Reactor Reaction

The Government has formalised its consent to the policy of building a new generation of nuclear power stations. Private companies are lining up to take advantage of this clean, efficient and economically viable technology, which explains why so many nuclear power stations have been built without government subsidies. It also explains why New Labour is insisting that there will not be any subsidies this time, except in "extreme circumstances", or for decommissioning, or in order to make things cheaper and easier for the companies involved or in order to create "greater certainty for investors", since the last thing anyone has a right to expect of an investor is that they should risk their money in a free market.

As on most issues other than the trivial, Her Majesty's Opposition has continued the war against Punch and Judy politics by rolling over and emitting a long, gushingly submissive stream of warm, pressurised water: "Our position is, by and large, similar to the government's", though with some important differences, such as Alan Duncan's belief that Alan Duncan, rather than Hutton the Thrift, should be Minister for Corporate Pandering. "If business wants to invest" on the basis of private profit at the taxpayer's expense, "it should be free to do so, and it should know that the investment climate will remain stable under any Conservative government".