ANOTHER FINE MESS

Little wonder that our nookie friends were praying for a Tory government. The previous administration was evidently keen on renewables. So the nimby nutters wanted them out. Besides which, if you take a look at the majority of VVASP you'll quickly see that few of them have ever given a passing thought to the needs of others. A Tory government, they hoped, would throw out all windfarm applications and go crazy for nuclear instead.

Well, whaddya know. The coalition is in a right old pickle.

Peter Luff's dimwitted 2 kilometre Bill is back. This was a bit of posturing that the MP did on VVASP's behalf a while back. Now, under the new government, he's going through the motions again.

Cameron and Clegg are thoroughly committed to renewables. They've seen the figures and they know that we need them. Sadly, though, a few of their more hard-of-thinking backbenchers feel that there might be a few votes in standing up for the kind of nimby madness which has made the Lenchwick area so thoroughly unpleasant recently. They're on a hiding to nothing, of course. Worse, they are actively opposing the very measures (harmless, beneficial) which the UK urgently needs to adopt. It's a thoroughly stupid and silly enterprise that Luff and co. are engaged on.

Much of the problem lies with the Secretary of State for Communities, the Weeble-like Eric Pickles. One of Pickles's first acts was summarily to abolish regional plans. Under the last government, local authorities were required to figure out what they were going to contribute to such big issues as affordable housing and renewable energy. That involved planning, and as everybody knows, planning ahead is a Socialist thing to do.

But Pickles was taken to the High Court over this, and last week the High Court ruled that he had abused his powers. Pickles simply did not have the lawful right to tear up all those regional plans. It was an exceptionally foolish and short-sighted thing to do.

All of this indicates that the Tory party (in particular) simply hasn't got its head on when it comes to the problems that lie ahead. Too many gormless MPs (like the charmless Karen Lumley, MP for Nimby South, and Luff himself, formerly the MP for Nimby South and now MP for the Vile) have been too quick to swallow the nookie line. This is the deranged mindset which claims to be all in favour of renewables (oh yeah?) as long as they can't see them. The loopy way of thinking which insists that renewables don't work and everybody in the world can't abide the things. The liars, basically.

The upper echelons of the coalition government have to make sensible decisions about our energy future - and with Chris Huhne at the helm of Energy and Climate Change all the indicators are that onshore windfarms will play their part. Cameron (whose father-in-law has a windfarm on his estate) and Clegg (whose wife works for a renewables company) know that this is the only feasible way forward.

But then their dull minions try to prove that they've got their fingers on the pulse (of a dead body) by trotting out the tired and meaningless nimby drivel that they were sold by the likes of VVASP. Pickles abuses his power and is made to reinstate the regional plans - which includes regional plans for renewables. Local authorities have been told that their strategies have been reinstated. A common sense approach to housing and energy is back!

It's astonishing, though, how a few not-very-bright MPs can have misread the situation so badly. Surely it's time that Cameron rounded up his sheep, left Pickles stranded on a beach somewhere, and got on with the job of ensuring that Britain has electricity in a few years time.

Isn't that what being Prime Minister is all about? Fighting for Britain, rather than defending a few selfish cretins who couldn't be trusted to tell you what day of the week it was?