OPPORTUNITIES FOR CHANGE

 

Apparently when the G20 was mentioned to George Bush earlier this year by Kevin Rudd the Australian Prime Minister, Bush had to ask what it was. Unfortunately this is not another joke about the limited intellectual capacity of the outgoing US President but rather it reveals the insignificance of the G20 meeting held in Washington on 15^th November. Despite the optimistic statements issued by the participants the underlying fact was that they had no collective answer to the deepening crisis facing their economies.

US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had already backtracked from his previous decision to buy up the ‘toxic assets’ of the financial institutions because of the sheer volume of debt involved, and updated forecasts by the IMF now signal that both the US and European economies amongst others, will be in recession throughout 2009.

With this background it is beyond ironic to hear the world leaders proclaim that capitalism is ‘the best possible system of government’, making one wonder what the worst system of government would be like!

Yet such rhetoric is stock in trade for the defenders of capitalism, feeding the general population with statements made purely for public consumption, while the reality is often the complete opposite to what is being said.

The Labour government has told workers for years that the economy could not afford above inflation wage rises, and that there was no money available for the development of health and education, yet the moment the wealthiest layers in society run into self-made problems, this same government suddenly find billions of pounds to bail the financial sector out.

Furthermore, in an attempt to placate the population at large Gordon Brown and his ministers announced that they have asked the mortgage lenders to explore all avenues to ensure that home repossessions only take place as a last resort, knowing full well that this is merely political spin and the reality is quite different.

Recent figures reveal a 40% increase in the number of home repossessions in the last six months alone. Moreover, the main culprit in repossessions is the government-owned Northern Rock, which has been responsible for more than 20% of the total, whilst also recruiting almost five hundred more people to work in its repossessions department. In addition, a recent court ruling, dragging up legislation from the 1920s, allows mortgage lenders to repossess properties even if they are a mere two months behind in missed payments. Does that sound like the action of last resort as promised by Brown?

Yet this financial sector that are now so quick to resort to repossessions, have had, on a worldwide basis over £5 trillion handed over to them to keep them afloat.

In the United States the emphatic victory of Barack Obama signified that the American population wanted a complete break with the policies of the Bush Administration, and far from being a question of race, Obama’s election demonstrated that in the final analysis it is not religion, gender or race that is the decisive factor but the deepening economic crisis and the class struggle it engenders that predominates.

However the hopes and aspirations that working people have invested in Obama will sooner rather than later be shattered as he gathers around him the same characters that have dominated both the Bush and Clinton administrations. Obama, no matter what his subjective intentions may have been, will defend capitalism at the expense of the interests of the millions of workers who put him in office, a situation that will result in increased social and industrial conflict.

In Britain the desperate attempt by the Brown government to control the crisis by cutting interest rates will not only see the collapse of the pound but will also raise the prospect of national bankruptcy, meanwhile doing nothing to prevent the rising levels of unemployment and the gutting of public services. Also, in an attempt to save the system, the Labour government will continue to pursue privatisation and wage cutting policies as they seek to make workers pay for a crisis not of their making and overturn every gain made by the working class over decades of struggle.   

In contrast and in opposition to the desires of capitalism, socialists should see this coming period as an opportunity for change. The political void now open must be filled by developing and promoting SLP policies that do represent and give voice to the best interests of the majority of the population.  

Ends.

THE CASE FOR AN INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY

On Saturday 1st November 2008 Arthur Scargill gave the following
presentation to a Climate Change conference in Newcastle.

 

ENVIRONMENTALISTS, PROPONENTS OF NUCLEAR POWER AND THE GOVERNMENT ALL REFER
TO CLIMATE CHANGE WHEN THE PROBLEM IS GLOBAL WARMING.

THE EARTH HAS WITNESSED CLIMATE CHANGE FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS AND HAS
INCLUDED DROUGHTS, AN ICE AGE AND DRAMATIC CHANGES WHICH ARE NATURAL
PHENOMENA.  GLOBAL WARMING HAS, OF COURSE, AN EFFECT ON THE CLIMATE BUT AN
EFFECT WHICH SHOULD BE VIEWED IN CONTEXT.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS ARGUE THAT THE ANSWER TO GLOBAL WARMING IS TO STOP THE USE
OF COAL AND RELY INSTEAD ON RENEWABLE ENERGY.  THEY ARE EITHER UNAWARE OR
CONVENIENTLY IGNORE THE FACT THAT 92% OF CO2 IN THE UK IS PRODUCED NOT BY
COAL BUT BY OIL, GAS AND DEFORESTATION.

WE ARE FACING AN ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CRISIS ON A SCALE SIMILAR TO THE
WALL STREET CRASH IN 1929 AND THE MASS UNEMPLOYMENT WHICH AFFECTED THE UK
AND EUROPE IN THE NINETEEN THIRTIES.

OVER 10 MILLION PEOPLE IN BRITAIN ARE “LIVING” ON OR BELOW THE POVERTY LINE
WHILST OVER 1 MILLION CHILDREN DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH FOOD AND ARE CATEGORISED
AS “GOING HUNGRY”.  OVER 11/2 MILLION PEOPLE ARE ON HOUSING WAITING LISTS AT
A TIME WHEN THOUSANDS OF PROPERTIES STAND EMPTY AND THREE-QUARTERS OF A
MILLION BUILDING WORKERS ARE UNEMPLOYED.

ENERGY AND FOOD COSTS HAVE ROCKETED AND PEOPLE TODAY ARE PAYING OVER 300%
MORE FOR ENERGY AND 80% MORE FOR FOOD THAN TWO YEARS AGO.

WE ARE FACING A MONUMENTAL ENERGY CRISIS WITH THE UK’S NATURAL GAS SUPPLIES
VIRTUALLY EXHAUSTED, ITS INDIGENOUS OIL SUPPLIES ARE NEARING EXHAUSTION YET
WE LIVE ON AN ISLAND WITH OVER ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF COAL FROM WHICH WE CAN
EXTRACT ALL THE OIL, GAS, ELECTRICITY AND PETROCHEMICALS THAT WE NEED
WITHOUT CAUSING HARM TO THE ENVIRONMENT.

BRITAIN HAS NEVER HAD AN INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY AND AS A CONSEQUENCE WE
ARE NOW FACING THE WORST ENERGY CRISIS IN OUR HISTORY.

SINCE THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR, BOTH LABOUR AND TORY GOVERNMENTS HAVE
SOUGHT TO REPLACE BRITAIN’S VAST COAL RESERVES – OVER ONE THOUSAND YEARS’
SUPPLY OF DEEP MINE COAL – WITH FALSE PROMISES OF “CHEAP” IMPORTED OIL -
“CHEAP SAFE” NUCLEAR ENERGY AND “CHEAP” NATURAL GAS.

THESE POLICIES HAVE NOT ONLY COST THE BRITISH PEOPLE BILLIONS OF POUNDS BUT
HAVE RESULTED IN THE NEAR-EXTINCTION OF BRITAIN’S DEEP MINE COAL INDUSTRY
AND BROUGHT ABOUT MASSIVE ECONOMIC, ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS.

HAVING SEEN THE CLOSURE OF 200 PITS SINCE 1980 AND THE LOSS OF 200,000 JOBS,
THE CLOSURE OR NON-OPERATION OF NEARLY 70% OF COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS ON
THE FALSE PREMISE THAT THEY WERE UNECONOMIC AND A MAJOR POLLUTER OF CO2, IT
WOULD BE REASONABLE TO EXPECT THAT THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN A DRAMATIC FALL IN
CO2 EMISSIONS.  IN FACT, CO2 EMISSIONS HAVE INCREASED SINCE 1993.

FOLLOWING THE SHORTSIGHTED POLICY OF THE DASH FOR GAS WHICH RESULTED IN
FURTHER PIT CLOSURES AND A SWITCH FROM COAL TO GAS-FIRED POWER STATIONS IT
WOULD – IF THE ENVIRONMENTALST AND NUCLEAR LOBBY WERE RIGHT – HAVE RESULTED
IN A SUBSTANTIAL DECREASE IN CO2 EMISSIONS – THE VERY OPPOSITE IS THE CASE.
IN 1993, TOTAL CO2 EMISSIONS BY SOURCE WERE:-

      YEAR 1993

      OIL
     208.5 MILLION TONNES

      COAL AND OTHER SOLID FUELS
     206.1 MILLION TONNES

      GAS
     134.2 MILLION TONNES

      NON-FUEL
     18.3 MILLION TONNES

      TOTAL
     567.1 MILLION TONNES

            Fig 1

BY 2007, THE POSITION HAD CHANGED SIGNIFICANTLY, I.E.

      YEAR 2007

      GAS
     194 MILLION TONNES

      OIL
     185 MILLION TONNES

      COAL AND OTHER SOLID FUELS
     150 MILLION TONNES

      NON-FUEL
     15 MILLION TONNES

      TOTAL
     544 MILLION TONNES

Fig 2

THESE FIGURES, HOWEVER, ARE NOT ONLY MISLEADING BUT UNTRUE.  ACCORDING TO
THE NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICE, CO2 EMISIONS ARE UNDERSTATED BY 189 MILLION
TONNES, NOT SURPRISING IN VIEW OF THE FACT THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS
DELIBERATELY OMITTED CO2 EMISSIONS FROM AVIATION, SHIPPING AND
DEFORESTATION.  TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE STATISTICS BY THE NATIONAL AUDIT
OFFICE, A MORE ACCURATE PICTURE EMERGES:-

      YEAR 2007

      OIL
     374 MILLION TONNES

      GAS
     194 MILLION TONNES

      COAL AND OTHER SOLID FUELS
     150 MILLION TONNES

      NON-FUEL – DEFORESTATION
     15 MILLION TONNES

      TOTAL
     733 MILLION TONNES

Fig 3

IN SIMPLE TERMS, OIL, GAS AND DEFORESTATION NOW PRODUCE 80% OF ALL CO2
EMISSIONS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.   FIGURES DON’T LIE BUT LIARS CAN FIGURE,
AT LEAST THAT’S THE CONCLUSION ONE MUST COME TO WHEN COMPARING THE NATIONAL
AUDIT OFFICE CALCULATIONS WITH THE GOVERNMENT’S INACCURATE STATISTICS AND
MISLEADING STATEMENTS.

