Russia’s economy will suffer badly from the sanctions now imposed. Many companies are pulling out of their businesses in Russia, stopping trade with Russia and looking elsewhere for supplies. The  ruble  has collapsed making imports so much dearer. Russia cannot access a lot of foreign exchange.
These  sanctions also impose costs on us. Wild price movements in energy have just made the cost of living problems that much bigger. The  war will disrupt the grain trade and is propelling some food prices up. Russia is likely to look to China to work round the banking  sanctions and to find new markets for its energy and other commodities. The much higher prices in world markets will increase Russian revenues and will be paid in hard currency by those who want the oil and gas.
The government needs to adjust its tax policies for these new developments. There is an even more compelling need to ease the squeeze.
March 9, 2022
Good morning.
Don’t you mean the ‘Rouble’ ? Not that I can criticise, but it did make me chuckle.
The government is getting more tax revenue due to said increases and therefore has some scope for reductions / rebates. The electorate is not stupid and with Farage promoting, ‘Power not poverty’ there is going to be a backlash.
March 9, 2022
off topic.
But âŠ
Sir John Redwood is to take charge of co-ordinating the work of the new 1922 Committee Policy Committees.
Congratulations
Excellent news
March 9, 2022
I hope he manages to push forward the more sensible contributions, while encouraging the others to go away and think again.
March 9, 2022
GilesB
OMG at last a sensible appointment.
Congratulations well deserved.
March 10, 2022
Congratulations, Sir John. Best news we have had in a long, long time.
March 9, 2022
not just there.
the political/journalistic bubble is using this as yet another excuse to have ever higher levels of immigration. at some point that particular bubble will burst wide open.
we already have our 4 * hotels full of immigrants, we already have people dying because they cannot get heart & cancer care out of the NHS, we already have massive over application for the decent schools, we already have massive cultural conflict in many of our towns and cities, we simply dont have the bandwidth to do this
March 9, 2022
JR, what do you make of As rootâs book and the influence of Johnsonâs latest squeeze? It is relevant to your recent blogs on energy, cost of living etc.
March 9, 2022
I fear that our country will also suffer badly as this war will dilute the government’s attention to matters that are really important to the people, but sadly not affect the resolve to continue with their madcap Net Zero policies.
To the common man this war is further confirmation of the need for secure, reliable, efficient and effective energy supplies is paramount to the welfare of the people.
March 9, 2022
and hopefully avert the attention of the people from those other matters, or am I just too cynical?
March 9, 2022
Well said Turbo. Boris seems fixated with wind though.
March 9, 2022
possibly due to Carrie’s cooking, or choice of vegan diet?
March 9, 2022
………….and our industries and businesses impacted heavily by foreign powers with cheaper energy. How can they possibly compete with our foolish Governments net zero madness!
March 10, 2022
It’s the next stage of the Great Reset. All coming along very nicely for Schwab and the WEF gang. The next episode we can expect is a massive cyber attack.
March 9, 2022
The CEBR has forecast that living standards could be hit by cÂŁ2,500 per household as a consequence of the war and sanctions; guessed might be a better description. Behaviour will change; we will switch off our gas heating when prices rocket up and wear more layers of clothing. I suspect some of the remarkable commodity price spikes reflect margin calls on short positions. Even so they will settle at much higher prices and government will get an inflated tax take. The Chancellor should cut taxes on the over-inflated prices of oil, gas and other affected products.
March 9, 2022
I am sure you are right about forward short positions being marginal out, leading to the extreme price spike. We saw that with the earlier price spike too. These are of course unlikely to have been speculative short positions from gambling hedge funds and banks (indeed these are likely to have been the longs taking massive profits and preparing to call in collateral). Instead they will be forward hedge positions from producers, forced to crystallise a massive loss on the hedge that cannot be recouped unless spot prices re-attain those peak levels. The loss with its immediate cash call could bankrupt some of them, which we do not need at a time of supply shortage. The spike creates new targets for spot markets, and reduces the liquidity for forward hedging through volatility related maintenance margins. It reinforces the trading aphorism that not hedging is speculating that prices will move in you favour, while hedging is speculating that they will move against you.
March 9, 2022
Those smug Germans laughing at Trump when he made a speech in the UN decrying Germany’s dependence on Russian gas aren’t laughing now. No, they have BLOOD on their hands. Who’s the tyrant now? It ain’t Donald Trump, that’s for sure
This war has exposed the CANCER OF THE WESTERN GLOBALIST AND PROGRESSIVE eating our nations alive from the inside
And yes, It is important people pay the full price (the truth), in higher taxes and higher prices, of your government’s and Labour’s client State’s spending and tax policies. Only then will they realise how deceitful both main parties actually are and how they connive with each other to conceal what they are and who they are in terms of their political intent
The full price is the truth that reflects the higher cost. The price is never wrong. The market is never wrong.
March 9, 2022
There is no sign that the government will make any adjustments. I am not sure if they are particularly bothered about the impact on us. There seems to be more concern with fitting in with things like Net Zero than any economic effects on the people of this country.
March 9, 2022
+1
March 9, 2022
The British establishment had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the EU, preferring to be Brussels representatives to us than our Government. Just like the EU we are going to have to drag them out of their Net Zero religion, for they are more than happy to sacrifice us on that alter in order to look good to their international buddies, than do right by us. We are also going to have to do the same over their addiction to the UN Convention of Refugees, for they would rather burry us under humanity than call a halt to it.
March 9, 2022
Yes it’s hard not to be in despair at how out of touch most MPs are. Stephen Kinnock at lunchtime talking about how we have to continue the emphasis on renewables ‘to prevent the world from burning’. He must think we have a lot of power over the world from our small spec of a country within the global climate. This from a prominent member of a political party that used to pride itself on supporting workers in traditional industries such as coal, oil and gas.
March 9, 2022
There is no strategic thinking by this Government or its supporting Civil Serpents. They just chase msm soundbites and expenses.
March 9, 2022
Thatâs because the new buzz word ââtransitional energyââ used by both the PM and Business Secretary today was clarified to include only renewable and nuclear energyâŠ.further oil exploration and fracking is still off the table
March 9, 2022
The government also needs to reunite the country in order to manage the promotion of food security in a serious way. The BBC are still pretending in their Farming Today programme and in other programmes that the NIP is a normal state of affairs and that the Foreign Secretary just needs to persuade the EU to tweak the details a bit, such as on seed potatoes. They maintain we just have to get past the Assembly elections and all will be well.
EU propaganda is pumped out every day on that programme in which the producers present us with a picture of a country still in the EU and doing its bidding, not just on the NIP, but also on Climate Change.
March 9, 2022
During the EU referendum debates I thought le@vers, including Johnson, were going to help our farmers unleash their potential after releasing the shackles of CAP. Useless Eustice appears captivated to remain in EUs total control. Again, is this because of the N.Ireland protocol?
Come on JR, where is the spirit for the NIP to abandoned not repeatedly kicked down the road. Useless Truss flying at great expense to US to talk about Ukraine! The country is of no strategic interest to us, N.Ireland is!! When can we see our govt stand up for our country? I am not interested having hundreds of thousands Ukraine here. We cannot secure GP appointments now. Mass immigration must stop.
March 9, 2022
You say:- âThe government needs to adjust its tax policies for these new developmentsâ – indeed they do and this needed adjusting even before this appalling war and not just tax policies. Also energy policies, the size of government, defence policies, health care, education, the woke lunacy, a bonfire of red tape, transport policies, policing policies, criminal justiceâŠ
March 9, 2022
Philip Johnston today:-
âWe could hardly have made a bigger pigâs ear of our domestic energy policy had we tried. The crisis in Ukraine has exposed the flaws, mistakes and downright complacency that has been evident for years to everyone except politicians desperate to burnish their green credentials whatever the cost.â
Correct but he is surely wrong about tidal power it is not on demand power, has to be used as produced and is too expensive to construct and maintain for the power you get.
But what do we expect Kwasi/Boris/Carrie/Hands clearly have little or no understanding of science, energy or climate. Do any even have a physics A level? The current policy is political insanity too.
