“I’ll Take On the Wind Farm Nimbys From Day One” Says Ed Milliband

From THE DAILY SCEPTIC

BY RICHARD ELDRED

In an interview with the Telegraph, Shadow Energy Secretary Ed Miliband revealed his plan to lift the ban on building new onshore wind farms if Labour wins the General Election. Here’s an excerpt:

The Shadow Energy Secretary pledged a Labour Government will overturn planning rules that currently require local community support to approve proposed turbines. 

If he wins office he plans to use a ministerial “written statement” to remove an obligation in the national planning policy framework for community concerns to be “appropriately addressed”, a stipulation that has effectively blocked onshore wind projects for a decade.

The onshore wind ban was introduced by then-Prime Minister Lord Cameron in 2015, who was so worried by the backlash from Nimbys over a rash of planned wind farms that he gave local communities across England the right to block them.

“The onshore wind ban was a deeply unfair measure… and we want to lift it,” Mr. Miliband told the Telegraph. “At the moment, it’s easier to build an incinerator than it is to build an onshore wind development.”

Those plans are certain to generate a backlash, as they already have in Wales where the Labour Government has created zones called “pre‑assessed areas for wind energy”. 

Mr. Miliband said: “People have different views on the onshore wind ban but we’re going to lift it. 

“According to the Resolution Foundation, it [the ban] has cost poorer households six times more as a proportion of their income than middle-class households. And we’re going to get the fairness thing right.”

The zoning system in Wales means vast tracts of countryside have been deemed suitable for wind farms, whatever locals might think.

That has prompted a surge in planning applications for giant wind turbines up to 800ft tall, two to three times larger than any yet built in the principality.

Protest groups have sprung up everywhere from Anglesey in the north to Powys in the south. Similar battles are being fought across the Scottish highlands against both turbines and electricity pylons.

Worth reading in full.

5 8 votes
Article Rating

Discover more from Watts Up With That?

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

67 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Bob
June 23, 2024 10:10 pm

What can I say? Your worthless government at work.

Reply to  Bob
June 23, 2024 10:35 pm

A numpty fighting NIMBIES?

Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
June 24, 2024 12:20 am

That’s very harsh on genuine numpties. Millibrain is far worse

Reply to  Ben Vorlich
June 24, 2024 3:25 am

Yes, imposing windmills on people who don’t want them is far worse.

Eng_Ian
June 23, 2024 10:12 pm

I wonder if he’ll object to a gallows being assembled in front of his house.

Asking for a friend.

Reply to  Eng_Ian
June 24, 2024 12:20 am

There are likely lampposts clise by.

Dave Fair
Reply to  Ben Vorlich
June 24, 2024 9:15 am

And the traditional piano wire.

Reply to  Dave Fair
June 24, 2024 11:26 am

I think it was good old rope back in the old medieval days. Hope crow genetics are still geared to pecking out the eyes first in our neo-medieval progressive days.

Bryan A
June 23, 2024 10:16 pm

Perhaps His house should be the first location where Wind Turbines are installed via fast track. Just be sure that their blade shadows cover his Eastern, Southern and Western windows!

Bill Toland
Reply to  Bryan A
June 24, 2024 2:07 am

Ed Miliband does indeed have a nice house in London. However, according to the Guardian, he only uses the smaller of his two kitchens. This interview with the Guardian was a bizarre attempt to show that he was in touch with the working class which his party claims to represent.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/13/ed-miliband-two-kitchens-use-smaller-one

Reply to  Bill Toland
June 24, 2024 3:27 am

Two kitchens, huh?

Everybody has two kitchens, don’t they?

I wonder if his kitchens are all-electric?

Reply to  Tom Abbott
June 24, 2024 4:23 am

I have 2 sinks.. does that count ??

Bryan A
Reply to  bnice2000
June 24, 2024 5:15 am

Only if they’re Carbon Sinks

bobpjones
Reply to  bnice2000
June 24, 2024 8:48 am

Well, Arthur had two sheds.