AT THE PRESENT TIME, RENEWABLE ENERGY PRODUCES ONLY 5% OF BRITAIN’S ENERGY
NEEDS YET ENVIRONMENTALISTS HAVE CONCLUDED THAT THE UK MUST STOP USING
COAL – WHICH PRODUCES ONLY 20% CO2 IN THE UK AND 2% OF CO2 EMISSIONS
WORLDWIDE.

SOME ENVIRONMENTALISTS EVEN SAY IT MAY NOW BE NECESSARY TO ACCEPT NUCLEAR
ENERGY, IGNORING THE FACT THAT NUCLEAR ENERGY ONLY GENERATES ELECTRICITY AND
IS OF NO USE FOR OTHER INDUSTRIAL OR DOMESTIC USE.

I WAS CHAIRMAN OF ENERGY 2000, AN ORGANISATION ESTABLISHED IN 1977,
SUPPORTED BY THE NUM, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, GREENPEACE AND ALL THE
ANTI-NUCLEAR GROUPS.

ENERGY 2000 PRESENTED EVIDENCE AT THE WINDSCALE, SIZEWELL AND HINCKLEY POINT
PUBLIC ENQUIRIES, PUTTING A POWERFUL CASE AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER.

ENERGY 2000 AND ALL THE ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS CAMPAIGNED IN THE 1970s AND
1980s FOR AN INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY BASED ON UK DEEP MINE CLEAN COAL AND
RENEWABLE ENERGIES SUCH AS WIND, WAVE, TIDE, BARRAGE, HYDRO, GEOTHERMAL AND
SOLAR POWER TOGETHER WITH INSULATION AND CONSERVATION.

THE DISASTERS AT THREE-MILE ISLAND IN 1979 AND CHERNOBYL IN 1986 WHICH WILL
RESULT IN THOUSANDS OF DEATHS OVER A 30 TO 40 YEAR PERIOD, DEMONSTRATED THAT
OUR POLICY WAS RIGHT.

BASED ON THE EVIDENCE OF DR ROBERT GALE, THE CANCER EXPERT, WHO TREATED
VICTIMS IN CHERNOBYL, IT IS PROJECTED THAT THE CHERNOBYL DISASTER ALONE WILL
RESULT IN OVER 100,000 DEATHS.

THESE FIGURES ONLY RELATE TO ONE DISASTER AND NOT TO THE CONTINUED RADIATION
CONTAMINATION BOTH WITHIN THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY AND IN AND AROUND NUCLEAR
PLANTS.

EVIDENCE PRESENTED BY EXPERTS SUCH AS Dr ALICE STEWART AND DR ROSIE BERTELL
SHOWS AN INCREASED DEATH RATE FROM LEUKAEMIA AND CANCER IN AND AROUND
NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS 10% HIGHER THAN IN THE GENERAL POPULATION.

ON 13 DECEMBER 1986, DR KENNETH DUNCAN, FORMER HEAD OF THE HEALTH AND SAFETY
COMMISSION’S EMPLOYMENT MEDICAL ADVISORY SERVICE AND ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF
THE NATIONAL RADIOLOGICAL PROTECTION BOARD ADMITTED THAT IF A NUCLEAR
ACCIDENT OCCURRED IN THE UK WITH A 100 PER CENT RELEASE OF CORE CONTENTS, IT
COULD RESULT IN UP TO 2 MILLION DEATHS (TUC REPORT, 23 JANUARY 1987).

THE CONSTRUCTION, RUNNING COSTS AND DECOMMISSIONING COSTS OF NUCLEAR ENERGY
ARE HORRENDOUS – THE CURRENT ESTIMATE FOR DECOMMISSIONING EXISTING NUCLEAR
POWER STATIONS IN BRITAIN IS £73 BILLION.  THE HOUSE OF COMMONS SELECT
COMMITTEE IN 1989 REPORTED THAT THE REAL COST OF AGR AND PWR NUCLEAR POWER
STATIONS WOULD BE 400% MORE EXPENSIVE THAN ELECTRICITY FROM A COAL-FIRED
POWER STATION.

BRITAIN NEEDS AN INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY, BASED ON INDIGENOUS DEEP MINE
COAL AND RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES SUCH AS WIND, WAVE, TIDE, BARRAGE, HYDRO,
GEOTHERMAL AND SOLAR POWER, A POLICY FREE FROM UNILATERAL PRICE INCREASES OR
THE INTERRUPTION OR ENDING OF SUPPLY.

CARBON CAPTURE TECHNOLOGY DOES EXIST AND WE CAN – WITH THE PROPER
INVESTMENT – UTILISE UK DEEP MINE COAL IN A WAY WHICH WILL RESULT IN A
REDUCTION OF 90% OF CO2 EMISSIONS.

CURRENTLY THE UK’S ENERGY NEEDS ARE MET BY OIL, GAS AND COAL.  HOWEVER, THE
UK IS ALREADY A NET IMPORTER OF OIL, GAS AND COAL AND BY 2020 IMPORTS OF
OIL, UNCONVENTIONAL OILS SUCH AS SHALE OIL, TAR SAND AND GAS WILL – UNLESS
THE GOVERNMENT IS STOPPED – ACCOUNT FOR 80% OF THE UK’S ENERGY NEEDS.

THIS POSITION IS UNACCEPTABLE BOTH IN TERMS OF GUARANTEE OF SUPPLY AND THE
MASSIVE COSTS TO BRITAIN’S BALANCE OF PAYMENTS WHICH WILL HAVE TO BE MET BY
THE CONSUMER WHO ARE CURRENTLY PAYING 300% MORE FOR GAS AND OIL, AT A TIME
WHEN OIL COMPANIES SUCH AS BP AND ROYAL DUTCH SHELL ARE RECORDING PROFITS OF
£6.4 AND £6.6 BILLION RESPECTIVELY FOR THE THIRD QUARTER OF 2008.

UNLESS THERE IS A DRAMATIC POLICY CHANGE, WE WILL SEE THE UK HAVE AN ENERGY
POLICY BASED ON OIL AND GAS IMPORTS AND EXPENSIVE AND HIGHLY DANGEROUS
NUCLEAR POWER WHICH USES URANIUM AS A PRIMARY FUEL, A FINITE ENERGY SOURCE
WHICH WILL BE EXHAUSTED WITHIN 50 YEARS.

DR KENNETH DUNCAN CONFIRMED TO THE TUC IN 1986 THAT LUNG CANCER RATES AMONG
URANIUM MINERS WAS 3 TO 5 TIMES HIGHER THAN IN THE GENERAL POPULATION AND IF
URANIUM MINERS IN NAMIBIA WERE INCLUDED, IT WAS MUCH HIGHER.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS AND ECO-WARRIORS HAVE BEEN HIGHLY VISIBLE IN THEIR
OPPOSITION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW COAL-FIRED POWER STATION AT
KINGSNORTH AND THE DRAX POWER STATION IN WEST YORKSHIRE.

YET THEY HAVE BEEN CONSPICUOUS BY THEIR ABSENCE IN THE CAMPAIGN TO STOP
OPEN-CAST COALMINING WHICH PRODUCES 54% OF THE UK’S INDIGENOUS COAL AND
ACCOUNTS FOR NOT ONLY CO2 EMISSIONS AT SOURCE BUT FOR MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF
METHANE, A GAS 23 TIMES MORE POTENT AND DAMAGING TO GLOBAL WARMING THAN CO2.

THERE HAS BEEN A SYSTEMATIC CAMPAIGN AGAINST INDIGENOUS DEEP MINE COAL
PRODUCTION SINCE THE MINERS INFLICTED MASSIVE DEFEAT ON THE TORY GOVERNMENT
IN 1972 AND 1974, A POLICY WHICH HAS SEEN THE CLOSURE OF OVER 200 PITS.

THE UK CURRENTLY USES NEARLY 63 MILLION TONNES OF COAL PER YEAR, OF WHICH 44
MILLION TONNES ARE IMPORTED AND 9 MILLION TONNES ARE PRODUCED BY HIGHLY
POLLUTING OPEN-CAST SITES.  IN OTHER WORDS, 85% OF BRITAIN’S COAL SUPPLY
EMANATES FROM IMPORTS OR OPEN-CAST SITES WHILST ONLY 15% IS PRODUCED IN
BRITISH DEEP MINES.

THE REASON FOR THIS POLICY IS CLEAR FROM THE SECRET CABINET MINUTE LEAKED ON
23 OCTOBER 1979 WHICH STATED – “A NUCLEAR PROGRAMME WOULD HAVE THE ADVANTAGE
OF REMOVING A SUBSTANTIAL PORTION OF ELECTRICITY FROM DISRUPTION BY
INDUSTRIAL ACTION OF COAL MINERS AND TRANSPORT WORKERS”

THIS EXPLAINS WHY THE TORY GOVERNMENT WAS DETERMINED TO CLOSE BRITAIN’S DEEP
MINE COAL INDUSTRY.  IT ALSO EXPLAINS WHY THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT HAS REFUSED
TO HONOUR ITS UNDERTAKING TO THE NUM TO RE-OPEN PITS CLOSED BETWEEN 1984 AND
1997 AND DEVELOP NEW MINES AND COALFIELDS IN LINE WITH THE 1974 PLAN FOR
COAL.

