As I feared ...

I have opined before that I liked what Cameron was saying but really doubted that the Conservative party would be able to change as much as his rhetoric required. Well, it is beginning to look like those doubts may have been well-founded.

Friends of the Earth has just analysed the manifesto of the Scottish Conservatives and given it nought out of 10. That is an even worse result than the analysis of the Conservative party's voting record in the European Parliament - where much environmental law is determined - at the time of the 2004 elections. The Tories were not just the least green party in Britain, but the least green in the whole of Europe. At local level, Conservative councils are simply not heeding Cameron's green call. Even in his own constituency, the Tory West Oxfordshire council is cutting its recycling budget, despite having one of the worst recycling rates in the country. Tory Swale council is holding up the wind farm in the Thames estuary that would provide 1% of all the UK's electricity needs.

The real shame is that people will vote for this with a degree of feeling good about doing so partly because they think it would be good for the environment. However, it would appear that in actual fact it would be disastrous: the Tories will not have the environmental will power to resist the short-term profit-based calls to do things other than the right thing environmentally.
Blue won't be green | Guardian daily comment | Guardian Unlimited

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