Has Tony Blair Forgotten That it Was His Labour Government That Blocked Nuclear Power?
From time-to-time, various architects of the mess we are in come to some kind of nuclear power epiphany. This diversion via some Atomic Road to Damascus occurs because the road to the Net Zero Utopia turns out to be much longer, much more winding, and far more littered with obstacles than green lobbyists and wonks had imagined. Indeed, as a number of greens including George Monbiot and Mark Lynas discovered way back in the 2000s, it is the green movement itself that has been the greatest barrier to zero-carbon power. To an observer and critic of green ideology, the sight of eco-comrades realising that they are each the fetter that prevents the realisation of the others’ dreams ought to be amusing. But this green-on-green violence affects us all, and no destination that they choose, including nuclear power, will take us to a better place.
The latest bunch to join this denomination of eco-protestants hail from no less a place than the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI). In a report published this week, authors described as “the experts” argue either that there should be a nuclear renaissance or that it is already happening – it’s not clear which.
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I thought Satans love child had been quiet of late. It’s always a question of time with that one.
Blair is a hopeless feckwit.
When he became Prime Minister, there were already 160 nuclear powered ships sailing the oceans.
In 2024, there are about 200 small nuclear reactors at sea.
The man is a complete idiot, one of far too many who have been tried at the highest level in Westminster and found badly wanting.
Britain’s Prime Ministers since 1990 have done a great deal more damage to this country than the ‘Third Reich’ ever managed.
It depends on your definition of idiot. I don’t think even under the modern definition it’s accurate. He is not intellectually challenged. What he lacks is wisdom, or the moral fibre to behave wisely. He lacks honesty, humility. In general and sadly don’t think politics attracts the kind of “intelligence” that we would desire in a political leader, and I don’t think the voters reward it.
An idiot is, of course, either a stupid person, which Blair is not, or someone who behaves in a stupid way…….
Indeed, though you would also need to define “behaving in a stupid way”. It really depends on what his objectives are. He is rich and presumably influential, and he’s not in jail. His legacy lives on, sadly. So it looks like winning all the way, from his point of view. The fact that the things he did failed to make our lives better or failed to deliver on what he promised is perhaps a feature, not a bug.
Stupid behaviour is entirely subjective.
In my view, Blair’s premiership was outstandingly idiotic in almost every way. He trashed the economy, himself admitting too high a structural deficit in his absurdly titled memoir. He also admitted that banning hunting was a mistake, the Human Rights Act, reform of the house of Lords, judiciary, consummate idiocy.
Blair’s Britain is an absolute disaster which succeeding governments have only made worse.
The only thing we lead the world in seems to be the longest line of complete nincompoops running the country in history….in my view….
A disaster for us, not so much for him…who’s the idiot – him or us?
I have no idea what he makes of his existence on this planet.
Material wealth is generally a poor indicator of happiness.
Looking at the state of him rather reinforces that view.
As for the rest of us, I can only speak for myself: well capable of doing stupid things on a regular basis.
I too am capable of doing stupid things, often.
I don’t know if he’s happy or not, but by most people’s measure he’s doing OK on the surface, and certainly has not paid much of a price for his “idiocy”
Blair believes there is a climate crisis – isn’t that idiotic?
He says he does. Who knows what he really thinks?
Idiot no evil yes
Monro, I agree that it is mad that 60 years after the first attempts at nuclear powered civilian shipping only one now exists but the problem is that most of the 200 with small crews hide beneath the waves and the large ones are well protected by vast crews of sailors and airmen. While global terrorism exists, particularly from suicidal peaceful religious types, no country will be happy about a large cruise liner or container ship sailing into their territorial water without knowing who has smuggled themselves aboard.
Well said!
We should have listened to Maggie, the trained scientist, in the 80s: “Nuclear power is the true green energy!” A full baseload suite of
nuclear power stations backed up by gas to provide ambience is perfect.
Of course, thorium reactors do not produce a dangerous end product; and there is more thorium in the earth than uranium.
Unfortunately she was persuaded that nuclear was too expensive. The figures were based on regulations out of date even then, assumed no improvement in construction methods and ignored the value of security. When we had budget surpluses and a growing economy it made sense to invest (genuine use of the word, not as Mr Brown et al use it) in a capital asset which would yield energy at low marginal cost for decades, especialy through periods of slump, international disorder and strikes.
