The nuclear option

 case anyone was thinking that Britain’s nuclear installations were clean and green, there comes a chilling reminder that it remains far from being either. A leak – a real leak, rather than a piece of spin doctoring – of highly radioactive uranium and plutonium forced the closure of the Thorp reprocessing plant at Sellafield. It followed a leak of the news management variety, suggesting that the newly created Department of Productivity, Energy and Industry was likely to look more kindly on the rebirth of Britain’s nuclear power industry. And so an issue that was punted into the long grass before the election begins to creep out from the undergrowth