Never Mind the Funding Crisis, Its Brown’s Policies that Are Flawed
During his first few months in office, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has stumbled from one lingering crisis to another, like a drunk lurching from one lamp-post to the next.
We have witnessed him dithering over whether to hold an early election, to try and contain an outbreak of the highly contagious foot and mouth disease and preside over the near collapse of the Northern Rock Bank.
Last month was seen as Labour’s worst in over fourteen years when it was also announced that a government department had lost the computer discs that contained the personal details of twenty-five million people. That is nearly half the UK population that could be at risk from the growing crime of identity fraud.
Last week’s events hardly got any better, after it was disclosed that a businessman, David Abrahams, had been secretly donating hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Labour Party through third-party conduits, which is against the rules of how political parties can be funded. The police are now investigating.
It’s another week and it is yet another crisis.
Brown’s advisors have repeatedly said that when we find out more about Gordon, the person and understand his policies, we will get to like and respect him. If only this were true. Last week, saw Brown give a major speech to Britain’s largest pro-business organisation, the Confederation of British Industry, in which he advocated expansion of two hugely unpopular entities: nuclear power and Heathrow airport. Both policies are fatally flawed.
In the speech Gordon Brown signaled his support for nuclear power and a new generation of nuclear power stations. Brown argues that these will help fight climate change and promote energy security. The trouble for Brown is that a growing number of experts argue that expanding nuclear power will not solve climate change, but merely add to the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Moreover, how can Britain develop new nuclear plants, whilst denying Iran the chance to develop nuclear power, without looking like a complete hypocrite?
Furthermore the pro-nuclear move by Brown stinks of a conflict of interest. He is frequently criticised for only listening to a small clique of advisers. It now looks like these advisors include his brother Andrew, who works for EDF Energy, one of the main companies vying to build new nuclear plants in the UK.
Whilst singing the praises of nuclear, Gordon Brown will forget to tell you that you cannot have nuclear power without nuclear weapons and the dangers of nuclear terrorism. Just last week, Ian Dickinson, one of Scotland’s most senior policemen argued that a nuclear attack in the UK was both “inevitable and will happen soon”.
Speaking at a meeting organized by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency on the risks of nuclear terrorism, Dickinson argued that efforts to prevent terrorist groups from obtaining radioactive dirty bombs or crude nuclear explosives were bound to fail. What Brown cannot tell you is that nuclear power makes us less safe.
In his speech to the CBI, Brown also said Britain’s “prosperity depends” on a third runway being built at London’s main airport Heathrow. Currently the airport has two runways. The pro-aviation lobby, including British Airways and the airport operators, BAA, have been pushing for expansion of the airport by arguing that the building of a third runway is necessary for the economy.
However there is no independent evidence to back up their claims. What we do know, however, is that expansion would increase the number of air transport movements at Heathrow from its current level of 487,000 to at least 720,000, maybe even 800,000 a year.
Building the third runway would lead to the biggest single expansion of Heathrow, and impact the lives of millions of Londoners who live near the airport. These people were given the assurances by the government and industry that Heathrow did not need expanding. It was only six years ago that the airport’s operator, BAA said it “would urge the government to rule out any additional runway at Heathrow”. That was a lie. One Government Inspector, who passed the Terminal Four building at Heathrow, told the local community that “this is the last major expansion of the airport”. That was a lie too.
The Labour Government is pro-expansion of the airport. In its policy document on the subject The Future of Air Transport, published in December 2003 the government made it clear that it supported a third runway at Heathrow subject to compliance with supposedly strict conditions on air quality and noise. As a further safety net for the local population it said that any expansion would only happen after public consultation.
Last week, Gordon Brown’s government pre-empted this consultation and said they were in favour of a third runway. This week, Gordon himself endorsed the plans. Documents released under British Freedom of Information regulations, show how the Government and airline industry have been colluding with the industry to “fix” the results of any consultation process before it even started.
For example, one document talked of the government’s desire to “proceed on the basis of a common position” with BAA over the contentious issue of noise from aircraft. The documents show that BAA – the operator of the airport that has a clear commercial interest in expansion of the airport– is assisting the government with the air quality and noise modeling. Local government officers believe that this process may well be rigged to try and show that expansion of the airport will have less environmental damage than is actually the case.
The documents also show it is likely that air pollution and noise will increase if a third runway is built. Carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas responsible for climate change, will also increase. The bottom line is that you cannot have airport expansion without huge increases in carbon dioxide. You cannot have airport expansion and climate protection at the same time.
