Conservatives and greenery go together. We wish to conserve what is best in nature and our environment. Conservatives have often pioneered legislation to improve water quality, clean up our air, protect our countryside and conserve what is best in our landscape and heritage. Around the country Conservative Councils are often struggling with the dilemma of people needing affordable homes whilst many others regret the passing of woods and pastures to grow crops of new houses. Many of us share the passion for clean air and water and for the gentle contours of English rural landscapes.
The levelling up agenda provides a heaven sent opportunity to do something better. There is no reason why planning policies should continue to direct ever more executive homes to the hard pressed south east, when other parts of the country could benefit from the jobs and investment major new housebuilding creates. Now that in the post pandemic world more homeworking and remote working is becoming part of our lives many more people will be freed from the need to live close to London on a commuter pathway. More small businesses and start up enterprises could be encouraged to establish away from the lure of the capital city. That requires more attractive housing for the investors, managers and entrepreneurs who will help populate the growth and success of areas that are grasping the opportunity to level up.
Levelling up will be a vast series of personal journeys. For everyone in an area that is improving who does set up a business or brings in a new investment there will be many others who will seize the opportunity to get a better job, to use and develop their talents to advance the new enterprise. Every major company siting a business premise in a new area represents an opportunity for smaller companies to spring up to supply everything from the lunchtime sandwiches and coffees through to the technology support, the cleaning and components they will need. Every new housing estate creates first round jobs for the building trades to be followed by all the jobs to support new residents in their new homes.
Government’s role is not only to provide better planning policies, but also to help with high quality education and training. Working with business there can be a new can do approach in places which have been sidelined by investors in recent years. The main thing enterprises need is talented people to work for them and deliver great customer service and product excellence.
Over the last fortnight the UK government has valiantly tried to craft worldwide agreement over the issue of climate change. It was always a difficult task. India, China, and Russia, three of the largest producers of carbon dioxide on the planet were never going to agree to curb their appetites for burning coal, oil and gas. China accounts for some 30% of the total world creation of additional carbon dioxide, and has decided to mine more coal and build more coal power stations. The conference was divided on the very issue of whether coal burning should be completely phased out worldwide or not. In the end the assembled countries could only agree to a diluted sentiment that coal would be phased down, without timetables or pledges from the main users of the fuel. Germany kept a low profile, though she as an advanced country is holding out to burn coal in power stations through to 2038. The Greens are wanting to form part of the new governing coalition after the recent German election, and are pressing to bring this down to 2030 to bring Germany a bit closer to other advanced countries and the UN approved policy of phasing out coal quickly. It still shows how difficult it is to agree the end of coal when a major advanced industrial country clings to it as a prime source of energy.
The problems besetting COP 26 were not just the divided world over how feasible it is to decarbonise, nor even just the disagreement over how much money rich countries should send to poorer countries to help them change. Central to the whole debate is the question of peopleās buy in to what the transition means for their own lifestyle. It is only when there are sufficient affordable and good products available to heat your home, to travel to work and to fill your plate with carbon free food will the green programme take off. So far the elites who come to summits have lectured the many that we need to change our lifestyles whilst they themselves fly in jet planes to air conditioned hotels to eat meat diets as if none of their advice applied to themselves. When challenged they might claim that they have spent money on carbon offsets, whilst seeing no choice for their own purposes but to carry on using jet fuel, gas heating, traditional food products and the rest. The digital revolution sweeps all before it without government requests or demands, without subsidies and taxes to drive it. People want mobile and smartphones, computer pads, entertainment downloads and the other services that the digital giants can offer. For COP 26 to succeed it needs to spawn a new generation of products and services that meet the carbon requirements whilst also being affordable and better solutions to the problems of everyday life.
Levelling up can of course help produce the range of new jobs and skills which a popular green revolution could generate. The main thrust is to electrify much more of life and then to generate more power from renewable or carbon neutral sources of energy. As governments bring this about they need to reassure people that there are ways of keeping the lights on when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. COP 26 set up various working groups of countries to explore new technologies to provide better travel, heating and industrial process. The sooner they produce results the better. If there are more breakthroughs with cheaper and better ways of doing these things that cut the carbon, then India, China and Russia will also want to adopt them. If there are not even the advanced countries will find it difficult to sell the practice of decarbonisation to their own electors.
November 18, 2021
Good morning, Sir John.
Far too sensible.
Mary M.
November 18, 2021
Indeed still at least it seems they are cancelling HS2 and finally some real deterrent actions against the insulation road blockers. JR talks how feasible it is to decarbonise but it is not even desirable.
The real solutions are in the short term get fracking and use the gas, oil and even coal (and use it as sparingly/economically as we can) n the medium term develop better nuclear and in longer term we will have
nuclear fusion. Adapt as needed to climate change be it hotter or colder, wetter or dryer as needed.
Sensible R&D is good when it works it will sell without bribes. Rolling out duff and premature technology with subsidies or tax breaks just gives you lots and duff premature technology littered all over the place (and much higher tax bills) but this is the government agenda it seem.
November 18, 2021
Cancelling some of HS2 I meant alas not all of this white elephant lunacy.
November 18, 2021
+1
November 18, 2021
@Mary M; Kowtowing to the NIMBYs in the south east more like. Here in the south & south-east we still do not have a east-west motorway across the south linking the channel ports and Exeter/M5, heck we don’t even have a contiguous duel-carriageway. The south and south-east still have much the same passenger railway as we had 60 years ago, some areas make that 80 years, increasingly prone to disruptions due to winter weather (due to light-weight modern trains). Many areas in the south and south-east have never had ‘industry’ (be that light or heavy) and lack investment in that sector, many areas lack enough enterprise zones of any sort. Housing in the south and south east has been in short supply since the last of the big council house building programs of the 1970s were completed in the early ’80s, and with the usual NIMBY objections developers either have to wait for extended planning appeals or they buy blocks of offices for conversion, which then impact enterprise and start-ups.
But this is just as the NIMBYs in their Ā£M+ homes and ancestral estates want. For average Jo here in the south “Leveling up” is not about helping the north, it’s about ‘preserving’ the south…
Sorry for sounding somewhat like young Andy!
November 18, 2021
Seems rather at odds, with the recent waiving of the rules against discharging apparently unlimited amounts of untreated sewage into our rivers and coastal waters.
They couldn’t have done that whilst the country was a member of the European Union.
The only-for-profit lads who run the companies must be cock-a-hoop.
I don’t expect anyone’s bills to be reduced, mind you.
I think that it’s crystal clear – unlike our waters – what Conservatism means.
November 18, 2021
NLH who owns the companies that have discharged unlimited amounts of untreated sewage? What have ofwat done about it? What have ofwat done to regulate these companies to make sure they are investing sufficiently into sewage and waste treatment? You seem to know a lot about it and Iāve tried to search for fines and ownership before but not coming up with much do you have links?
November 19, 2021
Southern Water in Sussex got handed a really large fine for discharging sewerage into the rivers recently.
November 19, 2021
The waiver came after that.
November 19, 2021
It does not mean a thing if you do not quote the amount of the fine related to the annual turnaround of the company (see southernwater.co.uk, Annual Report and Financial Statements, 31 March 2021; Interim financial information and report, 30 September 2021).
In the recent years, they got fines of Ā£20m (2008), Ā£126m (2019), Ā£90m (07/2021). What you have to realise is that the company can go on like this, paying this level of fines every few years, still not changing its business model, still paying its top executives in the six or even seven figures (Ā£1.1m for its CEO), keep giving reasonable dividends for its shareholders and ā¦ let the consumers pay the bill.
Have you ever looked at āGreensands/Southern Water ownership structureā on southernwater.co.uk, a very interesting document ā¦
November 19, 2021
It does not mean a thing if you do not quote the amount of the fine related to to the annual turnaround of the company (see southernwater.co.uk, Annual Report and Financial Statements, 31 March 2021; Interim financial information and report, 30 September 2021).
In the recent years, they got fines of Ā£20m (2008), Ā£126m (2019), Ā£90m (07/2021). What you have to realise is that the company can go on like this, paying this level of fines every few years, still not changing its business model, still paying its top executives in the six or even seven figures (Ā£1.1m for its CEO), keep giving reasonable dividends and let the consumers pay the bill.
Have you ever look at āGreensands/Southern Water ownership structureā on southernwater.co.uk, a very interesting document ā¦
November 19, 2021
@hefner; Well if they want to carry on being fined by Ofwat and thus having to reduce my utility bill, by quite a significant amount… Southern Water customers are not picking up the tab for once.
That is not to say there are no problems with the ownership of, probably, all the privatised utility companies, all seem to be ‘to big to fail’, owned as they are by investment funds and pension funds etc, not the privatisation model promised.
November 19, 2021
@a-tracy; Well if you have been searching for action taken by Ofwat against (waste) water companies for discharging unlimited amounts of untreated sewage all I can say you have not searched very hard, if at all, given Ofwat handed out a Ā£126m fine in 2019 and another Ā£20m fine in 2020, what is more both were handed to the same company. Research the (waste) water company for Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of White.
