VWDarkside

If you were poised to be the biggest car company in the world raking in annual profits of £5bn, you think you'd feel pretty confident about yourself.

Even if you felt a little insecure, a cool £1.5bn advertising budget could iron out some of the less-than-savoury aspects of your appearance. Besides, £1.5bn buys a lot of botox.

The phalanx of stormtroopers we sent to the hush-hush car lobby meeting today have certainly had an effect. Even though it seems we were expected, their presence created a disturbance in the Force for the car industry bosses who had to walk past them, although for some it was all too much.

Today the Dark Side has come to Brussels, where the world’s biggest car companies are gathering for a shadowy meeting where they will decide whether to block a key European climate law to clean up our engines.

Despite claims that they are eco-friendly, car makers are notorious for getting in the way of regulations that will bring down CO2 emissions from their vehicles. They've spread myths about how reduction targets will affect their business, but time and again they've been proven wrong.