Many commentators tell us the Business Secretary is a free marketeer who thinks the private sector and free enterprise is often the best answer to supplying things like energy.
There is absolutely no evidence of this at all.The Department he presides overĀ follows the opposite policy. Price controls bankrupt supplying companies. Then the replacement suppliers put the prices up anyway when the cap lifts. They Ā stop investment in new gas and oil supply in the U.K. that companies would like to carry out. They end up nationalising a large energy supplier that price controls bankrupted.
They tells us the answer to our chronic energy shortage is more wind power.This year the problem has been a lack of wind to blow the windmills, leaving us in need of more gas and coal to replace it.
The Business Secretary tells us a bewildering myriad of price controls, taxes, regulatory interventions, bans on fossil fuels, carbon prices, nationalisations and subsidies are the answer. They are not. They lead directly to shortages, power cuts and big price rises. Ironically they also lead via more imports Ā and more stand by power to more CO 2 emissions as well.
December 29, 2021
Good morning.
What our kind host is describing is Communism. And we all thought that events like those in Venezuela and South Africa could never happen here.
Still, you can always ‘build back better’
/sarc
December 29, 2021
On the way to communism indeed, we also have a virtual monopoly communist NHS failing million with huge waiting list and many people dying for lack of prompt treatments, diagnosis and operations. The government also trying to destroy the private housing market with over 100% taxation licensing & OTT regulation.
The ENERGY department reduced to importing last minute coal from Russia on diesel trucks to burn at a power station that was about to be destroyed recently. Plus the insanity of imported US wood that produced more CO2 per KWH than coal does anyway.
December 29, 2021
TEACHER FAILS ENTIRE CLASS:
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that she had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equaliser.
The professor then said, āOK, we will have an experiment in this class on this plan.ā All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an Aā¦. (substituting grades for dollars ā something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged, and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset, and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less, and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the third test rolled around, the average was an F.
As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
To their great surprise, ALL FAILED, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
These are possibly the five best sentences youāll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
December 29, 2021
Spot on comment. Unfortunately, the moral of this tale seems lost on Boris.
December 29, 2021
The moral is lost on the vast majority of the now left-wing British Establishment.
December 29, 2021
the moral is lost on the great majority of public employees.
December 29, 2021
Unfortunately we’re being forced to test this to destruction.
The coming economic hardships are, perhaps, a blessing in disguise. They are coming quickly and will wake the people up, hopefully.
December 29, 2021
I’ve read that story before, but it is well worth repeating … time and time again!
When I had my own company I helped people get started in business. I remember a group of 4 men (made redundant) come to ask advice about starting a company. After explanations and guidance, only one of the men was prepared to invest his redundancy money, and put the effort in to get the company started and obtain work. He employed the other 3 on the same wages they had received previously. The owner obtained some good contracts and managed to provide regular wok for all 4 men. After the first year or so, the 3 men changed their minds and wanted equal shares of the company (without payment) and the company owner asked my advice. I asked him if he thought they would repay 3/4 of the lost investment if the company had failed. The answer was no!
December 29, 2021
Unfortunately the left and the teaching lobby have found a response to this one to conceal the reality. It is called grade inflation so that everybody who would deservedly have failed now gets a pass and so everybody in the story will have passed and probably with the top grade!
The result we have is that since practically everybody who wants one is getting a degree and so often a top degree, we are no longer distinguishing the good from the mediocre and the top jobs are now mostly given to those who are actually too incompetent to do them and because they think they are qualified by their (given away like confetti) degree are too dim to even realise their incompetence.
December 29, 2021
What a great way to explain the downside of socialism
January 3, 2022
Did this happen in the USSR and does in Cuba? Perhaps so but I’ve not heard of it – any knowledge?
December 29, 2021
Yep and ships full of liquified gas are being sent from the USA to Europe, without which we would no doubt be in much more trouble.
December 29, 2021
The shadow busines sabotage Secretary thinks the answer to the energy crunch is more windmills. Yesterday they were contributing 5%.
Who gives these people jobs.
December 29, 2021
Moronic fools with art degrees wittering on about āthe Saudi Arabiaā of wind, heat pumps and Hydrogen boilers. Total ignorance of the energy realities and laws of physics.
December 29, 2021
Who indeed. Some really insightful comments here, spotting that the monopoly of the NHS , our bereavement of secure and affordable energy, Iād add the crackdown on all aspects of a free country combine to make us a near communist state. Oh, and keeping chickens at the moment with all the freedom that brings to the individual is near impossible, they are in lockdown, chicken covid!
So the āwhoā is currently Boris and the business Secretary simply doing his bidding. Unless thereās someone else at the back of itā¦
December 29, 2021
Looking at events around the western world one could be forgiven for believing that a globalist coup is afoot and that the world leaders are being commanded to perform a global reset.
December 29, 2021
Mary
Yes, given we have had the largest outbreak of bird flu and it is reported that 36 regions of the Country have been in Bird Lockdown, its a wonder that the media have not been full of it, and crowing about the possible shortages of Turkeys and Chickens etc etc.
I see they were on about the shortage of LFT kits this morning, even though the Government have been distributing 900,000 boxes (containing 7 tests) per day recently, apparently the shortage lasted until 11.00am, but it was only mentioned later in the report.
We are being fed selective news.
Given so many in Hospital now are being occasionally reported as unvaccinated, but in a vague way, why are the exact figures never mentioned in Government briefings.
EXAMPLE : Out of the 7,000 people presently in hospital , 6,000 are not fully vaccinated.
December 29, 2021
These have been the Chinese State Oil Co(CNPEC)’s forecasts for peak domestic oil consumption for the past four years:
2018 690m tons “by 2030s”
2019 705m tons “in 2030”
2020 740m tons “before 2030”
2021 780m tons “by 2030”
Any advance?!
The EIA International Energy Outlook 2021 is forecasting Russia will double it’s gas exports by 2050(becoming the world’s largest gas exporter in the process) and that Europe/OECD will increase gas imports by 60% over the same period.
China has reiterated this week that it will join Russia in resisting any western attempts at global hegemony.And, interestingly, Chinese life expectancy has exceeded that of the USA for the first time in 2021.
December 30, 2021
‘interestingly, Chinese life expectancy has exceeded that of the USA for the first time in 2021.’
Quite a close run thing? Longevity dependent on not being murdered by State vs not being murdered by anybody.
December 29, 2021
Why are you still part of this Party Sir John? What you describe is controlled socialism. Not free enterprise. Virtue signalling doesn’t provide the generating capacity we need. Importing substitute’s at higher prices whilst increasing net CO2 is madness. This needs to be hit home to your Party and the msm again and again until it is understood by the masses. Higher energy prices are a DIRECT consequence of your Governments policy and green madness. Importing wood pellets for Drax from America is the absolute madness underlined.
December 29, 2021
I wonder where this left-wing green Tory revolution (experiment) is going to take us
What is the Tory government for if it isnāt a capitalist free market economy based on invention, innovation, hard work and profit & growth
December 29, 2021
I think Sir John tries to influence from within and no doubt his colleagues are readers of his blog. If he were to leave and try to generate a new party, he could get lost in the wilderness.
December 29, 2021
+1
December 29, 2021
Sadly, I agree with you Dennis.
December 30, 2021
Agreed.
December 29, 2021
I agree that we are heading for Communism. We need a Conservative government
December 29, 2021
I believe we have arrived
December 29, 2021
The business secretary will not rock the boat over energy policy.
I donāt think he will worry whether he is described as a free marketeer or not.
Nobody in government will challenge current policy. They do not see that as helping their careers.
December 29, 2021
@Peter +1 – more like do as I say I am your leader dissention equals dismissal
December 29, 2021
Not even when it becomes the most obvious area of government failure and the top concern of large swathes of the population? He would deserve to lose his position and his seat.
December 30, 2021
What they should realise is that it will end them.
December 29, 2021
This is what Socialists do. It isn’t new, it isn’t surprising. Acting politically (price caps or to appease a political enemy) rather than enacting policies that work (encouraging more supplies) is part of their DNA.
The only solution is to take back control of your party from the retrograde and regressive forces of the Socialist lackeys
We always end up footing the bill for such cretinous political actions
December 29, 2021
+1 and depressingly most Tory MPs and ministers are to the left of (and dimmer than) Kwarteng. Depressingly he is actually one of the better & sounder MPs & yet still he follows this insane net zero & government control agenda.