1saveenergy
Reply to  bobpjones
June 25, 2024 12:27 pm

I’ve got 2 shoes; 1 left & 1 right, to help me to choose who to vote for (:-))

Reply to  1saveenergy
June 27, 2024 3:35 am

Don’t tell Diane Abbott.

comment image

Scarecrow Repair
June 23, 2024 10:28 pm

Could Ed single-handedly lose the election for Labour?

Reply to  Scarecrow Repair
June 23, 2024 10:36 pm

No, the generally uninformed electorate will continue to vote for free stuff.

Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
June 23, 2024 11:14 pm

No, the generally uninformed electorate will continue to vote for free stuff other people pay for.

June 23, 2024 10:57 pm

No ministerial “written statement” available to overturn a fracking ban then?

The usual pre election empty promises we have become so familiar with under the tories.

I give the Labour party 2 years before it begins to implode and Starmer will be out in three, if not another snap election will be called.

Labour is as big a train wreck as the tories are right now and no more equipped to deal with geopolitical changes that are going to change the world within five years than the tories.

Reply to  HotScot
June 24, 2024 1:43 am

I would say an even bigger train wreck, not just clueless but actively destructive and deeply unpleasant with it. The Tories deserve to be wiped out, but the likely replacement will be worse. I guess if Labour also collapse in your suggested timeframe that’ll at least limit the time for their further destruction of the country. Quite what will replace them we’ll have to wait and see.

Reply to  HotScot
June 24, 2024 12:06 pm

While I agree with the sentiment(s), who would be calling the snap election? Don’t the phony champagne socialists like to avoid elections when they have a majority?

I’m an ex-Pat so, just trying to keep up.

Reply to  philincalifornia
June 25, 2024 12:09 am

A vote of no confidence would force the issue, which would be very likely in the event starmer overplays his hand, or is knifed in the back by Angela Rayner, as seems likely.

auto
Reply to  Archer
June 25, 2024 6:39 am

The Ginger Angel of Ashton is completely loyal to Sir Starmer, the Beige Knight.
I know.
I dreamt it – so it must be true.

Auto

Bill Toland
June 23, 2024 11:09 pm

“According to the Resolution Foundation, it [the ban] has cost poorer households six times more as a proportion of their income than middle-class households. And we’re going to get the fairness thing right.”

This quote beautifully illustrates the fairy tale world that Ed Miliband inhabits. In Miliband’s world, wishful thinking and innumeracy are compulsory.

Reply to  Bill Toland
June 23, 2024 11:21 pm

So Mini-brain is going to push electricity prices up by six times…. so everything is “fair” and “virtuous”

Ok.. Now that I can believe !

strativarius
June 24, 2024 12:10 am

No bacon sandwich this time

Miliband is every bit as bad as his father

UK-Weather Lass
June 24, 2024 12:38 am

Mr Miliband has ably demonstrated already that he hasn’t a clue about climate change, climate mitigation or the big failures of wind and solar when it comes to reliability, cost, efficiency. and even competition from cleaner alternatives. He is a complete and utter prat.

If he is the quality to be expected from the Labour benches then God help the UK if his Party wins a majority on July 4th. The UK will have repeated the stupidity seen in the last US presidential election and it could even prove to be even worse than that for us.

We have been in this poor place many times before. Reform is the party of sense. Labour, like the Tories, is full of nonsense and has no idea what good policy looks like. Take Labour’s record on COVID-19 wanting longer and more crippling lockdowns than the egregious Johnson ever did, and judge them upon that alone.

We are in a big mess with no true or real democratic choices.

Reply to  UK-Weather Lass
June 24, 2024 3:37 am

“We are in a big mess with no true or real democratic choices.”

That’s what it looks like.

It looks like Labour is leaning towards dictatorial powers when it comes to the Net Zero insanity. If they control the legislature, then they can impose anything they want on the people, and from what they are saying, that’s what they intend to do when it comes to climate change.

With Labour running the show, I think that would put the UK at the top of the list for the first nation to destroy itself over Net Zero insanity. The UK and Germany are running neck and neck for first place, and I think a totalitarian Labour win would put the UK out in front.

bobpjones
Reply to  UK-Weather Lass
June 24, 2024 10:29 am

I’ll never forget how the sycophant fawned over “how dare you” Greta at the COP. Totally embarrassing, just proved he had no brain.

