Paddy Tipping backs biofuels

Paddy Tipping has launched a Game Conservancy Trust scheme to create bio fuel through woodland management as detailed here. (Dec 04 - bit late, but I've only just found the page).

Dr. Alastair Leake, project manager at Loddington explains:

“The timber from our woodland is turned into wood chips which are then fed directly into the feed hopper of the new boiler".

Bio fuels are 'carbon neutral' and do not contribute to global warming. Perhaps more importantly they are a sustainable energy source. Currently the UK is highly dependent on natural gas for both heating and electricity. Natural gas, however is rapidly running out - global production is likely to peak within 20 years, and from that point on, everyone will have to start cutting back. North Sea gas production is falling fast, so the UK will become dependent on imported gas at rocketing prices. To make matters worse, the main contributor to the UK reducing its CO2 emissions has been a switch from coal to gas fired power stations. As gas runs out, coal use and therefore emissions are likely to increase unless there has been a very radical move to renewables such as biofuels - (which there is currently no sign of).

It is good that Paddy Tipping recognises that we need to be considerably more pro-active about improving energy sources. He has also spoken on the topic in the Commons.

Do we really want, by 2020, 70 per cent. of our electricity to be generated from gas, 90 per cent. of which will be imported? That would be a crazy situation to work ourselves into.

Personally I would question whether it will be possible to import enough gas to supply 63% of our electricity, even if we wanted to - because we won't be the only country desperate for energy. I think Paddy is quite right to refer to UK coal as an energy reserve - it is likely that we will need every energy resource we can lay our hands on, and permitting UK Coal to shut down pits for short term financial reasons is not in our national interest.

Paddy Tipping returned as Sherwood MP

	Votes	Share
Paddy Tipping, Labour	22,824	48.4
Bruce Laughton, Conservative	16,172	34.3
Peter Harris, Liberal Democrat	6,384	13.6
Moritz Dawkins, UK Independence Party	1,737	3.7

Congratulations to Paddy Tipping, who has once again been returned as the Sherwood MP.

Sherwood election result

For those of you planning on staying up late tomorrow, the Sherwood result will be coming in at an estimated time of 3.30am.

A full list of all constituencies

A moment of self-realisation

David Blunkett has clarified why it's so important for Labour to not only win, but to maintain their crushing majority.

"The real danger of abstentions could lead to a parliament where the disaffected determine the policy of the country"

That's right. If you don't vote Labour like a good little boy, then rebellious Labour MPs may be able to stop the government whipping through bill after bill, in the manner to which it has become accustomed.
See Independent article.

Chicken Yoghurt spells out the implications of this:

Don't like millionaires making political donations in return for favours?
You're a disaffected crank.
Don't want creationists running our schools?
A disaffected crank.
Don't like the government selling weapons to repressive regimes?
Disaffected crank.
Don't like it that the government is willing to use information gained though torture?
Crank.

It turns out I'm a disaffected crank then, especially as I'd add to that list 'Don't like Cabinet members using their position to do favours for their lovers and then lying about it.'.

Luckily, with his excellent voting record, there is little danger of Paddy Tipping attracting David Blunkett's ire.

Hucknall Today - Profile of Candidates

The local newspaper, Hucknall Today, has run profiles and statements from the four Sherwood candidates.

See article

Phone in

I caught a bit of the national phone-in today to the party leaders. To be honest it seemed like a bit of a waste of time. Generally callers confronted them with personal anecdotes which (and for once I agreed with Blair) could not be usefully generalised. In addition, lacking the briefing and research that political interviewers normally have, they could be fobbed off with any old rubbish by the politicians.

I was particularly disappointed with the lucky punter who got to confront Blair about Iraq. 'There's lots of questions unanswered.', he asserted. Well ask me one, retorted Blair. The best he could manage was 'Where were the WMDs', an underarm ball that Blair battered effortlessly into the long grass. 'Four inquiries into the misuse of intelligence.', 'Can't apologise for removing Saddam', '8 million Iraqis voted' etc. etc. I think he even slipped in a 'let the Tories in by the back door'.

I'm unlikely to ever get to put my questions but if I did, they would be:

• Why didn't you read the Foreign Office legal advice?
  
• Why wasn't the full Attorney General's advice circulated to the cabinet as required by parliamentary protocol?
  
• Why do you use the removal of Saddam to justify the war, when you said yourself that regime change alone could not be justification, and the Attorney General warned you that it could not be?
  
• Why did you allow the Attorney General's opinion of 17 March 2003 to be represented as a summary of the advice of 7 March 2003, when it bore little relation in content or conclusion?
  
• What exactly was the 'material breach' of UN resolutions that Iraq was committing on 17 March 2003, and what evidence did you have to conclude this?
  
• How could Jack Straw be justified in saying there was 'no question about the legality' when the Foreign Office had concluded that a UN Security Council decision was a necessity, and almost everyone except the Attorney General and the US agreed with them?
  
• When the Intelligence told you that Iraq may have a few weapons, why did you tell the country that they definitely had major stockpiles?
  
• If rebuilding Iraq is such a success, why has the number of children under 5 that are suffering from malnutrition doubled since occupation?
  
• You said that if you became an electoral liability to the Labour party you would resign, why are you still here?
  

That should be enough to be getting along with. Why do they matter?

As Rory Bremner said "If these things really don't matter to us, we have no right to live in a democracy."