Monday
Jan132014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Travelling Tina
Jan 13, 2014 BBC Energy: gas Readers may remember my interest in Tina Rothery, the anti-fracking activist who suggested to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee that she was a local resident protesting against the Lancashire shale developments. This was surprise since she had also spent the summer in Balcombe protesting developments there as well as having been involved in the Occupy movement in London.
Today, she turned up again on the Radio 5 phone-in, described as an anti-fracking activist from Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. The show also featured James Verdon of the Frack Doctor blog, and a very balanced contribution from Roger Harrabin.
Reader Comments (68)
Methinks the geographically challenged and much travelled Tina Rothery needs to spend some quality time on St. Kilda
where she will have all the wind and wave power she needs.
There has been drilling around Gainsborough for 20-odd years at least - I was involved with sending equipment there in 1993. Have the activists only just noticed?
It wouldn't be surprising, even if they were genuine residents - drilling in the UK is far less obtrusive than the media would have us imagine. FFS, there are bigger holes and fractures made when building railway tunnels or London skyscrapers. Or Milan skyscrapers, Vivienne.
Environmentalists are so obviously insincere and out of their depth when arguing that the activities they oppose are uneconomic - why should they care if they're implacably opposed anyway? - that they pretty much destroy their credibility with a bit more of the public every time they open their gobs.
As well as the claim about Scotland producing 40% of its energy from renewables, the same lady (Radio 5 yesterday) mentioned an "accident in W. Virginia" in the context of contamination from fracking.
After a bit of digging around the only incident I can find is a release of chemicals from a coal processing site which has caused significant contamination of a river which is a source of drinking water. Obviously that is totally unrelated to fracking.
So this looks like another utterly bogus claim.
The Daily Mail report on the incentive offered to councils for once (first time?) did not call it the "controversial" process known as fracking. But the BBC news on Radio 3 (the only place I listen to their news because I can't ruddy well avoid it) led with "Greenpeace claims etc... "
You've really got to wonder, how come it is that, Ms expert in green waffle and not much else a certain Tina Rothery is given any sort of credence, or even the 'time of day' by a supposedly objective national broadcaster, it defies logic and all reasonableness - BBC reverts to type and bias is the word.
Indeed, the local student branch of the Cleckheaton town council 'equal rights' for all of the universe sub branch, the UFO sightings, ET8mi-homework welcoming and greeting committee, is more Tina's sort of platform.
kellydown @ 6:26
There has been drilling around Gainsborough for at least 50 years. In the summer of 1963, as a BP University Apprentice, I worked as a labourer on one of BP's first directional wells in the UK. We struck oil. The site was on the outskirts of Gainsborough. Going back there via Google Maps, I found a nodding donkey working unobtrusively in the middle of a housing estate. I wonder if it is the well that I helped to drill.
kellydown @ 6:26
There has been drilling around Gainsborough for at least 50 years. In the summer of 1963, as a BP University Apprentice, I worked as a labourer on one of BP's first directional wells in the UK. We struck oil. The site was on the outskirts of Gainsborough. Going back there via Google Maps, I found a nodding donkey working unobtrusively in the middle of a housing estate. I wonder if it is the well that I helped to drill.
Presumably everyone in Gainsborough died from earthquakes and poisoned water Mike Post, since everyone knows that's what drilling causes. I heard it on the BBC.
Is it not time that the BBC issued their camera persons with wide angle lenses so that we can all see the enormous crowds demonstrating on these occasions?
And if the licence money will not stretch to this, then can they not be given crash courses in panning so as to show the assembled crowd?
Were I among the throngs so reported, I would be chagrined to see on the news tight shots covering such a small section of people at the demonstration.
ITV News at Ten have just pictured one Vanessa Vine at a fracking protest where Cameron visited today - not quite sure where - google her name and add her name to the list.
