Coming out of covid lockdowns we have been short of all kinds of capacity to supply goods and services. Some shortages of capacity had been building for a long time thanks to public policy and public services. Some have developed more recently. All were badly exacerbated by pent  up demand during lockdown and by the impact of lockdown on the labour market.
The NHS lacked bed capacity before covid. Large extra  sums were put in prior to the virus but the managers rarely  managed to increase beds and provide the medical staff to deliver the extra treatments and operations needed. During covid Ministers made them  put in a lot of extra Nightingale capacity. There was a reluctance to use it and then early closure of it, writing off the investment. Taxpayers also paid to take over most of the capacity of the private sector hospitals for the severe covid period. The Ministerial idea was to get much of the routine work on cataracts, hips, knees and the rest in covid free wards in private hospitals. There were reports of insufficient use being made of this capacity, so waiting lists soared. Somehow Ministers now need to direct more of the extra  committed cash into providing more capacity to tackle the enlarged backlog.
Many highways authorities around the country have been busy reducing road capacity by traffic management measures and closures of lanes and through roads in the name of being green.The result is more congestion, more exhaust pollution in traffic jams, an increase in business costs, delays with deliveries and general  inconvenience.
I have written recently about the water regulator, doubtless in part responding to EU directives, trying to cut individual use of water and leaving us short of reservoir and borehole capacity. The ultimate renewable resource is now scarce. No proper additional water provision has been made for the millions of migrants who have come to our country this century.
We are in the midst of a shortage of gas and electricity. Some days wind turbines only manage 2% of our electricity, well under 1% of our total energy yet the Regulators seem to think more windfarms are the answer.Ministers have now altered their line and accepted that at least for this decade we need more gas.Until there are good commercial ways of storing wind power on windy nights to use on calm days we need more reliable power. We now need to promote more U.K. gas, oil, biomass and hydro power as quickly as possible. Ministers were right to keep what little coal generating plant we have left on stand by in case the renewables produce too little.
Amidst all the talk of excessive  bills there  needs to be focus on solving the underlying problem of power shortage. We cannot rely  on imports from a Europe even shorter of energy than us.Even  friendly Norway may not  have electricity to spare as low water levels mean less hydro.France is struggling to keep her big but ageing nuclear fleet going. we need more of our own power. Of course government needs to help those in need pay their bills, but we have to solve the underlying scarcity rather than press on with ever more subsidies and regulatory complexities.
August 16, 2022
Good morning.
We also must not forget that we are importing many things from overseas (eg China) and there too there is limited supply. This has caused bottlenecks in supply of many key components such as semiconductors. This in turn has pushed up prices for many goods as such goods are also in short supply. All have to a varying degree an impact and there is little that can be done.
If we cannot manage the supply of goods and services, even from utility companies, perhaps it is time to seriously address the other side of the equation, and that is demand. With increase in prices will come the lowering of demand but that is only temporary. What we need to address is the constant increases in demand and that is an area in which government can directly affect. Do we need to allow so many people into our country at a time of great national, structural, social and personal stress ? Perhaps if the government were to no longer allow people to settle here, both legally and illegally, then our infrastructure and the demands placed upon it may be able to catch up with demand ?
Less is more.
August 16, 2022
Sir John
When you held up my post with many links I did not mind as I knew that you would not have time. However. This does not have links, named individuals or is that long. It is also on topic.
So why are you holding it in moderation ?
August 16, 2022
There is a lot of talk. However, I donât believe either of the two candidates to lead the government will really tackle these issues. It will be same old same old – lip service and excuses.
Conservative MPs are hoping that a new face will somehow improve their chances at the next election.
August 16, 2022
I disagree Peter.
Having listened to Liz Truss I think she will be far more radical than her predecessors.
But you will have a vote in a general election quite soon.
August 16, 2022
Well perhaps not. This as the Tory Party is still stuffed with MPs who are essentially dim socialists, LibDims, pushers of climate alarmism, scientific illiterates and dire dishonest remoaners. Appalling Theresa May types in fact. But Truss, for all her many faults, is at least saying some of the right things. Though the fool still want to stick to net zero but this is not so bad so long as she does has a moratorium & nothing about it for say 50 years.