However Gordon Brown is trying to position Britain as a leader in the battle to fight climate change at the same time as proposing Heathrow expansion. Scientists predict that if aviation growth is unchecked the rest of the British economy would have to de-carbonise by 2050 to compensate. This is not going to happen.
One way the European Union is trying to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from industry is by the setting up of what is known as an emission trading scheme or ETS. The rationale behind ETS is that it enables different industries to trade emissions, so companies can buy and sell “credits” depending if they are emitting more or less carbon than they are allowed. The aviation industry in Europe is due to join the scheme in 2011.
The problem is that due to its huge predicted growth, aviation could have taken up all the allowances of the other industries by 2017. For any emission trading scheme to work, there is no excusing the fact that aviation growth must be curtailed. But this will be made all the harder if a third runway is built at Heathrow. The only way to be serious about stopping climate change is stopping Heathrow expansion, exactly the opposite to what Brown is proposing.
Over the coming weeks, Brown will try to persuade the world he is a serious politician on climate change, but that also is a lie. When he does finally have the nerve to call a general election there is a warning from Australia he might want to take notice of.
Last month, the incumbent Australian Liberal leader John Howard was unceremoniously dumped by his electorate, in what the press had called the “world’s first climate change election”. The opposition Labour leader, Kevin Rudd, inflicted the worst ever election defeat on Howard’s Liberal Party in its 63-year history.
Of course other issues such as the Iraq war and domestic Labour laws played a part in the election, but there is no denying that climate change was a key election issue. Howard, an old-school conservative, had refused to sign up to the UN’s Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But Australians are on the front-line of climate change. They have witnessed five years of drought which has seen once proud rivers shrivel and die, great swathes of agricultural land suffer, and the inconvenience of urban water restrictions. Last week, the new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said his first major act of office would be to sign Kyoto. Rudd is being portrayed as offering a new political start for Australia for a new century. He is said to understand the mood of the country.
If Gordon Brown understands the mood of Britain, he would understand that climate change is now seen by the younger generation as a huge issue of importance. In his speech to the CBI, Brown argued that Britain could be “one of the great global leaders” of the 21st century. But Brown is leading us in the wrong direction on both climate and nuclear power.
Never Mind the Funding Crisis, Its Brown’s Policies that Are Flawed
During his first few months in office, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has stumbled from one lingering crisis to another, like a drunk lurching from one lamp-post to the next.
We have witnessed him dithering over whether to hold an early election, to try and contain an outbreak of the highly contagious foot and mouth disease and preside over the near collapse of the Northern Rock Bank.
Last month was seen as Labour’s worst in over fourteen years when it was also announced that a government department had lost the computer discs that contained the personal details of twenty-five million people. That is nearly half the UK population that could be at risk from the growing crime of identity fraud.
Last week’s events hardly got any better, after it was disclosed that a businessman, David Abrahams, had been secretly donating hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Labour Party through third-party conduits, which is against the rules of how political parties can be funded. The police are now investigating.
It’s another week and it is yet another crisis.
Brown’s advisors have repeatedly said that when we find out more about Gordon, the person and understand his policies, we will get to like and respect him. If only this were true. Last week, saw Brown give a major speech to Britain’s largest pro-business organisation, the Confederation of British Industry, in which he advocated expansion of two hugely unpopular entities: nuclear power and Heathrow airport. Both policies are fatally flawed.
In the speech Gordon Brown signaled his support for nuclear power and a new generation of nuclear power stations. Brown argues that these will help fight climate change and promote energy security. The trouble for Brown is that a growing number of experts argue that expanding nuclear power will not solve climate change, but merely add to the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Moreover, how can Britain develop new nuclear plants, whilst denying Iran the chance to develop nuclear power, without looking like a complete hypocrite?
Furthermore the pro-nuclear move by Brown stinks of a conflict of interest. He is frequently criticised for only listening to a small clique of advisers. It now looks like these advisors include his brother Andrew, who works for EDF Energy, one of the main companies vying to build new nuclear plants in the UK.
Whilst singing the praises of nuclear, Gordon Brown will forget to tell you that you cannot have nuclear power without nuclear weapons and the dangers of nuclear terrorism. Just last week, Ian Dickinson, one of Scotland’s most senior policemen argued that a nuclear attack in the UK was both “inevitable and will happen soon”.