It is also very easy to find ownership, given any Plc has to publish such information, and if you do not care to wade through the corporate websites others almost certainly have, providing citations on Wikipedia for example.
November 19, 2021
Jerry, no I haven’t searched very hard NLH is making statements with no sources as facts such as:
“The only-for-profit lads who run the companies must be cock-a-hoop.” in reference to sewerage discharge.
I simply want NLH to tell me which company he is accusing without having to wade through lots of corporate websites, you are quite correct I do not care to do this to prove someone else’s point.
November 19, 2021
@a-tracy; Actually NLH was making a very pertinent point. As for not doing your own research, well if you want to prove someone else wrong you’ll just have to, if you don’t all you do is leave yourself open to accusations about making assertions -incorrect ones in this instant…
November 20, 2021
Jerry, You are incorrect, I found his post interesting. Iām not trying to prove him wrong Iām trying to get to the bottom of his accusation, do you know which only-for-profit lads who run the water companies NLH is talking about. I am actually quite concerned if he is correct that people are getting clean away with their hands on just the profits with polluting our rivers, I was sure ofwat was there just to make sure that sort of thing doesnāt happen and people are held responsible – otherwise what is the point of them?
November 18, 2021
Not heard of Surfers Against Sewage ? A UK organisation which has been going for decades now.
November 18, 2021
Rubbish NHL it happened whilst we were in the EU.
November 19, 2021
@Peter2; I think NLH was referring to the recent 2021 Environment Act that passed through parliament in the last couple of months, read his first sentence (again).
November 19, 2021
Thanks, Jerry.
But yes, the Tories did fail to enforce European Union standards.
That was not the fault of the standards.
November 19, 2021
The discharges generally happen at times of high rainfall when the alternative would be flooded streets.
Billions are being spent on improving the sewers capacity.
But it needs many more years yet before that manouth task is completed.
What would you and NHL do if you were in charge today?
November 19, 2021
NLH is it the Tories who should be enforcing European Union standards or Ofwat?
November 19, 2021
@Peter2; Stop trying to excuse historic under investment, never mind suffering historical asset stripping due to a hostile takeover in the mid 1990s. The ugly face of capitalism, sewage washed up with the seaweed on tourist beaches even in the height of summer, during the droughts, not a nice smell I can assure you…
@a-tracy; Ofwat is an Non-ministerial government department, answering to DEFRA.
If Ofwat is not doing their job properly then by definition DEFRA is not doing theirs either, meaning someone in the govt of the day are not doing theirs also.
November 19, 2021
It’s a valid comparison Jerry.
Underinvestment was under your beloved nationalisationfor decades.
No answer to my question I note Jerry
What would you and NHL do if CEO today if a water company?
PS
Are you MiC and NHL all the same person?
I do wonder.
November 20, 2021
@P2; Are you a shareholder in Southern Water, you seem very quick to try and defend the indefensible. As for investment, it is not a question about today, it is a question about what should have been done 20-30 years ago [1], your question was irrelevant.
PS, are you and @DOM the same person? I do wonder. š
[1] if not Govt, whilst the industry was nationalised, non of the problems are recent
November 20, 2021
Peter, my husband thinks Jerry, MiC, NLH are the same person. I say no, I donāt think so.
Jerry, NLH – I agree that this action is appalling. Ofwat is paid a fortune to control it and again I agree with you both if Defra are supposed to supervise Ofwat and ensure this is controlled then they need a meeting and NLH accusations need responding to. NLH says Directors are getting away with profits without paying to treat sewerage on a regular basis and are getting away with it. What happens to the fines (thanks Fus) they receive in from these companies? Where is this money spent inside Ofwat or does it go back to government? You both seem to know so much about it why not share the full picture? If the money goes back to Ofwat do they then use it to clean up the waste, do they offer the contract out to a better performing water company? Does the company that is in breach get a warning that if they continue they will lose the contract?
November 20, 2021
@a-tracy; In the case of Southern Water, at end of one investigation Ofwat imposed a Ā£126m fine, of which Ā£123m will be paid by reducing operating profits (via lower bills until 2025), with the Ā£3m balances paid by the shareholders, I presume again via lower dividends (this information is been printed on the face of our bills).
If I may include a URL as some past customers might also be eligible for a refund.
More info at https://www.southernwater.co.uk/our-performance/making-amends-to-our-customers
November 19, 2021
An interesting website for you NHL is waternewseurope.com which has an article about discharges of sewerage into the sea in the EU , with the headline “tourists in Europe are swimming in raw sewage despite blue flags.
Seems it happens in your beloved EU too.
November 19, 2021
@Peter2; Your point being what? I’ve just looked at that website you cite, and whilst you are correct it seems that the EU/EC are taking action, by attempting to improve EU legislation with regards sewage discharges, not dilute what legislation exists, which was the point NLH made.
November 19, 2021
NHL gives us the impression that only the UK has these problems Jerry.
My post and the link shows it is EU wide.
That is my point.
Disappointed you cannot see it.
PS
The UK is also taking action.
Billions are being spent.
November 20, 2021
@P2; No, you are the one trying to give the incinerate impression, by shifting the focus from a very narrow point raised by NLH, one concerned with the 2021 UK Environment Act, a Bill that was laid before parliament post Brexit, changing elements of inherited EU law.
Billions are being spent, I agree, the only question is on what, not sewage treatment plants by the looks, if the waste water companies want/need to discharges increased quantities of untreated or partially treated sewage into rivers and inshore waters… There has always been clauses to allow emergency discharges, such as in floods and breakdowns.
P2, do you own shares in waste water companies, is the value of your pension(s) linked to the value of waste water company shares?
November 20, 2021
Peter2, good but then the government needs to tell everyone what the billions are being sent on. What punishment is dished out to the offending water companies? Are they at risk of having the contract cancelled? Or do they have this contract falling down on the job forever?
It is like our shopping centre, it was sold by the Council to a private company with no safety measures to make sure they looked after it properly, no action was taken with them when they left it to rot and fall down, the council ended up buying it back in a much reduced and poor quality state. Surely when such high necessity contracts are awarded their are some safety measures that someone can lose that contract if they donāt keep 100%?
November 20, 2021
A month or two ago, Sir John had an interesting post about nationalisation/privatisation under Labour governments before 1979 and after 2010. Funnily enough he did not mention any of the privatisations that had occurred between May 1979 and April 1997, during which he had been first Director of the No.10 Policy Unit between Mayā82 and Novā87 then Minister for Corporate Affairs between Julā87 and Aprā92. It must have been a simple oversight from him given that the 1977 (Nicholas) Ridley Report must never had strongly recommended privatisation, or had it?
So in 1979-81 British Aerospace, Amersham International (nuclear energy) and half of Cable & Wireless were sold.
In the 1982-86 British Shipbuilders, Jaguar, British Telecom, SeaLink, the other half of Cable & Wireless, Enterprise Oil, BritOil, British Gas were sold.
In 1987-91 British Steel, British Petroleum, Rolls Royce, British Airways, RoverGroup/British Leyland and most of the state-owned regional 10 water and 12 electricity services were sold.
In 1992-96 British Coal, Powergen, National Power and British Rail were sold.
A total of forty UK state-owned businesses and industries with 600,000 workers were sold for Ā£60bn.
People with (a bit or more) money were able to buy shares, and some did extremely well out of the whole thing.
Most of the new private sector entities needed at least some type of regulatory oversight, and a number of such bodies (of the Ofxxx type) sprang into being offering nice cosy cushions to a number of āOne of Usā (Mrs Thatcher dixit).
Given the advantages to both the government of the day and their friends, the privatisation trend continued somewhat under the following Labour governments (do not expect Labour to resist the pull of money when in power). But given the extent of what had already been privatised between 1979 and 1997, the possibilities were somewhat more limited.
And since then āEverything is for the best in the best of all possible worldsā. Arenāt we happy like dogs with two tails?
Reply The Conservative privatisation programme achieved many good things and greatly widened ownership.There were popular employee share schemes. National Freight was bought out by the lorry drivers.
November 20, 2021
P2, if ābillions are being spentā to reduce waste water spillage it should be easy for you to come with a reference of what the water companies are/will be doing to improve the situation.
On a much smaller (and simpler) problem, in Earley (Reading) there were leaks from underground drain water pipes essentially linked to heavy lorries having to drive a few meters on the pavement at a particular (rather poorly designed) junction/roundabout and having broken the underground pipes, which created a flooding every time there was rain for more than half an hour. The problem was further exacerbated in the autumn by leaves filling up the drains and creating a semi-permanent pond for a few weeks.
Having to ride my bike along that road every day of the week to go to work, I must have been among the first people (pedestrians and cyclists) to write to the Council about the problem, as I was regularly soaked by cars realising too late there was an extended water pond at that junction.
It was clear that the following autumn there were a couple of Thames Water people around to have a look and digging a bit but whatever they were doing that time and the next three or four autumns was absolutely ineffective, as the flooding continued to happen in much the same way.
It took six years for Thames Water to solve the problem properly by changing finally the relevant pipes over more than one hundred metres, and in agreement with the Town Council (I suppose) by redesigning somewhat the junction to prevent heavy lorries from going onto the pavement.
