Category: Public Opinion

An unwelcome gift

An unwelcome gift

A while back a friend gave me what another friend, Tina, subsequently described as  an unwelcome gift – an invitation to a meeting about something called fracking. Fracking is a way of extracting gas from the earth using methods which have some very detrimental effects on the environment and on...

Lord Howell’s return to the desolate North

Lord Howell’s return to the desolate North

Well, desolate and derelict actually http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fracking/10828543/Government-drive-for-fracking-losing-thousands-of-Tory-votes-Lord-Howell-warns.html http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/fracking-lord-howell-george-osbornes-3536842 Alan Tootill has summed up what has actually been said by Lord Howell below and, beneath the hype it is quite interesting and revealing. The atmosphere at Mr Osborne’s next family gathering may be a trifle frosty. On consideration, he has the right...

Numbers are pesky things ….

Numbers are pesky things ….

Sometimes politicians seem to be unable to forget figures which make them feel comfortable, even when more recent numbers contradict them, so yesterday we saw Mr Cameron trotting out his favourite 74,000 jobs from fracking rubbish? “Rubbish?” I hear you ask … Well, we demolished this figure on this blog...

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Councillor Gordon McCann and the “criminals” of RAFF

Last night saw a meeting of the Standards Committee of Wyre Council. The first item on the agenda was the reprehensible behaviour of Cllr Gordon McCann (pictured right) at this Summer’s Shale Gas World Conference. We reported on that sorry story here According to Wyre’s Democratic Services department the committee,...

The BBC – Fracking Rubbish

The BBC – Fracking Rubbish

Today the BBC put out a programme on Radio 4 – Inside Science – which claimed to get inside the science of fracking. It was terrible. Sloppy journalism and bad science. The list of badly reported programmes on fracking is long and ignoble – Iain Stewart’s Horizon programme springs to...

The Sun eats its words

The Sun eats its words

We reported some time ago about the way in which the Sun misreported the results of its online poll, claiming that 71 % supported fracking, when the poll actually closed showing 52% against We raised this issue with the Press Complaints Authority and after a certain amount of toing and...

You’d think you could trust the Royal Society

You’d think you could trust the Royal Society

Of all the scientific institutions which grace our land you’d think that the Royal Society would set a standard for academic rigour which would be unimpeachable. Cuadrilla would like you to believe so. They set great store by the Royal Society’s Report “Shale gas extraction in the UK: a review...

Death threats? Really?

Death threats? Really?

Back in August we read with amazement that Francis Egan of Cuadrilla had had death threats made to him These claims were of course widely publicised in the Mail, Telegraph, Independent and Guardian. Even The Sun got in on the act although they probably had to illustrate the article with...