Has the Right Hon. Member taken leave of his senses as Enoch Powell might have asked him.
December 29, 2021
@LL +1 To many MP’s see there position as a cushy self serving number and the idea of serving those that lent them their authority has been hijacked by the ‘cancel culture’
December 29, 2021
+1
December 30, 2021
I don’t see how you can describe him as sound. Just a few months ago he was fully subscribed to the Saudi Arabia of wind doctrine. Then a largely windless September had him pretending that approving one more nuclear power station by the end of the Parliament amounted to pivoting to relying on nuclear back-up. He appears to be deluded. The only half excuse he can have is that his advisors are also indulging in delusion.
December 29, 2021
+1
December 29, 2021
+1. DOM. That could be the s!ogan, ‘Take Back Control’.
December 29, 2021
When the Conservatives next hold a leadership contest the energy resilience/security issue needs to be front and centre in any debates. Once again we are in a position where the ‘man in the street’ knows what needs to be done but the political class aren’t brave enough to do it.
December 29, 2021
The man in the street knows that the politicians are too stupid to do the correct thing.
December 29, 2021
………………………….but the political class arenāt brave enough to do it……………………NO. It’s not bravery but COWARDICE and AMBITION.
December 29, 2021
Resilience is just as important as security of supply yet it is rarely mentioned. Our Texan friends took up half their Christmas card describing how they managed in their power cut, but it was as nothing compared to the lot of the people here.
December 29, 2021
As it happens, I found myself watching a superb explanation of that outage on YouTube just yesterday. It’s on the ‘Practical Engineering’ channel and was posted about nine months ago. I don’t expect Mr Kwarteng will bother but you might enjoy watching it. Interestingly, when the power began to fail, so did the water!
December 29, 2021
and shopping and traffic controls and inadequate computing resilience (UPS) and domestic facilities and media (tv radio internet).
December 29, 2021
Surprisingly solar and wind turbine energy canāt be distributed
December 30, 2021
Given that it was done soon after events it was a good summary. Having worked in Houston, I took an interest in disentangling events for myself. Things I think the video misses include the fact that wind and solar fell to almost nothing because it was overcast and solar panels were snow covered, and also windless, leaving generation reliant on the rest of the system, regardless of whether turbines froze or not; ERCOT failed to start ordering rotating blackouts as they started running out of spinning reserve, so when part of the system became overstretched frequency fell rapidly as it led to a cascade of plants tripping out; that was not halted by ERCOT, but by automated load disconnection when the grid frequency hit 59.3Hz; gas fuelled power had been maintaining output through relying on dry gas in cavern storage rather than wellhead production, but following the disconnection many electrically powered pipeline gas compressors were cut off, in turn cutting supplies of gas to power stations and homes and making it impossible to restore higher levels of output from power stations.
The wider point of course is that there was simply insufficient dispatchable capacity to meet demand, so power cuts were inevitable. That is where we will be if urgent action to prevent it isn’t taken.
December 30, 2021
I watch that channel. Yes, it is very good.
December 29, 2021
Yes. Quite how does shipping in large amounts of gas from across the Atlantic equate to less CO2 than North Sea generation?
No doubt Lifelogic will rant on about unfit degrees etc but actually all it needs is honesty and common sense.
December 29, 2021
Nig 1
First Para sums it up, you could also add importing of Bio mass, as well as coal.
December 29, 2021
And steel.
December 29, 2021
Nig l
Honesty and common sense?
In very short supply to the point of being non existent with the vast majority of our politicians.
December 29, 2021
I would like to know who is advising the government and guiding them towards these destructive policies and if the government actually researches the consequences before taking their advice!
I have to assume the advisers are highly paid incompetents (like most Ministers and MP’s) and the government don’t bother to research the consequences. How else can these suicidal policies be explained?
December 29, 2021
+10
December 29, 2021
@Shirley M – to build society in your own image you first must destroy the existing .
December 29, 2021
I’ve always thought it must be the UN’s IPCC that was calling the shots. Policy doesn’t seem to change whichever party is in control so it’s not politicians.
December 29, 2021
If the ordinary man in the street can see the folly of these policies then surely the Government and its advisors must know it too.
No, this net-zero nonsense is part of the global Build Back Better conglomerate. The controls put in place for the virus will continue to be used against us to model our future behavior. No foreign holidays, no cars, no heating, and no meat, unless of course you are part of the rich and powerful set. Sound familiar. Well, it is all from the communist handbook. Ask yourself why this has happened across the western world all at the same time.
We are given the illusion of democracy but in reality, we can only vote for the candidate selected by the party. We need a new breakthrough party to succeed and wipe out the current main political parties.
December 29, 2021
Shirley. What’s more worrying is that ordinary Joe Bloggs can see it all but they can’t. I’d love a job that paid a generous salary and fantastic pensign while I didn’t know what I was talking about or doing. How nice.
December 29, 2021
And in other news we see the total deceit by Grant Shapps with regard to testing before entering the U.K. it was introduced to stop variant entering the country when it was already here. First lie. It is now rife but he continues to impose this needless restriction causing untold misery to both travellers and the industry.
Equally Javed putting out totally false numbers to back up his project fear. More āliesā.
Just two more totally āuseless Ministers with Kwarteng.
December 29, 2021
A freedom of information request from my local hospital shows that hospital admissions for 2020 and 2021 were 20% below the 5-year average. I expect these figures will be replicated across the country. The NHS was never at breaking point but it will be in the future as previously undiagnosed ailments are added to the already long waiting lists.
We have been lied to and manipulated on a massive scale. I doubt normality will ever return as the net-zero policies will further curtail our freedoms.
December 29, 2021
Nobody voted to be cold and poor.
The man in the street doesnāt believe the climate crisis charlatans, whose forecasts of doom are as selective as those of the Covid fear and panic merchants.
Nobody will vote to be cold and poor.
December 29, 2021
Well millions still vote Labour, and millions more will vote Conservative (nowadays aka New Labour).
December 29, 2021
The PM spends a lot of time with school children who have been brainwashed on CO2. And of course with various grown ups who have.
December 30, 2021
Millions will be cold and poor way before they get to vote about it.
December 29, 2021
For centuries, the response by governments (not just in the UK) to problems both large and small has been: ‘let’s introduce more rules, more regulations, more taxes, more laws, more by-laws, more edicts, etc’. A few do some good, the bulk of them cause further problems, and generation after generation refuse to learn the lessons the past can teach us.
December 29, 2021
+1
December 29, 2021
Government that does best when it does least.
December 29, 2021
Just those very few things the state can do better – defence, property rights, law and order -and not very not much more.
December 29, 2021
Name some such rules. Genuinely – you lot always go on about this and canāt name any.
Let me help.
All the masses of pointless paperwork both for businesses and individuals caused by Tory pensioner Brexit.
December 29, 2021
Letās take but one example – the tax system. This has got progressively more complicated since it was introduced. Indeed, Mr. Redwood admitted in an interview some years ago that, under the first few years of the Cameron/Osborne comedy duo, the tax code had grown from a notional 13,000 A4 pages to 18,000. The joke, of course, is that Cameron, like all politicians, explicitly promised to simplify it.
He also promised that, for any new law introduced, two would be repealed. More fairy tales.
Laws are rarely repealed, they are added to.
Also, we have the constant growth in QUANGOs. More complication.
We started with 10 commandments. Now we have millions.
December 29, 2021
You’ve had dozens of examples given you on the many previous times you have posted this question andy.
Yet you keep repeating this challenge and have the cheek to still say you haven’t had any.
Do you have a poor memory or are you doing it deliberately?
December 29, 2021
I don’t know Kwarteng and I’ve never met him. But his unimpressive handling of the 400% fossil fuel price rise – which is set to cause so much grief for the working poor, the pensioners and hard working families next year – is symptomatic of the failure of Johnson’s government and his merry band of sycophants posing as cabinet ministers.
December 29, 2021
Put Lord Peter Lilley in charge of energy.
December 29, 2021
The whole point is it shouldn’t be managed by HMG. That is why it has gone wrong.
December 29, 2021
@Rose
I am trying to envisage a national grid run by a private company or, presumably, companies (got to have ācompetitionā).
Likewise a gas network, a sewage network etc. what private company would have built the sewers under London?
I would like electricity production and distribution run by the government. Likewise the delivery of clean water to every home in the country. Iād like the gas distribution network to be run by the government.
But, Iād like Iād done properly. Alas, recent governments -and particularly the current government – have been, and are, utterly useless.
