1. Polly Toynbee says: To launch a political hot potato like a new nuclear energy policy at a CBI dinner was no way for Tony Blair to start this debate. Gifting business this apparent sweetener looked like the final scenes of Animal Farm: the other Labour animals were obliged to press their noses against the CBI window hoping to overhear this vital conversation as their leader caroused with the farmers. It was yet another example of his defiant take-it-or-leave-it, jumping-the-gun policy making. It is not a way to persuade doubters.Blair is at his happiest when pitched against lefties and greens while outfoxing Tories. What does the energy minister Malcolm Wicks think about his review being bounced? Bumping into him yesterday, he gave a wry shrug, rolled his eyes and says: "Well, he's the prime minister ..." But his review is, he says, less about nuclear power than other things.
 
Guardian 19th May 2006
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,,1778446,00.html
 

2. Joan Ruddock writes:-  THE PRIME MINISTER wants to persuade us that Britain has no alternative but to build a new generation of nuclear power stations. He is wrong. The focus on nuclear distorts the energy debate. Securing energy supplies and reducing greenhouse gas emissions are rightly at the top of the political agenda, but they have to be considered in relation to the whole energy mix and not just to the 8 per cent provided by nuclear power. The Prime Minister says the facts are stark, and contrasts past self-sufficiency in gas with future dependence on imports. He mentions the Middle East, Africa and Russia. Everything seems designed to alarm, yet the gradual decline of North Sea gas has been known for decades and British multinationals are investing heavily in new infrastructure to ensure imports come from diverse sources. Just a year ago, the Department of Trade and Industry announced a deal with Norway that “could secure up to 20 per cent of the UK’s future gas demand”. From Russia, we get about 1 per cent of our supply through the European interconnector. Regardless of the future of nuclear, Britain will have a very considerable demand for gas and most will be imported, in common with almost all our European neighbours.
 
Times 19th May 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2187270,00.html
 

3. Joan Ruddock and Elliot Morely have put down a new EDM on nuclear power:
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=30725&SESSION=875
 

4. Tony Blair's hopes of persuading the public that a new generation of nuclear power plants is the best way to plug the country's energy gap suffered a setback yesterday after it emerged there have been 57 incidents at existing sites since 1997. They ranged from radiation leaks and machinery failure to contamination of ground water and employees' clothes, and a fire. Eleven were serious enough to be classed as an "incident" or "serious incident" on international nuclear measures, according to the Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who obtained the figures from the energy minister, Malcolm Wicks.
 
Guardian, Daily Mirror, Daily Mail 19th May 2006
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,,1778680,00.html

5. Ken Livingstone says: A decision to commission a new generation of nuclear power stations would be the great misjudgement of our generation. Tony Blair and every politician who can influence this decision needs to appreciate that it would be an expensive and dangerous mistake to go back down the nuclear road, and one that will not even solve the stated problem of climate change.

Independent 19th May 2006
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article546639.ece

6. Why Conservatives must oppose nuclear power, by Peter Franklin - Tory political advisor. Nuclear power is state power and should be opposed from the Right.

Guardian 18th May 2006
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_franklin/2006/05/conservatives_must_oppose_nucl.html

7. ONE of the more bizarre things about Tony Blair’s energy review is that it doesn’t seem to be about energy. It is about electricity, which makes up less than a fifth of the energy we use. Worse than that, the review is focused on nuclear power, which only provides a fifth of the UK’s electricity. So why are we getting so het up about such a marginal energy source that can’t even fire our central heating boilers or fuel our cars? One reason is that Blair looks like he is trying to bounce us into a premature decision. After a private briefing on the current energy review’s progress on Monday, he told a business dinner on Tuesday that nuclear power was “back on the agenda with a vengeance”. As the veteran nuclear expert Walt Patterson points out, the only reason the industry has made such advances is that some of today’s politicians and officials have forgotten its history. One glance at Dounreay, a £4 billion job-creation project to make a radioactive mess, and then clean it up, should be enough to temper their nuclear enthusiasm.
 
Sunday Herald 21st May 2006
http://www.sundayherald.com/55883
http://www.robedwards.info/2006/05/blairs_energy_r.html#more

8. Jonathan Porritt says: "The replacement of nuclear power stations, a big push on renewables and a step-change on energy efficiency are back on the agenda with a vengeance." The Prime Minister's choice of words in his recent speech to the CBI is revealing. It comes as no surprise to have it confirmed that energy efficiency and renewables have been so scandalously off the agenda since the 2003 Energy White Paper, but it's an embarrassing concession. Some argue that the principal reason why an apparently "dramatic" gap between energy supply and demand is looming is the fact that the Government has made so little progress on both these fronts over the past three years. There's an overwhelming consensus that the most cost-effective way to reduce both emissions of CO2 and dependence on gas imports is through serious investment in energy efficiency. Sadly, there's a generation of officials in the Department of Trade and Industry for whom this has always been of little interest.

Independent on Sunday 21st May 2006
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article549442.ece