Blogposts tagged 'Energy Review'

From Ben, our senior nuclear campaigner. 

So, finally, the government’s self-styled "consultation" on the future of nuclear power has finished (by some quirk of fate on the same day as the 50th anniversary of the terrible nuclear accident at Windscale). Frankly, you'd be pretty hard pressed to find a more pointless exercise.

The crux of this rather thorny issue is that the government is obliged to run the "fullest public consultation" (pdf) before changing its policy on nuclear power. In 2006 they tried to run one of these, but without much success. In fact their first attempt was so ham-fisted that a high court judge described it as "unfair", "misleading", "very seriously flawed" and "procedurally unfair" and ordered them to do the whole thing again. Having (apparently) gone back to the drawing board, in May the government announced a new nuclear consultation that would remedy all the judge's concerns. Or at least that was the plan.

Dear, oh dear, oh dear. Who would have guessed it? Gordon Brown's public consultation on nuclear power is being fixed by his favourite market research company who has been charged with carrying out the polling? And the sad thing is that it all sounds so familiar.

Not so long ago, when he accepted the role to lead this country, he said that he wanted to ring in a new era of politics – to listen to the British people. He boldly stated that the "best way of drawing up policies will not be discussions in government departments, but listening and learning – and involving and engaging the voices" of you and I. He wanted to build "trust in our democracy" by embracing a "more open form of dialogue for citizens and politicians to genuinely debate problems and solutions". And, as those words still echo through Westminster, the truth is that this government is no different from the one that was so badly tarnished with dodgy dossiers and spin.

As a matter of law the government must keep an open mind on new nuclear power until after the "fullest public consultation." It claims that it "will consider carefully the responses we get and this will enable us to take a decision on nuclear power later in the year".

One day. One thousand people. That is what the government considers full public consultation on the fate of the country and the survival of the planet.