March 9, 2022
This can all come under the Putin headline though.
These are not problems we were going to face until….Putin.
I lay good money on this terrifying set of events in Ukraine being used as a cover for a few problems we were always going to have to face because of severe mismanagement.
March 9, 2022
Indeed they will of course blame it all on Putin and not their moronic net zero agenda, the huge mishandling of Covid, the vast size of government and all their other many errors.
March 9, 2022
+1
March 9, 2022
L/L. Correct and I fear it will go on being a mess after I listened to the hot air coming from Boris at PM Quesion time.
March 9, 2022
LL,
Perhaps this has more to do with Carrie Symmondsâ appointment of her old boss Goldsmith to Johnsonâs cabinet. After all Goldsmith was rejected by the voters! Ashcroftâs book appears to implicate the stark change in Johnsonâs energy position to his latest squeeze rather than rational thought process or party policy or anything conservative.
March 9, 2022
Indeed he used to be far more sound on this and other issues with his skin off a rice pudding comments. Now is and Sunak are clearly tax to death, green crap socialists.
March 9, 2022
Do we have a Conservative Party in government? They might be more accurately described as Labour light. They need urgently to hugely cut the political posturing, not to mention forthwith the Climate Emergency and Woke nonsense, or they are going to receive a thorough shellacking at the next election.
March 9, 2022
Sir John,
Perhaps converting grain into alcohol and burning it in IC engines can now be seen as a bad idea. Perhaps deliberately sabotaging the exploration of shale gas deposits can now be seen as a bad idea.
Perhaps subsidising and prioritising wind and particularly solar, making conventional (read ‘reliable’) generation uneconomic by even highly efficient CCGT plants can now be seen as a bad idea.
Perhaps allowing foreign agents to assassinate people on the streets of the UK with nothing but minor protests…
Etc.
JF
March 9, 2022
well said
March 9, 2022
I have already called for suspension of biofuel mandates. The specifications for biofuel content should be amended to read as maxima, with refiners left to blend fuels to meet other specifications in a cost optimal manner. We need every assistance to keep down pump prices.
March 9, 2022
You’re right. They just don’t do strategic thinking. It’s all about their vanities and ego’s not public service.
March 9, 2022
Indeed also they compare the price of on demand electricity with intermittent unreliable wind and solar. The two values are very different indeed.
March 9, 2022
Never has the drum beat for war against Russia sounded louder. This is more scary than anything I felt in the cold war. When has Parliament ever been addressed directly by a foreign leader ?
The BBC/MSM seems relentless in its push for a No Fly Zone, with a very real threat of nuclear exchange… most of it coming from people who were – only a few weeks ago – telling us to wear a mask, keep safe, stay at home.
Bizarre !
This is war fever. I now understand how WW1 started. I’ve never seen anything like it and thought it was a thing of the past.
WE caused Putin to flip. He warned the EU and NATO many times to leave Ukraine well alone and for obvious reasons.
March 9, 2022
I share your concern; we seem stuck between complacency and appeasement.
A US intelligence person stated last night that they think, for Putin ”…this is a war he cannot afford to lose.” Which begs the question, if Putin’s invading army begins to collapse and fail in task, what will he do? By all accounts he’s got himself a secret palace deep in Siberia, and he’s not known for concern for the welfare of the oedinary citizen. More dangerouse times we haven’t seen since Cuba.
March 9, 2022
correct
and we went out of our way to appear weak, by the endless time spent on woke nonsense, the way we pulled out of Afghanistan etc
most of the world is not freedom loving democracies, we really should have figured out a sensible way of dealing with that by now
March 9, 2022
I could not agree more.
I’ve asked a few people if they realise what an escalation will mean. It won’t be watching war porn from the comfort of your living room with a cuppa and a biscuit.
They don’t realise the bombs will fall here too, or seem oblivious to the fact.
If they’ve been so terrified of a virus how on earth will they cope with full on war.
Some of the worst seem to be the young smart set, who like as not in their self assured pomposity believe they won’t get their marching orders as they are far too ‘well informed’ and that is for the likes of others.
In all of this I find it quite sickening that not enough diplomacy has gone on and this may not go down well but I agree with Lavrov who I believe said in a round about way that the quality of diplomacy has been poor.
The ridiculous scene at the UN of people walking out when the Russian minister gave his speech has just left me stunned. Why not go the whole hog stick their fingers in their ears and say nah, nah, nah, nah nah. How on earth has that helped the people of Ukraine.
All this could have and should have been avoided years ago.
Putin is completely out of order to invade, but is he valid in fearing NATO expansion yes.
Were the people of Donbass being shelled and are the Azov battalions real, yes.
There has been an enormous amount of hypocrisy with the way America/NATO has carried on, Iraq, Afghanistan the bombing of Belgrade.
Why wasn’t more done to work with Putin over these issues.
Why are many so surprised that he’s palled up with China.
How different Europe could have been and should have been after the curtain came down.
Probably that has never suited certain other interests.
March 9, 2022
+ 1
March 9, 2022
And the Crimean War!
March 9, 2022
Trump warned Putin to leave the Ukraine well alone and he did. That was Peace through Strength. As soon as the Fraudster was in the WH, Putin started his preparations. He had not attempted anything since under Obama in 2014.
March 9, 2022
Indeed. Many reports that China influenced the American elections as they opposed Trump as well. I have no doubt that Putin reluctantly respected Trump because of his strength of character. Biden and his relatives have dubious antecedents.
March 9, 2022
This is nothing like how WW1 started…..go read history.
If UK had declared war on Russia over the Salisbury murders then THAT might have appeared similar.
March 9, 2022
Let’s hope you’re right, Mickey, and Ukraine doesn’t pull a chain of western nations into a war with Russia, in the same way as the chain of alliances operated in 1914. That shouldn’t happen: Ukraine is not a NATO member, and Britain has not given it a security guarantee. The trilateral pact UK-Poland-Ukraine announced last month covers only cybersecurity, energy security, and countering disinformation, not military assistance.
March 9, 2022
MT – I was talking about the levels of war fever at that time. Sorry not to have been clear.
March 9, 2022
The cry of the appeaser. It is everybody elseâs fault the dictator is a dictator.
Putin is indiscriminately murdering children and you think it is okay.
Nobody wants a war with Russia. But he and his Brexitist and Trumpist apologists in the west are a threat to our values. He needs to be given an ultimatum. Withdraw your troops Mr Putin or you are a dead man.
March 9, 2022
Well put on a uniform and go and fight young andy.
You seem very keen.
I’m certain you will be very useful.
March 10, 2022
Perhaps he could join the Truss battalion.
March 10, 2022
Andy.
Yes. Appeasement is the only way out of this without nuclear war. And I do care about children.
It was the expansion of your blessed EU up to a geopolitical fault line which caused their misery.
Putin – the Thug – warned the west many many times not to do it and so did many notable people in the West.
March 9, 2022
What silly mouth froth.
Putin’s rule of terror, murdering his way to power, and entrenching it by same, means that he only hears from his “advisors” that which they are not afraid to say.
Yes, he’s as mad as a chopped snake, but by his own making.
March 10, 2022
NLH
If Putin is Hitler then we created him in exactly the way we did the first.
Abuse of his nation by the West post (cold) war was so bad that it needed a Thug President to bring order to the thug nation that was left behind. And then to stealthily approach his nation despite warning after warning not to.
Later in this threat you describe Russia as a “mafia state with nukes” – our fault again. But Thug Putin was put in charge to bring order to a thug nation – at great advantage to us- and did so for 20 years and he is doing nothing that NATO hasn’t already done in Libya and Iraq, except it was brown babies dying there so no-one really seemed to care as much.
That “Mafia state with nukes” was best left alone and kept well away from but the EU/Nato just couldn’t leave it alone. David Cameron even blurted that the intention was for the EU to reach the Ural Mountains.
Putin was listening.
March 10, 2022
“thread” not threat.
March 10, 2022
How many times?
The Common European Home from the Atlantic to the Urals was GORBACHEV’S vision, and Putin was there when he expounded it.