August 16, 2022
I agree. Neither of the two candidates have given any indication that they will IMPOSE THEIR WILL to effect change. Take for instance the NHS – possibly the most badly managed instititution in Britain. They FAIL to train enough medical students (there are more than enough applicants, but not enough places at medical school), and waste millions on PC idiocy. But ministers do NOTHING about this. Why doesn’t Truss (I’ve given up on Sunak, who is worse than useless) say that she will ABOLISH ALL the diversity managers in the NHS?
These people do not cure a single patient. They are, quite literally, parasites, who just take the money that could be used to keep others alive. So others die to give these parasites pointless, meaningless, nugatory work. This could be solved in a DAY. Just ORDER the NHS to get rid of these people – and also the work that they do (so that this is not transferred to other managers, wasting their time). The Left would scream but our people would cheer, and huge sums would be saved. And then get rid of these pointless parasites throughout the civil service and all other public bodies. If anyone believes they have suffered discrimination then they should prove it beyond reasonable doubt, and if they do so then the decision they prove was discriminatory should just be reversed, without any financial compensation. But Truss is too gutless to really take the war to the Left. She is just another do-nothing Tory who prefers to quietly and meekly surrender to our left-wing enemies than use her power to crush and destroy them.
August 16, 2022
Someone I know has been left in the horrible situation of having one cataract treated (private via NHS ) and the second eye untreated through many admin mess ups.
Since the Great Imprisonment services are even worse than ever.
And how does the govt know who is in need?
âFuelâ bung of around ÂŁ1000 = new laptop and phone in some quarters!
August 16, 2022
Let us hope they do not trip and break something due to poor eyesight before the NHS finally delivers what we over pay them for!
August 16, 2022
+many
Amen to that!
August 16, 2022
As soon as the government gets involved there’s chaos.
Doing less would be a start, getting rid of useless Quangos and getting regulators to do their job would be a start. OFWAT?????
When are we starting fracjing, when are you going to give the go ahead for SMRs and when is the Cumbrian coal mine being approved.
August 16, 2022
I would not have expected a remotely different outcome from the berserk actions taken re the plague.
And I know just about nothing of government.
So how those in charge could have done what they did with expectations of rainbows and unicorns I do not know. Unless of course they were after GREEN unicorns!
August 16, 2022
So, the governmentâs fault.
Nurses needing ÂŁ50k degrees and removal of the bursary and lack of doctor training – that would be another government failure.
Sounds like government failure again.
The Regulators? Come on! Itâs âthe Governmentâ. Again.
Wow! âMinistersâ did something – not âRegulatorsâ
This article really is an catalogue of government failures. Yet the tax take is at a 75 year high. The more tax you take, the worse things get.
August 16, 2022
+1
Cut VAT.
Cut Government.
August 16, 2022
Arenât you describing conservative political philosophy
August 16, 2022
The network on the verge of collapse and they acted. Such ability! said no one.
We are still in “circus season” distraction i.e. elect a new PM to delay repeat the spin cycle.
Where is the legislation to remove the ECHR and prevent illegal crossing and entry. Use the Isle of Wight or Cyprus as a holding centre refugee camp with a view to deportation elsewhere, given 4/10 are Albanian. Pass laws restricting illegal crossers from leaving said camps, unless on a repatriation flight.
Where is the legislation to remove, repeal & overide any subsumed EU legislation that prevents surplus domestic supply.
We need to accept that WTO , is a likely outcome of EU interactions. Move forward BOLDLY AND QUICKLY and unilaterally. Recover funds from them and stop the insane EU settlement payments. Remove remainers. They are not in a position to help and probably only pretend too because they require stuff from us.
How are you going to ensure power for hospitals,care homes. If we have blackouts you better cut the power to the HOL & HOC. You had better ban private flights, use of private swimming pools etc. The elite need to take the pain to maintain any chance of cohesion.
The country has very limited time!, because of Conservative abject FAILURE to date.
August 16, 2022
All good stuff as usual but it is what we all know albeit not put in such an erudite manner. I read Public Sector performance improvement compared with water company efficiency over a period of years has been close to zero.
It is the âhowâ we need from you to stop this, and others, being a wish list.
And in other news, we seem to finally be taking advantage of Brexit by making 99% of African developing country trade tariff free, excellent now for VAT etc and a good idea from Sunak, make Civil Service pay performance based with an industry experience break a requirement.
Good luck getting that through. Only 30 years + too late and what a surprise he didnât raise it when he was Chancellor!