Reply Private companies built the railway network and are building the broadband network. Entrepreneurs and pioneers developed gas and electricity in a domestic setting.
December 29, 2021
I think youāre disproving your case when you mention the railways. Different gauges. No interconnection between different lines. No economies of scale buying rolling stock. If a government had decided to build the railways it COULD have been much better.
As for the broadband network. It is being built on top of the public telephone network.
December 29, 2021
Mike: in S Africa, the production and distribution of electricity, via the equivalent of County and Borough authorities to private dwellings and small businesses, and directly to larger enterprises, is entirely in the hands of a State Owned Enterprise. At first, the SOE worked brilliantly and won international awards – then the possibilities of corruption began to worm their way into the heart of it, with politicians and others (including trade unions) happily joining in. Despite the brave efforts of a fairly new CEO, the system is in a state of abject failure and contributes towards the country’s rapid descent to being a gangster state.
Much the same has happened to the country’s rail system.
December 30, 2021
Originally utility networks were provided by private companies. Local government were given powers to take them over after an initial franchise period. Grids for power and gas were initially just local, fed from local plants, with town gas made from coal and oil. It wasn’t until 1926 that we saw the start of the 132kV grid, and the introduction of North Sea gas in the 1960s before there was a gas grid.
Ensuring that grids are adequately maintained and extended to supply new customers requires oversight. That can be provided by suppliers interested in selling via the grid to customers, and more locally by customers themselves. State control of grids (particularly sewage and water, but also power and gas) has a very chequered history. Saving on maintenance has been a favourite way for governments to cut spending, resulting in lower and lower standards. Regulators also get tempted to restrict investment and spending on repairs so they can claim to keep bills down.
December 29, 2021
Indeed someone like Lord Lilley would not run it, he would just oversee it and get the government markey rigging out of the system is as far as possible.
December 29, 2021
The answer the question posed is “No he does not”. He joins the long line of ministers that have been captured by their departmental civil servants. It appears he is incapable of independent thought.
December 30, 2021
The question could be shortened:
Does the Business Secretary think?
Same answer.
December 29, 2021
Well I’d say it was partially true.
On the one hand, he and the government believe in free enterprise when it comes to housing, so international investors can speculate on British housing and hold British people to ransom over a place to live.
On the other hand, they want to stifle British industry with high taxes and make it uncompetitive in the world markets, as well as steering education away from skills that might be useful in industry.
Perhaps they believe in free enterprise, just so long as it’s foreign.
December 29, 2021
The snag with pure unconstrained laissez-faire free market capitalism is, it only exists for short period of time. It always ends up with more and more competitors, each making less and less profit. Such free markets, always implode into oligopolies, by successive takeovers and mergers.
Eventually, a market sector becomes orchestrated by a few big players, who can easily transmit pricing signals to each other while pretending to appear competitive. OPEC is a classic example where an oligopoly of suppliers openly tells its customers that they are controlling the price of oil by controlling the volume they will sell. This apparently, is acceptable to all its end customers.
In the UK, the energy market, hasn’t yet got to OPEC’s level of monopoly; but, it is now dominated by half a dozen suppliers, who are about to take control of the retail end of the market; having been controlling the manufacturing and wholesaling ends of the market, for a decade or more.
The farce of having energy retailers playing musical chairs with tariffs, when they were all effectively buying from the same wholesaler; was just a big con trick to make it look like free market competition to the muppetry. You will find oligopolies in the UK media and several other sectors. Alas, the UK’s biggest oligopoly of money launderers and tax dodgers created Brexit.
December 29, 2021
Where or when has their been “unconstrained laissez faire free market capitalism” ?
Your whole post is based on this false premise acorn.
December 30, 2021
A few years back I set up Company A selling gas and electricity to households and businesses, as I have identified a combination of economic, social and political factors likely to lead to a major spike in energy prices within a couple of years. I offer attractive fixed-term deals with the majority of the coming yearās fees paid in advance. My Company Aās low prices make it come top on price comparison websites and utilities switching websites meaning a lot of consumers sign up (and I get plenty of working capital).
So I set up Company B as a marketing and PR company (with a similar but not quite the same name) and make sure that my Company A hires my Company B to promote its services, and that Company B charges its new client an outrageous sign-up fee. Company B creates a logo and sets up a social media strategy for Company A and produces positive emails about Company A sent to the press outlets, while charging Company A some other outrageous fees.
Now I wait for energy prices to increase so it is no longer viable for Company A to provide electricity at the original low prices. I make a final payment from Company A to Company B for āmanagement chargesā then file for bankruptcy.
The countryās gas and electricity regulator (an OFblahblahblah) moves my customers to a new supplier who is now responsible for honouring the credit outstanding on my previous customersā accounts. Obviously this results in higher bills for them but thatās not my problem anymore.
I pay myself all the money from Company B as a bonus as it has had a few incredible years.
Now I have to find another territory where I can repeat the whole procedure. Isnāt the ālaisser-faire marketā wonderful?
(Thanks to Marcus Webb for delineating how the recent UK energy market has been functioning in these last years since its āopeningā allowed by our clever MPs and Ministers).
December 30, 2021
The energy market isn’t a laissez faire market hef.
It is rigged by loads of green rules regulations directives and laws.
And huge distortions caused by huge subsidies.
January 2, 2022
My post had nothing to do āwith loads of green rules regulations directives and lawsā or āhuge distortions caused by huge subsidiesā.
It was simply how the present system of company registrations (the cheapest being Ā£12 to register one with Company House within 24 hours) is being used to the benefits of people who can work it. And those are not the people whose households will possibly see a 50% increase in the price of their utilities this coming April.
December 29, 2021
The whole property market is effectively rigged as you describe. The media being the channel through which the many players effectively conspire.
December 30, 2021
Complete nonsense NHL
The property market is constrained by a raft of Government
and Local Government interventionist rules and regulations which cover everything from initial planning permission to building regs, to building inspections sign offs to listed building regs to mortgage finance to council taxes through to complex rules and taxes on the buy to let sector.
And those are just a few examples.
December 30, 2021
+1 – landlord licensing too and taxes of over 100% of profits in many cases! How is that sustainable.
January 6, 2022
Anybody as logic as some pretend to be on this blog would have left the BTL market some years ago when from 2015 onwards the possibility to offset mortgage interest payments (MIPs) against rental income was slowly phased out. In 2017-18 it was still possible to offset 75% of the MIPs, in 2019-20 still 25%. It has now gone completely but from April 2021, the BTL landlords can still benefit from a 20% tax credit. In practice it appears that this not being enough for the greedy lazy pigs, a large number of them have set up limited companies allowing them to benefit from a 19% corporation tax instead of the 40 or 45% they would have to pay as high or higher income tax payers.
And it is this type of clowns who come to this blog every day and now complain that the situation is not sustainable, and with other clowns defending the first batch ā¦
What a laugh you all are, particularly considering that some here are just living/surviving on their state pension.
December 29, 2021
Only 8:30am and a damning criticism of the useless business secretary is followed by four very accurate and equally damning comments, but will this government take any notice?
December 29, 2021
Quite – all political parties sing from the same hymn sheet and are supported by all widely distributed media outlets. Even the price gauging has not led to a discussion about offshoring our carbon production.
Without pressure their can be no change in direction (much like the wind that is not blowing).
December 29, 2021
You’d seriously expect a minister, elected into a Tory government to enact Conservative policies – after all, that’s what it said on the label.
Instead we have policies that the labour opposition have great problems opposing – they are all for an over-regulated economy, so they have little to object to — but keeping labour floundering and moving the country ever more left is a high price we pay for no effective choice at the ballot box.
The minister, all ministers in fact, need to be reminded of what party, and hence what style of policies they should be following – Have they really forgotten who they are and what conservatism means?
December 29, 2021
Those are my thoughts too, Bryan. The Conservative party does not comprise the PM and Ministers alone. The majority of the party has to be complicit in imposing these green socialist liberal EU appeasing policies upon us. WHY do they do this? Are they imposters who joined the Conservative party merely to destroy it (and the country) from within? They obviously do not care about the UK’s future, or they have some other priority which makes them ignore common sense and their duty towards the UK! How do we get rid of them? We need new laws that allow constituents to get rid of politicians who do not uphold the manifesto (and promises) they campaigned upon. Otherwise they have free rein to deliberately deceive the electorate.
December 29, 2021
+1
Well said
December 29, 2021
@Shirley M
Fool me once, shame on me.