I just hope that āthe billions being spentā will bring some solution to the sewer discharge to the sea, and hopefully the first time around.
November 22, 2021
Jerry
NHL and others like you are desperately trying to claim that Brexit is the cause of UK water discharges.
I have shown that similar problems exist in Europe .
Simple as that.
November 22, 2021
An interesting site, this waternewseurope.com (thanks for the info) looking at bathing water quality in 2016 (pre-Brexit) in the 28 EU countries. It puts the UK in 25th position (65% of clean beaches). So obviously not due to Brexit, but not such a great result.
November 19, 2021
“Crops of new houses” said Sir John
I would add pastures of Voltaic Solar panel arrays..
I may be against the prospect of GW (Global Warming) being a major contribution of man, but at the same time I am not against harnessing the apparently free properties of sun, wind and the tides and I do appreciate the need to stop depleting earth’s resources and clearing plastic from land and the oceans.and to stop atmospheric pollution generally
But now a bit of personal NIMBYism, I have just received literature of a proposal to instal two Solar Panel arrays locally covering many acres of what in this area of Lincolnshire is probably very productive farm land.( oh dear I am showing my age , hectares then!)
Why don’t they put it up on the moors? Well in this case they have spotted a couple of coal fired power stations going out of use and so they will be able to channel the electricity gathered via these power stations to the National Grid, I would imagine saving a pretty sum of money.
But I am against industrialisation of the agricultural landscape and this in my opinion, is what is intended here.
If they must do it, and it appears to me that it is a done deal, which despite any local objections will be imposed on us.
Why couldn’t they construct light greenhouse like structures, put the panels on the roof and grow salads and vegetables in them all the year round?
In passing,, I would hope that the work would not be funded by China, nor the panels and any other stuff be purchased there and that the construction would be carried out by British labour in fact this should not be just a hope but a condition.
If we are going to carry on filling the country with now thousands daily of illegal immigrants crossing the Chanel, if we are not going to send them back, might as well make them work their passage.
(Didn’t the Germans use “guest workers”?)
November 20, 2021
Interesting ideas footprint. I would imagine there would be a fire risk with all the peat on moors perhaps.
But you are correct why not have solar panels on all the greenhouses, schools and College buildings, indeed make all roof tiles that are south facing solar tiles.
Quite it makes you think seven years seeking asylum without having to work in a legitimate job. I wonder when the bomber was a pizza worker was he also claiming universal credit?
November 20, 2021
In Devon and Somerset there have been such initiatives, some already seven years old, to set up solar panels on schools. They are often called Solar Cooperative, Community or Collective (quick, garlic and crucifix ā¦). A number of them have opened as SEISs to raise money for their projects.
November 18, 2021
This government is absolutely bonkers. They are promising to phase out fossil fuels BEFORE there is a viable alternative. The cost will be horrendous, and on top of that they give vast amounts of money to help ‘poorer’ countries, of which we will be one if the government carries on this route.
I hope all governments fail to reduce CO2, as that would be even more catastrophic. It is extremely unlikely though. Can humans control the sun and the moon that have a massive influence on our climate? Even Jupiter has an influence on our climate. Good luck with controlling those! Remember King Canute?
November 18, 2021
Shirley, bonkers sums it up. Our PM looked and sounded bonkers yesterday when being questioned over sleaze. Even Labour are beginning to look…….We’ll, not good but better by comparison but then it wouldn’t be too difficult right now.
November 18, 2021
Shirley M
+10
November 18, 2021
Phasing out fossil fuels before there’s an alternative is a major plank in levelling down.
Forcing us off the road, taxing meat and ensuring we freeze to death is Boris,s idea of levelling up.
Only a clown would be so stupid. He has to go.
November 18, 2021
There are viable alternatives.
40% of our electricity is already produced by renewables. And, remember, the push for renewables really only started a decade or so ago.
Electric cars are the most desirable vehicles on the market – and are perfectly suitable for the vast majority of motorists the vast majority of the time.
Heat pumps are a perfectly viable heating option for most homes. Electric boilers are also an option.
It costs nothing to eat a bit less meat.
Genuinely – stop being such a misery.
November 18, 2021
We’ll see by Spring time, won’t we, Andy.
November 19, 2021
Andy, are you aware of the titanic amount of waste produced by electric car batteries?
November 19, 2021
@Andy; “Heat pumps are a perfectly viable heating option for most homes. Electric boilers are also an option.”
No they are not, heat pumps cost a fortune all told, money most people do not have. Whilst electric CH+DW heating installation (not running costs) might be more or less comparable on price when swapping out say a gas combi-boiler, most homes do not have the necessary electrical intake capacity to run both an electric boiler and the other domestic appliances etc [1], many homes only have a 60 amp main fuse, some only 40 amp, whilst the most efficient electric boilers require a 3phase (440v) supply and very few homes have them, and unless the (privatised) electricity distribution companies are to be subsidised by govt to upgrade domestic intake cables and fuses the cost will again be prohibitive to most home owners.
[1] Some hard facts taken from random manufactures quoted specs;
a 7Kw (23,900 BTU) electric boiler requires a 32amp single phase supply
a 14.4Kw (49130 BTU) electric boiler requires a 63amp single phase supply
I suspect those ratings need to be assumed to be constant.
November 18, 2021
You are spot on in your first paragraph Shirley M
November 18, 2021
Indeed and many of the CO2 saving āsolutionsā being pushed by government at vast expense do not even work in CO2 terms either at all or to any significant degree. Let alone in climate terms and a little more CO2 is not a problem probable an advantage anyway. Windfarms, EVs, heat-pumps, solar, burning imported wood at Drax as examples.
It makes no sense without world cooperation anyway and is not likely to happen so letās get fracking please. Plus some more sensible R&D.
November 18, 2021
LL, re the EVs – a recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that EVs require roughly six times more of what it calls ācritical mineralsā than conventional vehicles. In particular, the report says that every EV needs about 55 kilograms of copper, 10 kilograms of lithium, nearly 40 kilograms of nickel, 25 kilograms of manganese, and about 70 kilograms of graphite.
The production of the millions of EV needed globally, let alone for the UK, will demand close cooperation with China, which according to the IEA, controls nearly 40% of global copper processing, 60% of global lithium processing, about 35% of global nickel processing, 65% of global cobalt processing, and nearly 90 percent of rare earth element processing.
In 2019, Professor Richard Herrington and his colleagues of the Natural History Museum in London looked at the U.K.ās climate goals and the requirement that all its vehicles be converted to electricity by 2050. They calculated the volume of rare earth commodities needed to convert all the U.K.ās 31 million motor vehicles to electric drive. (Rare earths are a group of elements, including neodymium, an essential ingredient in electric motors.) They found that doing so would require about nine times the worldās current cobalt production, about four times global neodymium output, about three times global lithium production and about two times world copper production.
Best we get very, very friendly with China, yes?
November 18, 2021
Indeed and how much energy is needed to mine, purify and manufacture and these materials and manufacture the care? More than the car will use in its total lifetime or before it needs another new battery in general. Please they will not be charged by zero carbon electricity as no such electricity even exists.
November 19, 2021
So how much energy and minerals are needed to manufacture an IC car and also extract, refine and distribute the hydrocarbon fuels it depends on?
Where is the comparative data backing up your assertions? Why are you classing nuclear and hydro as carbon based power generation, not to mention solar, tidal etc.
And while you are at it make sure to include all the energy used in the HC chain. For instance Shell Canada recently announced they planned to build a 58MW solar farm (in 2023) to provide 20% of the power for the Scotford Energy and Chemicals Park, suggesting a total power requirement of 290MW for the site operation – where does that power come from now? And this is before extraction and transport of the oil then the products which need even more energy.
November 19, 2021
The report doesn’t say “every vehicle EV”, it says the values are for the entire vehicle including battery, motors and glider (I don’t know what that is) based on a 75kWh NMC 622 cathode and graphite based anode battery system.
Firstly, the majority of EVs are not 75kWh systems, more like 30 – 40 kWh.
Secondly, battery systems and chemistries are evolving rapidly with a key aims of reducing amount of minerals and the proportion/presence of some, especially Cobalt. The first Nissan Leaf had no Cobalt in it’s battery and Tesla have the goal of removing it completely.
Rare earth elements are used in the motors, not the batteries, and are not required by some motor designs, they are not critical to function providing something like a 5% efficiency improvement over the non rare earth designs.
Thirdly, many of these materials can be recycled – you cannot recycle oil/diesel/petrol once you have burned it.
Fourthly, the report omits any mention of minerals used in the refinement and use of HC vehicle fuels such as platinum group metals for the exhaust, cobalt for desulphurisation and then there is chromium and nickel (their alloy inconel as well as stainless steel is very popular), copper, titanium, molybdenum, so hardly a comprehensive analysis.
November 18, 2021
I’m sorry to have to repeat what I said only the other day to another correspondent to this diary. King Canute was a strong Christian King (a convert from Norse paganism) whose courtiers and sycophants started saying of him the he was ‘So mighty that even the winds and waves would obey him.’ To refute this he conducted his beach demonstration to show that only God could command the weather.