Cameron merely quoted him.
March 9, 2022
Sir John, if you are saying the government should have foreseen the consequences of its actions, I would completely agree. Sadly, I believe the experience of the last two years tells us there’s little chance that it did anything of the sort. I think it responded to war fever whipped up by public opinion influencers, rather like what happened with Covid. As you point out, it’s by no means obvious that sanctions on Russia will have the outcome NATO desires, though they will certainly affect the Russians greatly. It is equally obvious that they are going to have very unpleasant consequences for our economy and for our standard of living. Again, the outcome of that remains to be seen.
March 9, 2022
I welcome the government’s impending ban on imports of Russian oil. I hope that it has a plan in place to make up the shortfall. That should be in the form of increasing our own production or, worse, sourcing more oil from friendly countries. It is time some consideration was given to the powers of Holyrood over our offshore reserves. The people of Scotland will be more affected by high energy prices than the likes of shivering me.
March 9, 2022
I take it you have an EV, SW! Petrol prices are rising at a speed that will delight our eco-warriors.
March 10, 2022
Bill, I drive a highly-efficient, clean, diesel Jaguar XE. I think that the ‘Net Zero’ lot are certifiable loons. And I favour exploiting our own natural resources to make us, and our allies, independent of Putin and his like.
March 10, 2022
Fuel prices are determined by global developments, SW, not by what HMG may or may not do.
March 10, 2022
If we became self sufficient in gas in the UK prices would fall.
March 10, 2022
As are electric prices Bill
My post April prices are at home are up 50%
March 9, 2022
I do not welcome government grandstanding that is likely to result in shortages of supply that will interfere not only with pump prices, but the actual ability to move goods around the country. Mindless gesture politics. They should first work out how to increase supply and guard against Russian suspension of deliveries to the West. That has not been done. Instead they have twisted arms of oil firms to agree to a phased implementation which in reality depends on prayer, and provides a target for Putin should events continue. There are no measures actually aimed at increasing alternative supply at all. No diesel for the ships of the navy, because the government is being woke.
March 9, 2022
Seems to be Catch 22. If lots of countries stop buying Russian oil, the oil price will go up. Russia will still find buyers at a bit below âworld pricesâ but still above the normal price. Trebles all round for those in the oil business.
March 9, 2022
It matters little to the Russians whether they are selling to the West or not, except insofar as doing so helps to reduce the risk of Western attack. Suspending supply would soon escalate into war. They cannot for the time being spend the proceeds because of other sanctions. So long as they keep themselves warm and the lights on and the army supplied with fuel, that is what counts for them.
If the West chooses to cripple its economies with energy shortages and hyperinflation the Russians and Chinese will not object.
March 9, 2022
+1
March 9, 2022
I seem to remember an old saying about cutting off oneâs nose to spite oneâs face?
On the other handâŠall the things we now wonât get from Russia will help the greencr*p agenda no end!
March 9, 2022
Almost if it were planned that way đ
March 9, 2022
I think Johnson is now using Ukraine conflict with Russia to push his wifeâs green agenda forward more rapidly. I say his wifeâs because his previous published articles were the exact reverse of what he now preaches!!
March 9, 2022
well he covers all bases — remember he prepares win and loses speeches.
March 9, 2022
I know this situation is very complicated, and I donât trust that this war has not been, in some way, fanned for an outcome. That possible outcome to smash the world economy. Looking at the likely hardships that we will endure, here in the west⊠I worry it will be the Chinese who enter as saviours of the day, with all the things that Russia will not be producing. And the WEF will enter into the fray with their pre-planned wonderful new banking system⊠or am I being conspiratorial?
March 9, 2022
The WEF are predicting that the next black swan event will be a global cyber attack and the best defence is disconnection from the internet. Their website is full of useful information. Obviously I cannot provide a link so you would need to use the search feature on their website.
March 9, 2022
And interestingly (for pedantâs sake) the very definition of a âblack swanâ event (BSE) is one that cannot be predicted as it falls outside any range of expectations. A BSE is an unknown unknown (as Donald Rumsfeld would say).
So if WEF predicted such a thing it is not a black swan event, it is known (a âglobal cyber attackâ whatever that means) but nobody knows when it could happen, a time-uncertain known possibility.
As for global cyber attacks, there have already been several these last few years, so no need to panic (see Cybersecurity Ventures report, 13/11/2020).
The hot heads reading strangesounds.org (and similar websites) can continue to play to scare themselves with their chimeric conspiracies (âReady for the massive Cyber Attack? Russia will completely disconnect from the global internet on March 11â).
As the world becomes more complicated with a huge number of questions linked to economy, politics, population, various domains of science (including health, climate, âŠ) a lot of people might find it far too taxing to try to understand the questions and to debate possible solutions because they do not have the time, the will or the ability to do it.
Then thatâs the perfect ground for all types of âconspirationistsâ to provide some âsimpleâ explanations [usually not too intellectually demanding (they know their public)] that explain âeverythingâ and bring solutions, mainly for the own benefit of those conspiratorial agents.
March 9, 2022
No I don’t think so.
I’m seeing a lot more serious writers who admit they have in the past laughed long and loud at what were deemed conspiracy theories.
Yet now think the joke might possibly be on them.
March 9, 2022
A lot if Chinese supply that was increasingly being routed across Russia by truck and train and even by ship on the Arctic route will no longer happen. Shipping and container rates will be headed sharply upwards, also to cover high fuel costs.
March 10, 2022
The Ukrainians have blown up the track on their side of the rail border crossing with Russia but the (congested) Belarus-Poland and (expanded)Belarus-Kaliningrad routes remain open(plus the rail-sea options to St Petersburg and Ust-Luga and onwards by sea to the German Baltic ports).
The Chinese have been favouring the Russian routes that exclude third countries.I notice the shares of Xianjiang Tianshun Supply Co which offers bulk logistics services across the Xinjiang-Russia border have doubled over the past week!
March 9, 2022
Sharon – all perfectly clear and obvious to anyone except our politicians, it seems. I do hope we’re not really ‘getting the politicians we deserve’.
March 9, 2022
No chance of government adjusting it’s tax policies.
Never return anything to the people. Carrie Antoinette and Co. Will be wetting themselves at the thought of the plebs starving to death, after all that’s what net zero is all about.
Are you going to stop this state sponsored terrorism of concreting over the Cuadrilla wells on Mon.
No, thought not.
March 9, 2022
Ian,
It is literally beyond belief that Johnson and his party want to impoverish the people of this nation, particularly the middle classes who form most of the strivers, workers, and savers.
Johnson has got to go, if nothing else than to get rid of the N.Ireland protocol and EU control over our nation six years after we voted to leave. Johnson said we would leave as one nation, knowing he was lying when he said it!
March 9, 2022
We seem to be making progress, Ian: Mr Kwarteng announced in the House today that they will not be concreting over the drill holes and that they will be reconsidering fracking with “an open mind”. He also said they will not be imposing a windfall tax on exploration pf the N Sea as they want to encourage investment.
March 9, 2022
But it takes a serious war and its consequences to make these idiots realise their folly and the electoral outcomes as a direct result of taxing us till the pips squeak and making us much poorer because of their policies but they deserve their pay rise! NOT!
March 9, 2022
No one has told Cuadrilla yet and they plan to commence clearing the site ready on Monday.
March 9, 2022
It is now incontrovertibly plain that the world is dealing with a mafia state, but one with a large military, huge natural resources, and nuclear weapons.
Its ruling thug elite have systematically murdered their opponents as a means of acquiring and maintaining power, and they have precipitously ended such free speech as there might have been for its people.
All our lives are hanging by a thread until freedom and rule of law are established in Russia.
If we have to make sacrifices to help the only people fighting for us all – the Ukrainians – then so be it.
March 9, 2022
Absolutely, we must be prepared to carry on this historic struggle to the last Ukrainian.
March 9, 2022
The infamous KGB thug has got himself into power by doing deals with the established Mafia and the dodgy opportunists to strip State assets into Oligarch ownership. Coupled with using KGB hit squads at his command he sits on top of a pile of unmentionable excreta. ‘Will no-one rid us of this murderous dictator?’
