The Liberal Democrat and Conservative Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom spent almost an entire week crafting a political framework for power-sharing after the “hung” General Election.
Those considered the most appropriate people were appointed to positions in the central Cabinet, people from both political parties, with the aim and ambition of working together closely and fraternally.
Back room agreements were painstakingly forged, deals were clearly made, and explained publicly in a transparent fashion. In the day-to-day operation of Government, it is made clear who is speaking on behalf of themselves, their party or the Coalition.
This is probably the best example of cooperative, progressive politics since…I don’t know when. But all Christopher Booker seems to want to do is snipe, moan and smear, and appears to throw in as many factually incorrect allegations and fake statistics about wind power as he possibly can.
I certainly wouldn’t pay him to write such divisive, unreferenced, unverified stuff. What’s he trying to do ? Split public opinion ? :-
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1298176/Chris-Huhne-Has-minister-history-unfit-job.html
“Has any minister in history seemed more hopelessly unfit to do his job? : By CHRISTOPHER BOOKER : 28th July 2010 : The penny is fast dropping that by far the most disastrous appointment made by David Cameron to his Coalition Cabinet was that of the ultra-green, Lib Dem millionaire Chris Huhne as our Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. Yesterday, after Mr Huhne issued his first annual statement on Britain’s energy future, it was clear that we should all be very, very concerned about the future of Britain. As was only too predictable, the overall theme of Mr Huhne’s message was that ‘climate change is the greatest global challenge we face’. We must do everything we can and more to cut down very drastically on our ‘carbon emissions’, as we are now legally committed to do by the Climate Change Act – at a cost of £18 billion a year. But in the real world, the £100 billion-plus energy question that confronts us all in Britain today is how we are going to fill that massive, fast-looming gap in our electricity supplies when the antiquated power stations which currently supply us with two-fifths of the power needed to keep our economy running are forced to close…Like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before him, he dreams we can somehow fill that gap by erecting 6,000 wind turbines in the seas around Britain’s shores, and thousands more across many of the most beautiful parts of our countryside. What is truly terrifying about Mr Huhne as our energy minister is that he seems so astonishingly ignorant about even the most basic principles of how electricity is produced…The Huhne solution to producing Britain’s energy is naivete verging on madness. But, most disturbingly of all, Mr Huhne is so infatuated with wind power that he seems to have convinced himself that, in cash terms, it is ‘intensely competitive’ with other means of making electricity. To make such a claim makes me believe that he’s never done a moment’s homework on the actual cost of wind power…If it wasn’t for the 100 per cent subsidy we all unwittingly pay to the developers of wind turbines – through a xompulsory levy in our electricity bills – no one would dream of building these ludicrously inefficient machines at all. Yet Mr Huhne tries to kid us into thinking that they are ‘intensely competitive’…”
I don’t know what Christopher Booker thinks he can achieve by apparently attempting to smear Chris Huhne. Huhne seems to be rather Teflon-covered, so Booker would need to do better that this, anyway.
Plus, you would have thought that Christopher Booker would be happy to have a more “libertarian” “conservative”, “right-wing” party, at least partially in power at last after 13 years. He probably believes in less taxes for the wealthy and businesses, less red tape in terms of regulatory control over business and financial activities; and he probably believes that a “small government” anti-Nanny State party like the Conservative Party can deliver that for him.
To his chagrin, he might find that more regulation and State intervention are necessary in the next decade or so – to compensate for the very lack of investment in energy infrastructure and plant he is fundamentally complaining about.
If you want more energy to meet the looming 2015 or 2017 “Energy Gap”, you are going to need more governance, because the private sector have been putting profit before investment ever since Our Dearly Beloved Margaret Thatcher The Chemist, Daughter Of A Most Grantham Grocer went down the route of the privatisation (selling off cheaply) of all public assets.
Keeping the Lights On now requires bold, central moves, and involves large amounts of tax revenue to be circulated through job creation and new energy projects, stimulating the Holy Economy like no other sector possibly can.
I mean, what else is going to give the Economy emergency resuscitation ? Manufacturing is dead. The Property bubble is well and truly burst. Financial Products are down the tube. Agriculture is flat. Technology is Chinese. Toys are Chinese. IKEA is Chinese. Everything we buy is made in China, in fact. Where’s the return on investment in Europe ? Only Energy provides the possibility of an expansion, of a strong, stable Economy.
You can forget Nuclear Power. Too expensive.
Spending money on wind turbines is never wasted. The fuel to drive wind turbines is free – not like the volatile prices we have seen for Fossil Fuels in the recent years.
There is a positive, significant rate of return on investing in wind power – and it has nothing to do with Government subsidies.
Wind Power is glorious, and if the turbulence profile outside my back door weren’t so choppy, I’d like to have a turbine in my back yard. Free power would increase my property value by 200% or so.
One reply on “Christopher Booker : Sniping Smearduggery”
I comment particularly on the numerous articles Mr Booker has writter on Britain’s involvement with the EU:
In the years since Mr Booker & Richard North co-wrote their excellent boook The Great Deception, my interpretation of the writer has changed drastically. Where once I saw Mr Booker as an excellent & informative writer, I now see only a petulant little scoundrel who prefers to sit in the safety of a back room & deliver his diatribes against all & sundry as he feels fit. He appears to pay little, indeed, no attention ever to the fact that not every person in the land has the moribund inclination to enter into gloomy disent whilst perusing the self-righteousness of The Daily Mail & its abundance of likewise self-righteous vociferous journalists. Nor have they taken the time to obtain from a library or purchase a copy of the aforementioned book. In other words, much of what Mr Booker has to say about the EU is instantaneously lost in an ocean of myth,mendacity by a succession of governments and an overwhelming level of misinterpretation and conjecture in the public’s mind.
The press is no longer the public’s major informant of current affairs. Party alliances & loyalties purchased with party funds (ask Mr Peter Oborne about that matter) long ago saw to it that the press i now as unreliableas the political parties themselves. Though just as corrupt, TV & documentaries long ago took over the roll of main informant. It is therfore long overdue that a full in-depth documentary is produced for TV which clearly defines the history of the EU – Jean Monnet’s dream – and Britain’s involvement within that horendous & scandalous scheme of treacher and lies.
Crawl out from behind your desk Mr Booker & stand tall. You have already written the words & provided the facts that shall be the script. Now it is time for you to openly present those facts to the nation via its favourite media – TV.
Whining & winging from time to time in an inside page of a rag such as The daily Mail like an idiot child without its pet toy will achieve nothing.
Shalom,
Terry Allen