West Cumberland Mining by David J. Douglass

Will This Be The Last Great Fight Of The BRITISH MINERS?

IT SEEMS utterly ridiculous that the plan to open ONE very small coal mine in Whitehaven which will provide essential steel coal for the steel industry, and supply the work starved area with a total of 2500 jobs should have become such a global battleground. Given the ongoing destruction of the rain forests and jungles, the never-ending consumption of trees one would have thought the ecological warriors would have other things to focus on. Yet here we have the Labour Party as a National Institution ensuring that their Shadow cabinet, and Shadow spokespeople on all subjects took every opportunity to use the TV platforms they had been called to discuss China, or the Far East, the NHS or whatever, to dive straight in an stamp and scream about this coal mine.

Labour has made stopping this mine front and centre of its politics, it tells you that its former alleged commitment to the miners and our communities was skin deep at best and sheer hypocrisy in all probability. Now John Kerry, the architect of the global green capitalist revolution and US ambassador for the Environment and Global Warming has an urgent meeting with the Prime Minister and what is top his agenda? US coal mining, strip mining, world drought, starvation, destruction of forests and natural environments???

NO, our wee coal mine. Remember that at present the coal for British steel, comes from coal shipped from the USA, is he telling us this will now stop? Will US coal be prevented from coming here or being shipped to China or anywhere? No its our mine he wants to stop not theirs. Is American steel now going to stop production, and stop using steel coal? No of course not. So now Boris tells Jenrick to overturn his previous decision to leave the question to the Cumberland County Council who have approved it four times. The Government will now set up 'an enquiry' of course Jenrick has already studied in detail the massive reams of evidence considered at Council public enquiries which had dozens of expert witnesses. He already defacto agreed the case for the mine by not pulling the plug before.

So, its hard to know just what 'new evidence' other than Kerry and the Green hysterics, and Labour and Lib Dem's and the Climate Committee all talking out of their backsides; can look at. If he is genuinely looking at this, I hope I get the chance to speak. The 2500 people of Whitehaven who seen the chance for a new tomorrow and desperately needed jobs and new lives will have their lives left dangling over the crevasse of enduring social deprivation and poverty in one of the most socially neglected areas of Britain meantime, while the well-heeled middle class green liberals are doubtless dancing a jig.

If the mine is stopped, will steel imports and production be stopped, will all steel manufacture be stopped? No, it will not, so will any 'emissions' from coke and steel manufacture be saved? Not at all, not one once of c02 or methane will be 'saved' in fact it will increase because of the extra emissions caused by shipping the steel or coal across the Atlantic or from the Baltic or Australia. This is an exercise in self-serving virtue signalling hypocrisy with more than a touch of class hatred.

This may turn out to be the last great fight of the British miners, we ought never to forget whose side our self declared friends fought on.

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Trees not Cars by John Wilkins

.– a victory for the people

I GOT an e-mail today that lifted my spirits. It asked me to tell my friends about the success of a campaign to stop Manchester City Council turning derelict land (formerly a retail park) into a 440 space car park.

Well done to all the people of Ancoats and others who had who started to turn this derelict land into green open space for adults and children to use. The campaign called 'Trees not Cars' petitioned the Council with over 12,000 signatories supporting it.

Trees Not Cars have won a judicial review against Manchester City Council, blocking them from using the former Central Retail Park as a temporary 440-space car park next to the city centre's only primary school.

 

It marks a major victory for “a grassroots community group that has campaigned tirelessly for over 18 months to stop the plans which completely ignored the impact on air pollution in an attempt to force the plans through.”

In finding in favour of 'Trees not Cars' the review found that Manchester Council had:

• Failed to consider the impact of air quality on the local area around Ancoats

• ​Failed to consider the impact of building a polluting 440-space car park next to the only primary school in Manchester city centre.

 

• Was unlawful in that the Council recommended planning approval based on the wrong information, the wrong air quality assessment, and traffic analysis.

 

Manchester Council was represented by a team of lawyers led by Christopher Katkowski QC, a London-based barrister  said to be  one of the leading planning specialists in the country.  Katkowski is an advisor to Boris Johnson痴 Government and  architect  behind the Government’s proposed controversial new planning laws that would see sweeping changes to the planning system.

The campaign is now calling for the council to reopen their development framework for the 10 acre site to genuine community input. Trees Not Cars, following their legal victory, have reiterated their call that the Council “must now include significant green space and affordable housing on the site.”