Fool me twice, shame on YOU.
How many times have you voted Tory? My answer is āonceā – in 1979.
December 29, 2021
Some are just a bunch of spivs on the make who never thought that they would have to run a country. That is why most of them opposed BREXIT as they knew they would be exposed and shown to be useless. They are followers and not leaders, prefering to let others (SAGE or some QUANGO) do the work.
December 29, 2021
The minister, all ministers in fact, need to be reminded of what party, and hence what style of policies they should be following
The minister would do well to recall that they got in because voters went for the least worse option not because they wanted to vote Conservative. Becoming the worse option does not bode well for electoral success.
No one expected Boris Johnson to be a good Prime Minister or the Conservatives to govern for all, just better than Jeremy Corbyn and Labour. Little did we know
December 29, 2021
+1
December 29, 2021
The one thing that Jeremy Corbyn MP has that most of the Conservative Party does not, is ideology. Whilst I totally disagree with the man’s ideology I know what he was about. For example, what ideology do you think someone like Michael Gove MP has ?
December 29, 2021
FREEDOM (shouted by a Scot) ?
December 29, 2021
BUILD A WALL (shouted by an Englishman)
December 30, 2021
We should start a ‘Sponsor a breeze block wall’ fund.
December 30, 2021
Self preservation / promotion
December 29, 2021
@Bryan Harris – yep .. the current socialist government has achieved power by stealth and subterfuge. How do we change it ?
December 29, 2021
@oldwolf +1
If protests fail, the threat of not voting for them will do little to change their ways – After all, with the liblabcon we are guaranteed now to elect a party of the left.
December 29, 2021
That is my worry. For 40+ years we were given a choice of a pro-EU party or another pro-EU party. That isn’t democracy. In addition, the pro-EU parties chose the candidates we were allowed to vote for. While the popularity of Farage and UKIP managed to get us a referendum it highlighted the stranglehold that LibLabCON have over democracy and seats in the Commons.
Thank heavens for Farage. Such a shame that the main parties set out to destroy him, along with true democracy. Democracy is still being manipulated and the main parties like it that way so it will never change.
December 30, 2021
+99
December 29, 2021
When the cancer is spreading its time to cut it out and remove it. In the same way just changing ministers is not enough you have to cut out the structure that feeds them. That structure being the civil service. Shades of Yes Minister come to mind.
People have got to become responsible and accountable for their decisions and actions. Regardless what position they are at in the pecking order.
December 29, 2021
+1
December 29, 2021
It is such a shame that we pay out so much for a governing system that canāt even keep us warm or safe.
Why has all this worry and misery been heaped on us?
We have only ever done as we were told.
December 29, 2021
+1
Perhaps that is the problem – we were too malleable.
We should have been more involved with the decision making.
December 29, 2021
+1
As far as I can make out you are spot on.
Decline of feudalism (aided by plague.. lol).
Rise of town and parish councils.
Few wanted to do civic duty ..paid others.
Two WWsā¦many good (ruling) genes snuffed out.
War weary=waning interest in politics. Hippy movement/youth culture.
Look what we are left with politically (one or two exceptions but hands tied!).
Local politics very nasty. Not for the naive.
The masses brainwashedā¦over and over by exploitation of innate tribalism.
December 29, 2021
+1
December 29, 2021
We have allowed ourselves to be bribed with our own money.
December 29, 2021
+1
December 29, 2021
This government is the most authoritarian socialist gang ever seen in Britain. No previous cabinet would obey the orders of a bunch of communists such as are gathered in SAGE. No other would support climate lunatics to the obvious detriment of the people of Britain. No other would imprison the entire country for months for a mild flu.
December 29, 2021
@Graham +1
December 29, 2021
+1
December 29, 2021
A no population that loves democracy and freedom would put up with it.
My suggestion. Just ignore them (the government) and carry on with your life. It is what Gandhi and Dr. Martyn Luther King advocated – peaceful resistance !
December 29, 2021
I think you speak for many of us, Graham. It’s shameful and miserable and hugely depressing.
I do write to my own MP with words of thanks and encouragement if I think she’s properly defending us (she’s voted against ‘health passports’) but otherwise I feel totally helpless, a leaf in the wind.
December 29, 2021
Sir John, it is irrelevant what the Business Secretary thinks. He isn’t in control of energy policy; the left-wing Mandarins in the Business Department are implementing the policies handed down by the UN, the WEF and a raft of Eco Charity-Quangos, like Greenpeace. And they are all Socialist, which is why we are having Socialism thrust down our throats.
That doesn’t just apply to Energy “Policy,” It applies to the rest of this appalling Government’s agenda. There is nothing Conservative, let alone conservative, about Johnson’s Government.
Socialism doesn’t work. The theories underpinning it have been tested to death over the past century and every time the country implementing them has ended up poorer. And that is precisely what is happening in the UK; we are being made poorer.
December 29, 2021
+1 Donna
December 29, 2021
Nicely put.
December 29, 2021
A brilliant summation, Donna!
And what is happening with the vaccine roll out is the same. But there are now studies showing that natural immunity is far better than a vaccine induced immunity.
The studies are also showing that over vaccination is counter productive. The studies are from Israel, Denmark, the US and the latest one is from India.
Sceptics Daily have the studies on their website. The US study may not have been on Sceptics Daily- I canāt find where I saved that one.
December 29, 2021
If you want to travel to an EU country from February 2022 then you will have to have received a vaccine booster within 9 months of the date you travel. So travellers to the EU must receive a booster every year, forever, or until this rule is superseded. Get your timing wrong and your holiday will be cancelled. So, for example, those who got their booster last month can say goodbye to their Spanish holiday next August.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/coronavirus/covid-19-travel-in-the-eu/
December 29, 2021
Sharon. After having Covid and surviing ICU I learned from a brilliant Professor in the QE2 hospital in Birmingham (who had also had Covid) the value of natural immunity and have had no fear of the virus since and that was at least six months ago. What shocks and apalls me is that officially it is not recognised. I believe that millions of people are being vaccinated needlessly. Is it perhaps more about selling vaccines than protecting people.
December 29, 2021
I have no doubt in large part it’s about selling vaccines. As Pfizer shareholder I follow their announcements, and it’s quite chilling. The only saving grace is the effect on the share price.
December 29, 2021
BOF
SO you prefer people to get Covid to get immunity, than for them have an injection. ?
Perhaps that is why we learn that 80% (recently quoted figure from Boris) are presently in hospital and are not fully vaccinated.!
The cost of an injection is far less than the cost of a hospital bed and treatment, assuming all survive without any long term problems !
December 29, 2021
So for a serious matter like Covid, Alan, you rely on a quote from Boris Johnson?! Really? If you look at the government’s latest Vaccine Surveillance report (week 51), you’ll see that among people 60+, where Covid can be dangerous, about twice as many hospitalised with Covid were double-jabbed, as those who were not jabbed. There is an advantage to being jabbed, but it’s nothing like what you say.
As for ‘assuming all survive without any problems’, it must so blissful, innocent and beautiful in your world.
December 30, 2021
Rgrange – -the advantage being 90% of the Intensive care beds and resultant deaths are with the unvaccinated !
December 29, 2021
BOF – the 53 year old chap from Il Divo was said to have had a vaccination and had covid last year, he travelled to the UK so must have taken a negative test. Within a couple of days of arrival he was in hospital and passed away before Christmas, i wonder why did his PCR test taken to enter the UK did not show up the virus. If people come in via private aircraft do they have to test?
December 30, 2021
You’ve convinced me that Covid messes with one’s brain.
December 29, 2021
The world’s top bods (not allowed on MSM) have been saying for some time now that a vaccination programme should not be carried out in the middle of a pandemic for obvious reasons. If we were indeed ”in the middle of a pandemic” (and why should we disbelieve SAG-e??) you’d have thought that ‘SAG-e?’ would have cottoned on to the dangers. IF they’d waited and used the available safe and effective prophylactics, IF they’d waited till the end of the studies, IF people had been properly informed and not deliberately frightened – then I think that in a year or so’s time even more would be lining up to be jabbed, feeling empowered and informed – unless, of course, the ‘virus’ had been ‘conquered’ by then, by other means. It’s the obvious impatience and desperation that has spooked people.
December 29, 2021
Donna
Very well said, ticking all the boxes for many
December 29, 2021
Donna,
+1
You are absolutely correct. The Government is not in control and has been taken over by the Marxists in the civil service (BEIS in this case), the educational establishment and the BBC with its climate alarmist agenda.
