Sack the minister, ignore the review: Blair’s nuclear plans

OK, so we have known for months that Tony Blair has favoured nuclear power in order to keep the UK’s CO2 emissions down. Last night, giving a speech to the CBI, he gave the clearest statement yet that he backs a new generation of nuclear plants (Guardian article here). This has prompted former Environment Minister Elliott Morley to go public in his criticisms of Blair and – reading between the lines of this piece – the nuclear issue was probably the reason for the sacking. Blair’s statement also pre-empts the results of the DTI’s Energy Review, due in a couple of months. So here we go again: Blair trying to be strong, leading from the front, but and making it clear he actually doesn’t much give a damn about the very review he set up and not really caring about the views of the cabinet or the party.

[UPDATE: 18.05.2006, 00:20]
It brought a small smile to my face when I discovered that The Guardian’s News Blog has quoted a line from this post in their ‘Blog Fission‘ round-up. So that’s The Guardian and Aftonbladet in one week… 🙂