Phillip Bratby
June 24, 2024 12:54 am

Ed Microbrain lives in his London mansion, so is not affected by wind turdbines.

strativarius
Reply to  Phillip Bratby
June 24, 2024 1:07 am

And he has two kitchens…

Dave Andrews
Reply to  strativarius
June 24, 2024 10:44 am

But only one kitchen he allows publicity photos to be taken!

Bryan A
Reply to  Phillip Bratby
June 24, 2024 5:17 am

Perhaps he should be made to live with one in his front yard

Uncle Mort
June 24, 2024 1:23 am

Ed is a useful reminder that there are professional imbeciles among us. There are university courses to cater for their ambitions too.

Reply to  Uncle Mort
June 24, 2024 3:42 am

There are a LOT of professional imbeciles among us. The whole Western world is infested with them.

Reply to  Tom Abbott
June 24, 2024 10:08 am

The whole Western world is infested with them.

With an exceptionally high percentage in government.

Reply to  Uncle Mort
June 24, 2024 7:14 am

Intuitively, there’s a practical limit to the extent of parasitic government before it collapses the real economy. The role of the so-called intellectual class, your ‘professional imbeciles’, is to help the government keep the much larger non-governmental population in line.

June 24, 2024 1:46 am

On Shore wind utilization is 16% in the UK, the best sites are in the North and West with no grid to connect to as they are remote. So they either build them down south at the lowest unitisation but feed their low output into the grid, or build up North and then get paid not to produce as the grid can’t take it. Take your choice, either way the Grid blackouts will happen but the bird mincer owners will get paid.

bobpjones
Reply to  kommando828
June 24, 2024 10:33 am

Is that an accurate, irrefutable statistic? If so, have you got a link? Would be nice to stick that in someone’s pipe.

Reply to  bobpjones
June 24, 2024 2:32 pm

No it isn’t. Here’s a chart showing the history from Government data

Renewables-Capacity-Factors-to-q4-23
Reply to  It doesnot add up
June 25, 2024 6:14 am

Reality is a long way short of the green propaganda even if it is a bit above kommando828’s information.

June 24, 2024 3:17 am

Britain’s worst most corrupt energy minister ever.
God help us

June 24, 2024 3:23 am

From the article: ““The onshore wind ban was a deeply unfair measure… and we want to lift it,” Mr. Miliband told the Telegraph”

Unfair to whom? The windmill companies? The subsidy miners?

Dave Andrews
Reply to  Tom Abbott
June 24, 2024 11:02 am

“The onshore wind ban was a deeply unfair measure” There are only 9 words in that statement that Miliband doesn’t understand. Good by his standards

Ed Zuiderwijk
June 24, 2024 3:59 am

I foresee a thriving market in explosives.

Reply to  Ed Zuiderwijk
June 27, 2024 11:30 am

When hydrogen doesn’t work they will try those to power our cars.

Nik
June 24, 2024 4:19 am

Airstrip One is now in the works.

Jeff
June 24, 2024 4:41 am

Milliband, we are going to build bird killers whether or not you like it.

June 24, 2024 5:42 am

Here is an example of the output from the Resolution Foundation. Not sure if it is Miliband’s source, but it is certainly related subject matter.

https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2024/04/Electric-dreams.pdf

bobpjones
Reply to  DavsS
June 24, 2024 10:36 am

Only got halfway through the second paragraph. They’re totally bl**dy mad! Even a kindergarten schoolkid, knows better.

Reply to  bobpjones
June 24, 2024 2:36 pm

As their credits state:

The authors are grateful for insightful conversations and feedback
from staff at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, The
Climate Change Committee, HM Treasury, the National Infrastructure
Commission, Ofgem, Energy UK, National Grid and National Grid ESO,
Commonwealth, SSE, LCP, and Ember.

These are the real loons.

