Nick Clegg keeps writing to me even though I was only a member of the Lib Dem party for a year and haven't been for about five years. Now he's banging on about green issues when, as he points out, most Tories on the other side of the Coalition have quietly let it drop. This is what he had to say:
"Dear
Mark,
This week I made one of my most important speeches of the year. Miss it? I
wouldn’t be surprised: it was on the environment – an issue that used to be the
height of fashion across Westminster but has now fallen out of the political
vogue.
I met with green groups so that they could hear direct, from me, that the
Liberal Democrats are as committed as ever to the green agenda. Back when the
Coalition formed, the Conservatives said they wanted this to be the greenest
Government ever. We haven’t forgotten and every day we’re holding them to their
word.
It doesn’t make for a particularly quiet life in Whitehall. To be honest, I
think the Tories find it baffling. They’ve decided that there are no longer
votes in green issues because people are too busy worrying about the economy –
and they can’t fathom why we still care. And yet last month all of us sat to
hear Sir Mark Walport, the Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor, set out the
threat of climate change in the plainest possible terms. He said politicians
need to stop asking if climate change is happening, or if humans are
responsible for it. We need to get on with tackling it. What more do the
doubters need?
You would, on this occasion, expect Ed Miliband to get it. He is a former
Climate Change Secretary after all. But Labour’s populist promise to
temporarily freeze energy bills would be a huge blow to our green commitments.
Not only is it a con – with the energy companies bound to hike up prices before
and after the freeze – but it would also massively undermine investment in our
renewables industry, threatening clean energy and thousands of jobs.
So it’s up to us to keep pushing policies that protect our environment –
whether that’s our 5p charge on plastic bags, cutting greenhouse gases, or
getting more low carbon cars on our roads.
I’m green because I want to
hand on the best world possible to our children and grandchildren – tell me why
you’re green too.
Best wishes,
Nick Clegg"
So is he just a sandal wearing namby pamby tree hugging liberal or are these policies still relevant as we come out of one of the worst recessions in centuries? What do you think and does it have any relevance to Tonbridge?...
1 comment:
Clegg is definitely a “tree hugger”, and he’s even got the cheek to lecture us about our so-called “green commitments”. By this he means bumping up the people’s already sky-high energy bills, in order to pay for yet more windmills despoiling our once green and pleasant land.
I really don’t buy into this man-made climate change nonsense. The earth’s climate has seen many fluctuations over the planets long history, and some of these changes have been quite dramatic. Even over the last thousand years or so the climate of these islands has swung from being warm enough for grapes to be grown in Yorkshire during Roman times, to the mini-ice age experienced during the 17th Century, when “frost fairs” were held on a frozen River Thames.
All of these changes came about quite naturally due to minor changes in the earth’s orbit, or in the tilt of its axis. None were due to man’s activities, and anyone who believes the very slight rise in average temperatures is due to burning fossil fuels is totally deluded.
Unfortunately a whole “industry” has grown up around the fallacy of man-made climate change, and many people have grown extremely rich from perpetuating this myth. Anyone who dares to criticise this dogma, let alone has the gall to challenge it, is condemned as a heretic, in the same way which Galileo was excommunicated by the Catholic Church for challenging the belief of the day that the sun revolved around the earth.
Taxing hard working people to pay for the eyesores, and blots on the landscape, that are wind-farms, is the ultimate deception foisted on us by the “green” lobby. Wind turbines only generate a fraction of the electricity they are claimed to be capable of. They require regular maintenance, and the oil used to keep them lubricated sprays out in a mist polluting the surrounding countryside. The turbine blades are a hazard to birds, literally chopping to pieces any poor creatures unfortunate to fly into their path. Even the much-vaunted solar panels contain high amounts of toxic heavy metals such as Cadmium, in their voltaic cells.
I could go on, but for a politician like Clegg to spout such weasel words about being “green” in such a patronising manner is beyond the pale. I think he’ll be history at the next election, but then the likes of Cameron and Miliband are no better either!
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