The truths they don't want you to read....
It is the most unedifying sight in the world to see the Government - Jack Straw and Jack McConnell - trying to pretned that they cannot see what is going on.
Apparently, without
detailed evidence of wrong doing, the Government cannot act.
Rubbish. Dangerous rubbish.
If the plane was flying in from Columbia, and was planning to go to Lebanon and Afghanistan, before returing to Prestwick, I suspect that the Customs boys would be all over the plane searching for drugs with or without hard facts. But in this case, it is only people who may - or may not - have done anything.
I suppose the next excuse will be that the passengers are guests on the flight, and that they haven't complained about their treatment.
The Government's attitude makes me embarassed to be represented by these chancers.
We are repeatedly told that no-one likes wind farms. The level of nimbyism seems to diminsh after time, and a new
study seems to prove the case.
The quote from MWT bears repeating:
Iain Macleod, vice-chair of the Moorland Without Turbines group which has campaigned against wind farms proposals on the Isle of Lewis, said a distinction must be made between the Western Isles and other parts of Scotland.
He said: "Wind farms can fit in easier with the scale of the landscape on the mainland.
"The people here on the whole do desperately want renewable energy, they want the community to be viable but wind farms are not the way to do it."
So, pray tell, what is the way to do it? This is the $64,000 question that no-one can/will answer. Why then does the Chair of MWT support community wind farms?
Poor Alasdair Morrison - he can't see a coalition agreemnt without trying to wreck it. Mike Pringle's bill proposing the creation of a plastic bag tax to reduce usage was undermined by Alasdair in a fit of
pique and self-promotion.
This isn't the first time that Alasdair has misused the Committee system, withness his other attempt to subvert the Public Petitions process.
It is unfortunate that a policy which has worked so well in Eire is so despised by Alasdair that he feels the need to ridicule his allies, but that says more about Alasdair than anything else.
Next time I see a plastic bag stuck on barbed wire I know who to blame.
A few meetings this week at the Comhairle to try to keep everything in order (or be kept in order by the officers!)
There was a tour out to the new waste management plant on the Lochs Road, where the structure is going up at a very fast rate. We weren't allowed into the site due to the danger, so we spent all our time outside the fence like a bunch of schoolboys and girls. It was freezing cold, and despite a hat, jacket and gloves I was icy through when I got back to the Comhairle.
It is supposed to be enclosed by Christmas, and on target for completion - if only we could say the same about the plant in Uist. Recycling in the Western Isles will get a huge boost when this comes on stream.
We already have the segregated collection in the Stornoway area, and the recycling bins throughout the islands, now we will move to the next stage of separating biodegradable waste at source - inside the house.
So, three years after the last in-depth review of energy policy, it is being cast aside in favour of the policy
du jour.
After a long, extensive, and informed discussion the UK decided renewable energy was the way forward, and that subsidy and this was the way to meet our objectives under the Kyoto agreement.
That was last month. Now, Tony Blair is persuaded to rip all that hard work up, to cast aside informed opinion and go pro-nuclear. Why?
Getting our gas piped in from the Caspian Sea was never the brightest idea, especially as the pipeline passed through
Ajzerbijan, Armeia, Georgia and Turkey and skips past Chechnya, it wouldn't take a Sage to predict trouble. On top of this, we are now relying on Qatar to ship gas in bulk just to provide our emergency reserve, when Qatar is prediciting that shortages will cause significant price rises.
Meanwhile, the UK sits with the largest energy reserves in the EU and we can't even keep our houses and factories supplied. Personally, I blame Thatcher for closing the mines and Blair for following her lead.
The UK needs a coherent energy policy, and this ain't it.
