Budget airline easyJet is starting a trial of US military nanotechnology, aimed at

Take-up of the Government's £20 billion business support package launched at the height of the recession has been lower than expected, the UK's spending watchdog said today.

Outlook: Radio executives have always thought 2015 was an ambitious target for switchover

Big cars will never be as green as the best small cars but some big cars are greener than others.

Glass’s, the publisher of used car price guides and other car market data, has called upon the government to extend its “cash for bangers” scrappage subsidies in order to avoid a damaging dip in demand when the scheme ends.

There was a time when choosing to buy a green car simply meant deciding on a automobile that was available in a particular paint colour: a humble lime Mini, perhaps, or a Jaguar decked out in traditional British racing green. But we now live in an age when a documentary about global warming can win an Oscar and the question of carbon footprints is increasingly one of the most important things a car buyer can consider.

The first cargo ship in the world to be pulled by a giant parachute-shaped kite set out on a transatlantic voyage yesterday in an attempt to prove that wind can once again be used as a viable and "green" source of propulsion for commercial shipping of the future.

Targets

TRANSPORT

Sir: Your list of new parliamentary Acts is incomplete (report, 26 July). The 1996 Energy Conservation Bill completed its parliamentary procedure, and awaits royal assent.

Sir: The European Commission's proposal to require all new vehicles to be fitted with a device warning drivers when legal pollution limits are being exceeded (20 June) seems an expensive way of achieving its objective, now that emissions are checked in the annual MOT test.

Since the trauma of the 1992 election, the Labour Party has sweated hard to rid itself of its high tax image. But if the party won't raise taxes, how will it fund any programme to improve the lot of the unemployed, the schoolchildren and the patients? In the past, Labour has said that the key was to bring down unemployment and release some of the billions of pounds currently paid to them in benefits. How the magic reduction in unemployment was to take place remained unclear, especially if there was to be no extra spending in the short term to get people into jobs.

BLUE has overtaken red as the first choice of car drivers, while 'tranquil' green cars are becoming more popular, says a survey of car colours by PHH Vehicle Management. Psychologists say the move away from red shows drivers are becoming more conscientious.

POOR Ken Clarke. The Chancellor is scratching his head to find ways of narrowing the Government's pounds 50bn a year deficit. Bunhill has a suggestion. Why not tax some of the numerous irritants of 20th century life?