March 9, 2022
One of the Russian generals confirmed as killed was either the only son or nephew of Valery Gerasimov, military chief-of-staff, I read.
When Putin’s closest are taking stuff like that then perhaps there is a chance of change, but I’m not counting on it any time soon.
March 10, 2022
I’d put money on Gerasimov and the PM as being the two most likely to give Putin the ‘it’s time you took retirement’ talk. Gerasimov’s mother was Ukrainian, I seem to recall.
March 9, 2022
same happens in China & India & many other countries
we need a more sophisticated response than going to war with them all
March 9, 2022
Straight out of Starmer’s script from a couple of days ago, lad. Let’s see what ‘sacrifices’ he makes.
He didn’t complain much about the ravages across the Middle East of the other rogue state with a large military, huge natural resources, and nuclear weapons, leaving a trail of death and destruction that it could impose with conventional weapons, because its victims were not nuclear states.
Nor, I get the impression, did you.
March 9, 2022
NLH
It really wasn’t a very good Idea for the EU to approach Russia through Ukraine then, was it !
It was a bit like moving into a psycho’s crazy ex girlfriend’s house while he was watching through binoculars across the road – especially after he’d given fair warning that he didn’t like it.
So where will this expansionist EU end ? At this rate it will be buffering up to geopolitical earthquake zones for a long time yet.
The march of the EU through the former USSR caused brexit and it has brought us to the brink of WW3. There really was no need to interfere in Ukraine as we did.
March 10, 2022
Read what the requests of Russia were at the recent talks in Turkey.
They didn’t mention Ukraine’s not joining the European Union at all.
They did NATO though.
March 9, 2022
…. The rubble has collapsed….. would have thought it applies more to Ukraine than Russia.
Seriously, we propose buying Russian oil until the end of the year? The Russians have played the western nations for fools.
March 9, 2022
They have indeed, Miami. They knew the kind of dumbfool politicians they were dealing with. Who couldn’t find time to debate those tax/NI rises – they are now surely a very very bad idea in the current situation, stoking inflation even further. They preferred to watch a speech by a TV comedian instead, it seems. I despair.
March 9, 2022
Nothing said about the continued 86% import of Russian coal which we could easily mine here.
March 9, 2022
First the US needs to be promoting more production and pipelines. It is absurd that Boston has been importing transshipped Russian LNG into Boston while New York state refuses a pipeline from neighbouring Pennsylvania.
March 9, 2022
When the time is right, the government needs to ensure the people of Great Britain do not suffer due to price increases which are no fault of their own.
Cost of living rises will be needed for many paid via the tax code system, therefore ensuring who needs it most ,get the most benefit.
March 9, 2022
We will be back to 1970s living standards, according to the DT today. Of course we’re going to suffer massive price increases, Stephen. That’s mainly because nobody was able to stop this mad drift to war, by the government you’re saying should ensure we don’t suffer. Some hope!
March 9, 2022
Meanwhile MPs get a ÂŁ2k pay rise and we can’t reduce VAT on fuel without EU permission. We’re all in it together.
March 9, 2022
Why is Trudeau in my country? His presence drags us all down. He is the living embodiment of all that is wrong with West. Moral decay. A contempt for freedom and individualism. A hater of democracy who promotes the absolute power of the political State rule over private people without limits
Disgusting
March 9, 2022
Self-haters like you are what is wrong with formerly great countries.
You have, by your Putin-assisted brexit and electing of Trump, emboldened him to the extent that he is able to do what he now does, and to threaten every one of us.
March 9, 2022
self -haters, nation haters – I can’t decide which you are – care to enlighten us?
March 9, 2022
Please explain how Putin “assisted brexit”
No reply means more fake news from you NHL
March 11, 2022
I have no such explanation about Putin assisting Brexit.
But a couple of days ago you were wondering about oligarchs: I guess you might now have been convinced by the list of sanctions put out by the UK Government that everything was not âabove boardâ around London or by the Home Secretary saying on Monday: âIâm very open about the fact that for too long London has been the place that people have come to wash dirty moneyâ during the HoC session on the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill.
Or are you still not convinced? Iâd love to know whether you have changed your mind, specially because it would prove some of your âvacuousâ comments on this blog wrong.
March 9, 2022
NLH
Putin’s interference in Brexit came after NATO/EU interference in Georgia 2008 and Ukraine 2014… both preceding the Brexit vote in 2016 and the election of Trump in 2017.
A shame.
We could have been uneasy allies against the war on terror. Better still we could have helped Russia rebuild after the fall of the Berlin wall instead of continually kicking her so that she became an thug state in need of a thug to run it.
Well here we are. Trying to do regime change yet again. (I don’t go much on the previous ones.)
Seduced by fake EU money Ukraine finds herself in ruins when she could have prospered as a neutral state and we are on the brink of WW3 – all it needs is an event, an accident or something contrived to trigger it.
Way to go EU ! Way to go NATO !
March 9, 2022
PS, It is a Biden administration – not Trump’s – that Putin decides to invade Ukraine under having seen his awful performance in Afghanistan and probably in payback for his and his son’s behaviour in Ukraine during the Obama administration.
March 10, 2022
NLH, I don’t think Dom hates hisself?
Isn’t it Biden being elected that has emboldened Putin? I didn’t see him starting atrocities when Trump was in power. He annexed Crimea in 2014 when Obama was in power.
Don’t try to pass off a regime that is blowing up maternity hospitals and killing people queueing for bread on Brexit. For goodness sakes man.
March 9, 2022
Passing on hints and tips no doubt.
đ
March 9, 2022
No that can’t be right, the Western leaders never subject those under them to anything like that.
I wonder if Johnson/Rutte and Trudeau had a chuckle about the truckers over a Yorkie bar.
March 9, 2022
Dom, Spot on.
Why was he not dragged over the coals for his tyrannical behaviour? Why was he allowed to see the Queen? His ambassador should have been dragged in by Truss and told Canada fails to live up to our values and way of life, either change or leave. Any sanctions? Worse Johnson wanted a joint press conference with him!
March 9, 2022
+1
My sentiments exactly.
It was said that he had to be smuggled into Downing St because of protests against him.
Wonder if thatâs true?
Also wonder if MPs know exactly what they are getting into and for whom? Theyâve already stacked up a lot of terrible deeds for history to mull over.
They want more?
March 9, 2022
He seems to be fleeing his own people, and like Mugabe, hoping that an audience with the Queen will have him seen in a better light. I note polling shows his popularity has taken a very heavy knock.
March 9, 2022
+1
March 9, 2022
The outpouring of support for Ukrainian refugees across Europe has been absolutely awe inspiring. European countries have been exemplary in how they have dealt with the influx of refugees.
The one exception is, of course, the UK where the government has made it shockingly hard for Ukrainians to come here. Itâs all as part of the governmentâs attempt to appeal to its dwindling base.
What ministers do not seem to realise is that this base is very supportive of the Ukrainian refugees. Even most Brexitists do not understand why we can not just let Ukrainian refugees in first and then deal with the paperwork later.
Ironically it was these exact same Brexitists who thought exactly the opposite during the referendum debate when Farage stood in front of his poster of refugees from Syria alongside the words Breaking Point.
Tell me Brexitists – why are you so sympathetic to Ukrainians when you were – and still are – so shockingly callous towards Syrians?
March 9, 2022
“Russiaâs economy will suffer badly from the sanctions now imposed.”
The sanctions just imposed have forewarned everyone else connected to the Western Financial system that it can be pulled out from under their economy with out a moments notice. Such reputational damage could be fatal.
Since it seems Russia, China and India have the largest gold reserves in the world, each are well placed.
Britain however, seems to be on a economic suicide trip. They seem to have forged a nice little triumvirate.
And our politicians are the most lightweight fools of all. Please tell your leader to stop pretending to be someone of the stature of Churchill, Churchill was a man of substance, not a not a posturing popinjay.