It seems we find ourselves in much the same position today.
November 18, 2021
Alas Boris idiotically thinks he can control the world temperatures, the sea levels and weather events with heat pumps, wind power and EV subsidies.
Has the Right Hon. member taken leave of his senses? I suppose he thinks inflation will not be a problem issue too.
November 18, 2021
Jupiter?
You mean M Macron?!
November 18, 2021
Ah, DOM, you have articulated the case so much better than I.
November 18, 2021
+1
November 18, 2021
Oh yes, what a great idea. Let’s spread the joy of more housing on green belt land and ancient woods all over the UK. After all, the north is where the bulk of illegal immigrants are being dumped so they’ll be overjoyed with that scenario. And while we’re at it why not take away the jobs that rely on cheap energy to exist when said job could be taken by someone else whose government isn’t clamouring to get on the green band wagon? I despair John. With all the extra people we are being lumbered with this government is determined to make us poorer, colder and live on top of each other in tiny boxes that cost a fortune and a future where big job losses could be on the cards because of high production costs. Sounds brilliant. I live in a county which is now being targeted by the housing developers. The villages are quickly becoming small towns but with no extra infrastructure and no improved public transport. Farm land is always the prefered choice and if it’s not housing then it’s vast arrays of solar panels. Areas of public amenity are also being targeted. If immigration was controlled then perhaps the need for so many homes wouldn’t be so necessary. Leeds is somewhere where better internal transport is needed. Indeed this is an area with high levels of immigrants and I’m sure there will be more coming. It’s all a mess just as your party is a mess and it needs a big sort ouT starting with the PM.
November 18, 2021
FupS
Half term, October- West Sussex matches your description perfectlyā¦ itās so sad to see!
November 18, 2021
F U S
Well said. Your last sentence says it all. Not just the leader but his cabinet all painted with the same brush. All talk talk talk and no action.
November 18, 2021
Or the wrong sort of action.
November 18, 2021
+many million.
Heartily agree.
Actually we scarcely have any proper towns, villages or countryside left.
They have trashed it all and basically given it away.
And it occurs more and more to me how they had NO RIGHT whatsoever to do it!
November 18, 2021
My village is in the north. Five years ago we had 600 houses. 2,400 new houses have now been built. We are now having the heart of our village ripped out to put a dual carriageway through our village to get cars to the multitude of housing estates in the next town. John is wrong on this. The North has seen a massive amount of house building in the last few years.
November 18, 2021
@ Christine – do you now feel contentedly levelled-up?
November 19, 2021
Christine,
You could of course live where I used to live where Fake Tories build 22,000 houses and call it an urban village! Planning permission used to prevent urban sprawl. So this govt. gives it a different name to change what it really is. Access pit that changes the landscape and demographics of a once rural town. Worse, 34% has to be social housing, not for elderly though, and these people can be parachuted in on a point system irrespective how much locals contributed to the society and area they lived in and can no longer go to the best schools, cannot book a GP appointment, go to hospital and lower the standards of all the previously good performing schools. That is before you even consider where are these people going to work? Or will it turn the area to a welfare slum? Welcome to the Fake Tory forced integration. Anyone speaks out it is a hate crime, breach of equalities, racist etc. In short dissent will not be tolerated under the guise of fairness legislation which is anything but.
November 18, 2021
Most of the population growth since the war has been caused by increasing life expectancy. We have far too many old people. Of whom you are one.
But itās easier to blame Gurjit than granny.
November 18, 2021
“…there he goes again…”
November 18, 2021
What rubbish, Andy. If it wasn’t for the vast amount of immigration our population would be reducing each year, due to reduced birth rates and emigration. It is immigrants and their offspring that are driving the quickly (too quickly) growing population in the UK. Our infrastructure cannot cope.
Still, we know you like to blame Brexit and the old folk for everything. You show a distinct lack of logic and/or imagination.
November 18, 2021
Andy
Agree with you about population growth being a problem (my post still in moderation) and you make a statement, so how about posting a solution ?
November 18, 2021
Ageist comment yet again Andy.
“The previously nearly uninterrupted 100 year rise in average life expectancy has been stalling during the last decade. ” ONS.gov.uk 27/03/20 (before covid cut it more).
Births, deaths and migration; these are the three main pillars underpinning the size and structure of any population.
November 18, 2021
And sooner than you think,you will be too young andy
November 19, 2021
Do you think that like Benjamin Button Andy was born old, P2? Or is it simply that you donāt know how to use punctuation?
November 19, 2021
What an odd post heffy.
Still if it keeps you busy..
November 18, 2021
Of course you’re right about population growth in the post-war decades, Andy, but ‘Migration to the UK has been the main driver of population growth since the 1990s’ says the ONS. So your euthanasia agenda seems to be missing the main driver of growth now.
November 18, 2021
Andy. You planning on self euthenasia when you get to 60 then? No, thought not.
November 18, 2021
Same here. We have a local market town being increased in size by about 50 percent as far as I can see, with no extra infrastructure except roads to access the new estates, doctors lists closed, schools over subscribed and kids being bussed one hour away, country roads much the same as the Romans left them, except with tarmac on top. All the building is on prime agricultural land, no brownfield sites. In addition we now have a large area of good agricultural land granted permission for solar panels. Ribbon development between villages making one large housing estate for miles on end. There is no end to this madness. No extra water being provided by new reservoirs. The local authority of course loves it, thousands of extra council tax payers, at the same time they cannot fulfill simple things like collecting the bins on a regular basis. It is all money money money for landowners and builders of poor quality tiny houses.
November 18, 2021
Indeed but let us not+1 forget the sinister agenda of the UN and others. Bonkers he might be but it is a useful cover up for evil.
November 18, 2021
John knows full well that this entire issue is not about protecting the living environment. This entire issue is not about protecting habitat or expanding greenery. It is not about clean air or clean water. The issue of the environment has been used to justify ever greater levels of State control over our lives. We see the same vile politicisation of racial, gender and medical issues. This assertion cannot be denied.
And changes to our lives in the name of protecting the environment doesn’t require the permission of the public as John asserts, it will simply be imposed upon us. There is no choice in the matter. The State has become a barbaric, toxic, cancerous presence in our lives. We can’t escape its influence
John would do well to dig deep into his true beliefs and start to compose articles exposing his party’s betrayal of its own ethics and history for he knows that the party to which he is wedded has now become a Socialist party with ill intent.
The Tory party is now an extension of the Socialist client state built by Labour in 1997.
November 18, 2021
Well said Dom.
November 18, 2021
Iām inclined to agree with Domās views.
I came across a print-out of the history of and explanation of what Cultural Marxism is the other dayā¦
What we are seeing is definitely what that describes. Each of the 11points to destroy a society from within; can be ticked! The lockdowns and now the green crap agenda is nearing the end of its planning. Next will be medical apartheid in the spring with introduction of the health passportā¦ unless, we the public, stop them! Weāve had some success compared with the 14 European countries who already have had it introduced; we have a reprieve until spring!
November 18, 2021
And now I hear that Johnson is again selling us out to the EU.
Retracting, blusteringā¦.to do with NI and even talk of a new deal ( Oh Lord preserve us).
Howl with misery if this is true!!
November 18, 2021
I fear you are right. What we are witnessing is the systematic destruction of the country, its institutions and the foundations of an economy that will provide prosperous living standards for its citizens.
November 18, 2021
+1
Something like how they used both WWs and various recent disasters to increase control over us.
And now the awful threat of global, planet whatever. Terrifying childrenā¦disgusting.
They want to keep us safe. ( Fall about laughingā¦or crying).
Some people actually believe that, you know.
āOnline harmāā¦not half as harmful as what theyāve done to us over the past two years.
Why didnāt they just have one of their wars and be done with it?
November 18, 2021
+ 1 Spot on Dom although Iām not sure where we Tory voters will go in the future. It will have to be the Reform party. Weāre doomed as long as we have FPTP because now that the party calling themselves Conservative have morphed into New Labour, we will only ever get economy wrecking, big state, high tax and spend, authoritarian anti business green crap socialist parties in the future such as we have now. The fake Tories deserve our contempt, but never our votes, for their utter betrayal and broken manifesto promises
November 18, 2021
+1
November 18, 2021
I’m voting Labour.
Boris has proven we’re going to have to go to total ruin and try to rebuild afterwards.
We now have comprehensive evidence that the Tories were the problem all along – free of the EU (allegedly) and with an 80 seat majority.
“Vote for us or Labour will get in” no longer works as a campaign slogan.
November 18, 2021
Its worst then what you describe Dom
Theyāre not just socialists, theyāre incompetent socialists with half a job Boris
Brexit = In name only
NIP = Line down Irish Sea
Fisheries = Given to the French for 8 years
Immigration = Open door policy in force
HS2 = Slow and only half the distance
TānāT = Cronyism
Cop26 = The death of democracy
Green revolution = The death of the party
Inflation = Petrol & heating bills rising
I fail to see a single conservative success story this past decade
November 18, 2021
āBut one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.ā
IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer, speaking in November 2010.
November 18, 2021
Thats enlightening
November 18, 2021
+1
Itās called Levelling Up!