THE PLAN FOR COAL WAS DESIGNED TO PROTECT BRITAIN FROM AN ENERGY CRISIS.  IT
WAS A PLAN WHICH WOULD HAVE AMELIORATED THE IMPACT OF THE CRISIS WHICH IS
PLUNGING THE UK INTO ECONOMIC CHAOS.

WE HAVE SEEN THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMBINED CYCLE GAS TURBINE (CCGT) TECHNOLOGY
IN GAS-FIRED POWER STATIONS, YET THERE HAS BEEN NO REAL ATTEMPT TO INTRODUCE
AN INTEGRATED GASIFICATION COMBINED CYCLE (IGCC) IN COAL-FIRED POWER
STATIONS.

IN ADDITION, WHILST GAS AND NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS ARE RUN ON BASE LOAD,
COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS HAVE BEEN USED ON PEAK TIME.  THERE IS NO DOUBT
THAT THE UK’S 18 COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS COULD ALL BE FITTED WITH CARBON
CAPTURE TECHNOLOGY AND WHILST THE CRITICS CLAIM THAT THIS TECHNOLOGY IS NOT
YET FULLY DEVELOPED, THE GOVERNMENT IN 2003 REPORTED THAT A SMALL SCALE
CARBON CAPTURE SCHEME WAS SUCCESSFULLY OPERATING IN THE USA WHICH REMOVED
90% OF CO2 EMISSIONS.

WE HAVE SEEN THIS YEAR THE DEVELOPMENT AT THE ENEL’S TORRE POWER STATION IN
ITALY A NEW “CLEAN” COAL-FIRED POWER STATION – WITHOUT CARBON CAPTURE -
WHICH HAS REDUCED CO2 EMISSIONS BY 20%!

ENEL’S TORRE STATION IS A 660 MW POWER STATION, PREVIOUSLY OIL-FIRED, WHICH
PRODUCED 2,485,980 TONNES OF CO2, 456,608 TONNES MORE THAN THE UK GAS-FIRED
POWER STATION AT BALLYLUMFORD C, A 616 MW STATION WHICH IN 2007 EMITTED
2,029,372 TONNES OF CO2.

THE ENEL’S TORRE NEW COAL-FIRED POWER STATION IS NOW PRODUCING 1,988,784
TONNES OF CO2 OR 40,588 TONNES LESS THAN THE 2,029.372 TONNES AT THE
GAS-FIRED POWER STATION AT BALLYLUMFORD C.

THE TECHNOLOGY IN ITALY WAS DEVELOPED WITHIN THREE YEARS, DEMONSTRATING THAT
IT IS POSSIBLE – EVEN WITHOUT CARBON CAPTURE – FOR MODERN COAL-FIRED POWER
STATIONS TO REDUCE CO2 EMISSIONS TO BELOW THE LEVEL OF A COMBINED GAS CYCLE
POWER STATION.

CARBON CAPTURE WOULD RESULT IN THE UK’S EXISTING COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS
REDUCING ANNUAL CO2 EMISSIONS TO 10,872,720 TONNES PER YEAR, A 90%
REDUCTION.

UNTIL THE 1970s BRITAIN PRODUCED ALL ITS GAS FROM UK DEEP MINE COAL AND CAN
PRODUCE ALL THE OIL, GAS AND PETROCHEMICALS WE NEED AND THIS INDIGENOUS
SOURCE HAS RESERVES OF WELL OVER A THOUSAND YEARS.

AN ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT POLICY FOR THE UK

THE UK NEEDS AN INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY WHICH WILL PRODUCE 250 MILLION
TONNES OF INDIGENOUS DEEP MINE CLEAN COAL PER YEAR – COAL – FROM WHICH COULD
BE EXTRACTED ALL THE ELECTRICITY, OIL, GAS AND PETROCHEMICALS THAT THE
PEOPLE OF OUR NATION NEED.

ALL EXISTING AND NEW COAL-FIRED POWER STATIONS SHOULD BE FITTED WITH CLEAN
COAL TECHNOLOGY INCLUDING CARBON CAPTURE WHICH WOULD REMOVE 90% OF CO2, AT
THE SAME TIME WE SHOULD BE DEVELOPING A MASSIVE RENEWABLE ENERGY POLICY
BASED ON WIND, WAVE, TIDE, BARRAGE, HYDRO, GEOTHERMAL, SOLAR POWER,
INSULATION AND CONSERVATION.

WE MUST END THE IMPORT OF COAL, CURRENTLY 43 MILLION TONNES, WHICH IS
PRODUCED BY SUBSIDIES, “SLAVE LABOUR” AND CHILD LABOUR, AND END THE IMPORT
OF SHALE OIL, TAR SAND AND OTHER SO-CALLED “UNCONVENTIONAL OILS” WHICH ARE
THE DIRTIEST FUELS ON THE PLANET YET ARE BEING USED AT POWER STATIONS SUCH
AS DRAX TO PRODUCE ELECTRICITY.

WE MUST END OPEN-CAST MINING WHICH IS NOT ONLY A BLIGHT ON THE LANDSCAPE BUT
PRODUCES ONE-THIRD MORE CO2­ THAN DEEP MINE COAL.

WE MUST END IMPORTS OF GAS AND INSTEAD PRODUCE OUR OWN GAS – AS WE DID UNTIL
THE 1970s – FROM UK INDIGENOUS DEEP MINE COAL.

WE MUST STOP IMPORTING OIL AND INSTEAD PRODUCE OUR OWN OIL FROM UK DEEP MINE
COAL.

WE NEED AN END TO ALL NUCLEAR POWER ELECTRICITY GENERATION, THE MOST
DANGEROUS AND UNECONOMIC METHOD OF PRODUCING ELECTRICITY.

THE DEATHS AND DISEASE CONNECTED WITH NUCLEAR ENERGY ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION
INCLUDING URANIUM MINING, RADIATION AND DISASTERS SUCH AS WINDSCALE, THREE
MILE ISLAND AND CHERNOBYL SHOULD IN THEMSELVES BE SUFFICIENT TO CONVINCE
ANYONE THAT THIS NUCLEAR MADNESS SHOULD BE PHASED OUT IMMEDIATELY.

WE NEED TO END DEFORESTATION – WHICH IS THE CAUSE OF 20% OF CO2 EMISSIONS
WORLD-WIDE AND ACCOUNTS FOR 15% OF CO2 IN THE UK – AND END BIO-FUEL
DEVELOPMENT – WHICH NOT ONLY PRODUCES SUBSTANTIAL CO2 EMISSIONS BUT CAUSES
MASS STARVATION AND HIGHER FOOD PRICES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

WE NEED AN ENVIRONMENT POLICY WHICH WILL REDUCE EMISSIONS OF CO2, METHANE,
CHLORO FLUORO CARBONS (CFCs), NITROGEN OXIDE (NOX­), NITROUS OXIDE (N2O),
OZONE (O3), SULPHUR DIOXIDE (SO2) AND STOP DEFORESTATION.

WE NEED TO REMOVE FROM OUR ROADS THE JUGGERNAUTS AND AS MANY VEHICLES AS
POSSIBLE AND INSTEAD CONSTRUCT A MODERN ELECTRIC RAIL SYSTEM TOGETHER WITH
TRAMS IN OUR TOWNS AND CITIES WHICH WOULD REDUCE CO2 AND OTHER GAS EMISSIONS
BY BETWEEN 15% AND 20%.

CONCLUSION

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THESE MEASURES TOGETHER WITH AN INTEGRATED ENERGY
POLICY BASED ON CLEAN COAL TECHNOLOGY AND RENEWABLE ENERGY CAN PLAY A
LEADING PART IN HELPING REDUCE RISING SEA LEVELS.

WE MUST BEGIN TO DESALINATE SEA WATER ON A MASS SCALE AND PROVIDE CLEAN
WATER TO THOSE PARTS OF THE WORLD WHICH ARE CURRENTLY BEING SUBJECTED TO
DROUGHTS WHICH HAVE TURNED THEIR LAND INTO DUST-BOWLS, RESULTING IN
THOUSANDS OF DEATHS.

THE USE OF SEA WATER IN THIS WAY WILL REDUCE THE RISE IN SEA LEVELS
DRAMATICALLY AND MAKE THE DESERTS BLOOM AND PROVIDE MILLIONS OF HUMAN BEINGS
WITH THE BASIC NECESSITIES OF LIFE.

WE NEED A WORLD WHERE PEOPLE HAVE ENOUGH FOOD, CLOTHING, HOUSING AND ENERGY
TO ENSURE THAT THEIR LIVES AND THOSE OF THEIR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN ARE
EQUAL TO THE STANDARD THAT WE IN THE WEST HAVE ENJOYED FOR THE PAST 50
YEARS.

IF WE DO THAT, THEN WE CAN NOT ONLY CLAIM TO HAVE PRODUCED A SENSIBLE
INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY BUT ALSO AN ENVIRONMENT POLICY WHICH WILL HELP
TRANSFORM THE PLANET ON WHICH WE LIVE.

ARTHUR SCARGILL

Letter from America

 

The following article is from American comrade R. Alpert.

 

 

The other day the US Army carried out a “raid” in Syria, which raid resulted in the deaths of at least seven people. The United States now feels that it has the “right” to attack any country at any time for any reason. I would add that this attack drew scant notice from the media –democratic or republican. The heated discussion of the day was the cost of Sarah Palin’s wardrobe. Even the collapse of the financial system was pushed off the front page.

