| 1 | 1 | | The Queen was there. So were many more of the Great and the Good, all standing |
| 2 | | in the rain in the Royal Mews solemnly observing the conversion of the Palace cars to |
| 3 | | run on unleaded petrol. It is, of course, the aim of any campaigner to create a |
| 4 | | bandwagon that others will feel driven to jump on, but what was particularly noticeable |
| 5 | | about those bowing and scraping before the Queen on Monday was that not one of them |
| 6 | | was around in 1982-83 when we had to battle for the decision to remove lead from |
| 7 | | petrol. |
| 2 | 8 | | Noticeably absent was Mr Godfrey Bradman. He would be the last person to |
| 9 | | complain, or blame anyone for this. Somewhere, however, it should be recorded that it |
| 10 | | was he who took up the issue, and who founded Clear, the Campaign for Lead-free Air, |
| 11 | | in 1982, paid for it with £250,000 of his own money, recruited me and the others who |
| 12 | | worked for it, and put up with considerable ridicule until unleaded petrol became |
| 13 | | respectable. |
| 3 | 14 | | Compare his modesty with the headline in the Daily Mail newspaper last Friday: |
| 15 | | QUEEN JOINS MAIL CAMPAIGN. Of course the Mail's recent activities have been |
| 16 | | helpful, but it provided no support whatsoever up to the point where the battle was won |
| 17 | | in 1983, or subsequently, until our lead-free petrol week in November last year, when as |
| 18 | | part of the promotion of itself as a 'campaigning newspaper' it finally discovered the |
| 19 | | issue. |
| 4 | 20 | | I make these points not out of any sense of injustice but because there are lessons |
| 21 | | to be learned from the contrast between the self-promotion of those who have recently |
| 22 | | adopted the issue and the experiences of the environmentalists who first raised it. |
| 5 | 23 | | The Clear campaign was launched on 26 January, 1982. On the same day Kenneth |
| 24 | | Clarke, then, as now, Health Minister, and Giles Shaw, a junior minister at the |
| 25 | | Department of the Environment, jointly wrote to all MPs to assure them our demands |
| 26 | | were unrealistic. Behind the scenes, MPs were frequently told that Clear was being |
| 27 | | unnecessarily emotive, hysterical, and irresponsible. |
| 6 | 28 | | What the petroleum industry was saying about Clear was usually unprintable. One |
| 29 | | exception was a magazine article written by a senior executive: 'Clear is probably |
| 30 | | supported by anti-capitalists. We can see only three reasons for the anti-lead movement: |
| 31 | | support by precious metal producers who want the catalytic converters; support by |
| 32 | | engineering groups who believe they will have new facilities to install; or support by |
| 33 | | leftist-sponsored, anti-big-business groups. We think the third is most likely.' |
| 7 | 34 | | No one appeared ready to acknowledge worthy motives (that we actually cared |
| 35 | | about the mental health of our children) or that we actually knew what we were talking |
| 36 | | about, until the evidence had become irresistible - evidence, of course, developed at the |
| 37 | | expense of the children who had been exposed to the pollution. |
| 8 | 38 | | Our experiences have been repeated with other environmental issues, from acid |
| 39 | | rain to the threat to the ozone layer, and have currently been observable in the |
| 40 | | controversy over food safety standards. First, once the controversy was under way, it was |
| 41 | | up to the citizen to prove he or she was at risk, rather than up to the industries to prove |
| 42 | | that their practice was safe. Second, a variety of ministers simply accepted their civil |
| 43 | | service report, usually based on misinformation fed into Whitehall by the industries |
| 44 | | concerned, and used Whitehall information officers to conduct a campaign of dishonesty |
| 45 | | and denigration of environmentalists, instead of seriously seeking to establish where truth |
| 46 | | lay. |
| 9 | 47 | | Finally, while industry stressed the difficulties and the cost of unleaded petrol, I |
| 48 | | repeatedly said that I had no doubt that when they were forced to act, the difficulties |
| 49 | | would quickly be removed, and the costs reduced. That has happened. |
| 10 | 50 | | So it was that they all had their day at Buckingham Palace on Monday. As I have |
| 51 | | said, Mr Godfrey Bradman was not invited. A small oversight. I expect he could not care |
| 52 | | less. For the environmental movement I do. Because unless it is acknowledged that this |
| 53 | | small advance is a triumph for ordinary citizens, for environmentalists, who were not |
| 54 | | 'extreme' and 'selective with the facts' but right, then every time people raise questions |
| 55 | | about threats to their health, or fight for measures to protect their children, they will be |
| 56 | | faced with the same expensive and often lonely battle and the same defensive techniques. |
| | | |
| | | Des Wilson in 'The Spectator', February 18, 1989 |