Thatās what it is.
There is some moithering too around the equal distribution of jabs.
November 18, 2021
It’s primarily geopolitical-the Eurasia grouping and their friends ,as well as comprising big users like China and India also includes the biggest sources of fossil fuel reserves Russia,Iran,Venezuela,Turkmenistan,Kazakhstan,etc.Saudi Arabia is also moving ever closer to Russia and China(see OPEC+,recent Russia-Saudi defence agreement and Saudi application(together with Egypt and Qatar) for observer status at Shanghai Co-operation Organization.
It was announced yesterday that Russia is taking effective control of Iran’s multi-trillion Chalous gas field(with a 40% interest,China has 28% and Iran 25%) as a “final act securing control over the European energy market”according to one commentator.Chalous could supply 72% of all the gas needs of Germany,Austria and Italy for 20 years.
November 18, 2021
Ah, DOM, you have articulated the case so much better than I.
November 18, 2021
JR, please could you explain to me why my heavily researched and corroborated comments (for that is what I do) get cancelled; while the likes of “DOM” and several others; who are evidently as nutty as fruitcakes, automatically get past moderation?
reply I have set out my reasons for deleting some comments on several occasions. Too long, unchecked references, false allegations etc
November 18, 2021
Nice to see you making use of the word ‘conserve’, Sir John. I wish your colleagues would reflect on its meaning more often.
November 18, 2021
We need to keep the amount of new houses being built to a minimum unless they are replacing terraces which have been demolished.We have a population explosion : that is the problem : it is affecting every aspect of our lives, every public service and what is more is ruining the NHS.
November 18, 2021
All very well and good but as with all plans and expectations where is the solid foundations of infrastructure to support all the new construction for actual living, transport and travelling?
We have had decades of following the green road on energy and the costs of been horrendous for all consumers and still billions are paid out in subsidies and constraint payments.
Village’s become small towns with no extra infrasture to get the residents fast routes of travel, more schools or facilities. No improvement to sewerage systems, hence overload dumped in rivers and streams. Still we keep allowing in more people illegal or otherwise.
The fear factor is applied again with Climate Change and Net Zero. Children are now brainwashed in schools to become disciples of this new religion. Waste and pollution are going to have a bigger devestating effect than temperature rise that’s if it even happens.
Jobs can be created in their thousands to enhance the nations infrastructure but where is the labour and skills to do it and who will pay?
Tear up these unsustainable plans your trying to deliver. Start with a clean sheet of paper with providing real solid foundations that will secure this nations future.
November 18, 2021
Good morning.
When it comes to party slogans, “Levelling up” ranks alongside the likes of, “Strong and Stable” in the nausea inducing stakes.
November 18, 2021
To achieve what you say you want to achieve it would be a good idea to find a driver who knows how to drive, not finish up in the ditch.
November 18, 2021
If there actually is anyone who wants to do a bit of conserving, theyād better hurry up.
Thereās not a lot left to save.
November 18, 2021
Moreover, I wince when politicians use the ‘on a journey’ narrative. A journey in our world means the movement of a body with a start and end point. The ‘journey’ narrative in political terms has no end point but a point that is never reached and therefore allows for the infinite and continual invocation of an unreachable target that justifies ever greater levels of interference into our private space and ever greater levels of monitoring
Oh yes, we’re on a journey alright, a journey that ends in each individual becoming enslaved, caged and controlled like rats in an experiment
It is simple. We are under attack from a force that cares not one jot about the beauty of life or the sanctity of life.
If ever we needed a true Thatcherite to re-emerge we so desperately need one now
November 18, 2021
DOM, +1, Two excellent comments from your hand on this thread today.
November 18, 2021
I think the building of HS2 disproves most of this.
November 18, 2021
I am getting angry and by the tone of the contributors so are many other people. It is not a dilemma, about the need for more houses v loss of green spaces, it is the direct result of high levels of immigration, which is a decision forced on us by our Government. Japan doesn’t have this problem and has managed to cope for decades with a reducing indigenous population. I’m afraid John has lost me on this subject and the voters will turn on the Conservatives in the next election if they don’t reverse their ideas quickly.
November 18, 2021
Well, Dom.
I’d say you weren’t beating about the bush… if there were any left.
November 18, 2021
And by the way.
WHY do politicians pay deferential lip service to the wokery?
Why not fight for what they surely must believe in?
November 18, 2021
Electric cars are the most desirable vehicles on the market. They are far superior to old fashioned vehicles in almost every way.
But, there is an issue. Although en electric car is significantly cheaper to own over its lifetime there is a significantly higher upfront cost involved in buying one.
Regular cars cost a fortune to fill up and service. Recharging an electric car is cheap. Servicing is negligible. Government action is needed to help consumers bridge that high upfront cost gap.
Action also needs to be taken to phase out existing petrol cars. I suggest all pre-1990 cars should be banned by 2030. All pre-2000 cars should be banned by 2035. All pre-2010 cars should be banned by 2040. All pre-2020 non-electric cars should be banned by 2045. And all non-electric cars should be banned by 2050. A handful of exemptions could be made for classic cars.
Your diesel is going Mr Redwood. Buy a Tesla instead.
November 18, 2021
I suggest we sign contracts for nuclear power stations to be built in every county (ok maybe not Rutland) in order to provide the electricity we will need. However Andy, not bad points but you need to follow through with little trifles you missed like – setting up the recycling industries to convert older petrol then diesel cars with a growing number arriving each 5 years( you could of course consider dropping them into mine shafts, what plans do you think we will need to mine/buy (eco-friendly of course) the rare earth metals etc we will need for all those new electric cars, where will people park the cars within acceptable cable length to their homes/flats, what plans do you have for battery breakdown for it will surely happen at the roadside, what will recycling be like for all those millions of exhausted car batteries arriving every 5 years – starting in just 5 years from now? And just another small problem -how will all those juggernauts, coaches, minibuses be replaced? We would expect to still move food and other worthwhile products around.
November 18, 2021
“Up front cost”
OK. I need a family estate car that can do long range, heavy haul and at the moment I can buy an Octavia new circa Ā£21k.
Running costs are actually pretty minimal. What goes wrong and costs a lot tends to be central locking, aircon, wiper motors etc. A Tesla will suffer from these faults too over the 15 years I tend to keep a car. It will also need brakes and steering serviced and repaired even if it is electric.
The Octavia engine itself is a reliable lump which needs only fluids, filters and plugs renewed ever so often but that’s about it. It costs me around Ā£150 to Ā£200 a year to do, less if I do it myself.
Recharging *so far* is cheap. Let’s see how public charging points look when Teslas are competing with many more electric cars and the facilities haven’t been provided.
I don’t doubt for a minute that electric cars are great and I’d love one but the cost is not just a little out of my price range – it’s WAY out of my price range and what you are proposing is yet more Government intervention in my life.
COP 26 was an embarrassment.
Because of this you want us to undertake unilateralism to show the rest of the world the way – yet you tell us that Britain is an irrelevance since it left the EU. What it’s really about is that Boris has made promises that cannot be met and his ego is more important than my kids being able to heat and eat.
November 18, 2021
You lefties love banning things young andy.
You elites can afford cars costing 40k or more.
Most cannot afford such vehicles.
November 18, 2021
Perhaps the next COP meeting should discuss the real problem, and that is the growing world population.
Each human being creates their own individual CO2, and demands and consumes varying quantities of the Earths many and varied resources, whilst littering and poisoning it with a whole range of waste and rubbish.
If, and it’s a very big if, the real source of Climate Change is believed to be human activity, then until the growth in population is controlled (and that is another completely different discussion) the problem will be ever more difficult to resolve.
November 18, 2021
I can go along with that general concept; true Conservatism is the sensible balanced approach to life.
Unfortunately, today, when we talk about anything green the socialist dogma kicks in, no matter the party. Boris, for example, has swallowed the whole GREEN agenda without digesting any of it.
Any improvements to our country have to be driven by common sense, not irrational mind destroying propaganda and soundbites. We expect true Conservatives to deliver quality based on good planning, but that’s not happening currently.
My perception of labour and greenness were initially formed in the 60’s when they came to power and started to destroy all the old beautiful buildings that had filled our cities to replace them with carbuncles – At that time, they put out the idea that we should eliminate all the greenery, weeds, grass, and so on by pouring concrete over them. Their ideal world was one concreted over, without any ugly green grass, beauty or weeds creeping up through the cracks in the ground.
Labour have not changed – they are still full of destructive ideas, except now their dogma has infiltrated even the ranks of Conservatives, most of whom now would gladly pour concrete over perceived problems rather than understand the issues and seek a real solution.
November 18, 2021
This Conservative Government’s pursuit of mass migration (immigration and asylum) into our country makes a lie of any claims they care about us or our environment.
November 18, 2021
Today RT news is reporting that 400 illegals at Poland-Belarus border have requested to be returned to Iraqā¦..all because Poland stood firm
November 18, 2021
If the conservative party values clean water why did it sell our water companies and allow the buyers to under-invest for decades whilst taking out large dividends and remuneration packages for executives? Why do they allow untreated sewage to be released into our rivers and coastal waters, with perhaps the occasional fine for so doing, such fine not affecting one jot the executives responsible? Could it be that the conservative party places more value on money and profit?
