Monday 22 September 2008

New Labour Minister* talks sense - shock!

John Hutton at the Nulab Conference, in among the inevitable dross is this: "No coal and no nuclear equals no lights, no power, no future."

Guess what The World Development Movement, who received a modest £129,710 from the EU back in 2005 (page 9 of this), the last year for which they could be arsed to prepare accounts, have to say...

"John Hutton’s pro-coal stance ... is not founded on science, economics or reason."

Erm, coal burns to boil water to drive turbines to produce electricity, that's the science covered; extracting coal and burning it in power stations is a profitable activity that doesn't need subsidies - in fact, it creates tax revenues and employment, so that's the economics covered; and people like having electricity, that's the reason. Have I missed anything?

The World Development Movement has a parent charity, which spent a cool £1 million on a new office building in Ruffley Road, London SW9 0LS in 2006 (page 8 of this). The accounts bemoan "the widespread persistence of poverty after half a century of international effort to eradicate, or at least appreciably diminish it" without any apparent trace of irony. The possibility that aid payments cannot, and will not ever 'eradicate poverty' is of course off the radar - if they ever admitted it, they'd lose their raison d'être.

* Yes I know that he is a Secretary rather than a Minister, the difference appears to be that a Secretary is more senior and is in the Cabinet. So why is the Prime Minister not called Prime Secretary?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

He is a minister even if his title is Secretary. It's pretty arbitary, until fairly recently the Minister of Agriculture was a cabinet post, without having secretary in the title.

Snafu said...

"Have I missed something?" - You have. Coal mining is good for the trades unions brother and sister who will demand union recognition and then hold the country to ransom. They were even striking whilst Britain had it's back to the wall against Nazi Germany!

Anonymous said...

I'm baffled - why on earth assume that British coal would be economic? Have you ever seen an Aussie coal quarry? Jesu!

Mark Wadsworth said...

There are two sides to this:

1. Extracting UK coal is profitable in some areas, not necessarily all (Where did I say that?).

2. Burning coal in the UK is profitable, whether they use UK or Australian coal.

Anonymous said...

"why is the Prime Minister not called Prime Secretary?"

The PM is actually First Lord of the Treasury so why not "Lord" Brown? Or am I being premature? He will probably be Lord Brown (Baron Brown of Kirkcaldy?) by the end of 2010.