Where’s our coal? Where are our fish?

Aneurin Bevan, son of a Welsh coalminer and the politician credited with driving through the creation of the NHS, once said: “This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organising genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish in Great Britain at the same time”. Well, it seems that our politicians must be, as Bevan sarcastically remarked, “organising geniuses” as they’ve managed to produce both a shortage of coal and a shortage of fish at the same time.

First coal Actually we have plenty of coal. Enough for at least the next 200 years. The problem is we’re not allowed to use it. The EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive requires Britain to close all its efficient, economic coal-fired power stations, even though most have many years of useful life left.

But hold on a minute, Germany opened 2 new coal-fired power stations in 2012 and will open another 6 this year. So, something odd is happening. Yup. Idiot Ed Miliband’s ridiculous 2008 Climate Change Act requires any new coal-fired power stations in Britain to use “carbon capture” technology, even though this doesn’t yet exist. Moreover, we now know that CO2 is not causing global warming as CO2 emissions have rocketed over the last 15 years, while even the warmists admit temperatures have remained stable. So, we can’t burn our cheap coal and instead have to import expensive Russian gas – definite signs of Bevan’s “organising genius”.

What about our fish? Britain has around 70% of the EU’s fish stocks. But when we went into the Common Market, we generously gave these away to the EU as what’s called a “common resource”. This means they no longer belong to us, but are owned by the EU. Only £600m of fish is landed each year in the UK out of the £2.5bn of fish caught in British waters.

Having given away our fish, Britain has obey the rules of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). These allocate Total Allowable Catches (TACs) to each boat. So, a single boat may only be allowed to catch a limited quantity of a few types of fish. The problem is that fish are quite stupid. This means they don’t stick to their own shoals all the time as Brussels bureaucrats expect. The result – while fishing for one type of fish, a boat may accidentally catch some of another kind. But this is against CFP rules. So, the illegal fish have to be thrown back into the sea dead. An incredible 800,000 tons of edible fish are discarded each year to please Brussels bureaucrats.

Moreover, only the stupid Brits actually stick to CFP rules and we spend around £30m a year on maritime control to ensure that the few British fishing boats left adhere to the rules. Meanwhile the Spanish, with the largest fishing fleet in Europe, spend less than we do on control and most of the Spanish fishery control staff are based in nice offices in Madrid. Last time I looked at a map, Madrid was rather far from the sea. The result – 80% of all British fish stocks are overfished compared with 25% of global stocks. Please note that countries with successful fishery policies – Canada, Norway, USA and New Zealand – don’t control TACs, they control “days at sea” and forbid discards meaning all fish caught must be landed.

So there we have it. An island made of coal and surrounded by fish, can’t use its coal and doesn’t have any fish. Proof that an “organising genius” is in control?

(Sad day yesterday – nobody bought a copy of my latest book GREED UNLIMITED. Well, at least I’ll have lots of copies to burn to keep me warm this coming winter. Though, maybe I won’t need them if Global Warming leads to us basking in sunshine throughout the winter months)