IDS: The odds are someone will die CALL FOR DATE ON BET CURB
Fifth quake at frack site
A FIFTH minor earthquake was recorded at a controversial fracking site yesterday.
All happened after Cuadrilla re-started drilling near Blackpool, Lancs, on Monday, said the British Geological Survey.
The news came as over a thousand protesters held a demo at the plant.
The biggest tremor had a magnitude of just 0.3 but experts warned the miniquakes could be indicators of bigger ones ahead.
Fracking was stopped in 2011 after two tremors.
David Smythe, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, University of Glasgow, said: “If it carries on, bigger earthquakes may well be triggered.”
Cuadrilla says its monitoring system is working to the “highest standard”. FORMER Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith today launches a crossparty appeal urging the Chancellor to honour his pledge on fixed odds betting terminals.
In an exclusive interview with the Sunday People, Mr Duncan Smith says further delays in reducing the stake on FOBTS will cost lives.
And he urges Chancellor Philip Hammond not to let down those families whose lives have been wrecked and have lost loved ones because of the devastating effect of the bookie shop machines. Mr Duncan Smith believes a few Tories are putting pressure on the Chancellor to delay a £2 betting limit. He said: “There’s an issue over a couple of people in the Commons. There are now whispers around the Government it could be later than April 2019.
“But we want it now. This was announced some time ago.
“People have had plenty of time to get their act together, including the gambling industry. If it isn’t done more people will die.”
FOBTS, known as the crack cocaine of gambling, let customers bet up to £100 every 20 seconds. The Sunday People and others campaigned for the £2 limit.
Mr Duncan Smith said the Chancellor should not bow to pressure and should include the date of the reduction in his Budget speech a week tomorrow.
The former Tory leader said “Most of my colleagues on the Conservative benches are completely in favour of this.
“I suspect the same with Labour and everyone else. This is beyond party lines.”
Mr Duncan Smith, who has met families of gamblers addicted to the machines, added: “The gambling industry has been putting pressure on from the word go.
“But sometimes right must trump might. And that is the case here.”