Huhne Pleads Guilty

No, I am not going to belatedly go on about Huhne and his last minute switch to a guilty plea. Instead I will simply refer you to This Post over at Fenbeagles blog. While you are there have a look at Fenbeagle's blog in it's entirety. This guy's creative flair and cutting satire is awesome. Go there and enjoy.

Huhne: Good Riddance

I understand that before the now notorious speeding offence, Huhne had already accumulated several driving convictions. If he had taken another three points on his licence (instead of the points going on his wife's licence) then he would have been banned from driving.

So it looks like this arrogant self obsessed technical ignoramus drives without any consideration for anyone else. A bit like his approach to high office in fact.

Regrettably, even though we are well rid of this egotistical bigot, the general thrust of the coalitions approach to the wind turbine scam is unlikely to change - at least in the short term.

I picked up on an email that a long term political insider said this about the government and Huhne's demise:

“I don't believe anything has changed with the departure of Huhne,
other than we have lost one of our more arrogant and ultimately stupid Ministers.”

 I don't know who made this comment, but it sounds about right.

Government Policy: Leave the Old to Freeze

The interview with Chris Huhne on the Channel 4 news last night was surreal.

He talked continuously, spouting on and on and on. Desperately, he tried to talk out the time time slot and refused to allow the interviewer to get in with her questions.

At times he was literally talking gibberish.

The whole interview amounted to him stringing together sound bites with no coherence or intelligibility. It was a bit like a  Madonna song but without the sex appeal - lots of emotional words strung together that sound good, but in reality  make no sense.

At least Madonna is entertaining.

Huhne point-blank refused to address the issues of fuel poverty and how his policies are forcing millions into penury. He frantically tried to sidestep the government's own figures on how the so called Green Policies are grinding down whole sections of our community. When it got too difficult he simply made it up of the hoof and made himself look even more ridiculous.

I could barely believe that anyone in government could so abjectly and so cynically fail those who need support. Instead he bamboozled and waffled on, trying to deflect focus away from his ridiculous fashion statement "Green Agenda". A policy that is essentially based on hidden taxation. Taxation on the poor to benefit the rich.

When it comes down to it, when you strip away the waffle and obfuscation, Chris Huhne would rather let thousands of pensioners and the poor die of cold rather than call a halt to the current lunatic energy policy.

His laughable solution is to get people to "shop around".

Tell that to the average 80 year old.


Tell the old dear down the road who has never even used a computer that she should use a price comparison site. 


Tell the old boy to "shop around" even though he is in his last days and wheelchair bound.

They all deserve better.

Much, much better than the preposterous Mr Huhne.

When it comes to the final analysis, the Government is responsible for this catastrophe.

This government may well be responsible for picking up many of the failings of the last Labour administration. But they are still responsible. After all that is what they were elected for - to take responsibility.

It is no good trying to deflect the blame onto the veracious big six energy companies. The whole of this debacle is simply down to bad and incompetent government. Both in the past and in the present.

We need a government that is willing and capable of breaking the current energy cartel. We need a government that plans energy policy on best practice not on vacuously fashionable but grossly ineffective solutions like wind power.

There are no excuses. 

If this coming winter, people die or are left freezing, then it is this governments fault.

Of course it is Huhne's fault. But it will also be Cameron's fault. Hague's fault, and all the others.

They are the government. Fixing problem is what they should be about.

Somebody in government has to do something practical about our looming (or loomed) energy crisis. Mouthing platitudes is not enough.

To get things going, one good step forward would be to  give Mr Huhne his P45.

In Praise of Fen Beagle

The Fen Beagle Blog - a recommendation to all you fellow grubby little Englanders.

I don't often do posts recommending other blogs but this one is truly entertaining, with class and an acidic humour. I don't know what drugs this guy is on but his/her graphics are amazing. The poetry ain't bad either!

But I don't expect Chris Huhne will like it.  Consequently Fenbeagle has gone in my blogroll.

Huhne and Humble Pie

I could crow about Chris Huhne's U turn on nuclear power but I won't. He has after-all, done the decent thing. He has at last abandoned the ridiculous dream world of relying on wind and tidal power and has now ordered 8 new nuclear power stations. See Here

Evidently the fairy-land lunatics in the Liberal party are outraged. Of course they would much rather maintain their bizarre Luddite-ism, even if it means the old and frail dying in the dark and cold.

The only problem is though is that there is still going to be a shortfall. Huhne needs to gather his courage and order at least four more.

Through gross incompetence and hysterical propaganda our own nuclear industry has been allowed to wither on the vine. Once our nuclear industry led the world but now these new power stations are going to rely on French or American expertise.

What a shame.

But at least, we can hope pensioners will not be confronted with power cuts and non working central heating boilers in ten years time.

Nuclear: The Only viable Option

The new energy minister Chris Huhne is evidently a nuclear sceptic (see here).

I reckon there are a few things he needs to take a long hard look at. Otherwise he could be remembered as the minister who sentenced the old and frail to death by hypothermia if we get a bad winter in 10 years time.

Currently we have about 20% of our electricity comes from an ageing fleet of British designed nuclear reactors. Very reliable, highly successful but getting old. Many of these are due to be decommissioned due to the their age. 70% of our nuclear reactors will be shut down in the next ten years.

But a another hidden portion of our electricity is actually generated by nuclear. We import electricity from France where almost 80 % of their power is generated by nuclear. Today. French nuclear power is regularly used to top up sagging British supply. This will only get worse as we lose more base-line generating capacity. We could of course simply rely ever further on French Nuclear power (as we do today to an extent) or we can properly provision and provide for our own energy supply.

So what about wind power? Let us get real. Wind power is a non starter. It is intermittent difficult to harvest and requires massive maintenance and support.

This support has to be done over a large area, often serving machines that are barely viable. If and when they break down it will be cheaper to leave them off line than to fix them until their regular servicing period arrives.

Place them off-shore and you have massive problems with transmission and the maintenance costs multiply further The only reason the utility companies are interested is due to the incredible subsidies they get. Wind power simply cannot compete with just about any other form of power generation. That competition can be on just about any criterion: reliability, availability, financial cost and (dare I say it) environmental cost per MWe.

Wind power is, in its current state of development, simply an expensive fashion statement, eagerly clutched at by anti-technology Luddites and those who kow-tow to them.

Due to the the negligence of the last government the country finds itself in an invidious position. There is likely to be a serious shortfall in generating capacity within the next ten years. Labour was simply not prepared (until it was arguably too late) to take any difficult and decisive decisions on how we will power the national grid.

Chris Huhne needs to remember he is in government to support the British people and to ensure that they have sufficient electricity to maintain their lives and jobs.

He is not there to to make fashion statements or fund latter day follies.