 

 

How did we arrive at what I can only call an economy and culture of madness?

 

 

I do not pretend to be an economist (a dubious “expertise” in my view in any case) and the language in which experts attempt to portray the current financial collapse seems deliberately mystifying. Forgive me if I ignore them.

 

 

The current financial and cultural crises seem long overdue. Since the 1980’s the economy of the west has been driven by American consumerism. That consumerism—made possible by the enormous social capital generated by World War two is over. Dead. The wonder is it took so long.

Socialists (and I mean “Socialist” as it is understood by grown ups rather than American politicians) have always understood that Capital values profit over survival. The point seems so obvious as to be trivial; however, it seems to have been genuinely lost on experts like Greenspan (who confessed that his whole ideological and economic world view had been mistaken). Socialists have also always understood that capital must expand to survive. I have often reflected that I could be quite rich if I made it my business to rob all the houses in my neighborhood.  

 

The FED (which Greenspan ran) had been reducing interest rates for some time. I think it had reduced them to about 1.5%. The result was the intended and pernicious increased availability (so it seemed) of money. I should point out that this had been going on for years. For example: there was a time when you had to go to a bank and write a check to get cash. ATM machines assured the constant availability of Cash (as did Credit Cards).   However in the face of the FED’s reduction of interest rates    Capital, in the quest for greater returns did a monstrously stupid thing—it looked unto mortgages which had a return of say 5% and saw in them salvation. What had hitherto been controlled thievery became a wild west free for all. Banks and Mortgage Lenders granted loans without making sure that people could repay them. Adjustable Mortgages became common. We call this lunacy  “deregulation”. Since the real standard of living among American’s had been declining for some time, it was not surprising that people could not pay their mortgages (or their credit card bills for that matter)—lenders began to go broke, banks started to fail and the crises became international. The temptation is to blame Bush and his junta but much as I hate to say it that is not quite fair. The rules, or firewalls, such as they were, had begun to be destroyed by Reagan and Thatcher. Without them Bush Cheney Greenspan and the rest of the crew would not have emerged as Capital’s hit men.

 

There was surprisingly little resistance to Reagan. He was a “crusader” in the worst American tradition. He and his Republican and Democratic cronies began to destroy New Deal arrangements with astonishing rapidity. “Free Trade”—the unfettered flow of capital both monetary and human, effectively destroyed what little Trade Union resistance existed. Reagan’s tax cut caused a massive upward redistribution of wealth.

 

 

Thatcher was another matter. I remember following with impotent fury what was without doubt the greatest and most heroic working class struggle in the second half of the twentieth century—the great miner’s strike of 1984-5. Thatcher’s defeat of the miners not only destroyed a great democratic firewall to the unfettered flow of capital but also destroyed the Labour party itself. Britain was turned into a one party state—just like the US.

 

 

I believe that had the miners been victorious, there would have been real consequences for not only British capital but for US Imperialism itself.

 

 

There was however one great firewall still remaining—the Soviet Union and the Socialist world. Whatever their defects, the Socialist community remained a massive affront to Capital—22 million Soviet lives are testimony to the monstrous historical attempt to remove this enormous impediment to the “crusade for democracy”. There is an important lesson here. Capital does not have to “win” a war against a Socialist country.   The enormous damage Fascism wrecked on the Soviet Union caused distortions in its political economy—distortions that made the tragedy of 1989-90 possible. The same thing happened in Vietnam.

 

 

This is all to say that by the Clinton years Capital had a free hand. A free hand for free trade and free destruction. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union only countries such as El Salvador or Vietnam had the happiness of feeling the effects of democratic crusade. After 1990 however, Europe itself was no longer immune. Bill Clinton presided over the destruction of Serbia.

 

 

Not only that. Capital’s free hand is also reflected in the massive amounts of privatization that occurred under Clinton’s regime. This privatization MUST be understood as linked with the massive introduction of technology into the political and cultural economy. One example: Cable television was a corner stone of what I like to call the “cell phone” culture that had existed in embryo previously but became horrifically incarnate under Clinton’s rule. Cable television—that is the privatization of television allowed Murdoch and others to construct a propaganda apparatus that may even bring a chuckle to Herr Goebbels down there in the 9^th circle of Hell. The introduction of technology– Cat scans, MRI’s into medicine not only raised the cost of Medical care in the US but also lowered the quality of it. In my youth a visit to a Doctor began with a detailed history lasting 30-45 minutes. These days 10 minutes seems to be the norm.  Economic and cultural arrangements are intertwined. Suffice to say that the cultural pathologies that sprung up in sports, education and personal relationships were as bizarre as they were inevitable.

 

 

Postscript 

 

US capital has plundered (and continues to plunder) the “third world” It effectively kidnaps and lynches leaders in Europe who refuse as we say “to get with the program” and effectively has reduced countries in Europe to third world status. What I had not realized was that it had no compunction about doing the same thing to the US itself. The problem seems to be that the costs of an economy of theft ironically outweigh its gains. 

 

 I recently went to a talk in a wealthy part of Boston given by a liberal economist. He argued that Obama was the new Roosevelt.  Obama, he claimed, would “regulate”. Obama our savior. I was surprised to hear one woman ask him “But who are the regulators?”–There was applause. Even the wealthy whose stocks have lost so much value somehow sensed that all of these ”experts” came out of the same stew pot—she was saying Obama’s regulation was like taking a shot of malaria for pneumonia.

 

 

Obama’s election seems to be a done deal. Conservatives are jumping ship. This desertion suggests to me that the “right-minded right” feels Obama is someone they can do business with. On the other hand, Obama has been making timid noises about leveling—or building wealth from the bottom up. Could it be that Capital has come to its senses?

Nah! The headline the other day was that Boston was having all of its new trains built—in South Korea.

 

 

We shall see.

U.S. Journalists & War Crime Guilt

 

by Peter Dyer

 

15th October 2008

 

October 16 is an anniversary that should hold considerable interest for American journalists who have written in support of ”Operation Iraqi Freedom” – the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

 

Sixty-two years ago, on Oct. 16, 1946, Julius Streicher was hanged.

Streicher was one of a group of 10 Germans executed that day following the judgment of the first Nuremberg Trial – a 40-week trial of 22 of the most prominent Nazis.

Each was tried for two or more of the four crimes defined in the Nuremberg Charter: crimes against peace (aggression), war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy.
 
All who were sentenced to death were major German government officials or military leaders. Except for Streicher.

 

Julius Streicher was a journalist.
 
Editor of the vehemently anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer, Streicher was convicted of, in the words of the judgment, “incitement to murder and extermination at the time when Jews in the East were being killed under the most horrible conditions clearly constitut(ing) … a crime against humanity.”

 

Presenting the case against Streicher, British prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel M.C. Griffith-Jones said: “My Lord, it may be that this defendant is less directly involved in the physical commission of the crimes against Jews. … The submission of the Prosecution is that his crime is no less the worse … that he made these things possible – made these crimes possible which could never have happened had it not been for him and for those like him. He led the propaganda and the education of the German people in those ways.”

 

The critical role of propaganda was affirmed at Nuremberg not only by the prosecution and in the judgment but also in the testimony of the most prominent Nazi defendant, Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering:
 
“Modern and total war develops, as I see it, along three lines: the war of weapons on land, at sea and in the air; economic war, which has become an integral part of every modern war; and, third, propaganda war, which is also an essential part of this warfare.”

 

Two months after the Nuremberg hangings, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 59(I), declaring:

“Freedom of information requires as an indispensable element the willingness and capacity to employ its privileges without abuse. It requires as a basic discipline the moral obligation to seek the facts without prejudice and to spread knowledge without malicious intent.”

 

The next year another General Assembly Resolution was adopted: Res. 110 which “condemns all forms of propaganda, in whatsoever country conducted, which is either designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.”

 

Although UN General Assembly Resolutions are not legally binding, Resolutions 59 and 110 carry considerable moral weight. This is because, like the United Nations itself, they are an expression of the catastrophic brutality and suffering of two world wars and the universal desire to avoid future slaughter.

 

Propaganda Crimes

Most jurisdictions have yet to recognize propaganda for war as a crime. However several journalists have recently been convicted of incitement to genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Because there is stiff resistance, especially from the United States, the effort to criminalize war propaganda faces an uphill battle.

However in legal terms it seems relatively straightforward: if incitement to genocide is a crime, then incitement to aggression, another Nuremberg crime, could and should be as well.

After all, aggression – starting an unprovoked war – is “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole,” in the words of the judgment at Nuremberg.
 
Criminal or not, much of the world now sees incitement to war as morally indefensible.

In this light and in light of Goering’s three-part recipe for war (weapons, economic war and propaganda) it is instructive to look at the role which American journalists and war propagandists have recently played in bringing about and sustaining war.

 

The Bush administration began to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American public soon after 9/11.

In order to coordinate this effort President Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew Card, established the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) in the summer of 2002 expressly for the purpose of marketing the invasion of Iraq.

Among the members of WHIG were media figures/propagandists Karen Hughes and Mary Matalin.

WHIG was remarkable not only for its recklessness with the truth but for the candor with which it acknowledged it was running an advertising campaign. A Sept. 7, 2002, New York Times article entitled TRACES OF TERROR: THE STRATEGY; Bush Aides Set Strategy to Sell Policy on Iraq reported:
 
“White House officials said today that the administration was following a meticulously planned strategy to persuade the public, the Congress and the allies of the need to confront the threat from Saddam Hussein….

