REDDER THAN GREEN:

Greens see red over nuclear power which may leave Labour in the cold (HAMISH MACDONELL, 11/06/06, The Scotsman)

The Scottish Green Party decided at its conference in Edinburgh to make nuclear power a "red line" issue - a non-negotiable part of the Green agenda.

The party also agreed a policy of co-operation and negotiation for the post-election period, which could mean the party becomes a partner in an Executive coalition or remains on the outside, giving its support to the Executive in return for agreement on key policies.

This sort of "confidence and supply" approach has been tried successfully by parties around the world and the Greens believe they could make it work in Scotland.

Under such an agreement, the Greens would support the coalition's choice for first minister and keep the Executive in power by voting against no-confidence motions and approving the budget.

In return, the Greens would demand the delivery of certain "red line" issues. The only one to be agreed so far is no more nuclear power stations, but others are likely to be ratified by the party ahead of the election.

Richard Rhodes was on NPR's Studio 360 just yesterday explaining how half of all the nuclear plants in the US are burning nuclear material from decommissioned Soviet warheads, making it one of the only government programs in history that pays for itself, not to mention that it disposes of an environmental threat and replaces burning coal and gasoline and whatever.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 6, 2006 8:09 AM