Today, it has been announced that French state owned power company, EDF has bought British Energy PLC. EDF are planning to build another four power stations over the next decade. Not many years ago the selling off of Britain's nuclear industry to a foreign power would have been unthinkable, but considering every other utility and national industry has some element of foreign ownership, we should perhaps not be surprised.
One thing you can be sure of is that energy prices will not fall; currently EDF's UK customers pay £100 per year more for their energy than the French.
You may think it is odd that neither of the main political parties have raised questions over the bid. Perhaps this is due to EDF and related nuclear lobbying firms making donations to both Labour and the Conservative parties.
Interestingly it has also been noted that Andrew Brown, younger broth of Prime Minister, Gordon Brown is Director of Communications for EDF in the UK. One of Brown's key advisors is Ed Balls, whose father in law Tony Cooper, is a long standing nuclear lobbyist.
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