Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP (Wokingham) (Con): Western purchases of Russian energy are paying for Putinâs war. Will my right hon. Friend redouble his efforts to ensure that we invest in more production and output of oil, gas and electricity here, to make our contribution to reducing western dependence?
Boris Johnson, Prime Minister: Yes. I think the UK can be very proud of the way we have moved beyond hydrocarbons in so many areas, but we must recognise the limits and the pace of what we have achieved, and be less neuralgic about using our domestic hydrocarbons, particularly when the alternative is just to import them from abroad.
July 8, 2022
just import ….should be on his epitaph.
July 8, 2022
Well said, Sir John, for not suggesting that the European Union is more to blame than many other countries – including the UK – for their continuing reliance on Russian fuel.
Regrettably this terrible and utterly inexcusable war is also going to impact progress on combatting global heating and other environmental problems.
July 8, 2022
Finally a bit of sense on energy from Boris just before he leaves office.
CO2 is not a real problem anyway it is plant, tree and crop food and the source of the oxygen we all breath, the UK contribution to world C02 is trivial anyway, simply exporting our energy intensive industries is insane and makes no difference to world CO2 outputs anyway and finally the solution proposed walking, cycling, public transport, wind, solar, heat pumps, EV make little of often no difference to overall CO2 any when fully considered. Indeed EVs certainly increase CO2 compared to keeping your old car.
July 8, 2022
But wasnât his government who refused to invest in storage, pushed back against increased drilling exploration, loaded extra tax, still havenât sanctioned fracking etc.
Looks like the usual dissembling boleaux to me?
July 8, 2022
He is an accomplished spin merchant, although he fails in the most desirable characteristics.
July 8, 2022
Storage in general is very expensive and very energy wasteful & so usually does not make much sense (without large taxpayer subsidies which would be foolish anyway). Better to generate only when needed in general. Inverting ÂŁ billions in energy production devices that produce when not needed then trying to store it is in general very inefficient and wasteful.
July 8, 2022
Investing not inverting!
July 8, 2022
Wow !
July 8, 2022
Wow ! indeed…..Boris still in his last days talking up his green revolution, he’s truely lost the plot
July 8, 2022
‘UK can be very proud of the way we have moved beyond hydrocarbons’
Just go away Johnson and take your woke, climate change tosh with you
Lord Frost understands the cancer of woke that has consumed and politicised all areas of life and nature.
It is time for every Tory MP to sign a declaration condemning this most pernicious form of politics that is dragging us into a world we don’t want
July 8, 2022
DOM, +1, Yes, just go away, and May too. Like Cameron, soon forgotten and not soon enough.
July 8, 2022
+1
July 8, 2022
Every Tory has to declare ‘net-zero’ dead
July 8, 2022
Boris says “I think the UK can be very proud of the way we have moved beyond hydrocarbons in so many areas, but we must recognise the limits”
In reality only about 6% of human energy use in the UK is from so called renewable sources (only circa 3% Worldwide). This also included burning wood (imported from the US on diesel ships and trucks – essentially young coal) at Drax which is clearly bonkers. Furthermore using these “renewables” of wind and solar decreases the efficiency of the other gas, wood and coal stations so even the 6% is not really true if you allow for this. Why exactly should we be so proud of this wasteful state subsidised expensive intermittent energy lunacy Boris? Proud of largely pissing tax payers money down the drain it seems!
If/when so called “renewables” works without all the market rigging and tax payer subsidies then fine!
July 8, 2022
It also does not take account of the very large amount of fossil fuel energy that goes into manufacture, construction and maintenance of the wind turbines and solar panels. Often this is not even that much less than the total energy generated by the wind turbines over their realistic lifetime.
In short most of this agenda is totally misguided. Boris talks of “herd mentality” but net zero is irrational herd mentality in spade Boris.
July 8, 2022
‘less neuralgic’ – a phrase with which to conjure. If this Conservative government had ignored the green protests and allowed fracking and the new coal mine in Cumbria maybe they would not be losing my support.
July 8, 2022
I’m not proud of how we have erected inefficient wind and solar collectors, subsidising the energy they produce by charging more to all consumers. This means that the old, the poor and the sick who proportionately use most energy are being ‘taxed’ most unfairly.
Neuralgic? Not even good English. Maybe it sounds better in classical Greek.
JF
July 9, 2022
Indeed – a shame they did not study physics, energy, engineering rather than Classics!
July 8, 2022
Neuralgia, paroxysmal intermittent pain along the course of a nerve.
