LOST CAUSE

The 2km campaign is a dead duck.

It's not difficult to work out why. Firstly, it would obviously preclude the erection of wind turbines near built-up - i.e. urban - areas. Now, while a few clueless nimbies continue to whine things like, "They should put them on the edges of towns!" (Wake up, guys - they already are!), Peter Luff's moronic bill, if it did make any headway, would put a stop to that. So where are the thousands of wind turbines required to reduce the UK's carbon emissions going to be sited, then?

Yep - in rural areas. Not such a bad thing, when the CPRE, National Trust and RSPB are already arguing in favour of wind energy. But hardly what the VVASP quidnuncs had in mind.

Secondly, and more importantly, the braindead 2 km campaign would effectively put a stop to wind energy generation in mainland Britain. Which would mean that a handful of nimbies had ensured that the lights will definitely go out.

The fools and fibbers of VVASP may have trumpeted Peter Luff's brainless bill, but another local MP has already stood up to oppose it. Martin Horwood, Lib Dem MP for Cheltenham, has challenged the gormless 2 km campaign launched by Luff and a few other anti-wind Tories, indicating just how unworkable and ill-thought-out it is. While Dave Cameron's Conservatives struggle to come up with a clear energy strategy, the Lib Dems have already called for 30% of the UK's electricity to be generated by renewables.

Within the next few years, wind turbines will be generating more electricity for Britain than nuclear power (so much for the cretinous argument that windfarms "don't work"!). As existing coal and nuclear power stations are phased out, increasing emphasis will be placed on renewables to provide us with the energy we need.

Luff's bill would of course throw a large and particularly thick spanner in the works - and unless several new nuclear power stations could be commissioned in record time (never mind the costs), the UK would be unable to cater for its domestic energy needs.

Thanks, Peter - and all those self-important nimbies who created the problem.

When BBC Midlands Today visited Burtonwold Wind Farm a week or two ago, a local councillor explained how the anti-wind lobby, composed of nuclear apologists, neo-fascist climate change deniers and a few Neanderthal homeowners, had repeatedly lied about the impact of windfarms. Villagers living a few hundred metres from a ten-turbine windfarm - soon to become a 17-turbine site - had experienced no problems and hadn't objected to the additional seven turbines. And why should they? There's nothing wrong with them.

Luff's law would presumably mean that Burtonwold, along with other successful windfarms, would be forced to shut down. All because of a few selfish twits in the Lenches. You know the sort.

Britain's energy policy - sustainable or otherwise - would be thrown back to ... what?

We don't even know if clean coal technology is going to work. Gas is both massively inefficient and politically dangerous. Nuclear costs too much and won't be ready in time (and even Ed Miliband admits that the next generation of nuclear power stations will only be a stopgap).

So if Luff and his nimby puppet-masters had their way, the UK wouldn't even have an energy policy.

Supporting the laughable 2 km campaign is like voting for a return to the Dark Ages. Of course, we'll know who to thank when the lights go off, our freezers defrost and computers can't power up - it'll be those who lied to us repeatedly about wind turbines. And we'll look at our European neighbours - Spain, Denmark, Germany - who are happily getting a large percentage of their domestic electricity from windfarms and we'll wonder how we could ever have been so stupid as to let a few self-centred liars lead us up the garden path.

The reality is that being upwards of half a kilometre from a wind turbine is no hardship - unless you decide to make it one.

Whereas putting electricity generation in the UK on hold just to satisfy a few demented nimbies will mean hardship for us all.

So which would you prefer? Clean, green energy, harmlessly generated, or blackouts?

Think about that before you decide to join the dimwits and their preposterous, fraudulent, nonsensical "2 km OK" campaign.