The only thing that could stop this conflagration going nuclear is, .. prayer.
March 9, 2022
+1
March 9, 2022
Tweet from Pepe Escobar of Asia Times,best informed of all Eurasia commentators in my experience:
“Russia’s judo kick to the western financial gut.Washington’s sanctions on Moscow will destroy Europe not Russia……..notice how the “International Community” keeps shrinking.No nations from W Asia,Latin America or Africa have joined US’s sanctions against Russia.”
And a note from Credit Suisse 7/3/22 re emerging new financial order and implications:
“(China could)sell (US)Treasuries to fund leasing and filling of vessels to clean up subprime Russian commodities.That would hurt long term Treasury yields and stabilise the commodities basis and would give the Peoples Bank of China control over inflation in China,while the West would suffer commodity shortages,a recession and higher yields.
Yuck!That can’t be good for long term Treasury yields.
The PBoC’s second option is to do it’s own version of QE-printing renminbi to buy Russian commodities.If so,that’s the birth of the Euro-renminbi market and China’s first real step to break the hegemony of the Eurodollar market.That is also inflationary for the west and means less demand for long term Treasuries.
Yuck!That can’t be good for long term Treasury yields either.”
March 9, 2022
+1
The all have mineral, energy, agricultural and precious metal wealth. And none are governed by woke or sentimentality.
March 9, 2022
“They”
March 9, 2022
JR, another historic economic record for failure of your party and govt.. Reported yesterday that the public will have the worse disposal income since 1955, 67 year record low! How many economic failures hitting our pockets do you expect us to accept?
Trying BLAMING everyone else is simply not credible.
Anyone voting for your party in May needs their head examined.
March 9, 2022
We have been sleeping at the wheel since 911 dreaming Russia and China will become Westernised while they work to in the opposite direction. Both see corruption as the Achilles heel.
Russia wants the Mediterranean to encircle EU and why the Black sea coastlines are critical to complete encirclement round to the Arctic.
Syria was the preparation for Ukraine.
March 9, 2022
Sanctions will be regarded as a temporary inconvenience that the softer West will feel more as blowback than Russia sadly.
March 9, 2022
Finding Shackleton ‘s Endeavour vessel reminds me of the saying “When the ships were made of wood and the men ( and women) were made of iron” now the reverse is true seeing Putin’s invaders who are sitting ducks in frozen tanks sent by cowards in Moscow pressing buttons.
March 9, 2022
Endurance!
March 9, 2022
Which of those virtue-signalling western brands will be first back into the Russian market?
Shall we have a sweepstake?
March 9, 2022
Russia,China,Iran and their clients-the re-assembly of the Mongol Empire….with nukes!
March 9, 2022
Your referring to the Rouble as the “rubble” made me chuckle. However, am I too cynical to think that our Government will withhold any reduction in VAT etc on fuel until the run up to the next election?
March 9, 2022
Sir John had no idea a tiny typo could cheer us all up when a humanitarian disaster is unfolding.
A light relief always welcome Sir John.
March 9, 2022
Rouble rubble like Aeroflot aeroflop….
March 9, 2022
David,
Johnson cannot reduce VAT, the N.Ireland protocol prevents it. I think Johnson called it vassalage. That is what he agreed with his oven ready deal!! Say anything to get elected and lie afterwards that appears to be his MO.
March 9, 2022
Western governments obsessing with sanctions and economic war against Russia must take care not to go too far in impoverishing and putting in peril their own people. So far they donât seem to be giving that much, if any, consideration.
March 9, 2022
Brian, this is the mildest understatement of the government’s gigantic foreign policy failure that I’ve yet seen. After government lockdowns crashed the economy and ruined the lives and livelihoods of so many, isn’t it clear how little they care about ‘their own people’?
March 10, 2022
R.Grange: “foreign policy failure ”
Two words; Liz Truss. What an embarrassment. Surely it’s in the brief to have a basic grasp of geography? What’s worse is that her civil service didn’t brief her, properly. Unless they did but she is too thick to comprehend.
Honestly, the British governing administration is second rate, and the civil service seems to have achieved Italian levels of competence.
I suppose forty years taking orders will do that to an outfit.
March 9, 2022
‘The rubble has collapsed’
Perhaps the start of Putin’s palace has started to collapse – not before time.
March 9, 2022
Every regime change we have tried has been an utter cluster***k to coin an current Russian general’s phrase.
Why would deposing Putin and the likely disintegration of Russia be better ? Even though it’s unlikely to happen.
A Russian friend tells me that they are being brainwashed in Russia. Communications with friends in the West are being cut and they are being told that the BBC et al are showing CGI fake footage of blown up hospitals etc.
March 9, 2022
China and India are still trading with Russia, thats the problem.
And we are still giving massive sums in “aid” to India despite it being openly anti-British, having aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons, space programme.
The leaders of the Western world are not being consistent, and dont have a joined up plan.
If and when Putin goes, and Russia breaks up into factions, then we will have lots of small factions with nuclear weapons, and with the tech to make nuclear weapons that fit into a suitcase. The world is going to get a whole lot more complex.
Dont think the current inconsistent lame politics cuts it in this world.
March 9, 2022
It isn’t a problem, Iain. It’s the real world. The one in which countries like China and India still trade with each other and try to progress their economies and living standards. You may remember: it’s the one we used to live in, before the media put your virtual reality war googles on.
March 9, 2022
Food is going to be a problem , Hungary is banning the export of grains, now Ukraine , though as the war is going to interrupt their planting season its not a surprise, and Russia banned, the Government, instead of re-wilding the countryside should be telling farmers to plant every inch of land they have , as well as helping them with fertiliser costs, Russia being a major supplier of that as well.
March 9, 2022
It’s not the rewilding that needs to stop, its all the house building that needs stopping…think about it…let’s build houses on green fields that…er …er..grow food ,the more empty houses we build the less food we grow. Don’t even mention solar energy..3500 acres of prime land in Rutland being lost to Chinese solar panels…dubbed a solar farm?? So we can farm the sun can we .
March 9, 2022
Luckily the development of 110 houses on the arable land behind me won’t be going ahead.
It’s now 107 instead. Phew!
March 9, 2022
Iain. We shouldn’t worry when our farmland is being built on and looking nice and shiny with solar panels. That will feed the nation.
March 9, 2022
I thought you and the other Brexitists were going to dig and pick for Britain?
March 9, 2022
Andy
It’s the bloody EU that caused this problem ! Putin thinks it wants to get through to the Ural Mountains… if only because Remainer Cameron declared that this was the objective.
Your greatest achievement of peace has brought us to the brink of famine everywhere and to WW3.
March 10, 2022
As mentioned in my letter to the Maidenhead Advertiser, published today:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/03/05/dear-constituent-12/#comment-1304393
Meanwhile, local Remainers/Rejoiners are raving that the war has been caused by Brexit.
March 9, 2022
Lots of young men coming in every day looking for work young andy.
March 9, 2022
I see the obscene results of that policy along the A303 in Hampshire, with fields covered in solar panels.
March 10, 2022
yep…..that were previously arable.
March 9, 2022
Iain Moore
As long as the planting excludes trees, solar panels, wind turbines and fuel for bio mass boiler and bio digesters.
March 9, 2022
IM, concreting over the countryside is the government’s plan, not growing food on it, in order to house all the immigrants who continue to flood into England. Indeed, this government positively welcomes immigration, as would Labour.
How many rubber boats have arrived so far this week ? Has Johnson got a population limit in mind ?
No answer of course.
March 9, 2022
Yes, like their renewable energy policy, its another cock-up created in Westminster, where they pursue an over population policy that requires burying prime agricultural land under concrete, and just to ensure there is a food crisis, they pursue agricultural policies that takes agricultural land out of production. Brilliant, you have to pay people ÂŁ81,932 a year , plus benefits, to get policies like that.
March 9, 2022
The RNLI might run out of diesel to rescue them…
March 9, 2022
This government of ours needs to do many things to respond to post Brexit, post Covid, our largely self inflicted energy crisis, and our response to the genuine Ukraine refugee crisis. At present they are slower off the blocks than racing snails.
