Keir Hardly points out the hypocrisy of the Tories claim to be an environmentally friendly party by drawing attention to research from Friends of the Earth that shows that the British Conservatives and UKIP have the worst record on supporting environmental issues of all parties throughout the European Union. Our own Welsh Conservative MEP Jonathan Evans was ranked 585 out of 685 MEPs, voting for only 14 per cent of positive environmental measures passed.
I'm sure that it was an unintentional oversight by Keir, but he failed to mention that two Welsh MEPs appear at the very top of the table with the best possible record.
At the very top of the list, soaring way ahead of all Lib Dem, Labour and Tory MEPs are Plaid Cymru MEP Jill Evans and former Plaid MEP Eurig Wyn both of whom have a 100% record. (The Green Party, of course, and the DUP also scored 100%)
I was very unimpressed with David Cameron's environmental policy announcements today, they may sound good but I can't see them having much affect. The idea that fewer people will use domestic flight if VAT is added to the cost, in particular, will have hardly any impact.
Habit changing taxes have been tried and tried again by governments but they have little impact. Take the tax on fags as an example - most smokers can find the extra 50p or so that goes on a packet every year - so they don't give up smoking. To make a real difference the government would have to add, say, £5 extra on a packet each year, but that would prove to be just too unpopular. The same is true on VAT on domestic flights, an extra £30 or so isn't enough to discourage people from flying but Cameron daren't suggest a punitive tax level that would effectively discourage domestic flying.
Yup, of course it was that clean green dynamic duo of Evans and Eurig that voted in favour of new environmental regs that would have closed Aberthaw power station - and probably Tower colliery as a result. Still, what's a few hundred jobs between friends?
ReplyDeleteIts also nice to see IWJ do a u-turn on clean (nuclear) energy. Only on Ynys Mon, obviously.
Hmm, as i made pretty clear in the posts introduction, i was copy and pasting a press release and made it clear 'i love it when a politician calls another politician a hypocrite'.
ReplyDeleteMoF, must do better my friend.
Anon
ReplyDeleteIt is support for environmental regulations that is the driving force behind the development of clean coal technology. Rather than threaten coal power stations and the coal mining industry, clean coal technology may (if Wales' seizes these opportunities) reinvigorate both industries creating a huge economic boost for Wales
If the Labour government insists on building a new generation of nuclear power plants, as it is likely to do, then I would prefer to see one of the new generation plants built on Anglesea to preserve the well paid jobs on the island than to see all those people who now work at Wylfa on the dole or being forced to move to work in a new generation plant in England.
Keir Hardly
Copying and pasting is a lazy way to blog but as you chose to do so in order to highlight Tory failures on environmental policy it is a fair response for me to react to that by pointing out how well Plaid MEPs have done in comparison.
I was sorry to see that the Labour Party has forced you to shut your blog down.
So what happened to Keir Hardly, guess he was that dreadful little bigot Collins after all.
ReplyDelete