August 16, 2022
Make penalties automatic for missed targets. e.g. Inflation target 2%. Outcome 10%. That’s a clear fail and a 10% reduction in your average total package pension and the sack for the whole board .
August 16, 2022
Developments have been demanding, yet the Govt has had an increasing incapacity for common sense.
Whatever situation one is in, there is each day the choice to take the shortest path to better.
August 16, 2022
The ready-trained, qualified and skilled workers from the European Union have in many cases returned, or not come when previously they would have done. This is at the root of the shortage in many cases.
The ERG and their infantile absolutist demands are wholly responsible for this.
August 16, 2022
The vast majority chose to stay …. including the hundreds of thousands the Government had mysteriously under-counted.
Last year they handed out over a million visas (around the world) and imported 30,000 illegals, so the problem isn’t too few people.
The levels of immigrant-generated population growth, which they didn’t dare admit to let alone prepare for, is why we have “a housing crisis,” none of our public services are working and our infrastructure is creaking at the seams.
August 16, 2022
……………….”The levels of immigrant-generated population growth, which they didnât dare admit to let alone prepare for, is why we have âa housing crisis,â none of our public services are working and our infrastructure is creaking at the seams”……………
Spot on Donna. All of us out here in the real world are receiving the congestion and poor health, education and public services as a direct consequence.
August 16, 2022
+1
August 17, 2022
That’s not what Tim Martin – oh, the irony – and Michael O’Leary say, is it?
Nor thousands of farmers, hauliers, etc. etc…
August 16, 2022
That’s not true NHL
Some returned to their home countries during Covid but not all as you try to claim.
There are probably 70 million people here in the UK now compared to 60 million just a few years ago.
That should be enough people in the UK, one of the most densely populated nations, to find people to do the jobs required.
August 16, 2022
Indeed. The complete and utter stupidity of relying on foreign labour is now (according to you) evident. I mean, what if they had never come in the first place? Wow, how would that have worked? One minute we presumably needed 6 million workers, the next minute – we still needed 6 million workers! How did we function?
What if they had come, missed home and gone home? How would that have worked? Wow, relying on foreign labour that might not come or might go home on a whim sounds really, really stupid. Agreed?
August 16, 2022
NLH – The root of our doctor shortage is to be seen at any medical school graduation ceremony.
Around 70% appear to be female – who tend to go for earlier retirement and career breaks – and a good proportion seem to be overseas students.
August 16, 2022
80% of the GPs at my surgery are female – and the overwhelming majority of them are part-time. The rational policy response is to increase the proportion of males given places at medical schools.
August 16, 2022
Just expand the places to meet the demand. Vested interests manage the numbers down. Insist other qualification boards are setup. Encourage more hours by a training chargeback mechanism based on full working week.
August 17, 2022
The student loans for females are rather less likely to be repaid by females (so becoming grants) due to them often taking maternity breaks and rather more likely to work part time too.
August 16, 2022
Only about 50% go on to work for the dire NHS many leave medicine altogether. Starting salary at NHS is ÂŁ29k and they have taken 5 or 6 years to qualify and student debt interest can be over ÂŁ10k so is it any wonder not even enough left for rent? MEANWHILE Lawyers can start on ÂŁ130k!
August 16, 2022
Lawyers take around 4 years to train, I donât know any starting on ÂŁ130,000 and I know a lot of lawyers. I know some that achieve that after five years working all hours under the sun and moon (that burn out pretty quickly).
August 16, 2022
…in many cases. Undoubted in a few (hundred?) – but certainly not thousands.
Wild guesses and exaggeration as usual.
August 16, 2022
Why are we not opening up the shut down shale gas fields, bring on fracking I for one donât fall for all climate change crap thatâs going to happen in 30odd years time Iâm more concerned whatâs happening now in my life time, the future will look after itself like it done for billions of years
August 16, 2022
You might be very smart – not falling for all the green crap stuff. What if theyâre right?
August 16, 2022
Right as in ‘aware that the so-called climate crisis/Armageddon/panic is delivering only half the warming that the climate hysterics told us was coming’? No? Thought not.
JF
August 16, 2022
MW :
Well, the “green crap” brigade are wrong, or, rather pushing the biggest scam in history.
Historical data over the last 570 million years shows no correlation between CO2 levels and global temperature.