NATO, the EU and individual governments are getting in knots over support for the Ukrainians. Hand held anti tank and anti aircraft are ok, maybe even field hospitals, but Mig 29s gifted by Poland arouse a sniffy response from the US. I suspect that the US think Mig 29s are too obvious. I suspect that Putin’s war mongering has been poorly planned, the more that can be done to keep him on the back foot the better. Do not allow him to learn lessons and get it right over the next few days. The longer it goes badly for him the earlier will russians call a halt to him.
March 9, 2022
I’m sorry your armchair war is going so badly for you, Agricola, but in the real world the actual war – hybrid, economic etc – is only just beginning in earnest. I would say Ukraine’s collapse is just the trigger for a reshaping of the global financial order that was in trouble before Covid, and is now damaged beyond repair. What matters now is what we can still salvage from the ruins, and who are the people who build a new and better world from it.
March 9, 2022
Well I said it at the begining of my submission today,but the PM at PMQs was not very convincing on the cost of fuel, solutions or on his response to refugees. He sounded like he was just floundering and political points scoring. Disappointing considering the challenges the whole country faces.
March 9, 2022
The US originally encouraged the Polish donation of Mig 29s before backtracking when they realised that actual delivery to the Ukraine was likely to see them shot down by Russian missiles, and as an act of war inviting potentially extreme retaliation.
March 9, 2022
What is this government doing, in practical terms today, to offset the cost of living rise for the people of the UK due to the policy of net-zero and the Russian invasion of UkraineâŠ..Iâm just waiting for another stupid MP to advise looking for a cheaper provider, or to get a smart meter, or wear a woolly hat etc
March 9, 2022
Yes Glen, there is a void of serious planning and a growing sense of despair, very disappointing and in some senses sureal.
March 9, 2022
Well the chickens have come home to roost and all blame for our current state of affairs from health to energy policies, mass immigration both legal and illegal with no action, poor education, taxation, woke and pc policies supported in our children’s/grandchildren’s schools, defence cuts, over crowding, congestion is the Tory Party’s fault. After 12 years in office everything is a mess with an eco loon in charge, what could possibly go wrong!
March 9, 2022
When I was working, I rarely re-read my posts on various blogs or newspapers as I was in too much of a rush. With the advent of the spell checker, I had to take up that practice to avoid the occasional lapse that usually resulted in what had been a well-crafted, pithy comment to an hilarious wreckage, leaving one to have to pick through the rouble to restore order.
May I say that if the tragedy in Ukraine doesn’t result in digits being extracted, we deserve all we get.
March 9, 2022
John, we already deserve all we are getting. Putin’s growing grip on the EU gas tap was plain for all to see – that’s ‘all’ as in ‘everyone with common sense and the least understanding of history
JF
March 9, 2022
Indeed. Trump warned Germany many times!
March 10, 2022
Merkel was hell-bent on being allied to Russia (her E.German background), it was only Putin she disliked.
March 9, 2022
Russia will indeed work around the financial and commodity sanctions, with much help from Cina.. Remember Rhodesia, they thrived under sanctions!
So long as our government is stupid enough not to mine our own coal, frack our own gas, and extract our own oil and gas from the North Sea, consumers here will pay the price. Oil gas and coal will still be bought at the new, high, market prices.
How foolish can you get?
March 11, 2022
If you leave everything to the private sector, and with the lightest regulation, then how can you respond with the slightest co-ordination to the demands of wartime?
March 9, 2022
Youâre preaching to the converted here John. Itâs the two rich boys, correction, incompetent and out of touch rich boys running the country God help us you have to convince. Johnson and Sunak are totally clueless to the every day money worries of ordinary hard working folk in this country. They are determined to press on with their tax rises regardless of the pain and hardship theyâre causing, they refuse to scrap V.A.T. on fuel when they said they would because in true socialist style âit might benefit the wealthyâ and they refuse to look at the 20% green levy on our fuel bills in their ludicrous quest for net zero which will bankrupt us all. Council tax rises due to arrive any day soon, for many of us an already disproportionate and unaffordable chunk of our pensions but Sunak has decide those of us in bands above D are wealthy so not worthy of any help.
Save your breath John, they are just not listening. Like all good socialists they truly believe that whatâs our money is theirs and nanny knows best how to spend it. The only time they might finally get it is when they get kicked out at the next election and if Johnson thinks his âChurchillianâ prancing around on the world stage will save him, heâs in for a nasty shock. These two muppets alone will ensure a Labour Government next time around.
March 9, 2022
A Labour government??
Then the people are really beyond redemption if they still can’t join the dots.
The removal of VAT from fuel far from just helping the rich would most certainly help the poor. Despite the rhetoric of us all being lazy a lot of people travel distances to work which requires fuel in their cars. The cost of this now is a large chunk out of their monthly income, so the future isn’t too good. Not everyone can work from home or receive a salary that can cope with this.
Are people really so ignorant and blinded by the class war, which incidentally I note doesn’t seem to come under any hate law knock at the door.
A lot of the worst culprits for stirring it up (think BBC employees) are shall we say, not short of a bob or two.
If memory serves me well the Yellow Vest demonstrations in France were in the beginning over the costs of fuel which was hitting the poor but not the wealthier Metropolitan elite.
March 9, 2022
Sanctions may disrupt somewhat but anybody in Russia who complains, and certainly anybody who blames Putin is liable to occupy a prison cell alongside the anti-war demonstrators there. Sanctions are not going to end Russia’s aggression.
What is needed and what can make the difference is military help to Ukraine, ideally Western armies in Ukraine.
The refusal of the United States to allow transfer of Polish planes (thankyou Poland for taking the risk) from U.S. bases to Ukraine sends a catastrophic signal from NATO. The reality is Russia is not going to attack the USA as that would be complete suicide for it. That the USA has been scared in this manner indicates to Russia that at least while Biden is President they are never, even as part of NATO, going to do anything militarily effective to help free European countries (such as the Baltic states or even Poland).
As we are a nuclear power (albeit a small one) Britain should now offer to accept the Polish planes and facilitate their rapid transfer to Ukraine.
March 9, 2022
Well as long as you are completely sure that Russia will back off, in we go then.
I presume you are ready to send yours or go yourself and I presume also you won’t mind when the bombs start dropping here.
Will Russia be so scared of America with China at their back?
China has just reiterated its ‘cast iron’ friendship and also wants an end to America’s colour revolutions.
March 9, 2022
Who’s going to fly those planes from GB, Geoffrey? Who’s going to fuel them up on the runway, knowing they could potentially be a target of cruise missiles?
Be careful what you wish for. We now by now that Putin isn’t bluffing.
March 9, 2022
Putin’s genius (he only appears mad but isn’t) is that he is challenging and overturning the Cold War doctrine of ‘mutual assured destruction’ from nuclear weapons. His insight is that he can scare the world into inaction and submission on the basis that his opponents won’t risk using their nuclear weapons but he might. (Donald Trump has correctly said the answer is to make Putin -and others-think he might use nuclear weapons against Moscow:he’s therefore right that Putin wouldn’t have done this if he rather than Biden was President).
Fortunately Putin is being somewhat let down by his army that has been incompetently led by its generals and has become too demoralised to be fully effective.
March 10, 2022
the Ukraine has trained pilots on the Polish aircraft, and more aircrews outnumber their own aircraft.
March 9, 2022
Twenty years in a Russian prison is de facto a death sentence.
That’s for saying anything that Putin doesn’t want said.
Think about that.
March 10, 2022
I wonder if Julian Assange is thinking about that, Notts lad. How lucky he must count himself to be in the Free West!
March 10, 2022
Absolutely – it is an appalling stain on this country, yet another.
March 10, 2022
Twenty years? I doubt many survive 5 to 10 years.
March 10, 2022
My point.
March 10, 2022
Madness.
