Royal Biographer, Robert Hardman’s gushing, pro-coal, pro-nuclear zealotry in the Daily Mail has been received with excited shouts of triumph from coal and nuclear fanatics Trudy Harrison MP and others. Triumphalism is the stock in trade for Royal Biographers and the article in the Daily Mail is so utterly awful it is difficult to know how to begin to counter the propaganda. A cynic might say the Royal Biographer is just doing his job of protecting the Royal Assets. West Cumbria Mining have already paid mega-bucks to the Crown Estate for “Exploration Rights” under the Irish Sea, the Crown own the mineral rights of the sea-bed. Imagine how many millions the coal mine’s Exploitation Rights would be worth to the Crown Estate over the decades of creating a void the size of Scafell under the Irish Sea – and a full 25% goes to the Royal Purse.
This below is a letter I wrote to the Daily Mail following the Royal Biographers Brazen PR stunt for the coal mine.
Like so much of our work in opposing the coal mine and exposing the nuclear agenda, the letter is unpublished.
Coal Dream or Nuclear Nightmare?
Robert Hardman is wrong on every count in his Cumbria Coal “Story” (31.3.21 The eco-zealots who want to send a colliery town’s dream up in smoke: Metropolitan bien pensants’ demolition of the Cumbrian community’s hugely popular plan will be worse for the environment)
West Cumbria is far from “living contentedly” with Sellafield’s decades of bullying and discharges of radioactive wastes, including into the Irish Sea under which the coal mine is planned. In 2017 long Before Extinction Rebellion was even a thing It was local nuclear safety campaigners, many living in Whitehaven, who first blew the whistle on the coal mine, were ignored by national press, blocked from the mine’s “feel good” face book page and told to go “get a conscience” by the coal mine boss. The reason Mr Hardman didn’t see “a bat squeak of protest” is because unlike the recently banner strewn Preston New Road frack site the mine bosses (“currently focussed on coal” !) immediately remove every single trace of opposition. No dissent is allowed! Mr Hardman should’ve asked if people are “content” that the mine boss has been outrageously hired by Government to offer advice on plans for a massive nuclear waste dump under the Irish Sea. Or if West Cumbria is happy to have handed over the socially important £2.5M Heritage Lottery Funded Haig Colliery Mining Museum to the coal mine bosses for just £1. Or if people are “content” that the coal mine would impact their supplies of domestic water which are largely drawn from boreholes near Sellafield in order to “save” Ennerdale. There is only one thing worse than opening up a new coal mine and thats opening up a coal mine whose boss is hired by government to “deliver a Geological Disposal Facility.” for hot nuclear waste under the Irish Sea. The ‘heroic’ coal mine story is just that – a story to hide a nuclear nightmare.
yours sincerely
Marianne Birkby
Radiation Free Lakeland (who run the Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole campaign)
Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole 