Andrew Bingham - Tweedledumber

Last week's Glossop Advertiser saw a number of all-too-familiar letters from pro-bypass fuckwits decrying the Highways Agency's decision to withdraw from the Public Inquiry. But amongst them was nestled this letter from High Peak Borough Councillor Andrew Bingham, the Tories Parliamentary Candidate for the area.

In it, Bingham paints a picture all too familiar because it's the same one painted by Tom Levitt, the man whose job he's after: the Bypass as the key to capitalist prosperity for the High Peak, representing an alleviation of all the traffic problems in the area, supported by almost everyone (none of whom can actually be bothered to officially do so). 

In our view, these non-differences between Labour and Conservative represent all that the political and economic system can offer here or anywhere else. They demonstrate the hollowness of both parties claims to an environmentally sound future where the infinite growth of markets is both necessary and desirable. Neither of them have anything to offer to anyone who believes in anything different.

You won't be surprised to learn that Bingham is as big a fan of the New Mills Torrs Hydro as is Levitt.  For us, this speaks volumes about his credibility, but we won't labour the point lest it appear to be our hobby-horse. 

Our sincere hope is that the legitimacy of the world of Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber, as represented by Bingham and Levitt, is on it's way out. Since it would appear to be high likely that Bingham will replace Levitt at the next General Election, we'll be keeping our eyes on him over the coming months.

Tom Levitt's latest greenwash

He's at it again. Tom Levitt's 'green' pronunciations are starting to become a regular occurrence, along with those about the recession, and his latest bit of news sees the two converging in the usual ironic manner of his ham-fisted but contradictory announcements.

Levitt's helping to promote the East Midlands Regional Climate Change Programme which "details how regional, local and individual action can be co-ordinated to help tackle climate change". This is the same individual that only last week was declaring how furious he was that 4NW had put back funding for the Longdendale Bypass, the single most environmentally damaging project in his constituency, if not the whole of the East Midlands and North West. 

To remind Tom, the same Programme of Action he is promoting commits (at 1.3) to "mitigating climate change" which means "reducing greenhouse gas emissions". Yet the Longdendale Bypass will increase CO2 emissions in the area by 15,480 tonnes per annum. Levitt is standing in the way of the progress that the document he is promoting wants to make!

But there's more irony in store. The same article shows him wittering on about the 'Moors for the Future' project which aims to restore the peat moorlands in the High Peak. Yet those same moorlands in Levitt's constituency are threatened by the increased CO2 emissions the bypass will bring. 

The article also quotes a Lynne Cardwell, apparently Labour's spokesperson in New Mills and clearly born yesterday:

"As we know from the huge popular support for the Torrs Hydropower scheme, awareness of green issues is very high in New Mills"

Regular readers will know our views about the Torrs Hydro Project - we think it's a greenwash project, which explains Levitt's enthusiasm for it. It encapsulates the contradictions this man constantly promotes. You wouldn't expect a member of the local Labour Party to call out Levitt on his Greenwash, and Lynne Cardwell doesn't disappoint them in this respect. The toadies and lickspittles that surround Levitt help him to promote two contradictory viewpoints and the bullshit continues to issue forth. When will it end?

Tom Levitt - Shite man speak with forked tongue

You may remember an article we published in July last year about how Tom Levitt was attaching himself to the Torrs Hydro Energy scheme in New Mills, hoping that some of it's apparent Green-ness would rub off onto him.

His first column in the Glossop Chronicle for 2009 is entitled 'Tackling Climate Change' - ahem - and with a completely straight face, goes on to say "reducing carbon emissions quite literally saves the planet"* and pays tribute again to the Torrs Hydro project. The irony that the Torrs Hydro project has cut a deal to provide energy for a local supermarket is completely lost on Levitt, as it probably will be on most people. 

But nonetheless, just re-read Levitt's words in the light of last week's announcement from Geoff Who?/Hoon about Heathrow - on the same day it appears in the local newspaper, Who? craps great blobs of Carbon all over Tom's lovely Greenwashed masterpiece.We wonder what went through Tom's mind? I wonder if he's forgotten that he also supports the Longdendale Bypass and the nigh on 15,500 extra tons of CO2 it will belch into the atmosphere? 

