Selling birthrights for a mess of pottage

Lord Patel attracted readers on Wednesday, December 27, 2006 with a post - 10 totally fucked and useless highly radioactive UK nuclear power stations for sale - great development potential - to the unique and unrepeatable opportunity to buy the whole share issue of Reactor Sites Management Company from BNFL which included the reactor sites @ Dungeness A, Sizewell A, Bradwell, Berkeley, Hinkley Point A, Oldbury, Trawsfynydd, Wylfa, Chapelcross,Hunterston A.

Lord Patel contacted Richard Guest at reactorsites@rothschild.co.uk. as requested and regrets his none too generous offer was rejected.

The Torygraph today reports that Richard now has a short list of bidders Jacobs, Fluor, CH2M Hill all founded just after WWII, and the biggest mover of radioactive materials in the US, EnergySolutions . The observant reader will note these companies are all based overseas - the United States of America in fact.

Amicus who are to merge with the T&G to form a 2 million member union have expressed concern that no UK based companies will be involved. Dougie Rooney, National Energy Officer is quoted :

"We had hoped this would be an opportunity to follow how things developed around the North Sea in the 1970s. British companies collaborated with Americans and now they can compete on a level playing field."

Dougie regrettably puts his finger on the reason and says that the failure of British companies to participate in the nuclear privatisation was because "we will not have the expertise".

The regrettable truth is that our wonderful education service, schools, Universities have relentlessly cut back education and training in the necessary disciplines of engineering, mechanical, electrical, nuclear to produce the highly skilled staff to design, build and manage the next absolutely essential fleet of nuclear power stations.

Meanwhile our pig ignorant, thick, stupid, uneducated fuckwits like Margaret Beckett and the boy Milliband and our seven New Labour Ministers of Energy (we don't currently have one) have gone round clucking like Chicken Licken that the skies will darken (or maybe lighten), the seas will dry up (or flood us) and sit round bragging about how they can strangle UK industry further by their absurd International pacts on CO2 emissions. .. all this whilst the gormless Cameron sticks a child's windmill on his house inb a futile and utterly useless piece of tokenist politics.

Apparently this job lot of sites for the new nuclear stations will go for £80 Mn pounds - which to the "Sir" Ronnie Cohens of the world of Vulture Capitalism is drop in the bucket - where are they - building industries, growing jobs - without electricity ?

Sir Ronnie (when he isn't closeted at No 11 with Gordie - or playing bridge with the Karaoke King ) might profit from reading the Amicus response to the last Gubment Energy review ( wait around, they are like buses another one is due real soon now)

He should read the whole report but the last 2 points they make are of vital significance to the UK ..

• Massive investment is necessary in the UK skills base through the creation of adult and youth apprentice schemes. The industry must work with schools to promote its profile and encourage more entrance into science and craft career pathways.
• High energy costs will lead to high inflation and harm economic growth with the consequence of high manufacturing costs leading to an exodus of jobs and skills from the UK.

Ask why the Rhone valley is full of Brits helping to run some of France's 56 nuclear power stations which produce 85% of their electricity.

Elsewhere the Torygraph reports that "The Alliance Boots board, led by chairman Sir Nigel Rudd, will meet early next week to decide whether to allow US based Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co. and Mr Pessina the executive deputy chairman access to the group's books." these 2 are behind a joint offer of £10 per share worth £9.5 Bn for 2,300 UK stores and 350 elsewhere in the world. (Shares up 14% in the day)

If successful it will be the first private equity buy-out of a FTSE100 company.

Sir Nigel Rudd, ...takeovers seem to follow him , as surely as bird flu follows Hungarian turkey meat, notably he recently joined the increasingly Americanised BAe for whom a bid by Boeing shrewd investors might note wouldn't surprise Lord Patel.

Looking through his extensive photographic collection Lord patel discovered this snap inside a French nuclear power station in 1975 at Caderache.

The man with the glasses and very long arms, is my old friend Jacques Chirac and in the centre is Saddam Hussein - the French went on to build the Osirak reactor which first the Iranians with Israeli help tried to bomb.. and then they did it themselves.

At the end of the Iran Iraq war, Iraq was the French arms industry's best customer - Chirac told Lord Patel only recently that the Iranians like to call him "Shah-Iraq". Very droll.

UPDATE

Re the comments about Microsoft and it's grip on NHS software this is a very important article to read in the REGISTER by John Lettice 8th November 2004 - and things have only got worse - i-soft etc., . If you want to see what Google do to attract the brightest and the best read this from the NYT today - http://tinyurl.com/3dmafp ..and Intel , HP, E-Bay

FURTHER UPDATE

Lucy Sherriff on Wednesday 28th July 2004 wrote in the Register

UK Government spending on IT is under the microscope, with a new report from the Institute of Public Policy Research highlighting significant failings in the multi-billion pound NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT).(the report has since disappeared from their website)

Drawing on an analysis of ICT (information and communications technology) pilot projects, the think tank warns that the programme could be undermined by a failure to consult properly with medical professionals, a dearth of IT skills within the healthcare service and poor understanding of exactly what the health benefits are supposed to be. (Sound at all familiar ?)

The report, which comes just days after an all-party committee of MPs slammed IT spend as 'an appalling waste of money', says inadequate project evaluation means that it is impossible to tell if ICT projects are delivering benefits. Trials of electronic records, for example, have given no insight into whether the system would be more flexible than the current system, improve the quality of treatment, or save money.

...... Nearly 3 years ago