BTW in the 1970s the BBC was telling us the next ice age was coming.
The defining feature of socialists, and I include national socialists, is that they believe that the ends always justifies the means and hence they do not care how many people die of food and energy shortages as long as anthropological CO2 is stopped and gives them the opportunity to grip power in the ensuing breakdown of the economy and law and order.
December 29, 2021
+1 DONNA
December 29, 2021
The headline misses the point.
We all know that markets work extremely well for some things, e.g. beers, but not for others, e.g. armies.
The business for sensible government therefore is to consider into which category a given undertaking would fall.
That consideration should be impartial and take in all known facts, and absolutely not be blinded by disciple-like doctrine, whether of Hayek or of Marx.
December 29, 2021
I don’t agree with many of your posts, but you’ve hit the nail on the head. Your third sentence is key.
December 29, 2021
Thanks – people of all sorts run into problems, when they deny the evidence of their own eyes and ears, and the simple common sense observations about human nature that are either innate, or that life has taught them.
This is the case whether with religious philosophy, with political ideology, with economic theory – for it is largely a theoretical and not an objective study – or with anything else.
December 30, 2021
political ideology – now you are talking !
December 29, 2021
NLH : “That consideration should be impartial and take in all known facts, and absolutely not be blinded by disciple-like doctrine, whether of Hayek or of Marx.”
I’m afraid that generally the Left is driven by ideology and the Right by more what is practical.
Unfortunately the extreme Left believes the ends justifies the means.
December 30, 2021
Strikes me that it is the Right who are the zealous disciples of a particular – erroneous – interpretation of Hayek, whereas the Left are moderate and pragmatic and never refer to tracts at all these days.
It’s why we are in the mess that we are.
December 31, 2021
So you think the left do not blindly believe Marx and other left wing philosophers are the answer.
Despite the repeated failures of socialism in the past.
December 29, 2021
Criticising a Minister. He is a Tory. The government is Tory. Sir John is a Tory.
It matters not how much the Tory party accepts Socialism, Sir John stays fanatically loyal excusing himself that he thinks he can change all the policies and practises he is opposed to by staying inside.
He cannot accept any criticism of himself that however extreme the party gets he will stay a Tory and thus betray his beliefs, and no matter what harm is done to our country and our sovereignty he will always be a Tory.
He is afraid to consider leaving it, so the party can safely ignore him.
Reply I stay true to my beliefs. I promised to serve as a Conservative MP , and intend to do so. I have more chance of changing policy from within than by resigning from the party. You can only resign once and are usually soon forgotten. I was constantly told here to resign to get a referendum on Brexit. We got it by increasing the number of Conservative MPs voting for it.
December 29, 2021
I agree with Mr Redwoodās response to your post. His resignation would achieve nothing and he can exert considerable influence through working patiently with Craig Mackinlay, Steve Baker and others on our behalf.
December 29, 2021
Agree entirely MPC
December 29, 2021
Spot on, MPC. It can’t be easy seeing the dark all around you – but what good does it do running away?
”… It may be in yon dust concealed
your comrades chase e’en now the flyers…”
Because
”Not by eastern windows only when daylight comes, comes in the light.”
The whole poem speaks of this kind of stance!
December 30, 2021
Oh come on Sir John – the referendum was agreed ‘cos Dave was advised he was going to lose the forthcoming election.
Reply No it was agreed when we got close to having enough Cons MP votes to change leader
December 29, 2021
Wind and solar account for about 6% of total U.K. energy demand. The global figure is less than 2%. If we want to electrify the whole economy, and ensure electricity production comes from green sources like wind and solar we need at least 10x the wind and solar capacity we have now. And of course we will still need backup for when the wind doesnāt blow and the sun isnāt shining. Why donāt we hear from net zero enthusiasts how this is to happen?
December 29, 2021
Richard 1, I think we’re starting to hear from people who draw the right conclusions, like the guy in Finland who has blown up his Tesla rather than fork out the ā¬20,000 repair bill he would be charged for replacing the battery pack. Not sure if we can blow up the whole net zero project quite so easily, though.
December 29, 2021
There’s a petition about holding a referendum on whether to keep ”the 2050 net zero target”. (It’s growing very slowly – so perhaps fewer people care than we’d like.) There should be at least proper debate about this – I don’t recall it being in the Conservative manifesto.
December 29, 2021
You seem to be suggesting the Business Secretary actually sets policy in this area. He doesn’t. The PM does. So harsh to criticise him over matters he has absolutely no control over. It’s like complaining the Chancellor doesn’t cut taxes – same situation, it’s not his decision.
December 29, 2021
There are a number of ānaturalā systems such as markets, democracy, justice, evolution, health, learning, pollution, ethics. These all work on the basis of small increments providing feedback to improve the system. All these systems must work together. You canāt just optimise one system and ignore the others. The less interference you have the better.
December 29, 2021
He may have backed the 2016 Referendum but he is acting now like a left wing Remainer! Staggeringly bright academically, but like so many of his type, totally lacking in foresight or practical ability. He won’t take any meaningful decisions until he sees which way the tide is running, and then it will too late, and we will all suffer, while he paddles off to write his next book.
December 29, 2021
The Business Secretary is a Brexitist who supported the erection of significant trade barriers with our biggest trading partner – the EU. Like all the other Brexitists he is no free marketeer. He is an economically illiterate Little Englander.
Worse, he doesnāt even like the British people. Alongside Priti Patel, Dominic Raab and Liz Truss he wrote a book called Britannia Unchained. (Or Britannia Unhinged as some of us prefer to describe their idiotic nonsense).
In it they said āThe British are amongst the worst idlers in the world.ā
Maybe this is true if you hang around with old people or Eton educated toffs who make their careers in the do nothing world of politics. But everybody I know – both in the public and private sector – works hard to pay all our huge tax bills which fund the pension handouts to elderly Tory voting layabouts.
December 29, 2021
andy
It is complete nonsense to say people who supported brexit also “supported the erection of significant trade barriers”
Free trade was the main desire and world wide free trade too.
Unlike the increasingly protectionist EU.
Despite significant covid disruption, trade between Europe and UK just carries on despite your endless Project Fear predictions of doom.
December 29, 2021
Trade with Europe has plummeted. Nobody ever said it would stop – except a bunch of Brexitists.
And if you didnāt vote for massive trade barriers you must be angry that your Brexit has resulted in them. I thought you knew what you were voting for.
December 29, 2021
Worldwide trade has plummeted. Something to do with lockdown? Nothing to do with Brexit, unless you say that German and US and China trade all rely on the UK being subservient to the EU?
December 29, 2021
That’s not what those UK exporters who have lost unhindered access to their market say.
December 30, 2021
attu,
Trade in Asia and the US has actually gone up the past two years, so yes it also has something to do with Brexit the question is how much?
December 30, 2021
Asia has been a fast growing area for export trade for years and it got through Covid quickly which helped
And the West sends lots of their manufacturing out there.
The US…well Trump had a successful and popular policy of returning industry back to being made inside America so the growth and trade figures look good.
December 29, 2021
We now have the position where trade in steel with the US will also be hit owing to brexit.
The US is reducing the tariffs on European Union steel, which will give it a 25% advantage in relation to UK steel. It also includes aluminium.
Furthermore the tariffs will continue to affect UK-originated steel even if processed into products in say the EU, so will affect exports to there too.
December 29, 2021
It hasn’t plummeted
You are being silly andy
And what massive trade barriers?
Having been involved in such trade for decades I see and hear of little difference in trade now to pre 2016 apart from one EU nation playing us up.
Covid virtually closed down demand and thus trade internationally.
That’s the main cause of the reduced figures.
But it is growing back.
You see everything through the prism of brexit and that is why your conclusions are often wrong.
December 30, 2021
Peter 2
there is no clear forecast at this stage how much is Brexit and how much is Covid, so stick to the facts.
thank you
December 30, 2021
Odd logic there billy.
You say there is no clear forecast yet demand I stick to facts !
December 30, 2021
The point you are missing bill, is that I am challenging young Andy and others who claim any/all negative trade or currency figures are 100% due to Brexit.
And nothing at all to do with Covid.
December 30, 2021
I’m very happy with the situation. We don’t buy cheese, wine, cars, flowers, Ikea products, sausages, tasteless apples, tomatoes etc from EU.
I don’t need the trendy electronics, game consoles etc – LG produce the few things I buy.