Levitt is perhaps one of the most perfectly formed examples of a walking contradiction we've come across. 

But it gets better. Just as we've been writing this, his column for this week's Chronicle has popped up on his website. And guess what it's about? Heathrow's third runway. 

Tom's keen to tell us he was so eager to support it that he signed a motion for it BEFORE Hoon declared war on the environment last week. We'll let you read this drivel yourself, but Levitt finishes it with a classic Orwellian doublespeak phrase "the greenest action is not always the obvious one" - he presumably thinks that the construction of a third runway at Heathrow and a proto-motorway here is somehow evened up by a Greenwash project that powers a supermarket.

Is that what he means by obvious? 

WILL SOMEONE TELL US EXACTLY WHAT HE MEANS?

*We think Tom means 'humanity's future' here - the planet will sort itself out, whatever we throw at it, but we may not be able to dodge what it throws at us.

Will Cosmetic Energy Schemes Save the World?

The artful reader will see that there is only one reasonable answer to this question, and that would be "no"! But what kind of scheme is cosmetic, and likely to prevent real measures that are really responsible and necessary reactions to climate change? And what is wrong with Gordon Brown being allowed to feel good about himself, by committing to 15% renewable energy? Surely no right minded person would quarrel with that?

Let us start our search for the right green energy strategy locally, with the Torrs Hydro Project and be as fair minded as possible. In New Mills, Tom Levitt has put his considerable parliamentary clout - although in the above video nobody seems to take much notice of him speaking, and the Speaker has to call the House to order to allow him to do so - to bring to the Nations attention a hydro-electric scheme in New Mills. Apparently this scheme can generate enough power for a few hundred homes - hardly a major impact on the 10,000 inhabitants of New Mills then and maybe why Jack Straw saw the funny side and can be seen laughing and joking throughout!

Although it is dubbed a "community project" it is probably safe to assume the energy would be simply handed straight over for a payment to the national grid, so where is the community in that - except the impact on the community resource of the Torrs, where visitors will apparently have an Archimedean Screw to negotiate?

So our verdict on the project, without wishing to be harsh, is that is probably more than a little "cosmetic" when one considers its size and the disproportionate amount one hears about it even at National Level. Why Tom Levitt has latched onto it with such vigour is fairly clear, as I will explain below, but it is worth pointing out that it would be not the only hydro electric plant in his constituency, perhaps not the most productive, but seemingly the one he likes to talk up his green credentials with.

And make no mistake Tom Levitt, whilst being a supporter of the highly un-environmental A628 Bypass, is very keen to be portrayed as an Environmentalist, taking pride in his roots as an erstwhile teacher of environmental science. As such, Tom Levitt is in our view completely symptomatic of the current national malaise of political groups stealing the green clothes of the "Eco movement" now that environmental concerns have suddenly become pressing, or as these people probably see it "fashionable". They like the idea of small unproductive projects simply because they allow development in green belt areas and allow them to avoid "biting the bullet" (as Tom would say) that one day will have to be bit - of reducing car and plane emissions.

In my view, a major part of Gordon Brown's entire "renewable energy strategy" is to offer respectability and careers to silence green groups that call for emissions cuts in transport, and who can be found to support cosmetic schemes at the expense of the countryside and the planet in terms of putting off what really needs doing.

My understanding is that there is a component of off-shore wind farms within the Bill that has a grain of sense in it, and that will be meaningfully productive, and to these I would cautiously lend support. However this component is completely undermined as I see it by the specious attempt of the Strategy - in partnership with the dangerous Planning Reform Bill - to gain infrastructure and planning access for developers into hitherto restricted open countryside and green belt.

The fact of the parliamentary exchange between Tom and Gordon Brown - set up through mention of the "tiny" New Mills scheme to allow the PM to put on his "green suit" again - is to my eyes a seriously worrying assault on the intelligence of the nation. Hopefully people are too smart to fall for this. Otherwise cue the "greying of the UK" courtesy of the Grey PM and his grey MPs, a "greying" where every sustainable project has to have a hidden agenda of allowing motorway junction expansion, or releasing some coveted but previously unattainable beauty spot to the JCBs.