Michael Shanks

With tomorrow being Labour 's 100th day in office, the guild of sketch-writers is planning a celebratory wassail. We will shoot the apple tree, have a Morris dance and sing hey-nonny-no to the fertile gods of farce. Much of the country may be fed up, but from our viewpoint things are going deliciously. Yesterday brought further ­succulents. Louise Haigh was taking departmental questions, her dyed hair a blinding pink, her face vaguely tanned and her dress bright green. Ms Haigh, Secretary of State for Transport, had come as a traffic light. In manner, however, she was all go-go-go, with indubitable swagger and a magnificently-curled lip. She sounded so furious, it was as if she was trying to match her Cabinet colleague Bridget Phillipson for sulphurous loathing of the Tories.

Britain's last coal-fired power station has closed to a mixed reaction from locals with some saying the the imposing plant is a 'blot of the landscape' and 'best to get rid of' while others are very sorry to see it go. At midnight on Monday the station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar switched off its generators for the very last time after more than 50 years of powering Nottinghamshire. The symbolic moment makes the UK the first G7 country to close down all of its coal power stations and marks the end of 142 years of the nation's reliance on the fossil fuel to generate electricity. Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station has been generating electricity since 1968 via its four coal-fired boilers, eight vast cooling towers and 199m-tall chimney, which occupies a prominent spot in the East Midlands skyline.

Britain's nearly 150-year reliance on coal power ended last night. The last remaining coal-fired power station, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar near Nottingham , switched off its generators for the last time at midnight. The symbolic moment makes the United Kingdom the first G7 country to close down all of its coal power stations. It draws to a close 142 years of British reliance on the fossil fuel to generate electricity. France is due to phase out coal by 2027, Canada by 2030, the US by 2035 and Germany only plans to stop burning brown coal - the most polluting fossil fuel - in 2038. The UK is not the first in Europe however - Sweden and Belgium have both already closed their coal power stations.