Yes Minister (of State for Energy Security and Net Zero)

‘Good morning Minister, good journey from your constituency?’

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'Yes, surprisingly. I see I have another large pile of paper to wade through.’

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‘Minister’

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‘But first I would like that report on the South Holderness GDF debacle, and how the Action group.’

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‘Of course Minister. Here it is. My team have only just finished it, they worked all through the night, but we think it is as complete as it could be.’

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‘Thank you Humphrey, it looks quite substantial. If you can send me an electronic copy as well so I can read it during debates, that would be helpful. But in the meantime what are the headlines? What did this Action group do to derail the GDF in just twenty-one days? I have some notes of my own reference which I may use.'

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'May I ask what inspired those notes Minister?'

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'Oh I just did research on WhatsApp. So why did we lose?'

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‘Well Minister you know the acronym FUD?’

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‘Remind me Humphrey.’

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‘Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt Minister, something most departments use in their policy proposals to get their own way. Well the Action group took it one stage further and used FUDL.’

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‘FUDL?’

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‘Yes Minister FUD plus luck.'

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'They were lucky?'

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'Yes Minister and they freely admit it. The fear, uncertainty and doubt were easy for them to apply. The public is easily scared when the word nuclear is used, because they automatically associate it with mushroom clouds, rather than X-ray machines and cancer treatment. And of course, despite us having transported nuclear waste safely across the country, and the world, for sixty years, being close to something labelled as nuclear is not what people want to think about. But the Action group were lucky because the local council messed up the process.’

 

‘What do you mean messed it up?’

 

‘Well Minister it was not the members of the council that formally agreed to become a potential site for a GDF, but the officers of their economic development department, and when the Action group asked for a copy of the decision record, there was none.’

 

‘Decision record?’

 

‘Minister, a Decision record is a formal record informing councillors and the public of decisions taken outside meetings, which would normally be made by the Leader of the Council, or the appropriate cabinet member.’

 

‘Thank you, Bernard. Yes Minister, there was no Decision Record, and therefore the actions were ultra vires.’

 

‘Ultra vires?’

 

‘Minister, it means beyond the powers.’

 

‘Thank you again Bernard. Yes Minister they were potentially acting unlawfully and there could have been a very embarrassing judicial review which would have inevitably resulted in the Leader of Council having to resign.’

 

‘So that’s why all the councillors bar one voted against it?’

 

‘Partly Minister. In addition to the Action group identified that to get to the GDF site, any waste would have to travel through eight other council wards in the East Riding, and ten in the City of Hull. They let all of those councillors know it, and the five MPs whose constituencies would be affected. They also published email addresses of  all the councillors and MPs for concerned residents to contact, which they did, and overwhelmed their inboxes.’

 

‘So your saying they scared the elected representatives witless?’

 

‘Your words not mine Minister.’

 

‘But how did they get so much public engagement so quickly?’

 

‘Their leader knew how to communicate. She took NWS words, reports and statements and turned them around. For example, NWS was offering up to a million a year to the area for taking part. The Action group told the people that was the equivalent of a pizza and a couple of pints for each of them. When NWS and your predecessor pushed the high-skilled local jobs that would come, the Action group cited a previous report from NWS that stated that there would be very few, and those would be low skilled.’

 

‘I thought we had a local press person to deal with this?’

 

‘We did Minister, ex-BBC. However the Action group were better in interview than NWS, or your predecessor. Especially a lady with pink hair, who when asked did she believe that a GDF would be safe said, and I quote “Well they said there were no parties in Downing Street”

 

‘So in short they outmanoeuvred us?’

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‘Sadly Minister.'

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'Well that is not going to happen at Theddlethorpe. I think I need to think some more on this. By the way Humphrey there appears to be a typo on this report.’

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‘Really Minister?’

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‘At the bottom of each page where it says twenty-seventh of March twenty-twenty four. Will you be correcting that?’

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‘Yes Minister.’