Judge rules Blair cabinet ‘fundamentally deceitful’ on nuclear issue

THE British Government’s decision to opt for a new generation of nuclear power stations was declared unlawful by a High Court judge yesterday because of a “seriously flawed” public consultation process.

Greenpeace won a hard- hitting ruling from Mr Justice Sullivan that the consultation exercise which preceded the decision made last July was “procedurally unfair” and in some respects “not merely inadequate but also misleading”.

The government was later accused of being “fundamentally deceitful” after the judge said the consultation document contained no actual proposals on how to deal with two key issues and, even if it had, the information given to Greenpeace and other consultees was “wholly insufficient for them to make an intelligent response”.