Conservative UK Member of Parliament, Chris Heaton-Harris, was exposed as two-faced this week when he was secretly filmed undercover footage revealed significant differences between his public and private criticisms of wind power.
You may recall that Heaton-Harris was the organiser of the letter signed by 101 Conservative MPs urging the Prime Minister to end onshore wind subsidies. He states in a public video that turbines harm birds, despite having admitted in private to seeing no research on this. Heaton-Harris was the campaign manager for the Conservative candidate in the Corby by-election but the Guardian and Greenpeace exposed him on Wednesday as backing a rival anti-wind candidate. The MP has been summoned to meet the party’s whips next week to discuss his “professionalism”. That’s not the only example of Heaton-Harris’ duplicitous behaviour.
In the newly released film, Heaton-Harris spoke to a reporter who pretended to be a campaigner from a fictitious anti-windfarm group called Windefensible. He made a reference to “bird-blending” meaning the alleged effect when birds fly into wind turbine blades. He says in the video “The ‘bird blending’ phrase really hurts [the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds]. How true or not, I’ve got no idea because I’ve not seen any half-decent research about this.” But when talking in an anti-wind video that would be shown to the public, Heaton-Harris said: “Certainly [wind turbines] have a very bad interaction with bats and a number of species of birds … there really is the evidence out there and there are now international studies pointing at this.” He also described as “crap” the windfarm policy of the RSPB, a group with 1 million members.
The RSPB’s conservation director, Martin Harper, said: “Heaton-Harris is clearly in a spin over windfarms. If only he’d done some ‘half-decent research’ before he started calling us names, he might not have got it so wrong. “
Greenpeace UK executive director, John Sauven, said: “Heaton-Harris has demonstrated that his views on renewable energy are rooted in ideology rather than fact. This seriously undermines the credibility of the Tory anti-wind lobbyists. The public deserves more truth and less spin from the likes of Heaton-Harris.”
Sauven said it was astonishing Heaton-Harris had not been booted out of the Party and called on David Cameron to step in and sort out the government’s energy policy problems.
It’s clear that Heaton-Harris is ignorant of the facts regarding the interaction between birds and wind turbines, and also appears to be dangerously close to irritating David Cameron with his Janus impressions depending on who his audience is.
It’s clear that there is tension in the coalition with some Conservatives trying to back-pedal over commitments previously given in support of onshore wind farms, while the Liberal Democrats continue to press for full support to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions by promoting investment in wind farms and wind farm technology.
Here’s the video: Heaton-Harris
