Secret nuclear talks held at No 10

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3333864.ece

Secret nuclear talks held at No 10
Ministers kept no record – and tried to hide details – of Brown adviser's meetings with energy chiefs Brown's special adviser met energy chiefs off the record, before new power plants were announced
Published: 13 January 2008

By Andy Rowell and Richard Cookson

The Government held at least nine secret meetings at Downing Street with the bosses of nuclear energy companies while it formulated controversial plans for a new generation of the power plants, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

No official records were kept of the discussions with the companies, which stand to profit from Gordon Brown's announcement last Thursday that he was approving a new generation of nuclear power plants.

The Government initially tried to block details of the meetings requested under the Freedom of Information Act. However, last week it revealed that Geoffrey Norris, Gordon Brown's energy adviser, met bosses from EDF, British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), E.ON and British Energy at a crucial phase in the Government's deliberations.

Confirmation that there are no official records of the meetings adds to concern that certain advisers can operate outside the rules of government accountability.

<snip>

policy anymore - In Secret. Like we voters are just too damn dumb and untrustworthy to be involved in the process. Is this really Democracy?

I believe this type of policy formulation is the natural outcome of "Free Market" or neoliberal economic development. The "free market" policies have to be developed in Secret because the politicians know citizens would object to mass subsidies to corporations while the poor get their benefits cut and the Unions are beaten down. They are getting ready to foster another give away to corporations onto the citizens and they don't want to let it be known until they are ready to make it sound like a good thing.

Last night I caught a segment on one of the MSM shows about Mitten's tour of Michigan. Though I understand the need to campaign for job growth in the state with the highest official unemployment in the country, he seems to believe it's the people's responsibility, again, to bail out the automakers. You know, the ones that killed the electric car, fight against every attempt to legislate higher mileage and lower pollution standards and spend their advertising budgets brainwashing the gullible into believing they need a vehicle larger than their house - with even worse mileage.

When the executives of the car companies - or any other corporation, for that matter - peg their salaries, bonuses and golden parachutes to the performance of the company under their leadership, I might begin to believe they're serious. However, that's never going to happen. Recall when Enron got a huge bailout package then paid it out in executive bonuses? That's the solution a corporate owned government with corporate masters is going to get us, every time.

It's time to allow the monstrous, multi-national American corporations stand on their own and to fail if they're being badly run. We can either set an example of corporate responsibility or stock up on Crisco.

Brown is totally in the pocket of business and his total approach to climate change is ecological modernization so organizing secret meetings is totally unsurprising.

Re DCKit's response, yep totally agree. Why back lame ducks.