CO2 levels have actually fallen continuously over this 570 million year period from 6000 ppm to a dangerously low level of 180 ppm during the last ice age which ended around 10,000 years ago. I say “dangerously low” because at 150 ppm plants cannot exist and this would cause the end of life on our planet. Fortunately, as we came out of the last ice age CO2 levels increased to 280 ppm where it was before the Industrial Revolution.
BTW, there is no anthropological explanation for the last ice age or the sudden warming.
We are still in an interglacial era between ice ages and our current global temperature is almost as low as it has ever been on our planet, barring ice ages. Despite CO2 rising to 400 ppm since the 19th century the rise in global temperature is miniscule and no threat to life.
It is insanity to believe that an increase in CO2 from 3 molecules per 10,000 to 4 molecules per 10,000 can cause âclimate breakdownâ, âextreme weatherâ and a âclimate crisisâ.
CO2 is plant food and rising levels bring increased food production so burning fossil fuels, which are releasing back into the atmosphere sequestered CO2 is actually beneficial to life on our planet.
August 16, 2022
Have a look at extinction clock.org
A long list of claims of disasters predicted by the climate lobby that never came true.
August 16, 2022
the only disaster is the crock of s*it being acted upon by the climate lobby.
August 16, 2022
+1 great amount of data
August 16, 2022
They clearly are not right but even if the alarmists nutters were right the UK CO2 output is irrelevant and the “solutions” they push save no sig. Co2 anyway.
August 16, 2022
Even if they are do you really believe renewables will fix it? I don’t believe in fairy tales anymore.
August 16, 2022
If it was true we would have a) massive rollouts of renewable with a permissive grant regime b) investment in nuclear and hydro & storage tech c) use of older nuclear plant until proven unsafe until scale achieved.
But we ONLY have 25 GW wind & maybe 10GW solar. So allowing for the average outputs its plainly 3-4 times to small by itself. That ignores variability in output v demand. At least the wind and solar will deliver something in the short run, even if we need to keep coal, oil gas and nuclear.
August 16, 2022
The vast majority of Conservative voters “want the next Prime Minister to pause and reconsider Net-Zero”, according to the latest survey. And this is despite Conservative politicians trying to brainwash them into worshipping the climate change religion. Imagine what the polls would say if the PM used his ‘pulpit power’ to clearly explain that the UK’s emission of greenhouse gases is so small that it has no measurable effect whatsoever, that we have already cut our greehnouse gas emissions MORE than almost any other country, and that whatever we do will be overwhelmed by countries such as China and India, so this masochistic self-flagellation needs to stop. Then we could eliminate all the carbon taxes, the Emissions Trading Scheme and all the rest of the unnecessary costs crippling our economy and crushing the ordinary people of Britain. But will Truss do this? No, of course not.
August 16, 2022
Says it all, really.
Good post Sir John, Thank you.
August 16, 2022
No mention of population growth Sir John?
Capacity in housing, capacity at doctors (although that has as much to do with part time working) – capacity in schools, capacity in Universities after encouraging students to pursue this often worthless option.
When you allow million people to arrive every three years, yet do not plan for it, I think your administration can be called reckless and inefficient. If these people were actually paying their way then the tax take would allow you to pay for them. If they are not paying their way, what are they for?
August 16, 2022
@ Narrow Shoulders: “No mention of population growth Sir John?”
That is unfair to our host, who specifically refers to “the millions of migrants who have come to our country this century” – although he does fail to admit that this is due to a complete failure of HIS government to tackle the problem with any strength or resolve. They make promises they never keep (such as turning back the boats), they initiate policies they never implement (such as sending migrants to Rwanda) and they engage in stunts that are designed for publicity but have zero effect (such as using the Royal Navy in the Channel). These criminal invaders (the clue is in the word ‘illegal’) are housed in hotels, well nourished, given money, medical treatment, and allowed to enjoy themselves at a cost of over ÂŁ5 million per DAY, while the British people cannot afford their domestic energy and have to wait years to get hospital appointments.
This is an absolutely bl**dy disgrace, and nobody should vote Conservative until this is fixed. But Truss won’t do so, as Braverman was the ONLY candidate who understood the fundamental problem: that we must no longer be subject to the ECtHR.
August 16, 2022
I don’t think it was unfair x-tory.