” ‘From a marketing point of view,’ said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff who is coordinating the effort, ‘you don’t introduce new products in August.’ ”

 

It was as if the “product” – the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign state – was a consumer good, like a car or a TV show. The sales pitch was the manufactured “imminent threat” of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
 
In other words, the business of WHIG was incitement to aggressive war primarily through the propaganda of fear.
 
Along those lines WHIG’s most prominent member, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, invoked the specter of an Iraqi-generated nuclear holocaust in a Sept. 8, 2002, CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer:
 
“We do know that there have been shipments going into Iran, for instance – into Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes that really are only suited to – high-quality aluminum tools that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs. … The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

 

The smoking gun/mushroom cloud images were among the most memorable of all the White House war propaganda. They were generated just a few days earlier in a WHIG meeting by speechwriter Michael Gerson.

 

The existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was central to the Bush administration’s campaign for war. Other important elements were Saddam Hussein’s ties with Al Qaeda and the strongly implied association of Iraq with the tragedies of 9/11.
 
All were false. In propaganda, though, selling the product trumps truth.

 

Unquestioning Submission

The role played by American mainstream media during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq was marked by widespread unquestioning submission to the Bush administration and abandonment of the most fundamental journalistic responsibility to the public.

This responsibility is embodied not only in Resolution 59 but in the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics as well, which states: “Journalists should test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error.”
 
The failure of influential American journalists, such as the New York Times’ Judith Miller, to test the accuracy of information played a critical role in the Bush administration’s successful effort to incite the American public to attack a country which was not threatening us.
 
Though she was far from alone in selling the case for war, Miller — through her seemingly uncritical reliance on dodgy informants — was probably responsible to a larger degree than any other American journalist for spreading the fear of nonexistent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

 

As such she and other influential journalists who failed in this way bear a share of moral, if not legal, responsibility for hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees and all the other carnage, devastation and human suffering of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

 

Some prominent American media figures, however, went considerably further than simple failure to check sources. Some actively and passionately encouraged Americans to commit and/or approve of war crimes, before and during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

 

Prominent among these was Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly who – regarding both Afghanistan and Iraq – advocated such crimes forbidden by the Geneva Convention as collective punishment of civilians (Gen. Con. IV, Art. 33); attacking civilian targets (Protocol I, Art. 51); destroying water supplies (Protocol I Art. 54 Sec. 2) and even starvation (Protocol I, Art. 54 Sec. 1).

Sept. 17, 2001: “The U.S. should bomb the Afghan infrastructure to rubble: the airport, the power plants, their water facilities, and the roads” in the event of a refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden to the U.S.
 
Later, he added: “This is a very primitive country. And taking out their ability to exist day to day will not be hard.  … We should not target civilians. But if they don’t rise up against this criminal government, they starve, period.”
 
On March 26, 2003, a few days after the invasion of Iraq began, O’Reilly said: “There is a school of thought that says we should have given the citizens of Baghdad 48 hours to get out of Dodge by dropping leaflets and going with the AM radios and all that. Forty-eight hours, you’ve got to get out of there, and flatten the place.” [See Peter Hart's “O'Reilly's War: Any rationale—or none—will do” Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, May/June 2003]

 

Collective Punishment

Another tremendously influential journalist, Pulitzer Prize winner and former executive editor of the New York Times, the late A.M. Rosenthal, also advocated attacking civilian targets and collective punishment in regard to waging war against Muslim nations in the Middle East.

In a Sept. 14, 2001, column, “How the U.S. Can Win the War”, Rosenthal wrote that the U.S. should give Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria and Sudan three days to consider an ultimatum demanding they turn over documents and information related to weapons of mass destruction and terrorist organizations.
 
During these three days, “the residents of the countries would be urged 24 hours a day by the U.S. to flee the capital and major cities, because they would be bombed to the ground beginning the fourth day.”

 

Right-wing media figure Ann Coulter, on the Sean Hannity Show on July 21, 2006, called for another war and more punishment of civilians, this time in Iran:

”Well, I keep hearing people say we can’t find the nuclear material, and you can bury it in caves. How about we just, you know, carpet-bomb them so they can’t build a transistor radio? And then it doesn’t matter if they have the nuclear material.”

 

This pattern of the major U.S. news figures advocating aggressive wars even predated 9/11. Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman published a strident call for war crimes including collective punishment of Serbs and the destruction of their water supplies over the Kosovo crisis:
 
“But if NATO’s only strength is that it can bomb forever, then it has to get every ounce out of that. Let’s at least have a real air war. The idea that people are still holding rock concerts in Belgrade, or going out for Sunday merry-go-round rides, while their fellow Serbs are ‘cleansing’ Kosovo, is outrageous. It should be lights out in Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related factory has to be targeted.

 

“Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too.” [New York Times, April 23, 1999]

 

These casual — even joking — comments about inflicting war on relatively weak countries came from American journalists and media figures at the very top of their profession. Each was addressing an audience of millions. It is difficult to overstate their influence.

 

Over the past decade alone, the massive destruction and carnage wreaked by American pursuit of “the supreme international crime” of aggression has been enabled by negligent, reckless and/or malicious use of this influence.
 
Sadly, the words of Nuremberg Prosecutor Griffith-Jones concerning the propaganda of German journalist Julius Streicher hold considerable meaning today for some of the most prominent journalists in the country which, 60 years ago, provided the guiding light at Nuremberg:

Streicher “made these things possible – made these crimes possible which could never have happened had it not been for him and for those like him.”

 

In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 127 in which “the General Assembly … invites the Governments of States Members … to study such measures as might with advantage, be taken on the national plane to combat, within the limits of constitutional procedures, the diffusion of false or distorted reports likely to injure friendly relations between States.”

 

Unfortunately, 60 years later, little progress has been made. War propaganda is still legal and very much alive – flourishing, in fact, as demonstrated by periodic calls for one more invasion of a country which has never threatened the U.S.: Iran.

 

As matters stand today, with the United States still the world’s preeminent military power, the American propagandists who enabled Operation Iraqi Freedom and other wars of aggression have little need to worry about their legal responsibilities under the Nuremberg principles.
 
A strong case can be made, though, that they have blood on their hands.

 

 

 

Peter Dyer is a freelance journalist based in New Zealand.

 

(consortiumnews.com).

Reflections on the Economic Meltdown by an Ordinary Joe.

 

$700 Billion, possibly double that, of US public funds given over to bailing out corrupt, failed, usurial fat cats. Unimaginable sums, trillions of dollars! So runs the US regime’s plan to rescue the financial markets. It has been described as a financial lifeboat. However, as a salvage plan, it makes the Titanic safety procedures look positively trustworthy and sound.

 

I learned a new phrase recently – Credit Default Swaps (CDS). CDS trading is the epitome of parasitic capitalism and is an illustration of why the big international investment banks are up to their ears in the financial muck. A CDS is a credit derivative that whose value derives from the credit risk on an underlying bond, loan or other financial asset. A derivative is a “financial instrument” whose value changes in response to the changes in underlying variables such as inflation, exchange rates, stock/share prices, interest rates etc. The more one looks into the subject the more it becomes apparent that the management of financial trading is intentionally complex with a nefarious nature akin to a mafia run “numbers” game. CDS trading is the most widely traded credit derivative “product” and was valued by the Bank for International Settlements at $62.2 Trillion at the end of 2007 (up from $28.9 Trillion in December 2006). Other commentators have recently valued all derivative “worth” as high as $480 Trillion. This is said to be ten (10) times global GDP!

 

These mind bending figures illustrate just how feeble and flimsy George W. Bush’s “lifeboat” is. His (?) gamble is that by nationalising the relatively very small bad housing/mortgage debt this will “free” up banks to release credit averting a much wider impact and crash in the wider economy. It’s very much a gamble and the odds are long. In fact it’s a rank outsider.You wouldn’t back it if it was a horse! One way or another we are moving into very difficult times where the working class will be expected to shoulder a burden unknown in modern times.

 

Arthur Scargill was first to point out the nature and depth of this economic crisis (you can see and hear him for yourself on a series of videos available on You Tube). As Arthur pointed out, we are heading for an economic disaster of a scale as bad as or worse than the 1930’s.

 

We are heading toward interesting and simultaneously dangerous and opportune times for revolutionary socialists. Capitalism, as we’ve known it for decades, is in a terminal state. Social Democratic parties have no answers and are in decline everywhere while the fascist right is a growing threat across Europe. Only a party with socialist solutions can offer working people a vision and a possibility of a better world. Here in this country Socialist Labour has the policies, and also the organisation able to take us forward to socialism.

 

There is much work to be done.

SNP in Government – All Change for the Status Quo

The Scottish Parliamentary election in May 2007 ushered in an SNP administration at Holyrood albeit with minority status. With 47 MSP’s to New Labour’s 46 in a 129 seat parliament the nationalists, with the support of the two Green members, have, for the first time taken over the reins of “power” in Scotland.

 

What difference, if any, have they made?

 

Firstly, to their credit, the SNP have begun the phasing out of prescription charges within the lifetime of the parliament. For many people, particularly those suffering from chronic conditions and reliant on a multi-prescription medical regimen, this is very welcome and in some cases literally a lifesaver. So top marks go to Salmond’s party for that initiative. However, beyond that, it would be difficult for even the most ardent nationalist to point to any other comparable advances.

 

Let’s look at the debit sheet.

 

Along with the commitment on Prescription Charges two other high profile commitments stood out in the 2007 SNP Manifesto: public finance and local taxation. How have the minority administration progressed these two pledges?

 

Public Finance.

