It's a nuclear family affair

According to this morning's Independent the energy giant EDF has gone on a public relations offensive to promote it's new reactors in conjunction with another supplier, Areva. They have launched a website with a generic design assessment called EPR Reactor, which is of course perfectly timed with the consultation upon which the Government appears to have already made up it's mind.

What's odd (given what you'd exepct the Indy line to be on things like nuclear) is that they don't mention that Gordon Brown's brother, Andrew, is the Head of Media Relations at EDF. Unbelievably good timing for a wesbite though, don't you think? The Government makes an announcement of a nuclear consultation on Friday and in the space of two days the big boys have designed and completed a new website to tell everyone all about the wonders of nuclear? They must have been whipping those Indian developers in Bangalore good this weekend.

It's worth noting as well that they also don't mention that Brown's protege, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls, has a father-in-law, who just happens to be the former Chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association, and is now a non-executive director of the Government quango known as the Nuclear Decommissiong Authority.

If you're thinking right now "father-in-law?" and "Cooper?" the answer is yes. He is the father of the Minister of State for Housing (attending Cabinet) at the Department for Communities and Local Government, Yvette Cooper. Purely as an aside, you have to love the doublespeak style in the name of the NDA don't you? It makes it sound like its interests are somehow opposite to the interests of the nuclear industry.