The Council seemed to think the money they would have raised from turning the land into a large car park was more important than residents well being. As well as a victory for the environment it can now be a pleasant open space for local people, many of whom live in high rise buildings!

 

Despite the excessive amount of money the Council has put into defending their actions they lost. It should give encouragement to us that if enough people speak out then they can effect change.

Sorry Sir Richard Leese the people have spoken!

Read more @ https://tinyurl.com/y6v5a46m

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Bullying & Arm-Twisting Halts Cumberland County Council Approval of a New Mine

by David John Douglass

I AM so disappointed that the Woodhouse Mine which had passed every test and been approved by the County Council has been suddenly pulled to a halt. This Labour Council had considered the question three times over three years, with a bevy of expert witnesses and public intervention and open debates and approved it three times by substantial majorities.

Every aspect of the application had been examined in forensic detail and no fault could be found in it. Climate extremists had kept up a nonstop campaign to stop the mine. Despite a mass public consultation which overwhelmingly backed the mine, the ‘greens’ would not accept any democratic decision of the council or the locals. First, they sought a Judicial Review, and this was withdrawn by the courts as having no grounds. Then it went to the High Court on the absurd claim that the Council hadn’t considered their arguments, the court struck it down. Then they kicked and screamed and set up a national petition to get people, mainly from the middle class and from the south of England who had never seen a mine or even knew where Whitehaven was to demand a stop to the jobs. They expected Jenrick the Communities Secretary, being a Tory with no love of coal miners or coal mines to block it. They lobbied the Prime Minister to override the Council. They failed, after every obstacle had been overcome and all that was needed now was for the Council to engage in the formality of approving the application (again).

Today Council leaders came to the shocking decision that the judgement will be referred back to their Committee 'after advice from Climate Advisers' obviously with a view to reconsidering the previous overwhelming approvals of the full Council.

So what happened? There has as said been a three-year campaign of bullying, and lobbying against all of the Councillors, XR and Greenpeace moved their full time agents into the area and full time Press Officers have ensure that their friends in the TV and Radio and National Press kept up a nonstop and one sided barrage against the mine and against the Councillors. Doorstepping them, ambushing them on the street, filming outside their houses and through windows of Council meetings.

But there is not the slightest doubt in my mind where this rapid application of brakes comes from and that is the Labour Party PLP and Shadow cabinet.

Firstly, we had Catherine West MP Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Shadow Minister. Brought onto the TV news channels to discus the election of Biden and British American relations she instead launches into an attack on the new mine! Nothing to do with her brief, nothing to do with the programme but Starmer had obviously given the steer to oppose the mine and win votes from the nice liberal greens in the London elections. West was of course the PA to David Lammy who was next in line to carry the torch on Any Questions. Admitting he knew nothing about the mine and nothing about steel making he argued that it should be cancelled because ‘we don’t need coal in this day and age’ and thus proving the point he in fact didn’t know anything about steel making or the need for this mine. But the Prime Directive undoubtedly came from Ed Miliband the Shadow Energy Minister on the Marr programme on Sunday. Once again, this topic had not been on the agenda or Marr’s script but Miliband was determined to let the country in general and Cumberland Council in particular know that Labour wants Dole Not Coal. Obviously, some senior Labour Party Council leaders have been got at and warned to pull the approval. To be a fly on the wall of the calls that must have come thick and fast from London labour Party HQ would have been a great illustration of political duplicity.

Its literally physically and politically sickening. We have yet to discover the date of the Committee Meeting and whether it will be public or we will get to find out who the mysterious ‘Climate Advisers’ are and what they have said that hadn’t already been said in the last three years.

The Committee isn’t bound to withdraw consent, and the full council isn’t bound to agree with them if they did, but it all adds an impossible mental and political strain on decent Councillors men and women who had been trying to the best for their community.

I will be writing to the Council with a view to urging them to hold their nerve and stand their ground and approve the mine. I hope you will join me and do so yourselves.

So next time we think back in anger when they try to unveil the statue of Thatcher and we turn up to protest at the slaughter of our mines and robbing the miners and our families of secure futures. We should also remember that Starmer and Labour have just banged a stake through our hearts to ensure we don’t come back to haunt them. With a Labour Parliamentary Party like this who needs bloody Tories?

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