burner or already on the scrap-heap. So carbon savings will need to be found somewhere else to keep Cameron’s credibility in tact.

2) Everything about energy has changed (but DECC may not have noticed)

Secondly, from smart-grids to Tesla batteries, there is a wave of change running through energy globally (local examples are here and here) which other countries are relatively aware of, but which doesn’t seem to have had any impact on the policy discussion in UK Government. And so not in DECC modelling either.

These changes have been enough to cause energy giants like Centrica (slide 13 onwards) and EOn to restructure, and RWE to say we need to revamp the approach in UK. Perhaps those few civil servants who remain in post are too busy to read the papers.

3) Does anyone know what is happening with Europe?

Thirdly there’s the UK relationship with Europe. Much of the changes in UK energy and electricity systems have been driven by policy flowing from EU.

Efficiency standards in products and buildings and vehicles, the Emissions Trading Scheme, the renewables targets, and now interconnection targets all flow from Brussels.

They have not been unqualified successes but – for those concerned with reducing our use of fossil fuels – they have been an effective force overall. Will that drive still be in place as UK reconsiders its place in EU? If those EU policies don’t apply, what will take their place?

4) Some very dodgy assumptions – especially about the gas price

In that context, the fourth reason those projections are difficult is very relevant – policies and projections which UK has, but few really believe will ever happen. Assumptions, as they say, are the mother of all … mistakes.

One example would be the Carbon Floor Price, the key driver of removing existing coal stations from the electricity mix. In theory it rises to £70 per tonne of CO2 in 2030, but it is frozen at the 2015 level until 2020, with very little real genuine expectation that its rise will continue after that date.

Another example would be the continued build-out of clean energy which requires subsidy to top up the wholesale electricity price that these renewable projects get. But there’s no money on the table post 2020 and no clear timeline for producing it.

In fact there’s considerable lack of clarity on how much money is available pre-2020 as the state of the Levy Control Framework (as this fund is known) seems to have moved from being a bit tight to being in crisis in a few short months.

One reason why the money might be short is the (relatively) low gas price, which makes the clean energy ‘top-up’ more costly. But we don’t know what DECC is estimating for the price of gas in 2020s.

In fact, we don’t know a lot about how DECC justifies its actions because a lot of it is kept secret. Especially around another one of those policies which DECC thinks will happen but most people don’t – the 35% of power to be met by proposed nuclear new build programme by 2030, including the proposed new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C.

Hinkley secrecy

A lot of modelling was seemingly done by DECC to justify why it was a good deal for the consumer, apparently saving households £75 a year and to justify to EU why it should be getting so much support from bill payers.

Unfortunately our civil servant friends are keeping it all secret, and the Freedom of Information request we submitted to see what modelling justified the investment has been rejected, so the data is being kept secret until the contract is signed.

It is not reassuring to know that when a 35 year contract involving payments of around £80 billion from UK consumers is irrevocably signed, we’ll be able to see the justification. It could be brilliant, of course, or it could be delusional.

The fact that the world is changing and that the government’s economic justification for Hinkley may therefore rest on foundations of sand is one of the reasons that HSBC and energy giant RWE have recently come out against it.

Even the ‘very pro-nuclear’ former energy minister in the government of Margaret Thatcher who gave the go-ahead to the last round of attempted new-build has said it’s “one of the worst deals ever”.

The high cost of the new nuclear programme is justified on by Secretary of State Amber Rudd on the basis that it provides reliable supply unlike that from renewables: this is undoubtedly an important additional value provided by nuclear, but because policy appears to be being made up as they go along, there is no underpinning justification to it.

Moreover the ‘always on’ property of nuclear power (except when it’s off) also has a downside: nuclear plants also providing lots of high-cost power at might when it’s least needed and prices are low.

So how valuable is that reliability, and what would the alternatives be to nuclear baseload? The International Renewable Energy Agency have already looked at this (see Fig 2.10 p.42) for 30-40% power provided by wind and concluded that, even including all the extra costs of ensuring you can keep the lights on when the wind doesn’t blow, onshore wind is still cheaper than Hinkley.

Also note that big stations like Hinkley also impose costs on the grid due to the need to secure 3.2GW of instant backup in the event of an unscheduled shutdown, which all consumers have to bear – and are generally much less talked about.

In short, DECC modelling is deeply challenging because there is no coherent or credible policy to model. But it is also behind the curve on technological development, and not taking a system-wide view, and often key material is kept secret.

Which risks leaves poor decisions being justified on the basis of soundbites. And remember, if you’re reading this in the UK, you’re paying.

Dr Doug Parr is Scientific Director of Greenpeace UK.

This article was originally published on Greenpeace EnergyDesk.

The mainstream right wing press is awash with racist fear-mongering, reminiscent of the darkest periods of human history.

Refugees are abused daily in the popular press – compared to cockroaches in The Sun, and even the Prime Minister has described vulnerable, displaced people in Calais as “a swarm.”

Under this swathe of noxious abuse the Tory cutting machine dismantles our nation’s capacity to help those in need, whilst our borders are fortified.