Rob Edwards reveals secret British government's plan to play down Fukushima in today's Guardian.
Government officials launched a PR campaign to ensure the accident at the Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan did not derail plans for new nuclear power stations in the UK.
British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.
Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK.
"This has the potential to set the nuclear industry back globally," wrote one official at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), whose name has been redacted. "We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to show the safety of nuclear."
This illustrates a lesson I've advised my own strategic clients to be cautious about. When colluding to manipulate media, or subvert industry regulatory control in democracies with a free press, it is best not to leave incriminating emails behind.
Officials stressed the importance of preventing the incident from undermining public support for nuclear power. The Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, said, "the government has no business doing PR for the industry and it would be appalling if its departments have played down the impact of Fukushima," he said.
Louise Hutchins, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace, said the emails looked like "scandalous collusion". "This highlights the government's blind obsession with nuclear power and shows neither they, nor the industry, can be trusted when it comes to nuclear," she said.
In one example of the coordinated press strategy, colluders seemed to agree to put out this message:
"Radiation released has been controlled – the reactor has been protected," said the BIS official, whose name has been blacked out. "It is all part of the safety systems to control and manage a situation like this." ... "Anti-nuclear people across Europe have wasted no time blurring this all into Chernobyl and the works," the official told Areva. "We need to quash any stories trying to compare this to Chernobyl."
According to one former regulator, who preferred not to be named, the degree of collusion was "truly shocking".
It is sad to see those we trust to protect the public, reinterpreting their missions to be that of protecting the industries they are supposed to regulate.
I've read similar criticisms, here that too often we see a "revolving door" policy where people who work in regulated industries are placed in key positions in the regulatory agencies, and those that retire, are hired in key positions in industry. Although, I believe we have new rules to place some limits on the revolving door problem, here in the US.