The mention of “migrants” was specific to water. Population growth affects all capacity and as a pnly minority of the current population pays their way, the chances of those increasing the population contributing is small
August 16, 2022
A little bit OTT x-tory.. then consider we were one of the founding fathers of the ECHR.. seems to me that if things go really wrong in this country we as individuals and as a people might have need of a body such as the ECHR to voice our concerns.. the very body some of us want to destroy. Pure madness
August 16, 2022
Can we afford to expand essential services? This government seems to spend money on stunts to fool the electorate instead of really tackling any problem. The illegal immigrants alone are costing the country a great deal of money and the cost can only increase because NOTHING serious is being done about it, except to plough more money into stunts and legal aid lawyers and there is little to no chance of those immigrants funding their own lifestyle without taxpayers help. If they were ‘skilled’ workers they could have come in legally, as our points system is so wide open to everyone and his mate, so it is fair to assume they are unskilled, but no doubt will bring their expanded family to the UK at a later date, to earn more taxpayers money.
August 16, 2022
All sensible points – what did they think blocking the roads would do?
You say:- âUntil there are good commercial ways of storing wind power on windy nights to use on calm daysâ well there are no good commercial ways of doing this without wasting much of the energy in the process and spending a fortune. So unless the laws of physic magically change or find some breakthrough it is far better just to frack and mine store the easily stored coal and gas and produce energy when actually needed. Then wait until we sort practical fusion.
When I were a lad we had just one warm room with a coal/wood fire, a little tepid water to wash occasionally, jumpers, pyjamas and hot water bottles – never bothered me very much. Only a few friends had central heating. We finally got it when I was about 14, I helped to install it ground floor on year top a couple of years later. Far better to charge market rents for energy but do get market rents down with better competition, ditch net zero, get fracking and no market rigging and let people keep more of their own money to spend as they wish. Same applies to the NHS, housing, transport, education, farming⊠all are government created problems caused by idiotic policies.
August 16, 2022
LL,
Have you heard of heated sand storage? If so, do you have view?
August 16, 2022
Indeed yes you can store heat in rocks and sand (as electric storage radiators do – but to convert electrical energy into heat and then back into electricity is a very inefficient process circa 70% of the energy would lost as wasted heat and you would need a lot of sand and insulation round it to store very much energy for any length of time.
August 16, 2022
Closed loop hydro, amongst others, 50-100m head. No joined up requirements enforced.
August 17, 2022
The sand is heated in part from the waste heat from network servers, so saving electricity, and used to provide district heating.
So why on earth do you blather on about inefficiencies in generating electricity when that is not the purpose or practice in this case, it has no bearing.
August 17, 2022
PS – the heated sand district heating project project is by Polar Night Energy in Vatajankoski, Finland
August 18, 2022
Converting electricity directly to heat is rarely very sensible as electricity is so much more expensive per KWH than gas, coal, wood or oil. If you want to do this at least use a heat pump so you get two to three times the heat output per KWH of electricity. Electricity to heat back to electricity as many have suggested is absurdly inefficient, as is electricity to hydrogen to electricity or indeed to motion.
August 18, 2022
They they are not storing electricity, they are storing heat, supplied as waste heat and also generated from wind power, for a district heating system.
So converting heat to electricity has absolutely no bearing on this situation whatsoever.
You clearly haven’t bothered to do any research on this project, even basic stuff, and are simply triggered by the words “heat”, “wind” and “storage”.
They may already incorporate heat pumps in the heat generation process, the material I have seen doesn’t say.
August 19, 2022
Seems to be little more than a rather large storage heater – we have had these for 50+ years or so. So how did they manage to patent this I wonder?
August 16, 2022
Ditto on your cold weather experiences LL. Except we could have a stove in the house to huddle around. Most modern houses have stoves or fireplaces.
August 16, 2022
Should read “… most modern houses do not have stoves or fireplaces.”
August 16, 2022
And people used to be able to go to the pub to share communal heat but the VAT on drinks are so high as to be unaffordable.
August 16, 2022
Agree we need more reservoirs. Since the last one was built in UK the population has increased by 10 million. Maybe get started now and in 15 years time construction will start having worked through the public enquiries and judicial reviews and lobbying against it by the NIMBY locals and their MPs.
Best maybe to build one in Wokingham, along with a new nuclear plant and a massive new housing development where the support of the local MP would be guaranteed.
reply Silly sarcasm. Wokingham has done more than its bit for more homes. New nuclear can replace old nuclear on established sites where local opinion wants the investment.
