By Ed Miliband MP / @EdMilibandMP
UPDATE: In just a couple of hours, over 1,000 people have already co-signed my letter. You can join them here.
Dear David,
I am concerned that your business spokesman Ken Clarke has said that no wind farms should be built on dry land in Britain. This could have serious impacts on the country’s energy security, the UK’s early shift to a low carbon economy and the UK’s international standing on tackling climate change.
Such comments will be met with concern by the renewable energy industry which needs certainty in the market for investment decisions.
For your business spokesman to cast such doubt over the future of this industry raises urgent questions about whether your party is serious about supporting low carbon jobs and energy generation. The record of Tory Councils in turning down windfarm applications already suggests not.
Renewable energy is an important part of the shift to a low carbon economy and greater energy security. It has the potential for major green job creation. The UK cannot achieve that without onshore wind generation.
The energy industry, and the British public, therefore need to know whether or not the Conservative Party is committed to the UK's target of 15% renewables by 2020, and that you accept the need for onshore wind to contribute significantly towards this.
If you do, particularly in the run up to the Copenhagen international climate change talks, I am sure that you will want to disown Ken Clarke's comments. I would welcome you doing so on the record.
Without such a clarification the British public will have to question not only your party’s commitment to energy security and tackling climate change, but your economic competence.
Ed Miliband
You can co-sign my letter by clicking here and completing the form. By signing, your name and town/city will appear publicly alongside mine.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
A more cohesive approach by councils might be helpful along with a more sensible approach to using brownfield industrial sites rather than rural villages for the trubines.
Scrap all this green/windfarm nonsense and build nuclear power stations pronto. It's the only way to secure the country's energy security.
All the rest is posturing and stupidity.
I would hate to break the bad news to you but the torys are not in power and if they have different views then its up to the voters to decide .
You have lost trust with many voters because you dont keep your promises .
ricki
Just had a canvasser on the phone asking me why I was no longer voting Labour. After I explained (local Labour MP is a useless, gormless, who tries to take credit for stuff he had no input into, has some dodgy expenses, idiot who is New Labour voting fodder and has about as much relevance to Scotland as David Cameron) we talked and I discovered his dad was a founder member of the Independent Labour Party along with Maxton and others and when push came to shove he did not have much time for New Labour either or their lackey's at Holyrood.
I asked him why he was canvassing in that case. He said; habit, he'd been active in the Labour Party for 55 years, as had his father from 1918 and it had never crossed his mind to refuse, anyway there was always the chance of renewal and a return to real Labour values once New Labour had been booted into the long grass next year.
Dear Miliband (not that I suppose you, or even any of your minions, will read this)
I believe that you are almost uniquely unqualified to tell the British Public what to do.
As it happens, I agree with many of the points you make in the letter. But I most certainly won't sign anything that claims "... the British public will have to ...": many of us believe that no politician of any party has at present any moral authority to speak on our behalf. So please stop doing it. It's both cheap and mendacious, and can only reinforce the general impression that all politicians are loathsome liars.
Well, I say in the bag, the electorate would have to ignore the fact that you have made some of the most outrageous claims in relation to the climate change argument since politicians got involved. They'd also have to ignore the fact that you have failed totally with regards to energy security as discussed in previous articles by your good self. And the majority of the electorate against onshore wind farms will have to ignore the Conservative promise not to build the very things they don't want to see on their land.
Other than those minor hiccups you've single-handedly won the election for Labour and you're on track to be the next leader.
Unless I'm missing something really obvious that is?
I thought I should let you know that someone pretending to be Ed Milliband and is submitting dodgy articles to LL.
I see no reference in this chap's article to Labour's commitment to a third runway at Heathrow, no response to the idea floated today that the new owners of Stansted want a second runway as well, no idea of how UK energy need will be met in future - and we all know wind power is not efficient and is insufficient to cover the loss of older coal and nuclear stations, and no statement about the security of supply of imported energy.
I hope you are keeping an eye on this miscreant and that you will be reporting him to the Editorial Board for future disciplinary action.
Yours sincerely,
David Cameron
This from a party which has record monthly borrowing and has and is failing to replace our worn out coal and nuclear reactors.
I assume this article is an April Fool's joke published in October by accident.
The UK is too small a land mass to make any difference to 'climate change' (aka Mother Nature).
Get a proper job.
Yours etc.
i'd like a new generation of nuclear power stations at the core british energy. i'd like you to get serious at funding the nuclear fusion programme. i'd like you to get serious about harnessing the tidal power from our 13,000 miles of tidal coastline. i'd like you to stop tilting at wind turbine windmills as they are only 20% efficient and need redundancy back-up off the coal power grid for the 80% of time they spend unproductive. i'd like you to talk seriously to the norwegians about undersea connection to their domestic hydro power network. i'd like you to realise that the emerging russian energy necklock on intra-european CNG supplies is not a good thing.
last of all, i'd like you to stop messing around with hyperbolic and politically-partisan blather about climate and energy doom, stop fiddling while rome burns and take your job seriously for once.
You are talking a load of unscientific tosh and you know it.
Offshore wind farms are umpteen times more efficient and effective than on shore but share the same problem, no wind, no power so are not the answer to England's real problems of lack of base load generating capacity. You know, the one that will cause the lights to start going out in ten years time in SE England.
The answer to England's lack of generating capacity is new coal fired plants - like the one you have let be cancelled in Kent - and Nuclear Power Plants like they have dotted around France. Reliance on Gas Generation leaves England at the mercy of the Russians and there is not the potential for Hydro-electric pump storage systems in England to use the wind farm energy which is produced when it is not needed as there is, say, in Scotland.
Further what if the SNP do take Scotland out of the Union? How will England then secure its power supply given that Torness (in Scotland) Nuclear plant mostly supplies base load for Northern England and Northern Ireland and sudden increases in demand across England are levelled out using Scottish coal fired stations and hydro plants? Some estimates suggest around 40% of English peak power demand is met from imports from France and Scotland. Say an independent Scotland gets a better price from Scandinavia for its power surplus so sells there instead, leaving England in the lurch. Just where will that leave the significance of your petty letter to "Call me Dave"?
Maybe instead of playing the 'green card' you should be playing the 'this is how it really is' card and if Scotland does a 'flit' we could well be in the deep and steaming and left to the mercy of the French and Russians for our power supply.
Ken isn't the issue here, it is something far more important.