March 9, 2022
Let’s see what happens in the Budget, but don’t hold your breath. Percentages are not the way to go on fuel taxes, it would be better if a fixed price per litre was used (and much lower than it is now) and VAT which is a tax on a tax is immoral and there is no need for it now we are supposedly out of the EU. Green taxes also need to go as the greenies tell us renewables no longer need subsidies. All I can see so far is that we are to be lent our own money and have to pay it back when things are even worse. The Chancellor needs to get real. His tax take is about to nosedive if he kills the economy by relying on inflation in world prices of commodities to fill his coffers, but no doubt he will be gone before it hits the fan so doesn’t really care.
March 9, 2022
I thought the UK was virtually self-sufficient in grain, 100% oats and barley and 90% wheat?
March 10, 2022
The free market means that UK farmers can sell it to whomever offers the best price though.
That might be non-UK buyers.
March 10, 2022
In times of war surely that can be overturned.
March 10, 2022
So what is the public distress level, at which free marketeer governments abandon their principles?
Is there a calibrated scale in SI units?
And why should war be the only basis on which that would happen?
March 10, 2022
Well if so many of these farmers werenât so dependent on subsidies and were truly all free marketeers living on their nerves alone I might agree with free market principles, but the majority of these farmers arenât free marketers and havenât been for years, I was looking at some of the subsidies on Defra last year they are quite large even for small farm holdings. If they want to go it alone without any agreements with government then go ahead but donât expect 1p in subsidies. Taxpayers in the UK support empty fields and land management.
March 11, 2022
What happens if it isn’t produced at all?
March 11, 2022
a-tracy, http://www.gov.uk âUnited Kingdom Food Security Report 2021â, 22/12/2021, 58 pp.
It confirms the âUK self sufficient in oats and barley (100%), 90% in wheatâ. It is in other food categories where the domestic production is lower.
Overall a very interesting report to keep in mind to see in the coming years what type of impact the new agricultural policies will have.
March 9, 2022
Millionaire Grant Shapps says “energy prices increases due to ban on Russian gas and oil”. He offers no solution to the people of Great Britain on how we will manage to pay for this crisis which would have been managed better if the Conservatives had not wasted years not planning a decent energy policy.
The people will decide come may elections.
March 11, 2022
Now I see Liz Truss is offering compensation to countries that halt imports of Russian oil and gas. Compensation doesn’t keep the lights on. Besides, who does she presume is paying?
Elon Musk is right. We need to increase global oil and gas production quickly. Probably coal too.
March 9, 2022
My own MP seems to not understand the consequences of government ‘green’ energy policy and what further impacts the war will bring. He further does not understand the concept of energy security saying that the gas pipeline from Norway is ‘storage / security’. He thinks that fossil fuels are Ok but only for a transition period.
He is in the department responsible for energy.
If this is the state of politicians understanding of the issues then we are truly in a mess.
Come on Farage ‘ Power not poverty’.
March 9, 2022
Maybe you are the one who has the understanding problem?
March 9, 2022
I think the country needs something like several brownouts and 3 x hour-long national blackouts in a single day to wake our politicians up.
March 10, 2022
If we get a national blackout it could take several days to restore supply. Blackstart is a grid nightmare. Few power stations are equipped to handle it. Wind generation is quite useless for the purpose.
March 10, 2022
“Brownouts”? Haven’t Southern Water been giving us those for years?
March 9, 2022
How nice to see the PM, just now, promising an ‘energy independence plan … within days’. I hope that you and the other sane voices on the government back-benches have had the chance to influence it. Also needed: a plan to rid us of any form of dependence on China.
March 9, 2022
It been confirmed that Boris ‘energy independence plan’ only includes renewables & nuclear (20 year plan)
March 10, 2022
Then it is not an energy independence plan. For a start, it will almost certainly include reliance on a huge capacity of interconnectors. It cannot begin to address the seasonal demand met by gas currently either.
March 9, 2022
Here is the transcript of Putin’s speech at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, February 10 2007:
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034
The shortcut is to search for the word “provocation”:
“I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: âthe fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guaranteeâ. Where are these guarantees?”
And here five months later is Jose Manuel Barroso talking about the EU being a “non-imperial empire”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2Ralocq9uE
On which basis the war in Ukraine could be seen as the EU’s first war of imperial expansion, like those that we and other imperial powers triggered in the past.
March 11, 2022
As the tragedy in Ukraine deepens I think it is a pity that this comment is not deemed suitable for publication.
March 9, 2022
May I wander off-piste? Oh good: Defence. A good performance, just now, by both the Defence Secretary and his impressive Labour shadow, who has called for increased defence spending. May I suugest that the government needs to:
(1) Order additional P-8A MPA before the assembly line closes for good.
(2) Increase the order of WEDGETAILs from the current, wholly inadequate, 3.
(3) Reverse the decision to reduce the Typhoon force.
(4) Replenish NLAW stocks. A British Army order will lead to strong export sales as well.
(5) Order additional Type 31s, and ensure that they are adeqately armed., for combat – not just equipped for ‘defence diplomacy’ and Boghammer-bashing.
There is a cost to all this but it’s modest and cheaper than defeat.
And now the government needs to start thinking about Moldova.
March 9, 2022
SW amazing array of advanced hardware and sad that our armed forces poorly equipped for decades too.
March 10, 2022
SW, I would say the government needs to start thinking about what’s best for this country, not about Moldova!!
It could start by recognising that the huge increases in tax revenues from fuel it’s now getting make the planned tax/NI rises unnecessary.
March 9, 2022
You seem to be saying sanctions don’t work .
What’s going to happen here if Russia has the support of China in many ways.
What will happen once they find other outlets for their oil etc to bring in the money for war, one they may be emboldened to widen once they see the economic problems the sanctions are bringing to those imposing them alongside low morale of its people.
No doubt Putin will do the same as will be done here and lay the blame for the Russian economy and hardship on the decadent West.
We will then have a people ready for revenge who have a large army, oodles of natural resources and a friend with a large army, natural resources and who we have also allowed ourselves to become reliant on for so much it seems.
What will we have at the end of all this?
I do hope Sir John wiser heads will prevail, but where they are in this government God only knows.
Johnson may be enjoying himself at the moment rallying the troops thinking he’s Churchill or Audie Murphy but has he considered the wider implications.
I sincerely hope if you or anyone else in the halls of power are concerned about a widening war and its effects, you act before it’s too late.
I am the last person to find much in common with Corbyn, in fact so afraid of him being in No.10 was I, I looked to getting a dinghy and heading off, seriously.
However, I’m a free and broad thinker and I do agree with him we need to up the diplomacy levels, which I don’t think have been given anything like the attention they should have had.
I’m not a fan of Macron but again credit where it’s due he has been trying.
How about Johnson.
March 9, 2022
If every country banned imports of Russian fuel, the result will not only be large price increases but shortages. Diesel will have to be reserved for transport. Grain shortages will lead to empty shelved. All this because NATO had to expand east, breaking the agreement following the collapse of the USSR. The US and UK trained and armed the Ukranian forces while their more aggressive Azov units shelled the Russian speaking regions.
Thankfully their president has cooled down according to reports and will now accept that they will not join NATO and allow the breakaway republics to live in peace. The only matters left are the ceasefire and recognising that Crimea is Russian and the people living there want to be with Russia. Then the invaders can go home, stop losing unwilling soldiers, the harvest can be planted and the sanctions damaging both sides can be lifted. Peace talks start in Turkey tomorrow.
March 9, 2022
I pray this is true and the talks are successful.
March 10, 2022
+1
March 9, 2022
I agree with sanctions but the PM needs to stop throwing our money around.
We did not need to send money to a war zone ( only the corrupt will pocket that).
To return to an old expenditure , when are we going to empty the four star hotels and stop paying pocket money to economic migrants.
So much money wasted.
March 9, 2022
Indeed cheaper to deport than house, feed and give them mobiles and pocket money. Is it a breach of their human rights not to do so? What about English taxpayers rights? If it can’t be done change the law. Get rid of Priti Useless.
March 9, 2022
In the real world this is what we are really up against:
Europeâs Insatiable Demand for Gas Driven by Total Wind Power Output Collapses
Another hard-hitting report from The Critic Craig Mackinlay “Green Energy Cannot Save Us ” was posted on the Stop These Things web- site 10th March highlighting the main areas of advice that have been ignored by governments.
