Opinion: Suffolk Tories wrong to blame Labour for Sunnica

And I can also understand Conservative councillors and MPs trying to blame new Energy Secretary Ed Miliband - it's all part of political knockabout.

But anyone with a braincell can see the real people responsible for this decision - former Energy Secretary the Rt Hapless Claire Coutinho and her useless team before the election.

She had FOUR opportunities to make a decision on this application. She flunked them all.

A year ago we'd all been told the decision would be made in September. Ms Coutinho moved to the department in August - and on 21 September we were told it would be delayed until December.

This is a major planning decision - but it isn't the biggest decision a Cabinet Minister has to make, and it shouldn't be the most complex - Mr Miliband didn't take long!

But perhaps it isn't totally unreasonable for the minister to have put it off three months as she was so new. But on December 7 it was delayed again - this time until March - with no explanation.

March arrived and the announcement was put off again until April - the third delay on Ms Coutinho's watch.  And in April it was put off again until June 20.

As it happened, of course, that was then automatically delayed yet again because of the General Election.

That's five delays, four caused directly by Ms Countinho. When new West Suffolk MP Nick Timothy meets her in the House of Commons he needs to ask her whether these four delays were caused by laziness, incompetence, cowardice . . . or a combination of all three!

Nick Timothy criticised the decision to approve Sunnica. (Image: Nick Timothy/West Suffolk Conservatives)

Frankly Mr Timothy and Suffolk County Councillor Richard Rout have no one to blame but their own party to blame for this decision.

Mr Rout said it was the worst infrastructure planning application he had ever seen - so why was his party's secretary of state unable to see that? FOUR times?

I had been told by both politicians and a council officer that despite concerns raised by the government's Planning Inspectorate, the application did look very robust from a national point of view - and it would be difficult for a minister to justify refusal.

And on the Planning Inspectorate point. It is a longstanding foundation of democracy that while expert advice should be heard, democratically-elected ministers should make the final decision.

Mrs Thatcher put it succinctly nearly 40 years ago: "Advisors advise, ministers decide."

I was told then that ministers would be desperate to put off the decision until after the election to try to deflect the blame to the incoming government.

And anyone who had listened to the speeches of Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband over the last few months should not have been surprised by the speed that these decisions have been made.

They  couldn't have been clearer if they had stood at the top of Big Ben with a megaphone on the subject!

This whole debacle has highlighted the dreadful incompetence of the previous government and shown why it lost so spectacularly.

It wasn't that people necessarily rejected its political philosophy - voters were fed up with its inability to govern properly.

Everything it did, from the small boats policy to the NHS, to the state of our schools, roads and public services generally seemed to be failing.

People didn't love the idea of Sir Keir Starmer as PM in the way they looked forward to Tony Blair in 1997, but at least Sir Keir and his team exuded an air of competence and mission - something that had been totally lacking by the previous government.

And it is a government that isn't afraid to make decisions that will upset some - as we've seen with Sunnica. But I'm sure most protesters will know where the real blame lies for this!

The opinions expressed in this column are the personal views of Paul Geater and do not necessarily reflect views held by this newspaper, its sister publications or its owner and publisher Newsquest Media Group Ltd.