A right pickle

The Conservatives have already announced the manifesto under which they will fight the General Election in 2015 will contain a pledge banning onshore wind farms and, supposedly, a major shift towards offshore wind farms.

If they do indeed support the construction of offshore wind farms equivalent to onshore capacity equally as quickly (two big 'if's), the outcome would not necessarily harm attempts to combat climate change. It would merely make our electricity bills more expensive in order to protect the chocolate box cover views of their core constituents.

Electricity consumers like you and me would, in effect, be paying to subsidise the Tories buying the votes they need to win the General Election.

Not content with this promise, one Tory has taking into his mind to begin reversing the already granted planning permissions permitting construction of onshore wind farms now. Why? Because, as Secretary of State, he can.

Step forward, Eric Pickles (but don't stand there, Mr Pickles; you'll block the sunlight from reaching the 10 Acre Solar PV Field*).

Not only is this in direct contravention of his party's professed support for Localism, it is an arbitrary exercise of state power for party political advantage, and may even be illegal. But, as both his colleagues, Jeremy Hunt and Iain Duncan Smith have demonstrated, the Conservatives have both the Parliamentary power (propped up as they are by the Liberal Democrats, who should know better) and the will to change the law of the land to "make it so," sometimes retrospectively.

So don't expect or rely on the independent judiciary to be able to right this wrong, certainly not for long, if the Conservatives are returned to office.

Anthropogenic Climate Change is the greatest challenge humankind faces. Our responses to it should not be or become party political footballs. But when they do, it is in your power - through the ballot box - to "make it not so" and prevent the offending political party or parties from being returned to power.



* As an Ugly Fat Bloke myself, I am permitted to write things like this.