Attitudes in Britain have certainly changed significantly since the 1978 film The Medusa Touch starring Richard Burton and Lee Remick was released; but have they changed that much?
In this excellent second-rate horror movie, Burton plays a telekinetic who is cursed with a “gift for disaster”; Remick is his over-worked psychiatrist.
Burton’s character has the extraordinary talent to will death… he can make a tragedy happen and, as he spirals out of control, he makes things occur on a grander and scarier scale with each passing event. That’s why someone tried to murder him… and failed…
Lying in a near-coma, his life is reconstructed by detectives… His enemies all seem to die tragically… The angrier Burton gets - the more people die… And guess what..? He’s angry now…
A jumbo jet crashes into Centre Point killing hundreds… Westminster Abbey crumbles onto the heads of “unworthy” massed dignitaries and the great and good are massacred where they stand… then comes the finale as the tension ratchets higher… What will be the ultimate disaster to end the film in a blaze of glory…? What are people in Britain more scared of than plane crashes and earthquakes...?
The detective places a pencil in Burton’s trembling hand and he start to write… It’s the final scene in the film… The ultimate disaster his telekinesis can bring is about to happen and Burton will reveal his ultimate plan…He lifts his trembling hands and writes a word on the notepad: WINDSCALE…
This was the ultimate terror for Britain at the time. As I am sure you now know, Windscale was renamed Sellafield and was one the UK’s first nuclear power stations. That was the biggest disaster that the writers could think of – an accident at Windscale… It fed right into Briton’s fear of the technology at the time.
But does that fear remain..?
On Monday energy minister Malcolm Wicks gave the strongest hint yet that Sellafield would be the site of one of Britain’s new nuclear reactors in an interview with the Financial Times – for the simple reason that people in the area are supportive of the technology.
Other likely locations are Sizewell in Suffolk and Hinkley Point near Bristol. They already have nuclear facilities that are nearing the end of their life. But where next; and what will the opposition be like from the local NIMBYs?
The government has already identified sites for new nuclear power stations. Last year, the Department for Trade and Industry charged independent analysts with finding potential sites for new nuclear power stations.
The government is seeking locations for ten new nuclear power plants. However, the analysts came to a conclusion that Malcolm Wicks may have to think long and hard about. It said that proposals to use existing or redundant civilian and military nuclear plants was flawed – because many of them are poorly connected to the national grid.
Of 19 civil power station sites, the report concluded only nine were feasible for new reactors – with only four being able to be developed right away. It looks like the government’s ten new reactors may have to face the opposition of direct action protesters in areas with people that aren’t as supportive as those around Sellafield. Recommended sites for the plant were in Oxfordshire, the south coast and Bristol.
Plans are now in consultation until October. It will be interesting to see where these plants will be built – and how much opposition they will bring… Then we will find out if the nuclear Medusa has really been decapitated. I suspect there will be long and difficult struggle ahead.
