THE headmaster of Coombe Dean School does not rank this column among his close personal friends.

In fact, we get the impression he'd quite like to lash us (that's me and the column, not the Royal 'we') to the tip of a wind turbine in a Force Nine gale. With a hailstorm thrown in.

It all boils down to a column this time last year, which criticised Pattrick Frean for wanting to erect two wind turbines in the school grounds, in the face of fierce local opposition.

Plymouth City Council turned down the application, but Mr Frean appealed to a Government inspector and won.

No doubt Mr Frean would rate John Prescott, the former deputy Prime Minister, as a friend. Last month Mr Prescott vowed to take on 'Nimbys' who don't want wind turbines near their homes – and council planning committees which support them.

Perhaps Yorkshire Water (or whoever) could consider moving their sewage works next door to Mr Prescott's eight-bedroom, turreted house in his constituency of Hull. I'm sure he wouldn't want to be a Nimby.

Nimby, the acronym for Not In My Back Yard, was originally applied in quite legitimate causes, but is now tagged on to anything to try to shame opponents.

The word was trotted out frequently at the Plymouth planning committee meetings that considered the Coombe Dean turbines applications.

The odd thing is, this column actually likes wind turbines, though in the same way as, say, a gin and tonic: in the right place and at the right time. If I was dying of thirst in a desert, a G&T might help a little, but water would be better.

Mr Prescott said 'stupid' councils who turned down applications for wind farms were 'a disgrace'.

"We have to counteract the Nimbys who say they want change, but not in their backyard," Mr Prescott said.

Except... except James Lovelock, guru of the Greens and inventor of the Gaia hypothesis, isn't convinced.

Dr Lovelock, who lives near Launceston, told the Western Morning News that he regrets endorsing wind farms in the West Country. He believes nuclear power is the only way to provide enough energy without global warming.

You only have to go to a crowded party to know that just having too many people around raises the temperature. Like the world at large, Plymouth's population is rising. The number of residents in the city was 252,800 last year, up for the seventh year running.

When I was a callow youth we fretted about population growth, but that seems to have been turned on its head. Nations (except perhaps India and China) now try to encourage their people to breed.

Politicians are panicked by the thought of the Baby Boomer generation reaching retirement age and needing enough workers to pay their pensions.

Governments fixated on recession see the spiral of ever-increasing production and consumption as the only way out.

"Consume! Consume!" they bellow, paying lip-service to our ultimate survival by backing wind farms and even abolishing plastic shopping bags.

Modbury, near Plymouth, banned plastic shopping bags in 2007, and cities far and wide have followed suit.

Great idea. Except... when Ireland taxed shopping bags, sales fell by 90 per cent – and sales of plastic bin-liners rose 400 per cent.

Dr Lovelock has warned that the planet is fighting back against our abuses, and that climate change will kill all but about half a billion of us in the coming century. I'll probably be crucified on a Coombe Dean turbine before then.

CERTAIN MPs have had their fingers in the expenses till, figuratively speaking. Ted Fry, the city council's Conservative deputy leader, has his in a bandage.

Mr Fry had a run-in with a dog while out on the campaign trail for yesterday's Ham ward by-election. The hound (we assume it wasn't Labour leader Tudor Evans) took offence when Mr Fry pushed a Tory leaflet through the letterbox.

"It was a Labour dog," Mr Fry said later. "It had sharp teeth."

Never one to give up, Mr Fry returned to the fray, gingerly pushing two more letters through the door.

The dog snapped them up instantly. If its owners noticed a pink tinge to the election material, it was Fry blood and not a political conversion.

Two years ago Pauline Murphy, the former Labour Lady Mayoress, escaped a similar mauling by her fingertips – which were adorned with long and colourful nails. Perhaps Ms Murphy will lend a set to Mr Fry for the next election.