HOW NIMBYISM WORKS

Thanks to the British Library, this blog will be available, via their web archive, for future generations to study. Those who have yet to be born will be able to delve back into one horrifying chapter (a small, local one) in the transition from 20th century wastefulness to 21st century responsibility. They will be able to read what sort of idiotic things were said, and what devious and despicable things were done, by the selfish, foolish nookies of Lench in their lunatic fight against a Very Good Thing.

So, this is partly for those researchers of the future - those who will be studying, either the story of how we successfully got to grips with the problems caused by previous generations, or how we failed because the previous generation was just too bloody pig-headed and out-of-touch.

Nimbies are foul creatures. Vermin, really. They don't object to something because it's bad. They object to it because it is. There isn't any moral judgement involved. It's all down to the me-me-me thinking of the sort of person who has relocated to the Lenches in such numbers in recent years.

But what's odd is that most of the local nimby bunch aren't really nimbies at all. They're just along for the ride.

A careful analysis of that neo-fascist organisation calling itself 'VVASP' (a corrupt body which has proven, time and time again, that it is incapable of telling the truth about the simplest things) reveals that there is a hardcore of desperately irresponsible, neurotic and self-important individuals who have stirred this whole thing up.

Their reasons for doing so are not very impressive. One of them just doesn't want to see anything quote-industrial-unquote near his retirement home. To him, wind turbines are "industrial". And, like anything else that is "industrial", they "don't work", they're "inefficient" and they're really just a subsidy-sucking scam. A man of proven dishonesty, sad to say.

Another is just crazy. Totally hysterical. Ask two consecutive questions and she flies off the handle. An example was sent in by one of our correspondents. We'll call the nimby concerned "Mrs X":

Human Being ('HB'): "But what are you afraid of?"
Mrs X: "Are you kidding?"
HB: "No. And, honestly, I'm sorry to hear that you are so worried about this wind farm - but what is it exactly that worries you so much about it?"
Mrs X: "WE DON'T KNOW!!!!!"

Yes, folks. That person is leading the anti-windfarm protest. Which, according to nimby High Command, isn't a protest. And it isn't anti-windfarms. La, la, la-dee-dah, la, la ...

Around these two individuals, there are some very unpleasant lieutenants - Basil Fawlty lookalikes who stride about trying to pretend that they own EVERYTHING; Billy Bunter-types who inherited lots and have no social skills (and who think they own EVERYTHING) ... These people are the enforcers. They make sure that the daft pronouncements of the "intellectuals" running VVASP get spread about the place. They keep the pressure up, as it were.

There is then a layer of weirdos. People who complain about anything. Everything. Doesn't matter. Something to complain about? They're your chaps. Do they know anything at all about the subject? DOESN'T MATTER!! They just want to complain about it, whatever it is.

Fodder to the ideologues and arch-deceivers at the heart of VVASP.

But there are yet more layers, and these are the saddest of them all. These are made up of two types of people:

1) Those who just want to fit in. Is that a bandwagon going past? Better jump on it, then. Anything but appear to be remotely individual. Must, must, must look like part of the gang. Don't want to be left out.

2) Those who, for the sake of a quiet life, let the evil nimbies march all over them. Among this group we can include a number of parish councillors.

So, what happens is a tiny number of people with extraordinary chips on their shoulders start to organise an oppressive, fraudulent nimby campaign. They have their would-be-jackbooted henchmen to go round stirring up trouble and making sure that everybody, but everybody, gets the message.

They are eagerly joined by the seasoned complainers against this and that and the other and oh God everything's all gone to pot hasn't it I blame the EU, myself ...

And then a few noses twitch, and the nervous types think "Oh, I'd better join this group of nimbies or they'll think I'm an outsider. Please, let me join! Please!! And can I be milk monitor, please? Pleeeeeassse??" (This type like making friends with the bullies - probably some kind of childhood trauma involved here).

And then those who should know better look the other way, thinking "Oh dear, a maddened angry mob, pumped up on crazy propaganda and stupid slogans by the ringleaders and whipped into an aggressive mood by the agitators and happy now that they've got something to moan about and anxious to prove that they're part of the majority - oh yes, a majority they are, regardless of numbers and things - and, heck, better give them what they want and then they might go away!"

And that, dear friends, is a nimby protest. It's the weak frightened by the timid led by the awkward and the confused led by the aggressive and the selfish led by the deranged and the dishonest.

The Daily Mail's perfect world, you could say.