Dave Andrews
Reply to  DavsS
June 24, 2024 11:07 am

The stated aim of the Resolution Foundation is to “improve the standard of living of low to middle income families” Their electric dreams obviously come from La La Land

Iain Reid
Reply to  DavsS
June 24, 2024 11:31 pm

DavsS,

that is the problem, nobody in government or in the civil service seem to understand the grid collectively and how it works (As with most technical subjects). Therefore they seek advice from experts, but if they are ignorant of the technicalities how do they pick the right ‘expert’?
I have asked the what was the Business Enterprise and Industrial Strategy now the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero who their advisors are with no reply in over two years.
Presumably Mr Miliband has his advisors, and I wonder who they are, they certainly are not real; experts.

ntesdorf
June 24, 2024 6:20 am

Ed Milliband is a fanatical, ignorant, Super-Looney.

Reply to  ntesdorf
June 24, 2024 2:37 pm

Unfortunately he will find himself in very good company at DESNZ and the quangos.

June 24, 2024 6:33 am

 Miliband says:
“At the moment, it’s easier to build an incinerator than it is to build an onshore wind development.”

That’s how it should be. An incinerator serves a benefit to the area while wind development is not economical, productive, or ecologically sound.
I think he should be forced into community service to pick up all the dead birds and bats under the presently operating windmills.

June 24, 2024 6:34 am

“The Shadow Energy Secretary pledged a Labour Government will overturn planning rules that currently require local community support to approve proposed turbines. ”

Same thing is in the works here in Wokeachusetts for wind and solar- especially solar as nobody wants wind on land- and hardly anyone complains about wind at sea.

Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
June 24, 2024 8:13 am

It’s some of the most fanatic greens who are most opposed to reducing local planning rules for green energy. Now they’re turning against solar “farms”- to protect farms and forests (they want forests locked up forever killing the logging industry). They stupidly think putting solar on all roofs and parking lots will get them to net zero nirvana.

Rod Evans
June 24, 2024 7:12 am

Few people command less respect than Ed Miliband.
This is the man who put the 2008n Climate Change act through Parliament and provided the vehicle for the Tory PM Theresa May to append the Net Zero legislation without any member of Parliament being allowed to vote on it.
He is a thoroughly Marxist thinking individual from a Marxist family his father was a famous card carrying Communist.
The woke are being given the keys to Downing St. because the incumbent Tory Party are as woke as woke Labour.
To be fair to Miliband, he is dangerous but focused, unlike one of his upcoming cabinet colleagues David Lammy. There we have a man so dim, he thinks Marie Antoinette won the Nobel prize for physics for discovering Radium, and then went on to suggest Henry the 7th took over the throne following the death of Henry the 8th…. Lammy is dangerous and dim a far more concerning situation for the nation’s soon to be Foreign Secretary.

Reply to  Rod Evans
June 24, 2024 10:25 am

The sad thing is, even if May had put her Net Zero amendment to a vote it would have passed with scarcely a vote against, though probably with squeals from the usual suspects that it wasn’t going far or fast enough to save the world.

Reply to  DavsS
June 24, 2024 2:42 pm

The amendment was promoted by one Chris Skidmore. He has recently joined Labour, and is obviously angling either to take over from Chris Stark, who departs as CEO at the CCC next Sunday, or to replace interim CCC Chair Prof Piers Forster. Skidmore has a psychopathic personality, willing to inflict injury on everyone, as his promotion of Net Zero shows. He was also responsible for the legal wording which the UK Supreme Court relied on recently to overturn drilling at Horse Hill near Gatwick Airport.

MarkW
June 24, 2024 8:09 am

How dare those peons disagree with us!!!

cotpacker
June 24, 2024 9:57 am

They love that democracy and free speech stuff for XR and Greenpeace, not so much for locals, farmers and bill payers.

George Thompson
June 24, 2024 11:51 am

You Brits have a funny idea about property rights…unfortunately those funny ideas are spreading to the States. I used to think that dictatorial moves were out of style in “free” countries…then we got a few Dem presidents outlawing every thing from light bulbs to water heaters with a “pen and a phone”…and trying to overrun local zoning laws concerning bird choppers. I guess we’re both screwed.

Badgercat55
June 24, 2024 2:01 pm

As Robert Bryce says about NIMBYS: Everyone should be concerned about what’s being built in their “back yards”.