 

The Conservatives introduced the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in 1992 and New Labour’s re-branding gave us the Public Private Partnership (PPP) in 1997. Both these schemes have been correctly seen as being virtually identical and a short cut to enrichment for the city fat cats and the big corporations – for a relatively small “investment” guaranteed returns of a magnitude ten, twenty, fifty fold and more can be got. They are a rip-off that the public pay through the nose for and have been widely seen and understood as such by the majority of the population. The SNP latched onto the public outrage and waxed lyrical about how they would put it right. What’s their idea? Instead of PFI/PPP we now have the proposed Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) as the new means of raising finance for public works. But does it differ in any significant way from what we’ve had from the Tories and New Labour? The short answer for anyone that knows anything about Public Sector Borrowing Requirement (PSBR) restrictions imposed by European Union (EU) directive on member states is of course no – it can’t!

 

Short on detail as the announcement from Finance Secretary John Swinney was some basics can be gleaned. Sir Angus Grossart, an investment banker with his own merchant bank Noble Grossart, will lead the “Trust”. The man has been described by The Times as “ the doyen of Edinburgh’s financial community” and “one of Scotland’s foremost movers and shakers, with several key directorships and a hand in 50 business ventures”. The same article advises us that he has also been “criticised previously for his part in the “stewardship of the Fraser holding company, Scottish & Universal Investments. Sir Angus was accused of failing to check the accounts thoroughly”. Given recent events in the financial world is this really the man you would want to put in charge of the country’s public investment stategy? The only other significant detail about the SFT is that it will be an “arms length private company/consortium” charged with raising finance for public projects. In short is nothing more than PFI mark 3!

 

Local Government Finance.

 

Abolition of the reviled Council Tax was another pledge made by the SNP. Loathing for the Council Tax, introduced by the Tories in the 90’s, is so widespread that New Labour dare not raise its’ voice in opposition to its’ eradication despite their continuing support for the property based tax. The SNP have published sketchy details of their alternative Local Income Tax (LIT) for which they would need the support of at least two other parties in the parliament to introduce. Two issues (there are many others) immediately leap out – the LIT does not live up to its’ name, a rate is to be set nationally meaning people in Dumfries will pay the same as people in Shetland and its’ introduction requires the support of the British Government including the maintenance of the current Council Tax benefit transfer from Westminster to Scotland of at least £400 million. This latter figure is likely to rise significantly given the coming recession but even with it included there is still a projected shortfall of up to £500 million that the SNP say could be met though “efficiency savings”. Workers and their unions usually interpret such language as shorthand for further cuts in essential public services.

 

Summary

 

In conclusion it can be said that with the exception of the prescription charges policy SNP government in Scotland has brought little real benefit to the Scottish people. A spin on PFI and a confused and under funded misnamed alternative for local government funding that constitute flagships holed below the water line before they’ve even been launched.

 

Could such a pathetic and paltry set of policies possibly energise the Scottish people into supporting the SNP’s proposed referendum on Scottish “independence” in 2010? Unlikely, unless the calculation is that it is the very nature of this measly programme that will allow the SNP to deceitfully point out how much more could be done if only we had independence (in Europe!) which along with the widespread and growing loathing of New Labour can be turned into a tidal wave of support for separation.

 

Much needs to be done by Socialist Labour in Scotland to publicise our policies on health and taxation that, along with the rest of our programme, put the SNP and all the other parties to shame and focus on the real needs of the Scottish people and not the fat cats and financiers so recently exposed as corrupt incompetents living off the backs of the working people of Scotland, England, Wales and throughout the world.

NEW LABOUR AND THE RISE OF FINANCE CAPITAL.

For background information, in view of the ‘credit crisis’ developments in the capitalist economy, we are reissuing an article from 2001 by Ian Johnson which traces the rise of finance capital in the 20^th Century.

 

 

When we talk about finance capital we are talking about the banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions and their representatives, in short, we are talking about ‘the City’.

 

This section of society does not manufacture anything, it does not build or create anything, yet it is now the most dominant sector in the U.K. Its chief objective is the movement of money in search of the biggest profit margin in the quickest possible time.

 

In the early part of the 20th century the financial sector was subjected to government controls and confined its activities to the sterling area of the Commonwealth, indeed, even through the latter part of the 1940s the stock market and merchant banking was at best static, and at worst transactions were actually in decline. In the 1950s the financial sector tried to break free from government controls but achieved only partial success. It was not until the late 1960s that the City really began to expand with the development of London as an off‑shore base for American money fleeing the low interest rates in the United States.

 

FINANCIAL INSTABILITY

 

This was followed in 1971 by the Tory Government removing controls on credit growth which meant that market forces, namely interest rates, would now control the growth of credit in the system. This led to an end to limits on lending and meant that banking would have greater control over British industry and the economy as a whole. This coincided with the ending of the post‑war Bretton Woods agreement which had backed paper money with real value by linking it to the gold standard at the rate of 35 dollars equalling an ounce of gold. Now however, paper money was being printed and was not backed by any real value whatsoever.

 

Between 1979 and 1982 Margaret Thatcher’s Tory Government removed all remaining controls from the financial sector and left it virtually unregulated and unchallenged.

 

Thatcher abolished restrictions on bank lending and hire purchase transactions and lifted all controls over building society lending, thus starting them off on the road to becoming banks and creating the basis for the great credit explosion in the late 1980s.

The Tory Government crucially abolished all exchange controls with the immediate effect that capital previously invested in the U.K. began going abroad in search of greater and quicker profits. There has been hardly any investment in U.K. manufacturing since exchange controls were abolished.

 

The dominance of finance capital became obvious in the 1980s when manufacturing output fell by 25%, when house building plummeted and thousands slept on the street, yet the City boomed. The banks made so much money in the ’80s that even the Tories eventually levied a national ‘windfall tax’, though this was compensated for by tax allowances on bad overseas loans.

The Tories and the financial sector were responsible for the squandering of North Sea oil revenue during this period, with not one penny invested in U.K. manufacturing. The City wanted to use it to recreate their earlier role of financiers of the world, and the Tories believed that North Sea oil had made sterling a petro‑currency which signalled the days of manufacturing were over and that Britain was on a path to becoming a post‑industrial service economy.

 

THE GREAT RIP OFF

 

The looting of the British economy for the benefit of the few reached its most obscene proportions with the privatisation process of state assets which was first elaborated in the Tory election manifesto of 1983 and which resulted in the following years with the privatisation of coal, steel, gas, electricity, water, railways, telecommunications, shipbuilding and also took part of the oil and road haulage industries. This is not to mention the devastation of council housing that took place in the same period.

 

The sell‑off of state assets was overseen by City merchant banks who acted as ‘advisors’ and received literally hundreds of millions of pounds in fees for this ‘service’. This period will rightly go down in history as one of the great rip‑offs of all time.

 

Alongside this privatisation came the reform of the National Health Service, schools and universities, prisons, the police force and justice departments and their regulating authorities, with the plan being to remove them from the control of democratically elected local authorities and place them under the control of unelected quangos and Next Step Agencies. By such means the market mechanisms of compulsory competitive tendering, performance related and profit related pay and other such devices, were introduced into all public services.

 

 

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY

Of course none of the above would have been possible without an attack on the traditional defensive organisations of the working class ‑ the trade unions. The destruction of the trade union movement was a clear objective of the Thatcher regime and resulted in confrontations with virtually all sections of workers. Indeed, the destruction of manufacturing and the move to a service based industry made it imperative for the ruling class to introduce anti‑trade union laws to shackle workers and reduce their ability to fight back.

That they were partially successful is a reflection not on the fighting capacity of the working class but on its social democratic leaders.

 

With a few honourable exceptions these politicians and trade union leaders functioned as policemen for the capitalist state against their own members. These careerists and opportunists are tied to capitalism, their status and significant salaries are dependent upon it, and forced into a situation where they have to choose, they will always come down on the side of the present system.

 

The introduction of new employment law effectively weakened the trade unions and created a more individualist labour market, moreover a labour market that would be open to the whims of a free market economy, modelled on the American labour market with its high levels of mobility, downward flexibility of wages and low employer costs.

 

As a result of these policies there has been an increase in part‑time and contract work and an ending of any traditional career with its accompanying security. Furthermore, many low‑skilled workers now earn less than the minimum needed to support a family, resulting in the diseases associated with poverty, TB, rickets and others, returning.

At the same time the restrictions on welfare entitlements, particularly with unemployment benefits such as the Job Seekers Allowance introduced in 1996, are designed to compel recipients to accept work at market‑driven rates.

 

NEW LABOUR

 

It was the finance sector that Blair’s New Labour courted for over a year prior to the 1997 general election. They had to convince the financiers that they were the Party for them, and that they would continue to create the framework where they could operate freely. New Labour people threw so many banquets for these financial parasites that the City’s nickname for the Labour Party is, ‘the prawn cocktail party.’

 

Members of the then Shadow Cabinet began touring the dining rooms of the City of London assuring their hosts that Labour had no intention of bringing back exchange controls and had no intention of doing anything they would not approve of.

 

Stuart Bell MP went to New York on a trip paid for by Kleinwort Benson Securities to reassure Wall Street that the ‘financial markets will be safe in the hands of a future Labour government.’ (Sunday Telegraph 17th Dec. 1995). Consequently, by the beginning of 1996, the financial pages of the newspapers were full of articles in praise of Labour’s policies. Thus the stage was set for New Labour to not only continue Tory policies but to take them farther than even the most right wing Tory dared to imagine.

 

The Labour Party had concluded that the only way to get elected was to accept the agenda of the Americans and the City, to be pro Nato, pro EEC and pro non regulation of the City.

 

Due to the massive exportation of British capital, which began during the Thatcher years, Britain now has the largest overseas investment after America, and this will dictate that they continue to support American political and military hegemony as the best way to protect those interests. Indeed, all the key Labour personnel are linked to the United States, with the intent to preserve the so‑called Anglo‑American special relationship, to compensate for British capitalism’s long term decline.