Why did Johnson have to go now (not that he’s gone)? The purported reason, (Deputy? ed) Chief Whip in the Carlton Club, is ridiculous.
July 8, 2022
Forgive the cliche, Iago, but we are surely talking about ‘the final straw’?
July 8, 2022
When do you expect a proper answer SJ?
July 8, 2022
If you want to know why Boris failed look at Arnies speech about âWhy 2% succeedâ
âYou need a vision, otherwise you don’t know where you are going.â
Borisâ vision was to be PM.
Then he ran out of vision.
Unlike Boris, Arnie succeeded with his first vision of being Mr Universe. Then his second vision of being a Film Star. Then his third vision of being a Politician. Etc ed
What is the next PMâs vision?
July 8, 2022
to do Christmas pantos?
July 9, 2022
When Christopher Biggins retires,he will be a shoo-in.
July 8, 2022
Prices of fuel will stay high. The shut down of refineries since 2019 world wide will keep it high, you didn’t think that the oil companies would fight back, well they did by shutting down old refineries and no more refineries to be built and Russia off line for the west, the refineries worldwide are running at full output with oil running out of storage so price of oil will go down but with refineries at full output, shutdown and repairs, will keep prices high, refineries have habit of breaking down when run at full output. Gas will take years to ramp up so the price will stay high and shutdown most businesses who use gas without bailouts and fuel will stay high to stop people and busineses from using them, they will hit the rocks and sink. You have useless government and MPs along with business leaders.
July 10, 2022
Paul: “you didnât think that the oil companies would fight back, well they did by shutting down old refineries and no more refineries ”
I take a different perspective. You’ve just been told that the market for your primary product is going to be made illegal in four years time.
What do you do?
1. Invest in more capacity?
2. Start to run down the sunk investments, which you soon won’t be able to use.
July 8, 2022
Well, goodness me Sir John.
However did you manage to get an almost sensible answer out of Johnson?
July 8, 2022
The Pincher debacle was the last straw that led to Boris’ inevitable downfall. If that drastic error of judgement had not been made, he might have survived, in the unlikely event that the priviledges committee decided that he had not misled parliament. He at least got Brexit done against all the odds, given the disastrous situation May had left him, after her complete capitulation to Brussels. Putting a remainer like Ollie Robbins in charge of negotiations was never going to end well for her.
Almost everyone posting here wants to see a dramatic reigning back of the Green Crap agenda, but this needs to go a lot further than just a bit more oil and gas extraction from UK waters and land. The end of IC-engined cars needs to be put back to at least 2045 but this can be done by the simple expediency of allowing Hybrid cars to continue without specifying that they need to run on electric power alone for more than, say, 50 miles.
A fudge is already in place for Gas boilers with the ability of new boilers to run on Hydrogen after 2025. The infrastructure to enable Hydrogen to be piped through to houses is never going to happen but if the possibility is the political fix that enables gas boilers to continue to be sold and fitted, then that’s fine. The cost is minimal compared with heat pumps that can’t be fitted to a very large proportion of the housing stock anyway.
All we then need is to go slow on all the other proposals coming from the extremists that make up the climate lobby and invest even more in nuclear and new technology like carbon capture.
July 8, 2022
The line up of candidates to replace Boris Johnson illustrates, as these processes always do, an astonishing lack of self-awareness amongst some of the political class. We await only the candidature of Nadine Dorris to complete the picture.
July 8, 2022
Could Boris put himself up, what if he has more people in the party that propose him than the other candidates LOL. Borisâ mistake was allowing Sunak a free hand and not removing domestic vat, not sorting our the diesel and petrol prices, putting up employment national insurance, giving up on N Ireland, giving in on immigration and looking like he was more interested in the Ukraine than the UK (that rained on his parade for sure).
The higher ups are going to want to present Tugenhat with Hunt and basically give members no real choice at all. Letâs not pretend the EU want the UK back in, with the Farages and anti EU mob mouthing off all the time, much better to get the nice new complaint leader to fold us inside, a nice neat Brino like Northern Ireland but paying up and paying in when the contributions start slowing up this September. They canât afford for us to leave and stop contributing (theyâve had the money for the last SIX years) so suck it up Brexiteers you didnât know what you wanted anyway didnât you know.
July 8, 2022
Amazing, a sudden outbreak of common-sense, why then did he not put in place sensible polices, and a sensible time-scale, instead of stupid self harming policy he put in place.
July 8, 2022
“We don’t believe you” Boris defecting and showing his bluster and mastery of the dictionary simulating a latter day poor imitation of Churchill who was proud of Britain to the core by conviction.