Speaking at a meeting organized by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency on the risks of nuclear terrorism, Dickinson argued that efforts to prevent terrorist groups from obtaining radioactive dirty bombs or crude nuclear explosives were bound to fail. What Brown cannot tell you is that nuclear power makes us less safe.
In his speech to the CBI, Brown also said Britain’s “prosperity depends” on a third runway being built at London’s main airport Heathrow. Currently the airport has two runways. The pro-aviation lobby, including British Airways and the airport operators, BAA, have been pushing for expansion of the airport by arguing that the building of a third runway is necessary for the economy.
However there is no independent evidence to back up their claims. What we do know, however, is that expansion would increase the number of air transport movements at Heathrow from its current level of 487,000 to at least 720,000, maybe even 800,000 a year.
Building the third runway would lead to the biggest single expansion of Heathrow, and impact the lives of millions of Londoners who live near the airport. These people were given the assurances by the government and industry that Heathrow did not need expanding. It was only six years ago that the airport’s operator, BAA said it “would urge the government to rule out any additional runway at Heathrow”. That was a lie. One Government Inspector, who passed the Terminal Four building at Heathrow, told the local community that “this is the last major expansion of the airport”. That was a lie too.
The Labour Government is pro-expansion of the airport. In its policy document on the subject The Future of Air Transport, published in December 2003 the government made it clear that it supported a third runway at Heathrow subject to compliance with supposedly strict conditions on air quality and noise. As a further safety net for the local population it said that any expansion would only happen after public consultation.
Last week, Gordon Brown’s government pre-empted this consultation and said they were in favour of a third runway. This week, Gordon himself endorsed the plans. Documents released under British Freedom of Information regulations, show how the Government and airline industry have been colluding with the industry to “fix” the results of any consultation process before it even started.
For example, one document talked of the government’s desire to “proceed on the basis of a common position” with BAA over the contentious issue of noise from aircraft. The documents show that BAA – the operator of the airport that has a clear commercial interest in expansion of the airport– is assisting the government with the air quality and noise modeling. Local government officers believe that this process may well be rigged to try and show that expansion of the airport will have less environmental damage than is actually the case.
The documents also show it is likely that air pollution and noise will increase if a third runway is built. Carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas responsible for climate change, will also increase. The bottom line is that you cannot have airport expansion without huge increases in carbon dioxide. You cannot have airport expansion and climate protection at the same time.
However Gordon Brown is trying to position Britain as a leader in the battle to fight climate change at the same time as proposing Heathrow expansion. Scientists predict that if aviation growth is unchecked the rest of the British economy would have to de-carbonise by 2050 to compensate. This is not going to happen.
One way the European Union is trying to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from industry is by the setting up of what is known as an emission trading scheme or ETS. The rationale behind ETS is that it enables different industries to trade emissions, so companies can buy and sell “credits” depending if they are emitting more or less carbon than they are allowed. The aviation industry in Europe is due to join the scheme in 2011.
The problem is that due to its huge predicted growth, aviation could have taken up all the allowances of the other industries by 2017. For any emission trading scheme to work, there is no excusing the fact that aviation growth must be curtailed. But this will be made all the harder if a third runway is built at Heathrow. The only way to be serious about stopping climate change is stopping Heathrow expansion, exactly the opposite to what Brown is proposing.
Over the coming weeks, Brown will try to persuade the world he is a serious politician on climate change, but that also is a lie. When he does finally have the nerve to call a general election there is a warning from Australia he might want to take notice of.
Last month, the incumbent Australian Liberal leader John Howard was unceremoniously dumped by his electorate, in what the press had called the “world’s first climate change election”. The opposition Labour leader, Kevin Rudd, inflicted the worst ever election defeat on Howard’s Liberal Party in its 63-year history.
Of course other issues such as the Iraq war and domestic Labour laws played a part in the election, but there is no denying that climate change was a key election issue. Howard, an old-school conservative, had refused to sign up to the UN’s Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But Australians are on the front-line of climate change. They have witnessed five years of drought which has seen once proud rivers shrivel and die, great swathes of agricultural land suffer, and the inconvenience of urban water restrictions. Last week, the new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said his first major act of office would be to sign Kyoto. Rudd is being portrayed as offering a new political start for Australia for a new century. He is said to understand the mood of the country.
If Gordon Brown understands the mood of Britain, he would understand that climate change is now seen by the younger generation as a huge issue of importance. In his speech to the CBI, Brown argued that Britain could be “one of the great global leaders” of the 21st century. But Brown is leading us in the wrong direction on both climate and nuclear power.
I fear another crisis around the corner.