Treason?

When watching the government's recent announcement regarding the granting of licences for wind farms in British coastal waters, I was struck by some of the ridiculous statements concerning the additional benefits these farms would bring. ('Additional' only applies if you believe there are any benefits to begin with!)
Gordon Brown said: "This new round of licences provides a substantial new platform for investing in UK industrial capacity".
On the other hand, the British Wind Energy Association said the UK would only truly benefit if the turbines were manufactured here.
Another spokesman from the same association said more or less the opposite of that.
Recently, a successful manufacturer of turbine blades, based on the Isle of Wight, was closed by its (foreign owned) parent company. Not enough money in it, apparently.
Now that is rubbish, the Vestas plant exported all its production, thus earning foreign currency and contributing to some extent to the perennial balance of payments issue.
These blades were not particularly small either, have a look at this load leaving Southampton (for Canada) in 2008: http://kelvindavies.co.uk/kelvin/details.php?image_id=2692
And I have seen plenty of these.
So, in order to examine the claims of more jobs etc, let's look at what is actually happening.
The licence areas are:
Moray Firth Zone; licence granted to EDP Renovaveis and SeaEnergy Renewables. The first of which is a Portuguese company and the second is a newly renamed company, previously known as Ramco, based in Scotland. Ramco shares are largely held by Lanstead Capital PL, a venture capital mob run by a couple of Americans, Lampe Conway of Delaware and Stephen Remp, an American.
The Firth of Forth Zone; licence granted to SSE Renewables and Fluor. Now there's a can of worms. SSE refers to Scottish & Southern Electricity, a company which is in to all sorts of other ventures beside just plain selling of electricity. If ever you played one of the myriad scratch-cards available in the UK, there is a chance it was one of theirs. Other products they offer include broadband and internet services. Try looking at their web site; it doesn't bloody work! If they handle the offshore wind issue with the same technical skills they apply to the internet side of their business, there could be bumpy times ahead.
The Dogger Bank Zone; licence granted to SSE Renewables, RWE Npower Renewables, Statoil and Statkraft. Christ! More SSE Renewables! Plus RWE, Statoil and Statkraft.
Now, in Norwegian, 'Stat' means 'State' and Kraft means (in common with many other European languages) 'Power'. So there we have 2 Norwegian state owned concerns, 'State Oil' and 'State Power'. Meanwhile, let's not forget RWE Npower Renewables. This is a subsidiary of a subsidiary of RWE, otherwise known as 'Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk'. A German company.
The Hornsea Zone; licence granted to Mainstream Renewable Power, Siemens Project Ventures and Hochtief Construction. Mainstream Renewable Power was formed by the Irish company Airtricity in 2008, and Airticity in turn was acquired by SSE in 2008. Siemens and Hochtief are both universally well known German construction companies.
The Norfolk Bank Zone; licence granted to Scottish Power Renewables and Vattenfall Vindkraft. Scottish Power Renewables is owned by Iberdrola Renewables, a Spanish based multi-national. Vattenfall Vindkraft is a Swedish company that does ...well.. Swedish things.
The Hastings Zone; licence granted to E.On Climate and Renewables UK. We probably all are aware the E.On is a German company.
The Isle of Wight Zone; licence granted to Eneco New Energy, a Dutch company owned by 61 Dutch municipalities.
The Bristol Channel Zone; licence granted to RWE Npower Renewables. Done them, see Dogger Bank above.
The Irish Sea Zone; licence granted to Centrica Renewable Energy and involving RES Group. RES is part of the Robert McAlpine Group. Bloody hell, it is British! As for Centrica, they may well have been out of a demerger with British Gas but have in the past been the proud owners of the AA, Halfords, Goldfish credit cards, OneTel etc. etc. Not really a construction company then.
So, having had a look at that lot, I can see a couple of companies that qualify as engineering/construction companies, in particular Siemens, Hochtief and Fluor. None of these are based in Britain so why does anyone think they would be falling over themselves to generate jobs here?
There can only be one possible answer to this; the UK government will offer massive subsidies to "encourage" them. The EU will probably then block such subsidies, the engineering companies will, quite naturally, ensure those jobs are created in their home countries and the UK government will shrug their collective shoulders and say "we tried but EU regulations foiled us".
Balls! If this government was as serious about creating jobs here as they are about the fairy stories surrounding wind power, they would apply any subsidies to British engineering companies, helping regenerate at least a section of our manufacturing industry, creating jobs for UK residents and keeping our taxes here.
They would rather see all the assistance that this move would provide go to foreign industry.
That is why I headed this rant "Treason".
Definition of treason: a violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or to one's state.
Also defined as: the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.