NO MEMBER OF THE MONARCHY should ever give public expression to any political or controversial opinion. It is the only way this institution can remain above all party politics and keep the nation’s support. This is why the next heir to the throne would be a disaster as King. Prince Charles could not help but interfere publically on important issues of the day and fall foul of party politics… which would be the end of the monarchy’s neutrality and threaten the institution itself.
Which brings me to the Duke of Edinburgh and his outburst against wind farms.
The Duke is seen by the liberal establishment as a cantankerous old fart with imperial delusions and prejudices - and with an embarrassing tongue to boot . In other words all of the qualities that I find most endearing in him. But, unlike his son, when he speaks out it is usually within the confines of a private conversation that is leaked to the media by the person he is having the conversation with. In this case it was with the managing director of a leading Dutch owned wind farm company, Mr Esbjorn Wilmar. Mr Wilmar along with two- thirds of other wind farm companies are foreign owned and, in total, all such companies receive £500 million in subsidies from the British taxpayer - while such technology is adding £90 per annum to the average electricity bill.
These sinister looking windmills dotted over our rural landscape, and looking like something the BBC’s glue and cardboard department dreamed up for a 1970’s episode of Dr Who, are not by any stretch of the imagination, ‘elegant’ and ‘beautiful’, as the Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has described them. They are as aesthetically Orwellian as the European Commission is politically … and not fit for purpose.
The Duke apparently told Mr Wilmar that such farms were a ‘disgrace’, and would ‘never work’, and those who support them are being seduced by a ‘fairy tale’; because the turbines would need a backup capacity.
The monarchy could do very well financially by such developments. This is because the Crown Estate owns almost all of the seabed off Britain’s 7,700-mile coastline. So the Duke is looking to the country’s interest and not that of the monarchy. He could let it all happen and see millions pour into the Crown Estates.
I LIVE IN GREAT YARMOUTH and many of you may have visited the town while on holiday. If so you could not help but see the thirty or so turbines anchored a short distance off of our shore. These have proved to be merely the first tranche and will be added to in the coming months by several hundred more; and there is great excitement among Yarmouth’s town councillors about the new jobs this expansion will create.
Hundreds of local jobs will become available at a time when they will be in short supply in the rest of the country. My town will receive a boost. But what will the nation receive from such technology? In one part of the country the turbines had to be stopped during a gale because of local complaints about the loud sound they making.
According to today’s Telegraph, ‘The Duke’s views are politically charged, as they put him at odds with the Government’s policy significantly to increase the amount of electricity generated by wind turbines’.
This may indeed be true, but the Duke never made his comments for public consumption and never would (unlike Charles). He gave his honest assessment of his dislike toward these structures and never arraigned Mr Wilmar to make them public.
There will be more people who share the Duke’s view of wind turbines, than those who support there contagion. We are, as the lyrics from a popular song suggests, ‘on the road to nowhere’ with this technology. These overbearing structures costing (in the end) billions in taxpayer subsidy will fail to meet the challenges set them by the environmentalist lobby; among whose sons and daughters are the politicians who they cajoled into creating these latter day windmills.
NUCLEAR ENERGY and all things nuclear has been cursed by the Greens; and their argumentative message has filtered through to the middle class youth whose parents and grandparents remember their own hippy-dippy battles with the establishment in the 1960s; and for this reason if for no other, are prepared to tolerate their irrational offspring. The baby boomers have a lot to answer for regarding the heritage of protest they bequeathed to their progeny.
It may be the belief of modern youth that anyone beyond 30 is beginning to calcify, and at which point should be ignored, ridiculed, and put to rest. But if modern youth ignore such alarms from such a generation then you will repeat their mistakes.
Modern nuclear energy is the most efficient and the cheapest form of energy provision. If we pursue wind energy at its expense purely through our prejudice of the nuclear option; then we will suffer energy shortages not seen since the blackouts of the 1970s, when the coal miners and electricity workers brought the country to a standstill.
The Duke will be supported by far more of his people than Chris Huhne on this issue; especially as they have seen their fuel bills rocket; in part, by the environmental levy they are making the utilities pay.
The environmentalists carry more weight, and have more say with the politicians than does the electorate. It is refreshing to hear a public voice, that actually speaks for the people, and does so with appropriate bluntness.
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