Tory Councillors in Northumberland last week attempted to get the council to adopt an anti-windfarm policy which, if implemented, would almost certainly have put the authority on the wrong side of the law and opened it up to expensive legal challenges in the courts. The Tories in the county, with ever more threadbare credentials on green policies, were however, not entirely united in their posturing. Absent from the vote was their own "leader" Councillor Peter Jackson. I wonder if this had anything to do with his previous calls for a hardline against wind turbines being built in Northumberland whilst planning permission was being sought to intall a wind turbine on, ahem, his own land!
Quite where he was at the time of the debate on the Tory motion is not clear. Maybe he had gone with the wind. It appears his lack of willingness to back his own party's calls was shared by two other Tory Councillors who are planning committee chairs. They failed to vote for their colleagues' motion.
Meanwhile, Labour broke with tradition and decided not to vote with the Tories against the Lib Dem minority run council. Labour are normally a complete shambles on the Council. Their recent call to boost the Northumberland economy by pouring cash into advertising the area as the booze-cruise destination for Scots (following the Scottish government's plans to introduce minimum pricing of alcohol) did not go down well in the North East. Perhaps a moment of sober thought by Labour made them realise that they needed to live in the real world when it comes to wind power.
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