No wonder there are doubts about gas supplies from Russia and the hard awakening that renewables are not the full blown panacea that they thought they would be.
March 9, 2022
Great article. I’ve sent it to my Conservative MP, not that it will do much as his department is responsible for the energy mess.
March 9, 2022
+1
March 9, 2022
Ive just phoned my oil supplier for my domestic supply. I have an account with them and have been with them for 3 years. They told me they have no oil at the moment but hoped to be able to phone me in around 2 weeks time to tell me if they were coming to fill my oil tank. At the moment it is ÂŁ1 plus VAT a litre. I can only have a minimum delivery of 500 litres so it will be well over ÂŁ500 or more as the price will probably rise before then. He said they had never been in this situation since they started trading many years ago and that the whole situation regarding energy in this country was diabolical. He said successive governments had completely wrecked the energy market of this country and that they should be ashamed. I don’t know about Russia suffering. I think many people and industries in the UK will. This Conservative party is run by a complete imbisile who can only talk about wind when asked how we will manage to be self sufficient in the future. I always though he was supposed to be intelligent but you have to ask if this is correct. The man’s a lunatic and the sooner we vote for someone with sense the better. The country is on a hiding to nothing.
March 9, 2022
There is a very good reason why people stopped using windmills to provide power for industry. They were intermittent and unreliable. Lessons of the past, and all that!
March 9, 2022
Possibly brainwashed by partner after Covid.
March 10, 2022
Fedup
Same with Milliband in his interview on BBC, the answer to generate more power, was more windmills and nuclear.
Apparently we need to go green quicker.
No follow up questions of course
Eh how long does it take to build nuclear power plants.?
What happens when there is no wind.
Another shadow minister with no clue or sense.
March 9, 2022
How did politicians not see this coming over the years?
Reality Check: Europeâs âInevitableâ Wind & Solar Transition Unwinds In Ukraine
Michael Shellenberger explains how its self-inflicted renewable energy disaster has left Europe vulnerable to Vladâs military aggression and ambition. The Westâs Green Delusions Empowered Putin..
Common Sense.. Michael Shellenberger..2 March 2022
Another gem from the Stop These Things website. March 10th, 2022
Why is it that politicians have still to learn that when you are in a hole stop digging? What price is Net Zero now? How hard it must be to have to work with 500 people with no logic or out-of-the-box thinking and with shovels in both hands and they still cannot see or understand they are getting it totally wrong. Incompetence is driven by ignorance and reinforced by arrogance. The Emperor’s New Clothes fable takes on a different time and place but the message is still the same.
March 9, 2022
https://www.telegraph.co.uk russias-actions-demand-urgent-reassessment-net-zero-target
Joe Armitage with a three-point plan to make our energy supplies secure.
Why do our politicians only ever listen to the sermon coming from the pulpit and nothing else?
March 9, 2022
The UK is increasing its supply of weapons to Ukraine to help it defend itself against Russian attack, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said. Before the invasion, Britain delivered 2,000 light anti-tank missiles and is now sending another 1,615.
Mr Wallace told MPs the UK would also deliver a small consignment of longer range Javelin missiles and was looking at sending surface-to-air missiles. Small arms, body armour and medical supplies have also been sent, he added.
The UK has said it is helping “facilitate” the deliveries of these weapons but Western officials are not giving details of how the supplies are getting through. There is some evidence that weapons supplied by the UK have already been used to destroy Russian armour.
David needs some slingshots to defeat Goliath.
March 9, 2022
Yes, I commend Ben Wallace in his balanced, measured statements and decisions so far.
He has become, at this time, in effect the UK’s PM.
March 10, 2022
He does a good job at the Dispatch Box but he was wholly wrong to ANNOUNCE the passing of Starstreak weapons to Ukraine. The transfer should have been done in complete secrecy, so as to maximise the effect of the gift, by surprising the Russians in the air. Saying what he was about to do was all about politics rather than military effectiveness. (The same could be said about the idea to pass Polish MiG-29s to Ukraine.)
We are in a state of near-war. The Media campaign should not be left in the hands of unthinking Spads.
March 10, 2022
+1
March 9, 2022
CO2 emissions hit a record high in 2021. That’s a surprise, not For all, we are trying to do the rest of the world just stays in the fast lane and gets on with building up their industrial manufacturing power bases.
https:// http://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-co2-emissions-in-2021
Next years figures can blame the war in the Ukraine because you can bet your last pound the politicians will not admit to anything
March 10, 2022
for a number of UK poor they may well be looking at their last pound come April.
March 9, 2022
The latest I heard is that they are still going ahead with the cementing of the two fracking sites.
Destuctive hooliganism.
March 9, 2022
John. Farage said tonight that had been postponed.
March 9, 2022
How disappointing to see Kwarteng’s statement and the reaction to it. There are a number of fracking-deniers on the Opposition benches who really are the worst kind of zealots. Even Milliband resorted to making wild assertions. But I’m more disappointed in Kwarteng, who gave the impression that the government is about to fudge the issue. If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on seeing those gas wells concreted over next week. Johnson sees himself as being a Churchill. I suggest that he gets himself an ‘Action this day’ rubber-stamp – and starts using it.
March 11, 2022
There are significant immediate downsides to fracking, as well as long term unhelpfulness in stabilising the Earth’s climate.
However, the global impact of war has changed the detriment-benefit balance, and so it should be reappraised with an open mind.
March 9, 2022
I see that every UK reporter in Ukraine and its neighbouring countries are going hell for leather for a pulitzer prize interviewing refugeesâŠ..but I havenât yet seen any battle footage or interviews from embedded reporters with the troops
March 9, 2022
Sir JR
I can only quote the FT that our immigration policy when it comes to Ukraine is shameful
March 9, 2022
Is Red Bill Brown just a more extreme version of a poster compared to Bill Brown?
March 10, 2022
Peter 2
Grow up and look at what we are not doing
March 10, 2022
I was just asking if you have several different identities on here
Don’t get all cross.
Answer the question bill, bill brown billy red Bill Brown EU Brown
March 11, 2022
Peter 2
Just try and behave like a normal civilised person, there is a good chap
March 11, 2022
Answer the question there’s a good chap.
Why do you hide behind multiple identities on here?
How can anyone know if you not are replying to yourself saying how much you agree with the previous post.
March 11, 2022
Are you bills all the same person?
March 10, 2022
I don’t understand why it is ok for the UK government to seize people’s yachts, homes, jets, businesses etc.?
If they are ill-begotten gains as Joe Biden said in the State of Union address then why were they allowed into the countries now seizing them.
I read Grant Shapps calling superyachts “gin palaces” what is Grant a conservative who is happy for people to own assets and create businesses and wealth or is he a socialist who wants everyone to own nothing and be dependent upon the States dispersal of assets?
If this become standard accepted behaviour then what will stop the State from freezing anyone’s bank account, taking over businesses because they fall out of favour with their regime. Is this now Conservative party now like China? If there is now a problem with tax havens why does the UK tolerate any of them?
This is serious cancel culture. What happens if the UK public in certain countries around the World are designated persona non-grata if precidents are being set?
March 10, 2022
I suppose you are right about the ruble collapsing makes Russia’s imports dearer. But I can’t quite see that worrying Russia too much. Could be wrong but I’d have thought Russia can power and feed itself quite well without imports. WE CAN’T.
Abolishing the triple lock is the measure that most amazes me. What possible justification can the Chancellor give for that?
It is obvious that those on nothing but, the State Pension, are likely to die of either hypothermia or starvation, in the near future.
I can quite see that the triple lock was unnecessary in previous times. But now is exactly the time when it IS NEEDED.
Otherwise you are probably right. Now is not the time to squeeze.
The Chancellor needs to adjust his tax policies in a number of ways, indeed. Why the hell is there still VAT on energy? Why oh why do we pay more for our energy just to virtue signal about going ‘carbon neutral’?
What time frame does Rishi Sunak still think in?