We do indeed agree that lithium batteries pose fire perils. Yet there’s still something about this suggestion here:

In the first three months of 2023 alone, fires started by battery-powered scooters and bikes killed four people in the UK, according to Electrical Safety First, a charity.

Damage to the batteries leads to rapid heating called thermal runaway, setting fire to the rest of the pack. Flammable gases can be released, hastening the spread of the fire in a home, where scooters are often kept.

The charity said the devices should be more strictly regulated and assessed by a safety authority before being put on sale in a move mimicking rules in New York.

Possibly - although we’re really very unsure about how the sort of inspection that can be carried out on every battery can be detailed enough to find those with cells that might fail. But, a subject for discussion perhaps.

Perhaps our lives have been too sheltered because we didn’t know who Electrical Safety First are. So we had a look:

Total income of £5,624k included the £4,740k share of profit from Certsure LLP, the charity’s Joint Venture with the Electrical Contractors Association.

Certsure is:

Certsure offers industry-leading certification services

When this happens in financial markets we call it “talking your own book”. No one thinks very much of it because all do it at some time or another. Bigs up the things one is long of, denigrates those short and so on. But the important point is that no one thinks very much of it. The behaviour is so prevalent that no one does bother to think that anyone’s making a serious suggestion other than talking one’s own book.

Matters political are a little different. For here a charity is suggesting that the law be changed so as to possibly benefit the profit making subsidiary of that charity. Or, if we are to be fair here, that would be a cynical reading of the suggestion.

That then brings us to the only important question in politics - are we being cynical enough?

Discuss