Grumpy, Cameron visited Gainsborough. Vanessa Vine is more local to Balcombe than Gainsborough. Though I think it's fair to allow protesters to go around the country, just so long as they don't keep to the "local" angle. They are allowed their opinion that fracking will damage the whole country, but if they claim it's only local damage then not being local does not help their cause. I'm not local to any fracking site, but I still will do my best to campaign for drilling because it will benefit the whole country.
@sSadButMadLad "Though I think it's fair to allow protesters to go around the country"
I don't- I regards them as "flying pickets"- they should be arrested sooner rather than later.
...and a very balanced contribution from Roger Harrabin....
The local police force were worried.
They had commissioned a survey on police/pupil attitudes from a local comprehensive, and one of the junior kids had written:
"Coppers is Bastids"
Their Local Force Image Advisor said that this was an example of stereotype reinforcement, and they should do their best to head it off before the kid left school and went onto the streets. He recommended that the local beat policeman and the local patrol car both held a stock of sweets, and make a point of giving him one every time they saw him. After a month they did the follow-up survey
This time the kid had, indeed, changed his attitude. He had written:
"Coppers is CUNNING Bastids"...
In re Mr Harrabin's conduct - perhaps he is tactically embarrassed at becoming the news, as it were, with the latest publicising of his role in 28Gate? Keeping a bit of a low profile until the nutters go away and he can resume his antics full-tilt.
I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that one of the first principles of infiltration is never to draw attention to oneself. If he can't make this go away, he'll be for the chop & someone else will have to take over (these people are selfless & dedicated, so he might move out of his own accord), so watch this space...
Absolutely they have a free right to protest. Not to persistently block roads and harass rig workers. And the BBC need to treat them the way they would treat, say, a bunch of rednecks picketing an abortion clinic, rather than giving them endless broadcast rants and lead-ins to news articles about the "controversial" process of fracking.
@AngusPangus Jan 13, 2014 at 11:13 AM
this comment/observation from AP nails the BBC/MSM hypocrisy in my eyes, they pretend they have no agenda/bias, but when looked at this way & the various posts by the Bishop how can any thinking person not see that as BS !!!
I would made AngusPangus Jan 13, 2014 at 11:13 AM comment a post on its own.
@RoyFOMR @SadButMadLad Tina Rothery and Tina Louise are one and the same, dears - see www.twitter.com/tinalouiseuk
And she is, indeed, from Blackpool. She and a chap called Ian Roberts gave evidence in the House of Lords last year representing Residents Against Fylde Fracking in Lancashire.
She's also part of the Occupy movement and was one of the first people into tents outside St Paul's in 2011, sweeties, and so is a dyed-in-the-wool protestor.
I don't agree with much of what she says, but she's entitled to say it. I just find it rather hypocritical of her, pumpkins, to accuse industry and government of being economic with the truth and then goes on the radio pretending to be from somewhere else.
Now Mike Hill aka www.twitter.com/FrackingRegs is not only economic with the truth but also spreads misleading information in a very hysterical fashion, dears, and, I think, probably frightens genuinely concerned local residents.
And yet, as you'll see if you look at his Twitter account, I and others routinely highlight his errors and I do so with my blog here auntyfracker.wordpress.com
Not only does he have business interests that could benefit from more regulation for shale gas, but he also seems to think that the UK needs a new regulator to ensure our safety and that only he is qualified to lead it. He proposed the creation of ORIS (Office of Regulation and Inspection of Shale Gas) to DECC, suggesting he lead it and government fund it. He also went on to set up www.shalegasoffice.co.uk to masquerade as a government department, poppets.
There are so many contradictions in his position, he often gets called Walter Mitty.
Despite regular requests, he has not so far offered up any evidence of his supposed oil and gas engineer background. You can draw your own conclusions dears.
Until next time xxx
Surely it should be Office of Regulation Inspecting Fracking in Shale (ORIFIS) ?
He appears to have worked for automation companies and may have had some peripheral involvement with oil/gas company projects. Who hasn't? Then again, he's never drilled a well. Who has?