I expected a drop in trade, you could call it a collapse for EU countries who formerly sold us their goods. Tough shit.
December 29, 2021
Andy you don’t seem to be doing alot of work. You spend alot of time on here with your childish observations. Our generation had to work alot harder because there wasn’t the automation we have now. If you call sitting around most of the day tapping out nonsense hard work then you are a delusional fool.
December 29, 2021
I pay other people to do the work for me. Why keep a dog and bark yourself? The Treasury gets a quarter of a million pounds from us each year in income taxes alone so we must be doing something right.
When your bills skyrocket because of your Brexit we wonāt be struggling. But good luck. I hear food banks are quite good. Tory MPs keep saying so.
December 29, 2021
CAPITALISM that your mate Martin despises, well like you he can afford to see ‘we the people’ suffer – until that day when there will be a reckoning…
December 29, 2021
You really think brexit has caused fossil fuel costs to rise on world markets andy?
Complete nonsense
December 29, 2021
“if you hang around with old people”
You do have a thing about old people. I wonder what you will feel as you get older yourself?
December 29, 2021
Andy : “The Business Secretary is a Brexitist who supported the erection of significant trade barriers with our biggest trading partner ā the EU.”
Whilst we were in the EU, the non-tariff barriers were so large that we had a Ā£100bn/YEAR trading deficit with the EU.
Now we have left we have a chance to be able to make the necessary changes to counter this enormous imbalance.
December 29, 2021
“markets” Markets do work, especially when there is no Government restriction on competition. Markets do work when Governments DON’T manipulate them for perceived political gain.
The main instance that has been prompted here is to do with energy supplies to the consumer. Yes there are ‘chancers’ involved, they knew at the outset the promises they were making couldn’t be kept. Then fighting the consumer further we have the UK Government keeping French nationalised industry sweet, onside and subsidising the French taxpayer while not permitting the same for UK Industry. – The UK taxpayer pays twice, solely at the behest of the UK Government.
Its a never ending circle of state manipulation. Sir John you advocate ‘Freeports’ as a way forward, that is still a system that shows Government bias, manipulation and distortion of the market place. In essence those that take up options to operate in a ‘freeport’ get to freeload on the taxpayer that has supplied the infrastructure, education, health and wealth that permits them to exist. It goes further, as those basic facilities are still needed for a nation to survive, so everyone else has to double down and pay more tax! Its Government direct punishment of those that are working to provide a better UK for all.
Its the constant manipulation of the tax system that is the root of the problem. Everyone is paying far to much, as those that are trapped and cant avoid it have to pay over and above to subsidies those that can.
Its the UK Government that is directly manipulating and causing unnecessary costs, therefore failures by perusing a personal ego asperation instead of working for the greater good of all. I ask you, reduce UK Carbon footprint by exporting livelihoods and reimporting goods in the most polluting way. Punish the World as well as the UK.
What comes to mind is ‘I want to be leader, instead of I want to serve the people’
Reply I prefer the whole country to have the better terms a Freeport gains
December 29, 2021
This Government is so far left its policies are likely to do, no, have already done, enormous damage to the private sector. Where we end up is anybody’s guess. Perhaps even queing for food in shops with empty shelves, in between power cuts. Like the old Soviet Union.
Ministers seem incapable of learning that price caps don’t work. Neither do subsidies. All socialist and unworkable nonsense. They must be socialist themselves.
December 29, 2021
Why a Conservative government pursues Socialist policies is beyond me. Caps on prices have been shown to be foolish over many years. Why not go the whole hog and nationalise all industry and commerce and change the name of the party to Blair II+? Rather than create a fuss over a disease that has done what all viruses do (mutate to become more successful) Boris could declare war on the Channel Islands for conspiring with Macron!
December 29, 2021
I have no idea what the Brexit Secretary thinks.
The energy market does not work because it is not a free market. In the UK we sit on all our own sources of energy failing to fully use them while importing similar sources of energy from places in the World no one in their right mind would consider on financial or strategic grounds. Focus groups can only say what they do not want, government have not had a long term plan for decades except to bow before the new green gods.
I am forced to conclude that the conservative party is in its death throws and that the remaining 100 Spartans should join Reform and build a proper Conservative party.
December 29, 2021
agricola
If only your last paragraph could actually happen. The only way it may happen, when the people themselves rise up and demand it. We actually could do it but most voters are too scared to change. They cannot see the wood for the trees.
December 29, 2021
Turbo and Agricola. Both correct. Reform is more Conservative and deserves more support.
December 29, 2021
Things will only change if we are prepared to change our voting habits.
December 29, 2021
+1
December 29, 2021
The 100 Spartans as you call them jump ship to Reform and then discover the Richard Tice Appreciation Party falls apart with internal arguments.
Reply Why would we want to join Reform with no MPs and languishing on low single figures in the polls? We ned more votes in the Commons now.
December 29, 2021
With respect to the reply, 100 MPs joining Reform would result in Reform having 100 MPs. The maths is simple. SJR your loyalty to what calls itself conservative is laudable, however at what point do you stop drinking Beaujolais Nouveau from a bottle labelled Chateau Latour. The conservative party in the Commons has lost its terroir and is out of phase with the electorate who see themselves as Conservative. There should come a point at which the content is more important than the name it is given. The electorate if sufficiently provoked will break the mould. Witness the devastating success of the Brexit Party at the last EU election in which the UK participated.
Reply 100 Conservative MPs need to stick to Conservative principles and the Manifesto we were elected on. changing our name to a minor party with no MPs would not help but hinder our cause.
December 29, 2021
reply to reply …all very well a minority of Con MPs believing in Conservative values, but us out here looking on know full well the majority of Con MPs do not want Conservative action.
December 29, 2021
+1
December 29, 2021
Reply to Reply.
Laudable but that 100 sticking it out on principals are never going to be invited into positions of power from which they can they can effect those principals, never forgetting the long forgotten manifesto. Can you recruit the remaining few hundred all lining up for ministerial power, I doubt it, especially as they do not believe in the principals let alone any manifesto. If they did we would have heard from them and the 100 would be 200.
Take a look at the Reform manifesto which suggests they might be more Conservative than the conservatives. None of what I say makes me happy.
December 29, 2021
+1 little acorns
December 30, 2021
and when an oak falls there is a hell of a crash.
December 29, 2021
The United Kingdom does not have an energy shortage, we just like most of the world have an inability to store energy. Wind is an opportunistic source of energy, the turbines are mostly turned off because the national grid cannot do anything with the over supply. That will never change and to pretend otherwise is a cruel, an dvery very expensive, deceit
December 29, 2021
Clive Higgins
Correct. Politicians were told 20 years ago that they were going about the renewables in the wrong way.
Distribution infrastructure first then power generation. They still ain’t listening and never will. They are in over their heads and always have been.
Incompetence driven by ignorance and too arrogant to admit they ate wrong.
Who gives a stuff the tax and energy bill payers will pick up the tab.
December 29, 2021
The only hope for a change in Energy Policy and some common-sense came from GB News yesterday when Nigel Farage targeted the lunatics in Government and interviewed the former Economic Secretary to the Treasury and former Chief Executive of Energy UK, Angela Knight. She slated the Government’s policy, which she said is just a continuation of Ed Miliband’s, and said a complete re-think of Energy Policy is essential (and has been needed for some time) with a view to becoming energy self-sufficient. (Interview starts 28 minutes in).
Basically, showing yet again that if any Establishment policy urgently needs reviewing in this country it needs Nigel Farage to start the process.
December 29, 2021
The government is out of its depth on so many issues. This is because it consists of people who spent three years at university not being educated. Education means learning how the world works so in the first place an understanding of science is vital. Without understanding science which includes mathematics, the government will never be able to understand the inanity of its policies, particularly in relation to climate and energy.
Biomass generation is going flat out; one can almost hear those chainsaws chopping down forests while there is coal sitting patiently underground waiting to be exploited the first time the British public fail to elect a bunch of ignorant cretins into parliament. Not much solar today so subsidies needed to encourage farmers to host Chinese photovoltaic panels rather than grow food. Wind is producing 40% of our electricity; however, like solar, the minimum it can produce and does is 0% so treating it as base load is nor very helpful to maintaining a balanced grid. And this dog’s breakfast is all because those non-scientists believe that a trace gas drives the climate and that our generation of it could break the camels back and cause runaway warming or something.