November 18, 2021
The rule free Atlantic Tigger economy fondly imagined by Brexit`s beneficiaries will naturally tend to dump external costs, safety standards et al as the anarchy of early industrialisation did. This was the economic rationale of Brexit in as much as there was one.
Its vision of piratical free trade outside any civilised standards is a means of hiding such costs from view by allowing high environmental costs to be notionally created in(let us say) China .Meanwhile consumption and benefit can be in the UK .
This is the equivalent of the period during which the UK ,having abolished slavery, imported slave cotton on a vast scale from the Americas which powered its first great manufacturing concerns.
I don`t think anyone can pretend there are easy answers to any of this .The planned economies of the 2oth century were dirtier nastier and poorer in every way so there is no help there . Neither should we be ashamed of our history which , by any reasonable estimation is a proud one by the standards of the time.
Conservatism has much to add in the ongoing adjustment , unfortunately we are not governed by a Conservative Party but by a Brexit Party.
November 18, 2021
A Leftist establishment.
The immigration policy certainly doesn’t look very Brexit Party to me.
November 18, 2021
…..advanced countries will find it difficult to sell the practice of decarbonisation to their own electors……..
Always best to end with a joke. We have already been told that by law we will have to decarbonise.
November 18, 2021
Excellant observation .mm.
November 18, 2021
Yes MM, people just don’t realise what’s coming soon. You won’t be able to rent out or sell a property unless it meets ridiculously high environmental standards. I know many landlords who are selling up now because it will not be cost effective to meet the required standards and in many cases with old housing stock it will be impossible. The strain on the rental market is getting to breaking point. This is how “you will own nothing” is going to be achieved. Lots of empty, unsellable, unrentable properties to be eventually filled with squatters.
November 18, 2021
“Every new housing estate creates first round jobs for the building trades to be followed by all the jobs to support new residents in their new homes.”
This is where it falls apart. Housing estates are being built in areas of low employment. It used to be that houses were built where the industries were situated. Now these towns ARE the industry.
How do we ever begin to level anything when we are importing hundreds of thousands of poor people every year ?
November 18, 2021
“Levelling up” is a slogan as vacuous as the Tory party that invoked it. There is no future for this country if the Tory party continues to import unassimilable aliens in the hundreds of thousands every year. There are already far too many people who are unassimilable living in our country who will never adapt to Western civilisation because they lack the temperament to be like us.
Not only is the Tory party trying to destroy us demographically but they also want to destroy us economically by ensuring that our industries are beholden to a fairy story they propagate that CO2 is a dangerous gas and that we can control its output by destroying our own industrial base whilst relying on others to produce CO2 in furtherance of producing the goods that we need to import instead.
In order to spread the wealth in this country by attracting talent from outside the London commuter belt, the solution is not ‘executive’ homes with en suites everywhere but good schools, selective schools which can focus on the educable ie grammar schools and technical schools. The destruction of the grammar schools and with it the ambition to promote excellence everywhere by the Tories under Thatcher did far more to rob the regions of talent than any other political act of deliberate sabotage.
November 18, 2021
The genie is out of the bottle
SirJ Iād always had you down as an environmentalist and not a subsiding climate crusaderā¦do you agree with banning the internal combustion engine car by 2030 ? i.e banning freedom of choice ?
Levelling-Up isnāt a conservative free market concept, itās a marist ideal with higher taxes, social engineering and subsidy. The so called levelling-up agenda can only be realised by a massive reduction in business tax and bureaucracy
November 18, 2021
Sir J is trying to justify the Tory partyās actions, very noble too, but itās becoming more apparent by the day exactly what the plan is, I didnāt vote for this nightmare in 2019ā¦. Do we need to resort to civil disobedience and man the barricades?
JR can Tweet from the treetops but when will JR admit that no one is listening to him, the present administration is pure evil and totally corrupt and I think that this message is rapidly spreading amongst the population, particularly after the hypocritical COP26 circus in Glasgow
The BBC website keeps repeating that weāre all going to burn up but their weather app reveals a different picture and it only takes a glance out of the window to see that this is a normal Autumn, cold and wet
November 18, 2021
The EU has been giving details of its ETIAS visa waiver scheme – which it looks like will come into force next year.
This is the pointless bit of Brexit bureaucracy most of us will need to complete just to go on holiday. The sort of thing the Brexitists told us we wouldnāt need when they misled people into voting for their miserable project.
Anyway, good news! Pensioners are exempt from having an ETIAS. The old people who voted in favour of the Brexit turkey avoid the pointlessly expensive and hasslesome bureaucracy they have imposed on the rest of us.
There is a young vs old reckoning coming. And when it comes the Tory pensioners really will not know what has hit them.
November 18, 2021
Andy – This makes you sound very young – About 6 I’d say….
November 18, 2021
I don’t normally respond to xxx like Andy but this comment made me laugh so much I almost spat my wine out. When the next medical textbook on Stockholm Syndrome is written they need to use Remoaners like Andy as a case study example. Whenever the EU adopt a nasty, anti-British policy who does Andy blame? The EU – the ones who have adopted the policy? No, of course not, he blames Britain! The man is clearly barking.
The EU are constantly demonstrating their hatred for Britain and the British people, and instead of seeing this as proof that Brexit was right, and that it would be demeaning and dangerous to belong to an organisation that hates us so much, Andy instead takes the EU’s side and supports them against us. This anti-British attitude is, of course, why Remain lost. They didn’t understand that the British people are proud and patriotic and are not willing to be ruled by people who hate us so much.
November 18, 2021
@ Andy – I doubt very much that there is any reckoning coming but should it be nota bene that baby boomers (of which your Tory pensioners are in the main a sub-set) are used to the best of everything being handed to us on a plate. If it is not, we are typically well-heeled, very experienced, and educated well enough and possessing reserves of common sense and moral fibre such that we represent formidable operators to be denied at the peril of those seeking to oppose our wishes.
My plan to deal with recalcitrant Generation Z-ers is to suddenly and deliberately shout “boo!”. Those who do not wet themselves on the spot and whine about having acquired PTSD will likely run away to shelter in their safe space where they can assure themselves that no-one has ever suffered with such fortitude as they do. Accordingly, as Millennials might say, “Am I bovvered?”
November 18, 2021
Andy. Us oldies are made of start and tough stuff. We don’t worry about schoolboy threats.
November 18, 2021
You are masterful when you talk tough. Impressive.
November 18, 2021
Excuse me I’m not old! I’m not a pensioner and even if I was it doesn’t give you any right to insult old people. Unlike you I respect my elders and am grateful for the opportunities their hard work has provided for me and my family. Andy – you really need to seek some help for the hatred you display towards the elderly.
November 18, 2021
Imposed by the EU young andy.
They could, if they wished, not impose stupid unnecessary bureaucracy.
November 19, 2021
Peter 2
Statement but not backed up by facts
November 19, 2021
Prove me wrong or shut up billy.
November 18, 2021
An interesting article.
Yet your government doesn’t do things to support your vision of how to move forward.
This Liverpool bomber this week was being trained to make cakes at The City of Liverpool College – cakes! When we’re told we need builders, plumbers, electricians, abattoir workers, hgv drivers, nurses, doctors. Just who has paid for this person to live here and train here in an unnecessary course for seven years, having failed his application to stay twice?
You will spend millions in courses that don’t result in degree level work and income, yet won’t expand nurse and doctor training and pay for hgv licences? You won’t support small businesses to help to pay for training preferring the larger hit of big organisations.
November 19, 2021
a-tracy
+1
November 18, 2021
The other day, I heard an ecofanatic on the Today programme being asked what should be done to reduce the UK carbon ‘footprint’. He replied that we should immediately stop all thoughts of extracting any more coal, oil or gas in this country.
What that means, of course, is that:
1. The steelmakers will either have to abandon plans to build a new steel plant here or import coal from foreign mines where the conditions would lead to far more pollution the developing a brand new mine here close to the steel plant.
2. Oil will have to be imported from the Middle East instead of being piped in from the North Sea.
3. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) will have to be imported from the Middle East instead of being piped in conveniently through existing pipelines from the North Sea as you, yourself have written many times in this diary, Sir John. Beyond that, I would add what I’ve probably said more than once before which is that not only does this involve the cost and pollution of transportation, but the very large amount of energy required a) to liquefy a huge amount of gas in the first place and b) to re-gasify the gas when it has been shipped in. There’s too much in a single shipment to leave it to warm up on its own.
Incidentally, the Today presenter mad no attempt to challenge his remarks or introduce a scientist to refute them. She merely thanked him warmly and moved on to a different topic.
November 18, 2021
My town has grown to 35,000 residents and more and homes (even the 4 bedroom homes you desire) are being added every year on green belt and old school grounds – which leaves the town with insufficient school places for the children! (I can’t really grumble because my home was built 30 years ago on green belt land so I won’t deprive the next generation). However, there could be a lot more done for our town that has been overlooked for years, no mitigation at all. No entertainment the connections to the Primary town is poor, roads are jammed up and no public transport for teenage independence and people without vehicles and what public transport there is too expensive, you can get all around London for a capped fee but you can’t even get from my town to a tram link into the Cities you want to go to.
