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Tuesday 26 November 2013

"Vote blue to go green" revisited...

Conservative MPs will be addressing an event in Bristol this weekend:
Futures Forum: Save Our Green Spaces: event Sunday 1st December 

It seems that there is disquiet in the government ranks:


Tory MPs urge Cameron to stick to green agenda

Greg Barker, Laura Sandys, Zac Goldsmith and Charles Hendry, among those urging Prime Minister to include strong environmental signal in next manifesto

By Jessica Shankleman, Will Nichols
26 Nov 2013
Twenty-five Conservative MPs have reportedly warned the Prime Minister that his rhetoric and actions around rolling back green policies risk splitting the party.
David Cameron met with a group of MPs on Friday, led by Laura Sandys the Thanet South MP who yesterday announced she would step down at the next election, as well as Climate Change Minister Greg Barker, Zac Goldsmith, Charles Hendry and Oliver Coleville.
Barker yesterday toldBusinessGreen that the group met Cameron to discuss "green challenges ahead" and to push for a strong environmental vision to be included in the next Conservative manifesto.
According to The Times, the MPs have become increasingly frustrated by Cameron's hostility towards environmental policies that have been blamed for creating deep investor uncertainty in the low carbon economy. Earlier this month he pledged to "roll back green levies", and reports last week suggested he told aides to get "rid of all the green crap", however Downing Street later said it did not recognise the comments.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change has said renewable energy subsidies are not part of the green levies review, but the Prime Minister has ducked numerous opportunities to confirm whether the review is genuinely only targeted at energy efficiency policies.
When energy giant RWE today scrapped plans to build its £4bn Atlantic Array offshore wind project, it was in part over concerns that the government has been treating environmental subsidies as a "political football".
Sources told The Times the meeting became heated at points, with some traditionally loyal MPs warning Cameron that he risked losing support and splitting the party if he continued to renege on his commitment to the environment that in 2010 was marked by the campaign slogan "vote blue to go green".
"The real significance was that the 'other side', those who are sceptical, have tended to act as a bloc and have been quite rebellious, while those of us who support the green agenda can and have been taken for granted," one MP who attended the meeting said. "This was the first time we have flexed our muscles and it will have come as a shock."
















































Tory MPs urge Cameron to stick to green agenda - 26 Nov 2013 - News from BusinessGreen
Tory MPs urge Prime Minister to “stick to his green agenda” | Sidmouth Independent News

BBC NEWS | Politics | Cameron vows 'green revolution'
ConservativeHome's ToryDiary: Vote blue and go green
Paul Owen: Vote Blue To Ditch The Greens
Green Tories, or how Cameron can reclaim ‘Vote Blue to Go Green’



Build homes in London not in countryside, says ex-minister


A former Cabinet minister has attacked calls for housing to be built in the countryside for Londoners, saying more homes should be squeezed into the capital instead.
John Gummer claimed there was an “entirely fictitious view” in Whitehall that planning curbs were holding up growth. “You don’t improve our cities by moving people out into the countryside, into the suburbs,” said the ex-minister who is now Lord Deben and lives in a Suffolk beauty spot.
“There is an overwhelming housing shortage in our cities, and that is where you build.”
His attack was aimed at Conservative Planning Minister Nick Boles, who is making it easier to build in rural areas.
Lord Deben, a former agriculture minister and environment secretary who lives near Debenham, told the Eastern Daily Press it was an “urban myth”  that building outside the big cities was necessary.
But Labour’s shadow minister for London, Sadiq Khan, said: “London’s housing crisis is so severe that we need a huge programme of house building both within the city itself and in the surrounding areas and South East.”

Build homes in London not in countryside, says ex-minister - Politics - News - London Evening Standard
Former Tory cabinet minister says build in cities not in countryside | Sidmouth Independent News
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