IF THE government was actually trying to create a climate of suspicion about nuclear power it couldn't do much better. Last week, the high court in London condemned its public consultation on nuclear power as "misleading" and "seriously flawed".It provided virtually no information about the real costs and risks.

In fact,it wasn't really a consultation at all, but a public relations exercise. Tony Blair had already decided what he wanted to do, and the consultation - like the dodgy dossiers on Iraq - were created to fit the policy. We have been here before.

The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CORWM) held a similarly empty consultation on nuclear waste before it reported in July last year. It was supposed to find a solution to the most intractable problem of this form of energy.

But it rapidly became clear that this three-year inquiry was essentially a PR exercise designed to persuade the public that there was no alternative to deep geological storage of nuclear waste. Which isn't actually a solution at all. The purpose was to dispel "irrational" public fears about nuclear power. It was an exercise in managed consent.

We are supposed to be completing another consultation right now on a new generation of Trident nuclear submarines, though there has been precious little sign of it. As with the decision to build a new generation of nuclear power stations, the consultation on Trident has been an empty exercise in ex-post facto accountability. The key decision has already been taken, and the prime minister admitted as much in December when he said it would be "unwise and dangerous" not to renew Trident.

Indeed, Blair has been remarkably frank about his nuclear intentions all along. Nuclear power is "back with a vengeance" he said when announcing the last energy review. His reaction to Mr Justice Sullivan's decision that the nuclear consultation was unlawful was a shrug of the shoulders. "It won't alter the policy," he said on his visit to Scotland.

You wonder why they bother holding them at all. Like the e-petition on road pricing, these consultations are immensely counter-productive. If there is a case for new nuclear power stations, this is not the way to make it.

The nuclear industry already has such an appalling record of deception and concealment, that the government should be bending over backwards to be open and above board. Take Dounreay. It took 40 years for the truth to emerge about the release of plutonium particles from the fast-breeder reactor in Caithness, or the dumping of radioactive waste in a landfill site, or the explosion there in 1977, which sprayed nuclear material across the beaches.

Yet, it was only two weeks ago in Wick Sheriff Court that the UK Atomic Energy Authority finally owned up by pleading guilty to four breaches of the Radioactive Substances Act. It was fined £140,000.

This "fast breeder" reactor, which was supposed to generate energy from spent nuclear fuel, never worked and will cost £4 billion to decommission. Borne of unwarranted technological optimism and clothed in official secrecy, Dounreay represents the industry in microcosm.

It may be the case that nuclear power in some form will have to remain a part of the energy equation, at least until renewable energy sources can be developed. All the more reason, then, for the industry and the government to give up the habits of a lifetime.

The essence of the problem is endemic secrecy. Deception is in the DNA of the nuclear industry, and dates back to its origins as part of Britain's nuclear weapons programme after the second world war. Stations, like Calder Hall and Windscale, were built to generate plutonium for atomic bombs. Civil nuclear power was an afterthought.

The programme took place under the Labour government of Clement Attlee, in utmost secrecy. The UK Cabinet wasn't consulted, let alone the public.

The development of successive generations of Britain's "independent nuclear deterrent", through Polaris, Chevaline and Trident, has been shrouded in double-speak and dissembling. And so it continues today. In his speech to the Commons in December, the prime minister claimed that the renewal of Trident would comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.After all, it was only the boats which were being replaced, and the number of warheads would be reduced.

However, it is an open secret that the government is working on a "reliable replacement warhead" which would breach the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT). At the Atomic Weapons EstablishmentatAldermaston in Berkshire, work has already started on testing the new device.This simulates theeffectofathermonuclearexplosion, enabling new nuclear weapons to be tested without detonating underground bomb tests.

This was all revealed in the Sunday Times last year and the substance of the report has never been denied. In these circumstances, and with this history, it is hardly surprising that paranoia is the default position of the nuclear state.

Last week, concerned scientists, writers and church leaders launched a campaign against replacing Trident. This is a noble if belated effort, but the real focus of dissent should have been in parliament itself for that is where the final decision will shortly be made.

Unfortunately, Westminster seems to have given up the ghost, even before it died. Which leaves Holyrood the only democratic body left to challenge the nuclear spectre - even though the Scottish parliament formally has no say over nuclear power or nuclear defence. Nuclear politics will play a key role in the Scottish elections in May, if only because four out of five Scots oppose Trident and there remain deep reservations about nuclear power.

It will not help Jack McConnell's campaign that a Labour government has been caught mounting a phoney consultation on nuclear power. And it seems a racing certainty that MPs in Westminster will vote for a new generation of Trident in the Clyde next month, on the very eve of the Holyrood campaign.

McConnell has made his own views pretty clear on both issues: he is a sceptic on both nuclear power and nuclear defence, but has been brought reluctantly into line on both counts. He now accepts the inevitability of Trident renewal and the need for nuclear power.

But the other main Scottish parties, SNP and LibDem - unlike the Tory opposition in Westminster - reject both nuclear power and renewing Trident. Voters of Scotland have a choice to make, and their decision could have profound implications for the future of the UK. The real consultation begins here.