Fans of "Yes, Minister", a 1980s British sitcom, will recall that whenever Sir Humphrey Appleby, the emollient civil servant, labelled a brainwave by his minis-* ter "courageous", a climbdown was inevitable. That is the adjective being used by many of the supporters of Stephane Dion, the leader of Canada's opposition Liberal Party, to describe the plan for a national carbon tax that he unveiled with campaign-style fanfare in mid-June.rnDespite a slightly wimpish image, Mr Dion, a former academic, certainly does not lack courage. On July 4th he was due to head for Alberta, Canada's oil patch, to spend the weekend at the Calgary Stampede endeavouring to sell a tax expressly designed to curb energy use.
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