As the Military Saying Goes: "Never Volunteer for Anything!"

Not much that anyone can really add to this opener:

The government is inviting communities around the UK to volunteer to host radioactive waste from the country's half-century of nuclear power.

*UPDATE*

The UK's most sane and responsible political party, the Green Party, comments thus:

GREENS SLAM BROWN'S NUCLEAR BUNG-AND-BRIBE STRATEGY

Caroline Lucas MEP has attacked Government plans, due for publication today, to create a system of subsidies for new nuclear stations and bribes to induce communities to accept radioactive waste.

The plan will see the government accept the indefinite responsibility for nuclear waste in exchange for a one-off fixed fee from the nuclear operator - a blank-cheque subsidy designed to encourage private investment in an otherwise economically unviable technology. Ministers will also offer bribe packages of extra health services and infrastructure to cajole communities into accepting nuclear waste dumps.

Dr Lucas, whose South-East constituency is home to two nuclear power plants at Dungeness, said: "Brown's bung-and-bribe strategy shows that he knows just how
unworkable his nuclear plans really are. But instead of supporting sustainable, job-creating renewables, he's handing out huge sums to whoever it takes to get his pet project through.

"His plan to hold health and infrastructure improvements to ransom in exchange for communities' silence over waste dumps is especially cynical. If a town needs a new school, or community centre, or cancer screening facilities, it should get them. End of story.

"As always, it will be the poorest communities who are given the least choice. Desperately in need of investment, they'll be forced into accepting radioactive waste on their doorstep just to avoid further Labour neglect.

"Brown's proposed nuclear waste subsidy is another example of his talent for funneling taxpayers' money into corporate pockets. His own experts predict that it could take up to 150 years even to find a storage solution, and the radioactive waste must then be guarded for hundreds of years. And our government has offered to handle all of this for an easy one-off payment.

"Building new nuclear power stations in this country has never been illegal, or even discouraged. But no company has ever tried, because the only way they can be made financially viable is with a huge government bung - that's what this plan is for."