Crisis Deepens and the Poor Pay the Price

The deepening financial crisis gripping the capitalism system has already seen a swathe of banks and financial institutions go to the wall or be taken over or merged.

The list already contains household names of US and British finance and more will be added.

 

Moreover the interventions of the US Federal Reserve Board and the UK’s Bank of England carry with it the real threat of state bankruptcy.

 

Politicians and economists may belatedly throw up their hands in mock horror at the unregulated and unrestrained activities of the parasites of finance capital, yet they were all very well aware of what was going on long ago. Nevertheless, while these institutions were generating obscene amounts of profit for the few, at the expense of the majority of the population, they were content to say nothing. Only now, when the reckless speculation, criminal incompetence and sheer orgy of greed threatens to bring the entire global financial system crashing down do they murmur any criticism.

 

It is only three months ago that the Sunday Times ran a headline that boasted “Rich Get Richer under New Labour” and only last year that the City of London paid itself over £14 billion in bonuses alone. However there is no mention by our politicians and bourgeois economists that any of this amount should now be returned. On the contrary, the Brown government has told the working class, the very victims of the financial rogues, that they must accept below inflation pay rises, and that they must economise on their food purchases and be prepared for ‘difficult times’.

 

Moreover, what no British or US mainstream politician is mentioning is that the financial speculators and hedge funds have also played a crucial role in driving up basic commodity prices, including food items, that has resulted, according to the United Nations World Food Programme “in plunging more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger. This is the new face of hunger – the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago but now are”. (WFP 22^nd April 2008).

 

This occurred when, because of the approaching turmoil, the speculators moved out of the property, credit and debt markets and into food and raw materials, without a second thought for the catastrophic outcome this would mean for millions of the world’s poor.

 

Yet it is not these millions who the US and UK governments are now rushing to help; on the contrary, like the loyal servants of capitalism that they are, they are hurrying to assist the very financial institutions responsible for this increasing poverty and hunger.

 

Furthermore, the deepening financial chaos will only serve to spur on the Labour government’s privatisation plans and their attacks on welfare, pensions, health and education, as they attempt to impose the full effects of the crisis onto the backs of workers. It is their belief that every penny spent on unemployment and incapacity benefits, on pensions and on health, is a drain on profits.

 

Only the introduction of socialist policies can counter this unfolding nightmare and that means building the SLP into a Party capable of government. That is the task ahead.

The Future Will Not Be Nuclear

(Prospect Magazine September 2008)

 

The government is pinning its hopes on a nuclear renaissance to meet Britain’s climate change goals. Planning procedures are being eased and hidden subsidies offered. But the policy is based on a misunderstanding of nuclear power’s lousy economics, and will fail

 

Tom Burke

 

Gordon Brown does not dither about nuclear power. His commitment to it is emphatic, advancing since the start of the year from a policy of simply replacing Britain’s existing nuclear capacity to one of doubling it, and now to there being no upper limit to its share of electricity generation. Brown has undertaken a radical reform of the nuclear regulatory and planning processes, aimed at clearing the path for new reactors. It is therefore particularly poignant that this is a policy doomed to fail.

 

Energy prices are rising, the climate is changing and power stations are closing—so we need more nuclear power. So runs the overwhelming volume of argument in the media. But what is missing is any critical examination of the case that underpins these dire warnings from ministers and utility industry nabobs about the lights going out. The lights are not going to go out. The government’s nuclear policy will fail. And all that will really matter is that we will have lost precious time in switching to a more climate-friendly method of electricity generation.We live, these days, in what Eric Hobsbawm calls a “permanent present.” Even recent history is quickly forgotten. Somewhere in my personal archive are the minutes of a cabinet meeting held in October 1979, which arrived on my desk at Friends of the Earth in a proverbial brown envelope. They recorded the decision of Margaret Thatcher’s newly elected government to build ten nuclear reactors. The arguments were familiar. Oil prices were rising, An energy gap was imminent. Without a crash programme of nuclear reactors we would freeze in the dark. Sixteen years later, just one reactor had been built, at Sizewell in Suffolk. It cost more than double the original estimate. No one froze in the dark.

 

 

 

 

The story of British nuclear power

There is nothing in the history of nuclear power in Britain to inspire confidence. Most of our 19 reactors, which together have the capacity to generate 12,000 megawatts (MW), are of a design unique to Britain. These Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (AGRs) were in 1974 described by Arthur Hawkins, chairman of the then-nationalised industry that placed the orders, as “a catastrophe.” Today, four are not working, reducing from 20 to 15 per cent the share of electricity that is produced by nuclear.A popular mythology has developed that blames the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island in the US and Chernobyl in Ukraine for the demise of nuclear power in Britain. Lately, the planning system has been added to this mythology. In fact, the only obstacle in the way of nuclear power for the last 20 years has been the unwillingness of electricity generators to take the risk. By the time of Chernobyl, in 1986, no nuclear power station had been ordered in Britain for eight years and in the US for 12. And the public inquiry that considered the application to build Sizewell B began in 1983 and took two years—only six months longer than the government now expects its accelerated planning procedures to take. The government then took two further years to give the go-ahead. Sizewell B opened in 1995, having taken a further eight years to build.

What actually killed nuclear power in Britain was Thatcher’s decision to privatise the Central Electricity Generating Board—the previously nationalised generation utility. The City took one look at the books and told the government that the nuclear power stations were unsellable. They were promptly withdrawn from sale. The later privatisation of most of Britain’s nuclear power stations was only possible because the burden of the decommissioning and waste management costs—now standing at over £70bn—was transferred to the taxpayer. This was a good example of a practice that has been much in the news lately in relation to the banking industry: privatising profits and socialising losses. So much for market discipline. It is an irony that the government’s preferred plan for a nuclear renaissance involves renationalising British Energy as a French state-controlled utility.

Thatcher was as convinced about nuclear power as Brown. She was defeated by the lousy economics. Nuclear power has few attractions for private sector investors, especially in a competitive electricity market. All long-term investment in future electricity generation involves risks and uncertainties (including the price that will be put on carbon emissions). But nuclear power’s risk profile is the worst. To be economic, nuclear power stations need to be very large (at least 1,000MW) and built in a series, ideally four or six at a time, probably on the site of existing stations. They are very capital intensive at both the start and end of their lives and, because of the initial costs, much more sensitive to the cost of capital, which can add 40 per cent or more to construction costs. They take a long time to build, and, when built, have to run continuously into a market where the wholesale electricity price can change constantly. The operators have to make adequate provision for the (currently unquantifiable) costs of waste disposal.

Coal-fired stations take perhaps three to five years to build, cost a lot less per unit of generation capacity and have no back-end liabilities to speak of. They are economic to build singly and therefore each new one is less at risk of failing to sell the power it produces. Gas-fired stations can be built in smaller units much more quickly, and so are even easier to match to shifting demand. Wind turbines can be built in very small tranches, even faster than gas.

Very high, uncertain and rising capital costs on a project that will produce no revenues for a decade or more are not a compelling proposition at the best of times. Add a host of hard-to-quantify sociopolitical risks, and it is not difficult to see why nuclear power programmes have always relied on large and sustained public subsidies.

 

 

 

Why is nuclear power so expensive?

There are only two honest answers to the question of how much it costs to build a nuclear power station. These are “I don’t know” and “I’ll tell you when I’ve built it.” Everything else is a guess. These may come in official volumes stuffed full of impressive-looking data, but they are still guesses. Some numbers will illustrate the point. Between 1966 and 1967, reactor costs in the US exceeded estimates by an average 209 per cent. Between 1968 and 1969 they went up 294 per cent. Between 1970 and 1971 they went up 348 per cent. 1972 to 1973 was a good year, they only went up 318 per cent. But by 1974 to 1975 they were back up to 381 per cent. In 1976 they only went up 169 per cent. But by then the American utilities had given up. They have not ordered a nuclear reactor since 1974. We did little better. The cost of building Sizewell B went up “only” from £1.7bn to £3.7bn during construction.The government’s commitment to new nuclear power stations is based on just such guesses. The cost of a reactor is normally quantified by what it costs to build each kilowatt (kW) of its capacity to generate electricity. To find the cost, you multiply this by the reactor’s size—measured in thousands of kW, or megawatts (MW). To this must be added the cost of financing the expenditure. In its January white paper on nuclear energy, the government’s worst-case analysis assumed that the construction cost would be £1,625/kW, giving a total cost (based on a reactor size of 2,200MW) of £3.6bn. But in May, the German utility company E.ON estimated the cost at just over £3,000/kW, making the overall cost of a new reactor close to £6.7bn. Other recent guesses range from $4,000/kW (£2,162) early in 2007 to $10,000/kW in January 2008 (£5,000). This certainly looks like “I don’t know” to me.

 

 

 

Nuclear enthusiasts argue that everything is different now. Lessons have been learned, designs have been standardised and new reactors can be built on time and to budget. But the fact that none of the three designs under consideration in Britain is operating anywhere in the world might give pause for thought.Recent events in Finland provide further grounds for caution. There, French company Areva is building the first example of the reactor design most favoured for Britain, the so-called EPR. It has not been a success. The 1,200MW reactor is more than £1bn over its original £2.5bn budget and two years late just two years after construction began. If this is the best Finnish contractors can manage, the thought of what those who brought you the Scottish parliament or Wembley stadium might accomplish is chilling.

