The Telegraph: Why the fracking industry admits it is 'getting smashed' by public opposition

“Mate,” came the admission of the week so far, “we are getting smashed”. It was delivered by Allan Campbell, the Australian (as you might have guessed) founder of Cuadrilla Resources, the leading fracking firm, who has been described as the “godfather” of Britain's nascent shale gas industry. Confessing he had “underestimated the political aspect” of the company's operations in Britain “by 100 per cent”, he was expressing his frustration at being routed by public opposition, not least by a combination of crustie campaigners and Conservative countrypeople in Balcombe, West Sussex.

Stressing that shale could prove to be “the North Sea all over again”, he complained, in a newspaper interview on Sunday, of “a vacuum of information that is being filled with hyperbole with no foundation in facts”, adding: “I don't want everyone to agree, but I want everyone to at least understand.”

Perhaps Mr Campbell is feeling a little better now, for a leading green panjandrum has just ridden to his side. Lord Deben (a.k.a John Gummer), the chairman of the official Climate Change Committee, agreed that shale gas should be exploited as soon as possible. “It just isn't true”, he went on, “that fracking is going to destroy the environment.”

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