Tories Wind Farm Election Bribe

While the right-leaning part of the Fourth Estate jeers at Mil The Younger and accuses him of having no idea as to how he could supplant the Tories at next year’s General Election, the party that really is desperate goes unpunished – and even has praise showered on it. Yes, it’s Young Dave and his jolly good pals who are out of ideas, with today’s announcement underscoring their plight.

“No more onshore wind farms if Conservatives win 2015 election ... A new Conservative government would grant local residents powers to block all new onshore wind farms within six months of taking office, party pledges” hails the Maily Telegraph, still the preferred conduit for Tory propaganda (the Daily Mail piece on the same lines is timed more than an hour later).

This comes, it should not be forgotten, hard on the heels of Cameron’s miraculous rediscovery of his Christian faith, which had the twin benefits of helping his party dump even more of the social care burden on the voluntary sector, and more importantly persuading those alienated over same-sex marriage to come back to the Tory fold. That, too, was a desperate tactic.

Let’s check out the wording: “Local residents will get new powers to block all new onshore wind farms within six months of a new Conservative government taking office, the party will promise on Thursday. No subsidies will paid to operators of new onshore wind turbines if the Conservatives win a Commons majority next May, they will promise”. And what about subsidies to those who build the things?

And, as to “Local residents” getting “new powers”, the Tories’ so-called “localism agenda” was supposed to do just that. Except that anyone wanting to install wind turbines who gets pushed back by those “new powers” just appeals the decision and it more often than not gets overturned. One should therefore treat “the latest hardening of Conservative rhetoric on green energy” with some scepticism.

Especially as the Tel admits “Subsidies for existing onshore wind would remain in place and wind farms currently under construction or given legal consent would still be completed, almost doubling the onshore wind sector’s capacity by 2020. But no more onshore turbines would be put in place beyond that”. Which means there would be plenty of time to have another think about it.

Michael Fallon has told “We remain committed to cutting our carbon emissions. And renewable energy, including onshore wind, has a key role in our future energy supply. But we now have enough bill payer-funded onshore wind in the pipeline to meet our renewable energy commitments”. All energy is “bill payer-funded”. And he just admitted the real reason – there’ll be no need for any more. For now.

Wind turbines will keep going up. The Tories won’t stop that. Desperate spinning.