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14 January 2008

Could the Stig go Green?

Signing up Johnny Ball to talk on nuclear power is like the fur industry getting Beatrix Potter on-s

By Sian Berry

It wasn’t quite ‘within days’ of my last blog, but we have now received the government’s official confirmation that they are planning for a new wave of nuclear power stations to be built across the UK.

The announcement was made by John Hutton on Thursday, but not before we heard from the government’s own Nuclear Consultation Working Group that the second public consultation process had failed hopelessly to make up for the deficiencies of the first. This was drily underlined by Jonathan Dimbleby who called a straw poll on Friday’s Any Questions and couldn’t find a single person in the audience who felt they had been involved in a meaningful debate on the issue.

I won’t go into all the many arguments against this decision here, since Green MEP Caroline Lucas has done such a sterling job elsewhere on this very website. Enough to say that, given the likelihood of another legal challenge to the decision-making process, I’m not too downhearted but that it has made for an eventful week.

As soon as the announcement was made, public debate did at last spring up in all media outlets, so every Green and LibDem spokesperson (and a couple of Tory and Labour dissidents) were called out to argue against the madness.

I wrote a joint letter with two of my fellow candidates for London Mayor, Ken Livingstone and Brian Paddick, which was published in the Evening Standard. In what the Guardian called ‘a rare show of near-unanimity’, we condemned the decision and said: “We believe that we can meet our city’s energy needs through becoming much more efficient with our energy use, local energy generation and exploiting our renewable resources.”

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Indeed we can and, with trains carrying highly dangerous nuclear fuel already passing through central London, we will also have to bear a large share of the risks of this policy. Boris Johnson refused to sign the letter, showing a worrying rejection of the interests of Londoners in favour of party discipline.

The debate I enjoyed most this week was rather unexpected. I really wasn’t looking forward going on Talksport radio on Thursday night, especially when I found hummer-driving James Whale would be in the chair and that I’d be arguing against Johnny Ball.

I have been almost in mourning since I first saw him acting as a roving spokesperson for the nuclear industry a year or so ago. Mr Ball and his seminal 1980s science programmes were directly responsible for my chemistry set and therefore indirectly responsible for my choice to study science at university – something I’ll be eternally glad I did. But, to my surprise, our exchange ended up very good natured, fact-filled and even interesting, and that’s despite an outbreak of nonsensical climate denial breaking out towards the end.

It is, I have to admit, a stroke of PR genius for the nuclear industry to have signed up Johnny Ball. If anyone’s image says ‘friendly, trusted scientist’ to my generation (who are statistically most opposed to nuclear power) then it’s him. And he must be having an impact; it’s like the Fur Council signing up Beatrix Potter as an advocate or, indeed, like an investment bank taking on a Labour Prime Minister. It’s about time the forces of good stole this tactic and gathered a few unlikely allies of our own. Perhaps the Stig should expect a call?

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