The concept you describe is far too forward thinking for that period, and even more so now – there is literally no reward for long term thinking in modern politics
Perhaps, then, environmentalism isn’t really about the environment.
Of course not. How did cutting down 17 million trees in Scotland – and not knowing what happened to them – to build windmills help the environment? How does killing some of nature’s slowest reproducing animals – whales, raptors, bats – with windmills help them? A lithium mining operation is far worse than an oil or gas well – you will do well to spot the wells near Jct 6 of the M25.
“This is a pivotal moment in the fight against climate change”
Canute was wise.
Blair is an idiot.
Canute knew he couldn’t hold back the tide.
Blair thinks humans can control the climate.
Canute had a simple way to demonstrate his point.
Blair and the delusional green grifters can only be defeated through science.
That’s why studies like this are so important:
https://scienceofclimatechange.org/wp-content/uploads/SCC-Koutsoyiannis-DogTail-Nov-2024.pdf
From the Conclusions:
Environmentalism = a neo-pagan zealots religion.
Nuclear power = the most expensive way to generate dispatchable electricity. Electricity provides only 23% of tte energy the UK consumes.
To transition to an all-electric economy is impossible (particularly using nuclear as “the solution”) because of the capital cost and other resources that would be required to build the necessary generating capacity and grid infrastructure.
Additionally, fossil fuels provide by-products used just about everywhere in our economy. If revenues from use if fossil fuels to provide energy were lost, in order to make extraction and refining/processing of fissile material fuels economically viable, would require a huge increase in prices of these by-products making them unaffordable.
So-called Net Zero is impossible to achieve without returning to a pre-industrial age.
Back to coal and gas for a stable, low cost, continuous electricity supply – like it was.
Labour loonies have short memories. Herr Starmwurstführer’s rage at open-borders being deliberate Conservative policy, overlooks it started in the reign of that gruesome twosome, Blair-Brown as deliberate Labour policy.
I disagree, nuclear has a key role to play amongst all the rest of the sensible points you made… to not use it would be crazy with many other countries deciding to invest in nuclear. The key is to have a mixture of energy sources… like we used to
Crazy to use the most expensive option which takes longest to construct, has a large decommissioning cost factored in, and requires market distorting guaranteed (consumer subsidised) prices for the duration of operational lifetime.
Coal is quickest cheapest to build and operate to provide base load and much of the demand with gas for variable demand.
I laugh! Other Countries, like France, “invest” with taxpayers’ money – so consumers pay twice for electricity, once via their bills and second via their taxes.
I’m thinking long term – i.e. 30-50 yrs … the time and cost to build is not relevant in the long term, as is the cost. I’d rather people were gainfully employed, skills retained and money was spent in the community than it was pissed away on hare brained scheme where it mysteriously ‘disappears’…
Coal has served us well, but there’s no denying it’s dirtiest of all the options
Tony Blair Institute for Global Tyranny
Tiny Bliar, right up there with several other of the most evil men in history
it is the role of green ideology itself that needs to be exposed, not concerns about the safety of nuclear power in isolation.
Blair has a lot to answer for.
And surprisingly if you shut coal mines and refuse new oil drilling it creates a shortage and puts price up making wind and solar look cheap
Even after all that, renewables still don’t look cheap. Add the subsidies, and the facade is even less convincing
Ben, good information on our nuclear power plant history.The Reform Party is very committed to stopping this Net Zero nonsense and moving to Small Modular Nuclear Reactors for base load production along with Gas turbines to keep the lights on while we drill and frack our own fuels to get the price of all our energy back down to a manageable, affordable level, that can allow industry to be competitive and households not grossly impoverished. We are currently seeing an act of sabotage against our livelihoods, economy and society. Indeed it is an act of treason that will render the nation defenceless because of the destruction of our energy resources.
Linear no threshold
The Linear No-Threshold Relationship Is Inconsistent with Radiation Biologic and Experimental Data
Part of the demonising of Nuclear power. Observing that high doses of radiation caused tissue damage and even higher doses caused more damage, antis connected those two data points and back cast the line to zero, in order to claim that ANY radiation causes harm. This appears not to be the case.
Some of the 58 nuclear reactors in France are fairly close to the Channel coast, so we get the (very remote) possibility of another Chernobyl without any of the benefit.