Developments for higher paid jobs are low unless they’re public sector and that doesn’t generate the income it takes. There aren’t suitable offices to rent in the town at all so people have to commute miles away then get condemned and pay through the nose for petrol to get to work. Solicitors practices, pharmacies, dentists etc are in houses. Public transport to the 3 major Cities is so poor it takes over one hour to get anywhere, interconnected transport is none existent to the hospital, entertainment, shopping centres especially when people want to go to them.
Money is spent on an outdoor skate park that is rarely used, wrecked every few years so it needs all new fences, re-surfacing and on, if it is used properly by ten kids all week I’m probably exaggerating I’ve been regularly going past it for 18 months and never seen it used properly. Meanwhile, things that people do in the town like walking the dog and taking exercise walking with prams is made more difficult with cycles allowed to cycle on the same pavement, road chips all over the pavements and rarely cleaned up, potholes in pavements don’t even get me started on that some are so dangerous especially to the local blind man, the pavements half the size because the grass and weeds have been allowed to grow and spread over the pavement. Simple things but no thought is given to what all the new people in town will do for work, for leisure or even to shop. I’ve been hearing promises for 32 years now so I won’t wait with bated breath. Thousands extra paid in by rates yet no planting of flowers, ugly structures allowed to be built on main roads by BT, housing developers and ugly brick structures allowed to rot, just more iron bar fences put around them with weeds growing crazy inside giving a general run-down look.
There is even a lack of consistency in shop signs, a new supermarket allowed to put up six enormous lit signs distracting drivers and just ugly. Our council did triple the number of supermarkets and wonder what killed the town – you did councillors, you did with your sky-high business rates and high management charges in the town centre chasing small shops out.
November 19, 2021
Most of your observations and complaints apply all over the country, whatever happened to that ‘green and pleasant land’?
November 18, 2021
Dear Mr. Redwood,
In not so many words, the rest of the world continues to do what it wants while this UK government sets about imposing its miserabilist agenda on ordinary working people.
I guess it is rather like when the EU issued all those directives. They were ignored by European countries when it suited them but always ‘gold-plated’ by the UK.
November 18, 2021
nailed it
November 18, 2021
“Conservatives and greenery go together”
Claptrap.
Conservatives and immigration go together.
Conservatives and water pollution go together.
Stop the immigrants by adopting the measures that Poland has adopted, and stop sending these people to the north.
How many has Wokingham taken ?
How many have Maidenhead and Witney and Uxbridge taken ?
November 18, 2021
MWB, you don’t seriously expect an answer to your last two questions, do you?
November 18, 2021
No I don’t expect an answer to my questions.
November 18, 2021
I can speak for Uxbridge and it is quite a few.
November 18, 2021
Wokingham has taken the largest amount of those from HK. in the country. more than anywhere else, including up north
November 20, 2021
There are 12 hubs (covering the nine regions of England, plus Scotland, Wales and NI) in the UK dealing with the Hong Kong BN(O) holders (gov.uk āHong Kong British nationals (Overseas) welcome programme – information for local authoritiesā, 08/04/2021, 29/07/2021.
The Governmentās original assessment was quoting between 123,000 and 153,000 HK BN(O) holders to come to the UK in the first year, with between 258,000 and 322,000 over five years. As of end of March 2021, 34,300 had applied.
Looking at the allocation of funds (gov.uk āRegional VCSE Grant Scheme: prospectusā, 20/08/2021) London Ā£462k, South East Ā£198k, North West Ā£178k, East of England Ā£124k, West Midlands Ā£115k, Yorkshire & Humber Ā£106k, ā¦), I doubt that SE will have the biggest contingent of HK BN(O) holders at the end.
As for people coming to Berkshire they are as likely to be found in Reading as in Wokingham thanks to the Reading Chinese Christian Church.
And to add a more personal note, my new neighbours are from Hong Kong, they were attached to a university over there, are somewhat in transit, intend(ed) to move on āin a little whileā to the Vancouver-Victoria area (their enthusiasm a bit deflated by the recent flooding over there). And I live in Reading (does that make it statistically significant and allow me to say that Reading has taken more from HK than anywhere else in the country? I doubt it).
November 18, 2021
We have been bumbling along making no real progress, other than with the pandemic.
Meamwhile, illegal migrants have been arriving in unprecedented and unsustainable numbers, making housing and infrastructure problems more difficult – and adding to the difficulties the government is going to have in meeting their over-ambitious climate change objectives.
I am sure that Pritty Patel genuinely wants to sort the illegal migration problem but it is looking like she is facing acute problems within her own and other departments in solving it. What other reason can there be for there being no progress in setting up an offshore processing centre ?
This was first mooted many months ago and at least 10,000 people have made the channel crossing in that time. That’s a small town’s worth of people needing five GPs to care for them alone !
November 18, 2021
@ Chris S “I am sure that Pritty Patel genuinely wants to sort the illegal migration problem..” – good for you, and that makes one of us.
If you are correct about Home Secretary Patel, then alas we are left to conclude that she is wholly incapable.
November 18, 2021
She doesn’t have to keep the job and whistle blowing might be the best course.
November 18, 2021
Anyboby, even a little sense, know you have to ramp up CO2 to be able in years to come to bring it down, that my friend is how the world works, rock bottem energy prices to earn the money to be able to do it..
November 18, 2021
Fine enough words, Sir John, but they butter no parsnips while your government’s very own policies make the implementation of your sylvan vision impossible. Take housing. We would not need to build on green land at all if it were not for the mass invasion of illegal immigrants and bogus asylum seekers that the government has done NOTHING to stop. I read that Priti Useless said the other day that the Home Officeās use of hotels as asylum accommodation has acted as a āpull factorā for people to enter Britain. Very true, but YOU are the Home Secretary, you silly woman, so why have YOU implemented this policy? The excuse that this was due to covid is just too farcical and fanciful for words. In most parts of the world refugees are held in tented fields. Why is the same not done here? Open air fields would be the most covid-secure accommodation possible. Now we hear the government wants to hold these migrants in Albania, at a cost of Ā£100,000 each! I have repeatedly said that a tented camp in Africa is the best solution (funded from our foreign aid budget), but this isn’t even being considered …
And then she says that “In the last year, 70% of the individuals [who came here] on small boats are single men who are effectively economic migrants. They are not genuine asylum seekers.” Very true, so why then have YOU granted the vast majority of them asylum? No doubt because their claims are assessed on the basis of them seeking asylum from their home country (eg. Syria), rather than the country they have actually come from (eg. France). This madness is 100% the responsibility of Priti Useless herself. No wonder that only 5, yes five, illegal boat migrants have been deported all year! And the government’s nationality and borders bill will have ZERO effect on this as the only way to tackle the problem is to exclude asylum seekers from the Human Rights Act. Which, of course, the government has no intention of doing …
And finally, let’s take your comments, Sir John, about decarbonising power. Rolls Royce has now submitted its SMR design for approval, but this is such a long-winded process that it will probably take 5 years to complete! Yeah, no hurry … First the government must review the application to see if it can be reviewed by the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency. Yes, I kid you not, the application has to be reviewed before it can be reviewed, and this alone will take 4 months. Given that the government has been in close contact with RR since the election, talking about this, and has given them Ā£210 million to pursue it, why do they now need to “confirm the business is suitability qualified”? If it isn’t, then why have you just given them over Ā£200m??? It is this sort of slow, incompetent, bureaucratic, long-winded, lethargic approach to solving our most urgent problems that makes me despair. The government should be treating this application for approval as a matter of national urgency, with all leave and weekends cancelled for the officials involved in the process until the design is approved. We need to be on a wartime footing, but instead the government acts as if it were in a coma. We are well and truly screwed.
November 18, 2021
I honestly canāt imagine why anyone would think that people are gagging to have loads more houses built near them.
Whence āEnglish rural landscapesā?
Donāt you understandā¦people have their lives to live, they take their dogs for walks in the countryside and then the fields are built on. Stability and familiarity are necessary for happiness.
But then governments provide exactly the opposite donāt they?
And this lot have the intention of keeping us in a constant state of fear and dread.
What nice people they are!
November 18, 2021
Another great article Sir John. You have summed up the pollicies, which read well, and articulated the desired outcomes but the truth is that nearly all will never happen so long as you have the current leadership and, frankly, most of the currant crop of MP’s, apart from yourself and a small number of like thinking.
The drive is towards habitat destruction as in HS2, plus vast swathes of new housing, driven by mass immigration both legal and illegal. Undesirable green policy that has done and will do nothing for the British people but cost them dearly in terms of energy, transport and cost of living never mind moving all the industrial base to low wage and slave wage countries. Then as our citizens are impoverished they are told (not asked) to fund greencr*p in poor countries.
Leveling up? A Marxist type slogan, as is that other favourite of our present PM, Build Back Better!
