The campaign against fracking is based on lies and shale extraction could power the UK for a generation

THE campaign against fracking is a pack of lies.

The Sun has made this point before. It is good to see the Advertising Standards Authority agreeing, by rubbishing every claim in a leaflet blitz by the anti-shale propagandists Friends of the Earth.

Their hysterical scares about fouled water, increased cancer and asthma and lower house prices are nothing but anecdotes cherry-picked from the web.

Most are conspiracy theory drivel or, at best, half-truths about fracking’s teething troubles years ago in the US, where regulation is far laxer than here.

Spreading these fictions suits the greens who fantasise that Britain could somehow be powered by wind or sunshine. They have no desire to expose the public to facts.

And the misinformation is working. Support for exploring shale is falling.

Naturally, Jeremy Corbyn’s hard-Left Labour numbskulls have been taken in and vow to outlaw fracking if they ever win power.

The working class they used to represent would embrace a potential source of cheap electricity and all the jobs it would create. But Labour is now a party of middle-class lefties comfortably untroubled by the size of a utility bill.

It is time Britain woke up to the reality that shale extraction will be safe and could power the UK for a generation.

And it is vital to expose the falsehoods of the zealots aiming to halt progress.

Boom in store

NOW the Germans are starting to realise Brexit will be good for Britain.

Granted, many firms there still trot out the official EU line . . . that disaster is looming.

But Aldi is putting its money where its mouth is, with a £300million investment in UK stores. It is booming here and selling more and more British produce.

Meanwhile the head of Berlin media giant Axel Springer says Britain, as a free-trading, low-tax country outside the EU, could be a magnet for foreign investors. He predicts we will be better off than the
Continent in three to five years.

Little wonder, then, that Brussels’ tinpot bureaucrats want to give us the roughest possible exit.

Wiser heads will realise that will help no one.

French whine

DO French presidential candidates really win votes by whining about Britain doing more to clear the Jungle camp at Calais?

Imagine it was in Dover and our ­politicians standing for election were bleating pathetically for France’s help.

Voters, especially in Kent, would just tell Westminster to sort it out, deport those with no right to be here and disperse the rest.

It’s long past time the French got their act together.