For those of you with weak memories, here is Arthur Scargill, defiant miners’ leader who crashed to defeat against Margaret Thatcher.

He is still whirring away with the Socialist Labour Party, a lumpen Marxist phenomenon of no consequence.

But as if for old times’ sake, here he is in the Guardian getting free publicity arguing the case for coal power as opposed to nuclear power.

Does he make any sense? Hard to tell – depends on how you measure the ‘true’ costs of coal as opposed to gas as opposed to nuclear calculated over decades.

But he is as defiant as ever:

I challenge George Monbiot to test out which is the most dangerous fuel – coal or nuclear power. I am prepared to go into a room full of CO2 for two minutes, if he is prepared to go into a room full of radiation for two minutes.

The Scargill case rests on the assumption that clean coal is Good and radioactivity is Bad. That said, it’s not quite clear to me what a room full of radioactivity is, since all rooms are ‘full’ of natural radioactivity anyway. Go for it George!

Oh – and coal-burning itself is a handy source of radioactivity.

Whatever. Back to Kraftwerk.