Green Times

I saw Zac Goldsmith on HardTALK last night. Whatever people may think about the Tories new penchant for green issues Cameron certainly seems to convinced Zac that he's willing to do what it takes. The emphasis seems to be on the polluter pays, gaming the free market (which is never totally free) to make green the economically best option. It's a very Tory approach to favour the market over regulation that tends to force costs up at the expense of competitiveness. He was quite happy to say the era of "flights to Cornwall for a pound" would be a thing of the past under a Cameron government.

If there is a fly in the ointment it was on the subject of Nuclear power. The arguments over the true cost of nuclear where persuasive. The policy of "Nuclear power only if it can fund itself" is certainly a sensible one. However I'm not rabidly anti-nuclear. I'm quite satisfied we can operate safe nuclear power, and indeed its beneficial from a scientific and engineering point of view to have a nuclear industry. However the main niggle is if we don't have any nuclear capacity, and our fossil dependence drops over the medium term, what do we have for those quite windless summer days for power.

Still they don't have to convince me. I'm tired enough of Labour which for all its words still hasn't suggested legislation to reduce emissions although quite happy to go down the road of introducing thought crime on the statute book. The Lib Dems (my traditional shelter from the rabid right wings days of recent Tory leaderships) seem to of sunk without trace. While I can applaud their principled stand over not starting the Iraq war its not something I'm considering as a vote winner at the next election. The last policy they came up with which caught my attention was Local Income Tax. Since then I've heard nothing of note. Who else is coming up with policies I can get behind? Anyone care to suggest something that should get my consideration when I next vote?