I see no good future with the current direction of Parliament. I say Parliament, as between the petty squabbles, they seem intent on outsocialisting each other and no good future for the country without MP replacement on a vast scale. Impossible dream?
November 18, 2021
Off topic, the Belfast News Letter has published a letter I sent in, with the heading:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/letters/pass-laws-to-control-goods-crossing-irish-land-border-then-trigger-article-16-3462494
“Pass laws to control goods crossing Irish land border then trigger Article 16”
It reads as follows:
“For two years the EU and its friends have repeatedly claimed that there is no alternative to the illogical and dangerous Irish protocol agreed by Boris Johnson.
Quite a surprise, then, that the Irish government has now discovered an alternative in the case of solid fuel, where imports from the north will be allowed in over the land border without let or hindrance and will only be checked at sites further into the territory of the Republic, well away from the actual customs border
(Dublin called on hypocrisy of new customs checks,ā November 13, see link below).
But beyond that particular case, a former Irish diplomat, Rory Montgomery, has revealed that after the 2016 Brexit referendum the Irish government was actively considering similar alternative arrangements for checking and controlling all of the trickle of goods crossing the border, until the EU insisted that despite the very special circumstances EU law must be rigidly applied as per normal.
Whereupon, āIt became our firm position that any checks or controls anywhere on the island would constitute a hard borderā.
That dictum was clearly nonsensical then ā and is even more obviously nonsensical now, given the intensity of checks demanded by the protocol ā so why on earth did both Theresa May and Boris Johnson decide to go along with it?
With the latter even confirming in Parliament that his own proposals did not involve physical infrastructure āat or near the border or indeed at any other placeā.
Four months have elapsed since the Command Paper, āNorthern Ireland Protocol: the way forwardā, in which the UK government said that it stood ready to be a good neighbour and pass new UK laws to control the goods crossing the land border into the Republic and thus help protect the EU single market.
During that period it has become abundantly clear that the EU is not prepared to renegotiate even the smallest aspect of the protocol; so rather than waste more time the government should just go ahead and get those laws passed, and then invoke Article 16 of the protocol and suspend its operation.”
November 18, 2021
Just a small point; you mention carbon-free foods. I think I know what you meant, however the three major food groups all contain carbon.
November 18, 2021
I can never get an answer to this question from Mr. Redwood – on behalf of his government – Why do you allow net immigration of 300,000 people each year? Whatās the thinking? The reason? Where are the empty houses for these people to live in?
November 18, 2021
Most of them are second homes or holiday let.
November 18, 2021
The government machinery long ago lost control and doesn’t know how to stop it – under the first administration of Blair.
November 18, 2021
So, if Tories and āgreeneryā go together, when is the āgreenest government everā going to ban imports from China, India and the USA?
After all, we have to express our disapproval in a tangible way.
November 18, 2021
Our host talks about “other parts of the country could benefit from the jobs and investment major new housebuilding creates”. Well the government are certainly helping investment in these areas by shipping migrants there.
November 18, 2021
āWe wish to conserve what is best in nature and our environment.ā
Sorry but I donāt believe any of our ruling elite wish to āconserve what is best in nature and our environmentā.
Certainly not for the UK when they continue the drive to import 1000/day legal immigrants and 1000/day illegal immigrants, the latter all without ID and mainly young men of fighting age encouraged by 4 star hotel accommodation, free healthcare, Ā£40/week pocket money and allowed to freely roam our streets.
All these immigrants require the building of additional housing, hotels, hostels, surgeries, hospitals, shops, power supplies, reservoirs, sewage works, roads, railways, streets etc..
In a country that is already densely populated and struggling to cope to keep our rivers and coasts free of raw sewage.
And why do we need all these people to come to the UK?
What is the purpose?
November 18, 2021
Richard. I don’t know if I have the figures right because they seem down right ridiculous. There is talk of these illegal migrants having their asylum applications done in Albania and I’m sure I heard the figure of Ā£100k per migrant. Someone is having a laugh. Just how much is that going to cost the taxpayer and how many will still get in eventually claiming they are ‘christians’ and will be persecuted if they go back home?
November 18, 2021
Apparently Albania has said no. I can’t think why.
November 18, 2021
Wrong again. Apparently they are still talking to Albania. I can’t keep up.
November 19, 2021
Last year it was going to be Moldova that was going to be the lucky host;although I don’t think anyone actually spoke to the Moldovan government.
November 18, 2021
Grant Shapps MP Transport Secretary ā we just donāt believe you
November 18, 2021
Grant Shapps argument is that by scrapping half of HS2 and cutting billions of the cost that this government is providing a faster service, early and at reduced costsā¦..thatās an argument to scrap the whole HS2 project
November 18, 2021
and thousands of people have put the same argument for the last several years. And the Conservatives had a clear opportunity to cancel the project before Ā£bns got committed to it.
November 18, 2021
Glen Cullen :
Agreed.
And the ticket prices will be cheaper.
HS2 will be so expensive it will only be affordable by the elites and those travelling at the taxpayers’ expesnse.
November 18, 2021
Please stop thinking that we have to ‘decarbonise’ that is complete nonsense. CO2 is the gas of life.
November 18, 2021
FACT 100% Correct
November 18, 2021
“Over the last fortnight the UK government has valiantly tried to craft worldwide agreement over the issue of climate change.”
The issue of climate change as perceived by this government is unworkable nonsense and will lead to poverty.
November 18, 2021
Iāve no doubt that whatever new climate crusader agreement is reached in the future our so called democratic parliament and all the political parties will vote to approve
November 18, 2021
If our Government wanted to āconserve what is best in nature and our environmentā it would not be destroying our countryside and coastal seas with the Sisyphean task to produce all our power for electricals, heating and transport using concrete and area hungry wind turbines.
It would be building instead nuclear reactors, not only the non-fossil fuel power source requiring the smallest footprint by far but also the safest of all fuels by TWhrs/death.
November 18, 2021
+1
November 18, 2021
Which large Housebuilders give money to the Labour Party?
Which large Industrial giants give money to the Liberals?
How many card-carrying Communists are MPs?
November 18, 2021
I donāt know… but I understand we have a house of commons with more than 650 MPs card carrying green climate crusaders
November 18, 2021
The German Greens have only themselves to blame: they insisted on phasing out nuclear power and the result was to go instead for open cast mining of dirty brown lignite, tearing up ancient forests to do it.
November 18, 2021
If the Government wanted to āconserve what is best in nature and our environmentā it would convert the HS2 section still proceeding to a non-HS line concentrating on capacity and cheap fares rather than speed at very expensive ticket prices.
So, using the aircraft analogy, we would have Jumbo jets rather than Concordes.
The excuse would be the change in working practices brought about by Covid-19.
November 19, 2021
I’m not sure that we should be paying any money at all to so called poorer countries to do the right thing and stop burning raw coal at their power stations. And I don’t accept the right of nations with nuclear weapons to describe themselves as poor. We need to get the stick out. I’ve already done the calculation for China, a pariah State if ever there was one. All Chinese exports should have a 10% additional tariff imposed on them – 5% to cover the increased running cost of decarbonised coal vs raw coal at power stations and 5% as a sanction for China’s other sins, such as ratting on Hong Kong’s liberty.
Should we be looking to impose dirty economy tariffs on the exports of other coal burning nations? Yes, and America, Germany and Poland are potentially in the firing line. Potentially Russia too but they can replace coal by gas. America and Germany have been virtue signalling like mad but making no commitment to phase out coal. Poland has committed to phasing out coal but they will find it difficult. Last time I checked, 80% of Poland’s electricity was generated by coal fired power stations.
November 19, 2021
Russia’s energy is mostly gas,nuclear and hydro already;I believe coal is only running at c12% of the total.
They are ,however,very happy to monetize their huge reserves of coal by exporting them to China,India,etc
November 19, 2021
If we restricted vehicle road speed to 50mph, gaseous output From road vehicles would almost halve, along with tyre and brake dust…plus serious accidents .
This can be done simply by adjusting a parameter in the vehicles ECU when it has its MOT..so within 12 months all public vehicles speed would be restricted.
A hidden contributor is small equipment such as lawn mowers, chainsaws and various contractors plant…these should be phased out …poss by enforced manufacturers buy back schemes.
Chain saw use could be controlled by banning the public ownership of these latent deadly weapons .
SIR J, there is so much that can be done ,and it is relatively simple.
November 19, 2021
You want millions of people to go back to push lawnmowers, and axes to cut down trees or prune, or coppice?
I’ve read some nonsense on here, but this is a prize winner.
November 19, 2021
Meanwhile in China India Brazil and USA….
November 21, 2021
Glad these articles are reproduced here. I gave up reading ConHome – the endless articles that start with the assumption that net zero is a good idea, or that there is a “housing crisis” that needs to be solved by building more houses (there probably isn’t a crisis, since we have one bedroom per person across the UK) while ignoring the immigration crisis.
When Gauke became a regular writer there, having been expelled from the Conservative Party I refused to add to his click-count by reading anything he writes. The last straw was when Grieve was added to the list. They have got be be joking.
We have an editor there who fosters this rubbish, being anti-Johnson and a remainer. It stopped being remotely conservative a long time ago – but then… so did the party.