Mainshill no more. Thanks politicans...No really.

I drove by Mainshill climate camp, a mere mile or so from the M74 yesterday. As a posturing mountebank of the highest order, I'm as likely as the next fellow to mock the rag tag band of trustafarians who generally don the eco warriors facepaint. 

However, given the excessive forces of the state, police, police 'tree climbers', big coal, landed gentry and the seriously worrying private 'eviction specialists' National Eviction Team being used against them, I have to say my tweed cap is solidly tipped in their much maligned under-dog direction today.

The ever helpful Strathclyde Plod have put a set of temporary lights on A70 which allow jaded commuters a view of the proceedings, as hard faced, yellow jacketed security teams lour at kids chained to trees, JCB's rip trees from the earth and dump them in a giant pile where the original camp was sited. The eagle eyed driver and their passengers looking past the plethora of polis vans complete with flashing lights a-go-go, can just make out 'Ewok village', where the vile planet saving eco bods, have built a series of tree dens and tunnels, wherein many have secreted themselves from the longish arm of the law.Naturally, the wildlife are terrified.

So why have these crusty scamps chosen to protest and protect Mainshill Woods from what is after only another open cast coal mine? Well, this will be the fifth opencast in South Lanarkshire. Over the border into deepest Ayrshire a mere ten miles away, Europe's largest opencast runs from the back of Muirkirk to a kick-in-the-pants away from Kirkconnell in Dumfries and Galloway. The campaigners are against using coal of any description and they lost a lot of my support when they hiked ten miles across Cairn Table and knackered the conveyor belt that was carrying coal. This petty vandalism, was merely shrugged off by teh operators who simply put a massive amount of trucks on the road to shift the coal. Oops. Think of the environmental damage done....

Anyhoo, where I agree with our hardy chums is in the belief that this part of southern Scotland is rapidly becoming a few small green islands of towns and villages surrounded by a sea of black opencasts. Where rapacious open cast operators scrape away the top soil and dig out the poor quality coal to supply our coal fuelled power stations. Conditions for those lucky enough to be employed in the opencast, is really a life and death situation. There have been a number of plant deaths and injuries. As always Health and Safety are called in and the companies send round a photocopied sheet telling operators not to get out of their vehicles and try to avoid getting run over by 100 tonne loaded machines. No union, woeful health and safety, utter disregard for the lives of employees or those poor bastards unfortunate to live in blasting area...

Naturally if Thatch and her cohorts hadn’t shut the mines, and shafted working communities throughout the land, these fly-by-night private coal companies wouldn’t be so ardently raping the Scottish landscape. Now of course, we don’t do deep seam coal mining, despite most of Scotland floating on enough of the stuff to keep the home fires burning for millennia to come. I’m not advocating a return to the labour intensive pit heads of the past, however, in the 25 years since the blessed Margaret went to war, technology has rather improved and the need for men hacking their guts up whilst they rip out fresh seams has long gone. 

What interests me most about Mainshill, is why the local politicians lobby so fervently to allow a deeply unpopular application to go through and then when referred upstairs to Holyrood, we find an increasingly compliant government, that may mildly remonstrate against penetration, but still willingly bends over to receive the mineral companies largesse.

Locally, Labour dominate the area, ‘it’s aye been that way, son, nae point in changin’ noo.’ First up we have the Councillor for Miami South Danny Meikle, the Labour councillor who allegedly only comes home from surgeries when there’s enough folk to fill up his surgery diary. Mr Meikle of course was found guilty of ….ach tell you what, watch this video in the link below to get a flavour of how Mr Meikle’s family and friends operate in their own personal fiefdom. Suffice it to say the other fans of opencast are the weightwatcher friendly Jimmy Kelly MP, Karen Gillon MSP and aristocrat Lord Home, who stands to make a killing from the coal scraped out. Lovely people.


http://www.politube.org/show/2378
Ohh before I go, the latest news is 43 protesters are now in police custody... wouldn't it be nice if the Scottish media took an interest in it. Whaddya say Caledonian Mercury?