Unfortunately Boris’s wife has the steering wheel today unlike Clementine.
July 8, 2022
Boris deflecting
July 8, 2022
you were right the first time.
July 8, 2022
Phew. the durham police have decided to keep starmer and rayner in post. if we choose someone half way sensible we should be able to win the next election. just need to make a start on implementing the policies on which we won the last one.
July 8, 2022
We havenât achieved anything other than make ourselves poorer and more dependent on hostile states as we import more and more and de-industrialise and re-wild.
How can we have energy security when wind turbines and solar panels are Chinese made and the raw materials for motors and batteries are controlled by China?
Even BEIS now say weâre on the path to âdemand-responseâ electricity meaning volatile pricing and rolling blackouts.
All to save the planet from our 1% contribution to plant food whilst China and India up their coal burning to 5.6 billion tons per year to ensure their people have a secure supply of energy.
July 9, 2022
+1 total energy (and climate) insanity.
July 8, 2022
Rishi Sunak has a website called ready4rishi.com that was registered by a company in Arizona on the 6th, the day after he resigned and the day BEFORE Boris resigned. The website was up and running in one day are is very slick.
Ready 4 Rishi? The only thing Rishi was ready for was to stab the Conservative Party in the back.
July 8, 2022
Good evening,
From the man who brought forward the date for the removal of combustion engined cars and the banning of gas boilers.
The sooner this charlatan is gone the better. Then we can all slag off the next charlatan.
July 8, 2022
Johnson has been implementing the Climate Change Act. Stop arguing about the timescale of turning us back into a pre-industrial society with thieving banksterism as a substitute for manufacturing; repeal the Act.
July 8, 2022
We are in an interglacial period between ice ages. Temperatures are very low compared to the average and even then warming is only 0.15 degrees C per decade. It is just as likely we could be heading for another ice age as the BBC weâre predicting in the 1970s. Increasing extreme weather events is also a myth. I would recommend anyone interested to do their own research on the internet and not rely on BBC propaganda.
July 8, 2022
Jacob Rees-Mogg has scrapped the launch of a major fraud watchdog, accusing the Treasury of taking advantage of the recent political upheaval to render it âtoothlessâ. The new ÂŁ25million Public Sector Fraud Authority â with a remit of cracking down on fraudsters who try to steal taxpayersâ cash â was meant to be unveiled at an event yesterday morning. But on Wednesday night, Treasury officials unveiled last-minute changes which would have dramatically watered down the authorityâs powers.
Angry at the act of âsabotageâ, Cabinet minister Mr Rees-Mogg said: âThe Treasury has used the interregnum to block the proper investigation into public sector fraud, as it was embarrassed by its cavalier approach to fraud in the early stages of the pandemic.â
July 8, 2022
And in other news –
”The European Union has introduced regulations which will require all new cars from 6 July 2022 to be fitted with technology to stop speeding”
July 8, 2022
The fool: “Yes. I think the UK can be very proud of the way we have moved beyond hydrocarbons in so many areas, ..”
Only an utter imbecile could possibly think that, let alone say such a thing out loud. Every unit of GDP is based on a unit of cheap freely avaliable energy.
There is no other source of energy which is so energy dense, convienient and portable than hydrocarbons. Windmills are nonsense, Hydroelectric is limited in this country by geography. And because a lack of spine, by the Tory party in the ’80s we no longer have a domestic nuclear power industry.
A complete an utter failure of ‘vision’ by your party and this government.
July 10, 2022
agreed.
July 9, 2022
If Russia chose peace, the world might Re-Rouble its efforts into something of value.
July 10, 2022
Well straight from Boris – just import the energy -from where and at what cost?
Can we not use the amount of CO2 being generated by the Ukraine war as a reason to stop it. Clearly the mounting death toll does not matter. How much CO2 to rebuild Ukraine?
We are now training Ukrainian solders by the thousand in the UK.
We sure are paying for Putin’s War.
The truth is the West wants the War and Boris is the cheer leader.
No Russian threat no excuse for NATO to exist.
The West started this in 2014, ignored the shelling of ethnic Russian Ukrainians by the Ukrainian Government. Did not support the Minsk Agreement. These incovienant facts are left out of the story to continue to promote the war.
Can someone in the West explain why the Minsk agreement failed ?
Perhaps it was like the NI protocol and the EU not happy with Brexit?
Part of an EU country does not want to be governed by that country and would prefer to be tied to another country but more or less self governing.
Sounds familiar. Hope it does not start a war – again !