Dodgy Politicians
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Aviation |
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Alistair Darling |
Alistair Darling
Alistair Darling became the Secretary of State for Transport, replacing Stephen Byers. He made a cautious start but it is becoming clear that he is not prepared to address the difficult environmental issues of air transport.
The enormous rate of growth of air travel in the last few decades and the projected increases up to 2030 pose huge environmental and sustainability issues. Instead of insisting they were fully addressed in the airports consultation, he has allowed the issues to be fudged or avoided entirely. We suspect he was the minister who insisted that the Consultation Documents, written by the Department of Transport, were amended to give a more pro-growth spin.
Alistair Darling has made it clear why he will not entertain the idea of taxes or constraints on air travel - he considers it would not be popular with the voters. But instead of engaging in a proper debate, he seems more interested in defending the government's pre-determined position to promote airport expansion whatever the environmental consequences. When a government body - the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) - produced a report that raised these issues and suggested that drastic action needed to be taken, he resorted to attacking RCEP.
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Kim Howells |
Kim Howells
Kim Howells is now the Minister of State for Transport. He is responsible for 'Transport Analysis and Economics'.
Will he continue with John Spellar's misleading stories about the economic benefits of air travel? (See John Spellar's diary below for some examples of what he got up to while he was Secretary of State.)
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Tony McNulty |
Tony McNulty
Tony McNulty is the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Aviation.
It looks as if he intends to continue John Spellar's campaign of pro-aviation industry lobbying and spin. (See John Spellar's diary below for some examples of what he got up to while he was Secretary of State.)
13 Oct 03 - Seminar on global warming
At a seminar on tackling the global warming impacts of growing air travel, , sponsored by BAA, Tony McNulty
paid lip service to the
issue of global warming. But he departed from his prepared text to make a point of saying "We must
not tax aviation out of existence". This was a clear reference to Friends of the Earth's and others'
campaign for the aviation industry to pay VAT and a tax on aircraft fuel. The statement was mischievous and
misleading, since the government's own figures show that even if our proposed tax of £9 billion pa were
imposed, this would allow the industry to grow by over 50% by 2030. That is hardly taxing it out of existance!
Nov 03 - Social Market Foundation's (SMF), lunchtime meeting
At this meeting, sponsored by DHL, McNulty said that the economic contribution is paramount and referred to the
"accepted contribution" of aviation and the "accepted trends". This was misleading because as,
McNulty knows well, the 'contribution' is not accepted by many parties, who are aware it was based on a rigged study
by Oxford Economic Forecasting, paid for mainly by the industry. He also know well, because his own department's
modelling shows it, that the 'trends' will only come about if the government continues to give the industry huge tax
exemptions.
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Tony Blair |
Tony Blair
Tony Blair has now got in on the act. As well as giving tacit support to his ministers, he now feels he too has to spin and mislead on to defend his government's position on aviation. Here is an extract from the transcript of the Liaison Committee on 3rd Feb 2004.
Peter Ainsworth, MP, caught him out with this piece of attempted deception. Tony Blair: " ..the full extent of the scientific and technological possibilities of reducing the damage that aviation fuel does. It is just not feasible to say that we are going to cut the number of journeys that people make." Peter Ainsworth: "But it is not a question of cutting, is it? It is a question of massively increasing.".
Peter Ainsworth was referring to the fact that the government is proposing to increase the amount of air travel by some 150% by 2030. The environmental movement, including Peter Ainsworth and others have suggested that growth should be cut to about 57% by the simple expendient of making the aviation industry pay its fair share of taxes. The "cut" that Tony Blair referred to was in fact an increase of 57%.
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John Spellar |
John Spellar
John Spellar, Minister for Aviation, behaved more like a lobbyist for the industry than as a minister who was supposed to represent the interests of all the people of the country. See John Spellar's diary for some examples of what he got up to. Spellar has now been replaced. We wait to see whether his replacement, Kim Howells, is better.
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Graham Stringer, MP |
Graham Stringer
Graham Stringer has been a ceaseless advocate of airport expansion. As head of Manchester Airport, he was the architect of a stream of misleading propaganda about the economic and employment benefits that a 2nd runway at the airport would bring. There is no evidence that these benefits have come about. Manchester Wythenshawe remains the most deprived borough in the whole country, despite being only two miles from the airport. And there is no evidence of a jobs bonanza. The complaint to the Press Council, about the misleading claims on jobs, has been vindicated.
Now an MP, Graham Stringer continues his advocacy of the air transport industry. He seems to have forgotten that his duty is now to represent society as a whole, not the aviation industry. More on Graham Stringer.
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Lord Irvine |
Lord Irvine
Part of the Heathrow Terminal 5 scheme involved building a spur road from T5 to the M25. Research by Friends of the Earth revealed that the alignment of the road chosen by BAA and supported by the Department of Transport would have caused hedges to be destroyed illegally. Despite this, the Attorney General, Lord Irvine, refused to give leave to bring legal action. In effect he was endorsing law-breaking by BAA and the Department of Transport.
The Attorney General is one of the most senior political figures in the land and is a political appointee. Apparently, government support for the industry extends as far as breaking the law!
Lord Irvine was offered a pay rise of £22,000 (Times 8 Feb 03), no doubt due to his loyalty in doing his master's bidding. There was an uproar on hearing the news and the rise was cut back.
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Lord Goldsmith |
Lord Goldsmith
Lord Irvine has now gone - replaced by Lord Goldsmith. We wait to see whether he, like Lord Irvine, is more interested in the interests of the government's friends in big businesss than in the law and in human rights. The jury (ho ho) is still out, but the way he stood silently by while the government and the European Court of so-called Human Rights decided that the financial interests of the aviation industry are more important than the rights of UK citizens to have a good night's sleep, must give rise to concerns.