CORE comments on Toshiba’s delayed decision on Moorside.
Given that the world’s financial markets are widely speculating today that the delay can only result in the subsequent release of a far worse set of financial figures than already reported by Toshiba – a melt-down primarily brought about by the chronic performance of its subsidiary Westinghouse at the two AP1000 construction sites in the US.
CORE’s spokesman Martin Forwood has commented today:
‘It is more than fitting that coming exactly 88 years to the day after gangster Al Capone snuffed out members of a rival street gang in Chicago in the notorious Valentine’s Day Massacre, Toshiba’s announcement may already have wiped out 60% of the NuGen gang on Valentine’s Day 2017 or soon after’.
This may well go down in history as the Moorside Massacre, but does not mean that West Cumbria has been swept clean of the gangster threat once and for all. The cigars, pin-stripe three piece suits and buttonholes may no longer be seen on the streets of Whitehaven, Workington or Millom but, as with all gang warfare, there will be new hoodlums waiting in the side side-streets and playgrounds to plug the holes inevitably left by Toshiba’s tommy guns.
The French gang Engie – known to be keen to leave the new-build mob to fight another day in the rival renewable energies outfit – could cross the street at any moment. In that event, the Japanese banking fraternity could step in and of course there are always the UK Government’s well-known Westminster Wideboys lurking in the shadows, keen to muscle into the financial fray with UK citizen’s money to save NuGen, but widely known to switch gang allegiance at the drop of a fedora hat or the merest whiff of a new reactor. And last but not least there’s the brotherhood from South Korea in the shape of KEPCO, still struggling to shake off corruption and bribery scandals but clearly tooled up and raring to get a piece of the action on the UK’s remote western shores where other desperados have wisely feared to tread.
CORE’s spokesman added:
‘The gang warfare to take control of the project clearly has years still to run. By the time the dust settles over Toshiba’s final decision, the already delayed Moorside development will have been kicked so far down the road as to make it even less sustainable and justified and more uncompetitive with alternative energies than it is already’.