It is ironic that we have people like the PM who believe they are educated as a result of learning ancient Greek but are wholly ignorant of the contributions those Greeks made to science and mathematics which are far more important than their language.
December 29, 2021
Johnson and the Eco Lunatics controlling the Globalist policy agenda thought they’d do a controlled demolition of our economy ….. switching to Net Zero over the next decade (despite the fact the technology and infrastructure aren’t there, and won’t be).
Putin decided to make it an uncontrolled demolition …….. or to be more accurate, controlled by HIM, not Johnson and the Eco Loons.
As Nigel Farage once noted, Putin is a brilliant political operator…… unlike the virtue-signalling idiots we’ve been landed with.
December 29, 2021
Uncontrolled demolition? Not sure what you’re talking about, Donna. Russia has exported massive amounts of natural gas to Europe for many years, via a pipeline running across Ukraine. If he wished to, Putin could have simply turned off the tap years ago on those deliveries. I don’t recall anyone saying that pipeline was a problem. There’s a lot of hoo-ha now that with the completion of the Nordstream 2 pipeline, Russia can export gas to Europe without channelling it through Ukraine. So what?
For six months Germany and the EU have been prevaricating over legal issues that could have been solved years ago, and in the process preventing gas supples to Europe via Nordstream, and helping to drive gas prices to new heights. That’s the reality, it’s not ‘Putin’ withholding gas from Europe. He wants to sell the stuff, after all.
December 29, 2021
Putin has the ability to turn the gas taps on and off at will ……. and drive the price of gas up and down as he chooses. Rather like OPEC did with oil in the early 1970s.
And it’s having the same result; rampant inflation in the energy markets.
We didn’t start getting North Sea oil until 1975 so there was nothing we could do about it when OPEC started exploiting the power oil production gave them . In 2021, we’ve got the gas/shale gas (and oil) but the Eco Loons in Government refuse to exploit it.
December 29, 2021
You’re still missing the point: Russia isn’t being allowed to export large quantities of gas via Nordstream 2, thanks to EU chicanery. The new German government’s Green Party foreign minister Annalena Baerbock opposed Nordstream because it ‘contravenes the EU’s energy and climate goals.’ (FT, 13th Dec.), and natural gas futures promptly rose 11% as a result. The eco-loons are getting their way, and too bad for energy supplies at affordable prices.
Russia has delivered all contracted gas supplies to Europe in 2021. It’s now EU countries that are reluctant to take out new contracts. There was no ‘controlled demolition’ by Putin of our energy situation – in fact we in this country only get 5% of our gas from Russia anyway.
December 29, 2021
he wants Russian expansion and European disintegration first and foremost.
Then releases natural assets maximising return on the trade.
December 29, 2021
forthurst
Agreed, but first you have to re-educate the so called academic minded professors, who educate/brainwash the students.
At the same time you need to reward (money, respect and position in society) the real life professional, designers, engineers, scientists, etc. so that people aspire to become like them, and are even interested in such future positions etc.
Thus we are in need of a very big rethink !
December 29, 2021
Has the Climate Change Committee carried out due diligence on the science underpinning the climate change “emergency”?
December 29, 2021
I still find it bizarre that this whole parliament declared that we, as a nation, are in a state of āclimate changeā emergency ā¦.and that statement has never been repealed
December 29, 2021
SirJ I agree with your assessment completely…..the issue is that your fellow MPs and party don’t
December 29, 2021
“Then the replacement suppliers put the prices up anyway when the cap lifts.”
It’s worse than that, they put the price up BEFORE the cap lifts and then again afterwards.
My supplier went bust, with my monthly DD at Ā£140. The replacement, British Gas, now charges Ā£230 and will no doubt hike the price again in April (expectation is another 40%).
So the so-called “fixed price” deal never materialised – basically, the suppliers and regulator between them reneged on a fixed priced deal – they took it over and… then did whatever they wanted.
These deals are not worth the electrons they’re written on. If a replacement supplier takes over a contract then they should honour the contract as a matter of law, in all walks of life.
December 29, 2021
Remember all those MPs saying the system worksā¦.just go on a compare website and choose a cheaper provider….oh yeah
December 29, 2021
Fantastic post Forthurst.
December 29, 2021
I agree with most comments here in as much that its government policy and the quest to be the “world leader” in renewables that has dragged us into this appalling situation. Although we are out of Europe we are still following EU policy on greenwash. Our energy security is in a perilous state.
As one who works primarily in the oil and gas sector the investment in E&P over recent years has been pitiful, particularly in the North Sea. There are still reserves there, not as much as 25 years ago admittedly, but they are there. However, policy does not provide incentives to the energy majors to invest.
We have a bountiful reserve of Shale Gas, and any talk of exploiting this has stopped. Its a pity because the NIMBY’s don’t realise most of it is offshore.
We talk about our manufacturing sector, but most don’t realise that oil and gas are feedstocks for petrochemicals, which in turn make the feedstock products for the manufacturing industry. I have dealt with many 2nd & 3rd world countries who are trying to develop their economy and a cornerstone of this is a buoyant oil and gas sector driving the petrochemicals.
The millennials employed by the government to formulate energy policy are idealistic, but have no real idea of real life.
December 29, 2021
What this Government of idiots and follower MPs need is a dose of the Nigel’s.
December 29, 2021
Spot On
December 29, 2021
So, is it the Business Secretary who is in the wrong? Or is it the Department he presides over?
If the latter, it is still the former.
Also, however you look at it, it is Boris Johnson who is WRONG.
There is nothing harmful about CO2. Plus, even he can not make the wind blow (or the sun shine).
There is a hell of a lot wrong, with deliberately leaving his country short of power. Which is what he is doing.
December 29, 2021
News youāll not see on the BBC or SKY
Number of UK deaths yesterday 29, today 57
December 29, 2021
Apparently the dear govt. has (quietly) announced that the āhealth crisisā is over!
Officially over said Sir John Bell.
MSM eerily silent!
Assuming this is true youād think theyād be pleased!! š¤
December 29, 2021
Good news doesn’t keep people in check….you need fear with continious doom & gloom
December 31, 2021
In that case it is going rather well !
December 29, 2021
Sir John, talking of Kwarteng, I am equally despairing of his role as a defender and promoter of British businesses. Have you seen this article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/12/12/quantum-drug-discovery-start-up-rahko-snapped-us-investor-odyssey/ ?
This is an appalling story of British cutting-edge tech companies being bought up by US investors and the founders – the brains behind the companies – being forced to relocate to America. We are losing the companies, the IP, the science, the scientists and all the benefits that these would bring if they remained in the UK. These are quantum computing companies – Rhako, PsiQuantum, Cambridge Quantum, DeepMind – and they represent the future. Unfortunately Kwarteng is allowing British science and technology to be (taken over Ed)Boris lied about making Britain a science superpower, but instead his government is allowing our science base to be destroyed. Is there nothing you can do?
December 29, 2021
X-Tory, Is it not a proof that the market is working? It is very likely that the young people (2018 UCL computer science graduates) who developed these technologies will have a much better future in the USA than here. I know of some who moved to Canada or USA after their BSc and PhD in the 1980s and according to them these moves were the best decisions of their life.
Why would you want to prevent clever young entrepreneurs to go where their prospects are likely to be much better?
December 30, 2021
The government’s duty is to look after the NATIONAL interest. It is not in our national interest to suffer from a ‘brain drain’, with all the talent – created by British universities – being stolen from us. And if you had read my comment properly you would have seen that the reason our companies and their key personnel are moving abroad is NOT an organic one but because they are being BOUGHT by foreign predators. If cutting-edge British tech companies need funding to grow then the government should be ensuring that there is BRITISH funding available so they can grow HERE. The other day our host mentioned Norway’s sovereign wealth fund; we need a BRITISH SWF that invests in British companies to help them grow and succeed.
December 30, 2021
ābought by foreign predatorsā, thatās the way you see it. If you were asking these young entrepreneurs they would be as likely as not to tell you that they are moving because their start-up/new companies are likely to get more support from US venture capitalists than they could ever expect from similar entities here.
Ever had a look at the UK VCT markets relative to the US one?
See:
– HMRC Venture Capital Trusts Statistics 10/12/2019 usually Ā£700m to Ā£900m in a good year, also Venture Capital Trusts: Commentary 17/12/2020 on assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
– Venture capital in North America: Statistics and facts, 26/08/2021 on statista.com: $130bn .
For comparison EU27 has ā¬40bn annually.
