I mentioned the amazingly positive spin the BBC were giving the sale of Britain's nuclear industry to (French govt-controlled) EDF.
Well waddya know ? Via blogger NotASheep in the B-BBC comments, the news that the director of communications for the UK arm of EDF (they also own elctricity company E On, who recently raised prices to UK consumers by 22% - and to French consumers by 5%), one Andrew Brown, turns out to be a former BBC journalist and Newsnight editor.
Andrew Brown ? That's right. Gordon Brown's brother.
(Dizzy wondered back in January why the Tories didn't make more play of this fact, concluding it was because EDF made a substantial donation to the Tories. I'm not sure at all about the ethics of accepting cash from a company controlled by the French state. On second thoughts, I am - they shouldn't do it. What a dirty bunch. It's the Treaty of Dover all over again.)
Blinds
4 hours ago
3 comments:
sry for stupid question, but do you know what role parliament plays in this?
Surely the cabinet can't push through a sell off of 25% of our power industry and a vital technological base without much wider scrutiny?
Well we've long since got shot of UK computer manufacturing, cars, aircraft etc etc Lets make a clean sweep of it.
Also one of the bonuses of rail privatisation is that virtually all new locos on British rails are European or American in origin. From the invention of railways until the 1990s virtually all locos in the UK were built here, 99% plus. A few US shunters left over from the war and some locos (class 56 for you spotters) were subcontracted to Romania for construction in the 70s. Thats about it.
where as I agree its a shame we lost those industries.
Things like computers are all build in the far east now, only designed in the west and we do still have some design work going on.
cars and truck factories could easily be rebuilt if necessary, they aren't rocket science. Aircraft we do still build some with BAE.
This is different.
Any independant country needs its own secure energy supply, food supply and border control.
Britain has neither.
The nuclear stations will be based in Britain but its a question of how much expertise we will retain.
Now look at our armied services, apparently its discriminatory not to protect their 'British' identity! insane!
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imo, we should have no foreigners in the army, yes they may be great troops , I don't disrespect them, but the problem is if the government can't recruit British people to the army then that indicates a dissatifaction with the whole process and system or the wars we're being asked to fight, politicians shouldn't be able to use non-Brits to prop it up.
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