Giving campaigning journalism a bad name

Today's Telegraph shows the perils of campaigning journalism. It claims that the government's policy on changes to road tax are in "disarray" following a report by the Commons Environmental Audit Committee. According to the BBC, which does its best to made it a negative story, the committee says the plans are "step in the right direction" and should be bolder to increase the environmental impact.

But the Telegraph is not campaigning for a bolder policy and is determined to pull out the negatives.

The rise in road tax offered "little benefit" to the environment and gave green taxes "a bad name", the MPs said.

Having thrown objectivity out of the window, the Telegraph is also making the best of the committee's finding that the application of the tax to existing cars is not a retrospective tax, pointing to a minority of the committee who think it is.