STALINISM IN THE LENCHES

Now and then, reviewing VVASP's literature, a chill runs down the spine.

Take the meeting of the bogus Windfarm Working Party in July 2009, at which it was noted:

Following a request for Harvington Parish Council to publish a letter from a parishioner in the Parish Council Newsletter, which was declined, it was agreed [by the Windfarm Working Party] that Parish Councils should not be involved with releasing information/educating the community on the subject of wind farms, this should be left to VVASP.

Apart from the obvious hint of censorship here, certain questions arise. Presumably, the Harvington parishioner was hoping to get a letter supportive of wind farms into their Parish Council Newslettter (as recent events have shown, there are people in Harvington who know a great deal about windfarms from personal experience, and don't have a bad word to say about them). Clearly, it would not have suited the purposes of the raging nimbies in Harvington, Church Lench and elsewhere to allow free speech, so the request for the letter to be published was declined.

Worse, though, is the implication that the supposedly impartial Windfarm Working Party actually thought that VVASP was up to the job of "educating the community". Incredible, isn't it?

Worse still, VVASP considered itself entitled to "educate" District Councillors on the subject of wind farms and their planning applications. In notes supplied after a VVASP meeting held in April 2009, we read the following:

District Councillors education ... it was decided to send regular e-mail updates to the district councillors to provide education [sick; sorry, I meant sic]. Many had replied with thanks and asked for continued input. The first of these was appeal results at Shipdam [actually, Shipdham in Norfolk].

Now, we're not 100% sure, but we thought that District Councillors - especially those serving on the Development Control Committee, who were the main intended recipients of VVASP's "education" - are competent individuals with a wealth of experience in life, council and planning matters behind them.

How many of them needed VVASP's "education" to help them understand what a windfarm is?

Of course, we can guarantee that the "education" provided by VVASP to the District Councillors was as one-sided and misrepresentative as everything else they've ever said. They must have really done their nut when it quickly became clear that Ecotricity were not giving up in their plans to install two turbines - yes: just two! - at Shipdham and that they have since received permission to erect anemometer (wind-measuring) masts at the site.

The problem with all this "education" that VVASP have been pumping out, with the unqualified approval of their friends and partners in the Windfarm Working Party, is that it is supplied by people who are themselves dunces when it comes to wind power.

It's the sort of education that Josef Stalin approved of - i.e., not education at all. It's a kind of "re-education", a deliberate attempt at brainwashing the planning committee and the general public. It was a blatant arm-twisting exercise.

Typical, though, of the arrogance of the protesters of VVASP that they should assume that they had both the right and the wherewithal to "provide education" to Wychavon's District Councillors over a matter in which they have proven their tendency to tell lies, to mislead and to bully those who don't agree with them.

And typical, too, of the ludicrous Windfarm Working Party to encourage them to carry on doing it.

So would all those of you who have been to a windfarm and know that they're not noisy please line up and prepare yourselves to be "educated", VVASP-style.