This is not just, or even mainly, about incompetence. Nuclear costs are rising disproportionately. This escalation—14 per cent a year after inflation, according to one estimate—has many causes. Nuclear power stations are intensive in metal and concrete, and their construction requires specialist skills. So they have been hit harder than other forms of power generation by the surge in engineering costs. The nuclear supply chain has atrophied in the quarter century since there were last large programmes in the OECD countries. In the US there are now only 80 nuclear-qualified suppliers of key components, compared to 400 a decade ago.

And there is only one global provider—the Japan Steel Works (JSW)—of the heavy forging capacity needed for reactor pressure vessels. JSW is already hard-pressed by demand for new refinery equipment and can only supply five new reactor vessels a year, although it wishes to double capacity to ten vessels. But the need to fund this investment is itself contributing to rising prices, which have increased by 12 per cent in six months, and JSW now requires a 30 per cent down payment on an order. It takes six years from the date of the order to get other key components, including reactor coolant pumps and control and instrumentation equipment

The human resources needed to resuscitate the nuclear industry are in even shorter supply. Before you can even apply for permission to build a nuclear power station, you need approval for the design you plan on using. This can take several years. Yet inspectors and engineers are leaving Britain’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), some to retirement and others to more lucrative employment with contractors hoping to come to the nuclear party. The NII now has only 16 people to carry out the detailed safety approval of new reactors, a task estimated to need at least 40. What this means is that if you wanted to have a reactor up and running in Britain by 2020, you would need to have sought approval some time ago. Generous pay rises, relocation from Merseyside and a new management structure are all proposed to relieve this bottleneck. But these reforms will need time to become anchored if we are to avoid an unacceptable choice between speed and safety.

The government has pledged that there will be no subsidies for new nuclear construction. But this was never credible, and it is already possible to detect signs of retreat. In 2006 the government bravely promised to “make sure that the full costs of new nuclear waste are paid by the market.” By 2008 this had mutated into the more nuanced: “The government will [set] a fixed unit price [for] waste disposal at the time when approvals for the station are given.” This effectively caps the costs of nuclear waste disposal to the operator and transfers the risk of cost overruns on to the taxpayer. It is hard to argue that this is not a subsidy.

Furthermore, as Stephen Thomas from Greenwich University has pointed out, if you take E.ON’s estimate of the cost of a new reactor of £3,000/kW, then the operating cost of that reactor is likely to be about £80 to generate a kW of electricity for an hour—a measurement known as a kilowatt hour (kWh). The current wholesale electricity price, which is causing ministers such headaches, is about £40/kWh. We already know what happens to nuclear operators when their operating costs exceed the price at which they can sell electricity. In 2002 British Energy lost money hand over fist and found itself technically insolvent. But the company did not go bust. In a prequel to Northern Rock, the government bailed it out to the tune of some £4bn, taking a large stake in the business. (British Energy is now profitable, thanks to rises in fossil fuel prices.)

This precedent helps to explain why utilities companies are looking at nuclear power. They know that once Britain has started down this road, there will be no going back, as other investment will be suppressed. The “no subsidies” rule will be a distant memory. The utilities companies will be in a strong position to extract from taxpayer and consumer alike what they need to keep going.

Closing the generation gap

The idea that the world is on the dawn of a new nuclear age is no less of a fantasy now than it was in the early 1970s. Even the nuclear-supporting International Energy Agency’s projections have little more nuclear power in operation in 2030 than there is now. That is because most of our present reactor fleet was built in a rush in the 1970s. Even with extensions, these are coming to the end of their lives. Much is made of the 32 reactors now under construction around the world, mostly in Asia. But 11 of them have been under construction for more than 20 years. Just to maintain the current number of reactors by 2025, we would have to build 250 more reactors than are currently under construction—or 15 a year between now and 2025. The build rate since 2000, almost all in Asia, has been one a year. Increasing this is certainly possible, but to do so by 15 times despite shortages of materials and manpower—and during a credit crunch—seems fanciful.

Britain is a very long way from facing a choice of building more nuclear or freezing in the dark. There is a real problem—three problems to be precise—with energy security, but none can be solved by nuclear power. The most urgent is the threat of interruptions to our oil supply, which could bring Britain to a halt. But our oil for transport cannot be replaced by nuclear electricity. Preventing instability in the middle east and reducing oil dependence by more efficient transport and logistics are the solutions here.

Much has been made of the threat of becoming overdependent on imported gas, particularly from Russia. Leaving aside that Russia is more dependent on our revenues than we are on its gas, half of our gas is used for heating domestic space and water, and cannot be replaced without a big transformation of our infrastructure. More is used for industrial processes, leaving under a third for electricity generation. But much of that is used to generate electricity at peak times because gas turbines are easy to switch on and off to meet short-term demand spikes. Nuclear power stations must be run continuously to be economic.

Ministers now often invoke the “generation gap” that will emerge as some 22,000MW of existing coal and nuclear capacity is closed between now and 2020, much by 2015. If this is not replaced by new nuclear power, runs the argument, then carbon-intensive gas or coal will have to be used at the expense of the climate. The British head of EDF, Vincent de Rivas, promises that he can deliver new nuclear electricity to the grid by 2017. But the government’s own nuclear consultation is more realistic. It assumes that were an order placed today under its accelerated regulatory procedures, it would still be eight years before construction started. For a wholly new design, construction would take a further five years, at least. The government has yet to explain how a power station that won’t open before 2021 can meet a “generation gap” it expects to appear by 2015.

Of course, no government will let the lights go out. So this generation gap is more a rhetorical device than a genuine threat. The government is now committed to producing at least 35 per cent of our energy from renewable sources by 2020. That may fill some of the purported gap. Energy efficiency will fill more. If nuclear cannot fill the remainder—perhaps 2,500MW—then coal will do it.

Some doubt whether the renewables target is achievable. In fact, it is more likely to be met than Brown’s hopes for nuclear. Last year the world added about 2,000MW of additional nuclear capacity through improving the performance of existing reactors. Photovoltaic solar energy alone, one of the least economically attractive of the renewables, added 2,300MW. Wind power, which on many estimates already delivers electricity more cheaply than nuclear, added eight times as much.

Nuclear power is a low-carbon source of electricity, and will therefore avoid whatever tax is levied on carbon emissions. But it won’t help Britain meet its climate change targets. The goal is to keep the eventual rise in global average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius—the threshold of dangerous climate change. This means that greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2020 and then decline steeply. But if building the 15 reactors a year needed to replace the world’s current capacity is going to be impossible—as it is—it is difficult to see how it could play a bigger role in reducing global carbon emissions.

The top climate priority is to very quickly make coal use carbon-neutral by deploying carbon capture and storage technologies. This is mainly for geopolitical reasons. The International Energy Agency forecasts 14,000MW of new coal-fired power stations by 2030. China is building new coal-fired plants at the rate of 2,000MW a week. It also has the world’s most ambitious nuclear power programme, aiming to build 40 nuclear power stations by 2030. This latter effort would still provide only 4 per cent of China’s electricity. Three quarters will come from coal. If this happens without the Chinese using carbon capture and storage, the government, and the world, will not achieve its climate change objectives. We will be saying hello to a four degree jump in temperatures and goodbye to prosperity and security for 60m Britons.

If we want others to make their coal burning carbon-neutral, we must do so ourselves. Actions speak louder than words. In the next three years, Britain will spend £2.8bn a year on cleaning up its nuclear legacy. We will spend nothing on deploying carbon capture and storage—the world’s most important technology for ensuring climate security.

No one should doubt the good intentions of those who are arguing for a switch of scarce capital, materials and skills into nuclear power in Britain. It is not their intentions that are in question, but their analysis. We have been here before, with equally serious people arguing that there was no alternative to a nuclear future. In 1975 the UK Atomic Energy Authority told the royal commission on environmental pollution that by 2000 Britain would have 104 nuclear reactors. This did not happen not because the nuclear industry lacked support. Then, as now, government, business leaders, the unions and the media were all onside. It failed because economic reality intruded. It will do so again—but this time the consequence of going down the nuclear cul-de-sac will be much more serious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom Burke is environmental policy adviser to Rio Tinto. He is a fellow of the Energy Institute and co-founder of E3G. He is writing in a personal capacity

A Serbian view of life in modern Britain.

There’s a wonderfully frank interview with Manchester United’s brilliant Serbian defender Nemanja Vidic given to the Russian magazine Football Weekly

“I will never stay to live in England, that’s for sure. You get only a brief glimpse of sunlight before it’s all cloudy again. The winters are mild, but in summer the temperatures seldom go higher than 20C. And it rains, rains, rains. “In Russia and Serbia the people’s way of life is similar. In England it’s totally different. Here they just don’t have time to feel the joy of life.”
“Throughout the week they all work so hard. They only talk to people at lunch break. Then in the evening they come home and watch the telly, so they can get up early for work the next day. The only time to meet friends is at weekends, but for football players it’s the busiest time of all. It was much easier for me to adapt to Russia than England. In England I had no one to talk to. The first month was especially hard. I lived alone in a hotel, which I left only for training. I thought I would go crazy inside those four walls.”

 

The following piece is by Neil Clark:

Well, I’m not a Serb but I agree with much of what Vidic says. Turbo-capitalist Britain is a country where money-making comes before social interraction and feeling the ‘joy of life’. Moving to a neoliberal, privatised economy may have given us more material goods, but it’s also made us less friendly and sociable. None of this has happened by chance- the big corporations who control our lives don’t want sociable, affiliative people taking delight in the simplest of pleasures, but materialistic and perenially dissatisfied consumers. Britain is probably the hardest country in Europe for newcomers, like Nemanja Vidic, to forge deep and lasting friendships and that’s because we have by far the most rapacious and profit-obsessed economic system.
And the worst thing of all, is that it’s this dehumanising turbo-capitalist model that Britain, and America, are trying to impose on the rest of the world