Finally āIf cutting-edge British companies need funding to grow then the government should be ensuring that there is British funding available so that they can grow hereā. How much more tax would you be ready to pay for this to happen? Except if you are BJ, you cannot have āle beurre et l’argent du beurreā (your cake and eat it).
December 29, 2021
perhaps already mentioned ?-
Severn and Sutton Bridge combined cycle , natural gas power plants sit idle on the coasts of South Wales and Lincolnshire . Available for contract in the UK or RELOCATION to OTHER COUNTRIES.
1700 MW of electricity can be reliably generated.
Please read the story at http://www.ukpowerplants.co.uk
This info in half page advert ,business section,DT today headed-
Will your business have power this WINTER ?
December 29, 2021
while i am here-
#JOHN REDWOOD for PRIME MINISTER .
December 29, 2021
hear hear
But the PM of a conservative party not this conservative party
December 29, 2021
Migration Watch Chairman Alp Mehmet on GB News with Farage calling for a rethink?
Why are the politicians not listening.
More bodies require more homes and more energy.. Rocket Science it ain’t.
December 29, 2021
The message has been delivered far and wide – the stupid english will never send you back
December 29, 2021
Only a dimwit or a Marxist Britphobe would believe that there is a climate emergency, that the UK can save the planet by unilaterally destroying our economy to achieve net zero CO2 when our emissions amount to just 1% of the worldās total and that windmills are the best option for our CO2 free power generation.
Completely irrational and the Chinese must be laughing.
So the Dogger Bank windmill farm will have 4.8GW of installed power after building hundreds of windmills over hundreds of square miles. This will produce on average 2.4GW of electricity with a 50% capacity factor, and if the non-fossil fuel storage efficiency is 50%, it will be equivalent to just 1.2GW of fossil fuel or nuclear power.
The only agreement I have with BEIS is that there will be plenty of maintenance and repair jobs ā dangerous ones too when it is a howling gale out in the North Sea.
I recommend everyone to watch John Constableās evidence to the HoL Industry and Regulators Committee on Tuesday 14 September 2021 (first half) where he says :
āIt is perfectly rational to have a decarbonisation policy, but the decarbonisation policy itself must be rational.ā
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/132b6724-c396-4b61-aad4-bad9dd936d53?in=09:59:51
Followed in the second half by a member of the HoL extolling the benefits of windmills etc ed
December 29, 2021
Sir John,
As always I thank you for posting my contribution to this debate.
I do think, however, it is important for this debate for your readers to know that a member of the HoL in the HoL’s Industry and Regulators Committee meeting on Tuesday 14 September 2021 at 11:46:39 actually admitted that he was an “adviser to a major Chinese wind turbine manufacturer”.
December 29, 2021
Covid has just gone nuclear.
The CDC will withdraw the emergency use authorization of the PCR test for COVID-19 testing. The CDC finally admitted the test does not differentiate between the flu and COVID virus.
This explains the disappearance of Flu cases and has massively inflated the COVID cases.
ā CDC encourages laboratories to consider adoption of a multiplexed method that can facilitate detection and differentiation of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses.ā – CDC website.
December 29, 2021
This is in USA – is the test different to that done in the UK?
Surely the corona virus responsible for Covid-19 is quite different to the common Flu virus?
December 30, 2021
What will big pharma use in future as a sales aid to increase the uptake of the jab now the PCR test has been (questioned Ed)as useless for detecting Sars-Covid -2, especially now that there have been ā¦ā¦.reports of purportedly healthy young people keeling over with acute circulatory disorders after receiving it? What will big government use to persuade the people to continue to accept North Korean style governance?
Far too much has been taken on trust from the other side of the Atlantic. There needs to be an explanation as to why the NIH were funding the Wuhan lab for gain-of-function research ie enabling a bat virus to cause disease in humans by attenuating the spike protein. Giving large sums of money to three letter agencies in all fields without supervision is asking for trouble.
December 29, 2021
Tonight, wind is producing 12.3GW of electricity, 43% of demand. CCGT is only 2.74GW, 10% of demand. This is saving us a lot of money, we don’t have to buy the wind. And at current spot energy prices – being above the CfD system “Strike Price” – they are cash generative.
The new, larger, GE and Siemens turbines operate over a wider range of wind speeds and the turbines that will be installed after the 5th energy auction next year will be larger still. But to really exploit our investment in wind, we need to find a way to use them at night, when demand is low. Currently, they are curtailed at night and payments are made to the operators while they are effectively disconected from the grid.
In the future overnight charging of EV’s will soak up much of this availability. They will then collectively act as an energy storage system. But to give a margin of safety when wind is variable a 5 day supply of stored energy would be nice.
The fossil fuel lobby likes to claim that this is impossible, or far too expensive, or would need too much subsidy etc etc. Untrue. We only need to replace the wind element of the equation. There are grid scale systems available. We should invest in a LCOE competition between them and decide which one (or two) are the best. The British CRYOBattery system is the one that the fossil fuel lobby is attacking, this offering is keeping Shell/BP/Exxon CFO’s awake at night.
Reply Wind is not free. The wind farms are expensive to build and repair anD you need plenty of idle back up capacity which has to be paid for as well.
December 30, 2021
and just like nuclear energy, the price of wind farms downstream to repair and dismantle will be horrendous.
December 30, 2021
@Sakara I note you use the Government style when you say ‘invest’. It would appear that UK Governments ‘gives’ money to primarily foreign domiciled enterprises so they can then charge a taxpayer subsidized rate to the consumer for the service they provide. As in the UK taxpayer then pays twice and there is no ‘investment’ return to the funder(the taxpayer). This method of so-called ‘investing’ might just be acceptable if it was used to nurture a UK owned manufacturing, assembly and installation capability. As it stands just a little further down the line when it is realised the taxpayer just cant keep ‘giving’ money away – these outfits will walk and the UK will be faced with starting all over at greater expense.
UK Governments don’t invest, they give UK taxpayer money away. That is then compounded by the ability to find sources to tax as our wealth creation to create our society is off-shored.
December 30, 2021
I see that SSEN has just announced plans to spend more than Ā£2bn on a substantial link between Peterhead and Drax, in order to allow more Scottish wind generation to be delivered to England. This is a network cost incurred wholly to support wind farms, and should be charged to them. It is yet another back door subsidy to the wind industry.
December 30, 2021
substantial was meant to be subsea, but it is also a substantial 2GW.
December 30, 2021
Sakara Gold :
Nonsense.
Gas, oil and coal are all free out of the ground. As for wind, it is their capture, storage and preparation for use which costs and wind operating costs are increasing not decreasing.
When the windmills are paid for not being connected to the grid this is effectively a subsidy, one the windmill operators love because they get more money for NOT supplying electricity.
P66 of the āNet Zero Strategyā document sees the batteries in evs used thus :
āFor example, innovative technology could support smoothing of electricity demand, by allowing electricity stored in [EV] batteries to be fed back into the grid at times of low renewable generation or high demand (vehicle-to-grid technology)ā
So ev owners could find they have less battery power in the morning than when they went to bed. Great for range anxiety.
If grid scale storage is feasible then why is it not being implemented for the new Dogger Bank windmill farms? Because they donāt exist.
BTW, perhaps it has not yet occurred to you that energy from the renewables will be required for the backup and this will reduce the effective energy output and will have a large efficiency loss.
December 30, 2021
Producing wind farms on CFDs are being paid over Ā£140/MWh on average. Most onshore wind farms are getting a subsidy of over Ā£50/MWh via Renewables Obligations on top of high market prices. Offshore wind farms with ROCs get around twice that in subsidy, with the Hywind floating turbines getting 3.5 ROCs/MWh, or a subsidy of over Ā£175/MWh, again on top of high market prices. That is why I called for suspension of payments of ROC subsidies until market prices fall back reliably below Ā£100/MWh.
Market prices are also being driven up to Ā£30/MWh higher by the cost of UKA carbon taxes on CCGT generators, who are most of the time the marginal operators that set market prices. This is a further subsidy to those wind farms not covered by CFDs. On annual volume of around 275TWh, this is adding around Ā£8bn to consumer bills. Again, I have called for the tax to be suspended while prices remain so high. It is not needed to discourage the use of expensive gas. It just results in government having to find the money to bail out consumers, which is actually greater than the Ā£6.4bn raised by auctioning allowances at a price of Ā£80/tonne of CO2.
December 30, 2021
Where are these large scale energy storage systems operating in the world currently SG?
Some examples with some idea of costs would be useful.