Usshering in a New Generation I'm not happy with the way the Govenment's energy review is going. Malcolm Wicks, the energy minister, is a waste of a ministerial salary if ever there was one. We need some new blood in Government. I think Kitty Ussher's recent article in Tribune is the best application to be the Government's energy minister ever. As you can see, with the english translation from politican, her article in the Guardian she wants a job in Government. Dammit we should start a campaign to make Kitty Minister of State for Energy. Perhaps the slogan could be "Move over Malcolm"



Vigour in energy policy need not mean nuclear

Kitty Ussher says the Government must be wary of handing a propaganda victory to its opponents as it works out a way to keep the lights on.


If I was David Cameron, I would come out against nuclear power when the government publishes its energy review. It would give him the opportunity he needs to show he cares about the environment and is capable of taking on a well-organised big business lobby. It would put some murky green water between him and the Prime minister, and take most of middle England with him.

Thankfully I’m not the Tory leader. But this is an issue that can be argued either way. Yes, nuclear is carbon free but it cannot be described as sustainable. If the Romans had had nuclear power we would still be dealing with the waste.

Neither is nuclear necessary to meet our carbon targets. We’re already set to overshoot our Kyoto greenhouse gas target, with plenty of room to spare. The latest Government pronouncement - the climate change programme published in March - show that even with current plans we’ll be able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to between 15 per cent and 18 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010. If implemented properly the decisions this Government has already made to encourage renewable energy and energy conservation will compensate for the planned decommissioning of existing nuclear power stations by around 2020.

Research by the respected consultancy Ilex shows that it is possible by 2020 to keep overall demand for power roughly the same , despite a growing economy, at a reasonable cost and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power stations by 60 percent without nuclear.

But our carbon commitments don’t end in 2020 . We’ve excepted the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution recommendation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. Can that be done without recourse to nuclear power? Both the Department of Trade and Industry and the independent Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research says we can.

The Government’s interdepartmental analysts group for the 2003 White Paper says renewables could contribute around 68 per cent of our electricity needs. The Prime Minister’s strategy unit and the government’s energy efficiency innovation review have said that energy efficient could reduce demand by 30 per cent. So why not legislate for a clear, irrevocable deadline for the public sector to be powered by renewable energy, either through the grid or generated locally? It’ll make Britain a global leader in green technologies, creating manufacturing jobs of the future.

There’s nothing scary about importing gas and oil when the north sea runs dry. In fact it’s not being dependant on imports that should have us worried, but dependant on imports from the same place. With a balanced portfolio of suppliers, a variety of contracts through pipelines, that risk can be virtually eliminated.

Moreover if we move to a so called “distributed model” of electricity generation where buildings, offices and estates generate their own, topping up their requirements from the grid at times and selling surplus back at others., we’ll have far greater reliability overall, and reduce our economy’s vulnerability to things happening on the other side of other world, and the risk of home grown terrorist attack on a nuclear power station.

Micro generation could contribute 30-40 per cent of our electricity needs while cutting carbon emissions by 15 per cent.

And then there’s the economics. When the young Queen Elizabeth flicked the switch for the first nuclear power station back in the 1950s, she said it would produce electricity “too cheap to meter”. Fifty years on, British Energy went bust and the tax paper picked up an enormous bill.

So nuclear energy is not the only option. Policy-makers face a choice: they need to decide what they want to do, and the follow up the appropriate path to meet our commitments and keep the lights on. But we must be aware of the implications of our actions: we could hand our political opponents the opportunity to be seen to be doing the right thing.

Kitty Ussher is Labour MP for Burnley and was special advisor to Patricia Hewitt at the Department of Trade and Industry from 2001-2004


And here are some gems from her Guardian article entitled Let us have a go


There's something changing within the internal dynamic of the Labour party at the moment.
“Those of us with the marginal seats are beginning to shit ourselves”

It’s natural for leaders at the top to begin to look - and perhaps even feel - a bit tired and jaded after a decade of hard and important work.
“God, the last Government minister I saw had bags under there eyes so big they could fit a red box inside”

But as time goes on it is also becoming increasingly clear that there are bright and capable people
“Like me”

waiting on the fringes
“Tony, you still haven’t given me a job yet”

who are ready to refresh and renew the policy-making process.
“Sort out the mess caused by a host of duffer Parliamentary under Secretaries. At this rate even Sven could pick a better team”

For starters, there are the 40 Labour MPs elected for the first time to parliament only a year ago - three-quarters of whom are women - but it goes beyond that. There are some new junior ministers, “Like Ed, Pat and the other Ed but not Kitty“

and some others well capable of being them,
“like Kitty, Prime Minister!”

bursting with ideas,
“Like you Tony, I went to Oxford so the papers can’t make me look thick like Prescott”

and with loads of experience
“I did work experience with that Patricia woman you know the one you put in charge of the doctors and nurses”


and capacity.
“Unlike you Tony I’ve got a Masters in Economics so give me a job and I’ll sort out world poverty as well in my spare time, just for fun.”

And it's a network of people that certainly doesn't want to be in opposition.
“If you don’t give me a job ASAP I shall go and have dinner with Gordon and then you can be in opposition”

We're in politics to change things, not sit around for decades talking till the cows come home about the theoretical possibility of putting a grand vision into practice while someone else gets on with running the country.
“Tony you know I like you but really I should be prime minister now. I know that’s what Gordon says to you as well but he‘s Scottish and old and Cherie doesn‘t like him”


So here's the message for the bosses: if you're tired, run out of steam, had enough, we'll have a go.
“PPPPLLLLEEEAAASSSEEE give me a job.”  ¶ 11:18 am