Sale of Westinghouse was sheer folly
January 7th, 2007
A letter to the Editor of the Sunday Telegraph which was published on 7th January 2007.
Your correspondent (Letters, 31 December) asks pertinently why Gordon Brown sold the British-owned Westinghouse electric company to Toshiba (for a paltry £2.9 billion) just as Westinghouse was on the brink of obtaining a £60 billion contract with the Chinese to build 32 nuclear power stations.
The Chancellor sold this irreplaceable asset to help plug the gap in Britain’s finances opened up by the reckless hiring of well over half a million additional public employees to promote Labour’s equality and diversity hobbyhorses.
To compound this folly, Mr Brown has let markets know that he would like to dispose of Britain’s one third share in Urenco, the British-Dutch-German consortium that operates the gas centrifuge process for making enriched uranium fuel for nuclear power stations.
The French would dearly love to acquire Britain’s share to replace their own outdated thermal diffusion process, leaving us of course eventually to pay foreigners for what we currently own.
As with Westinghouse, Urenco is an absolutely vital part of our future energy supplies. Are there enough Labour MPs willing to prevent the Chancellor visiting another disaster on the British people?