August 16, 2022
reply to reply …could I re-phrase it? Wokingham has not resisted and been shafted more than most for too many new homes.
August 16, 2022
Is there any chance Liz Truss would make a serious attempt to address any of this?
August 16, 2022
Sir John, increasing capacity for water supply is a hard problem: the South East has too many people thanks to twenty years of lax immigration controls. The solution there is to improve reservoir capacity and build a system to bring water from the wet North West to where it is needed. The failure to address the stress-points in the system can be seen in Suffolk’s rivers, being sucked dry to supply the great Cambridge wen which grows without regard to sustainability.
By contrast the energy problem is simple. No energy project should be allowed access to the Grid without guaranteeing a minimum capacity factor of 90%+. This will stop wind and solar leeching off the fossil fuel sector which keeps industry working whatever the weather. Current renewables have contracts which cannot be broken, but they can be taxed.
SMRs will take ten years and the (inexplicably) just approved Sizewell C won’t help until 2040, if then. We need reliable energy now. A message for the SofS and his team: Frack, you fools.
JF
August 16, 2022
Stay away from our north west England rivers. Most Tories are from the south east, so you house the immigrants that your party likes to let into the country.
August 16, 2022
+1
August 16, 2022
Sizewell C ..inexplicable ? I supect remainer establishment at work. It should have been RR only.
August 16, 2022
Sherelle Jacobs today:-
âThe Blairite dream that half of the young go to university appears to be collapsing under its own contradictions. Yet, after turning our universities into mass-market degree factories, should we really be surprised? For years, our seats of higher learning have followed the money â prioritising âbusinessâ growth over almost everything else. Around half of the students at Imperial College and 70 per cent at LSE are now recruited from abroad.â
So the country can still export something them. Following the money is often fair enough but should we have soft âloansâ many never to be repaid for usually worthless degrees? What is a point of ÂŁ50k of debt, three years of no earning and a worthless degree on media studies from the ex Poly of Bognor? Worth less often than just the cost of the gown hire & graduation photos. More practical learning on the job is needed with night schools and day release. Grants only for sensible degrees and people with decent A levels. At least ABB or better surely given our devalued grades.
August 16, 2022
Lifelogic
Many Universities now rejecting home students in favour for those from abroad for the simple reason they will pay ÂŁ25,000 per year in fees.
Understand Manchester University now has 40% of students from overseas according to latest reports.
As usual follow the money.
Is the Government worried about this increasing trend John ?
August 16, 2022
….and I’d suggest many of those students don’t return home
August 16, 2022
Since the students are from overseas, why not send the lecturers overseas to teach them? It might be an excellent way to drain a swamp.
August 16, 2022
A nice summary of the problems, but is there anyone in government who can come up with a plan to do anything about it?
No, of course not. They’ve got it into their heads we need to follow the net zero agenda.
There’s no power from the turbines when the wind doesn’t blow. Who would have thought that? Well, just about everyone unless they were in government.
So are we going to build coal fired power stations, or does the government believe we need to save the planet and millions of people in the UK will have to freeze to death to achieve it?
August 16, 2022
As one who was an active member of local NHS committees for nearly 20 years, covering both Labour and Tory governments, may I point out that the concept of reducing hospital beds was very strongly advised by the medical profession, who were convinced that modern technology would mean that most treatments could be dealt with by day care. By the time new hospitals were built and being occupied on this basis, the fallacy of this notion became apparent. In the same way, the closure of mental health hospitals and moving to the practice of Care in the Community was heavily pushed by psychiatrists – and now I read all too often of horrendous crimes being committed by the mentally-ill who are, of course, living in ‘the care community’.
August 16, 2022
The NHS has become a victim of its own success. It did not expect there to be a huge increase in the sick ageing phenotype and the morbidly obese as a result of its treatments.
August 16, 2022
The police report (in response to criticism that they don’t deal with burglaries) that their time is taken up dealing with mentally ill people. I’d wager that most of these are addicted to drink and cannabis.
August 16, 2022
A letter in the telegraph today points out that the writer can generate electricity with a diesel generator at about the same price per KWH as he pays his electricity supplier. He does not mention the fact that it also churns out about 2KWH of useful heat for each KWH of electricity generated too. It can be done even more cheaply with coal, wood or gas using suitable generators too. We have a government rigged market in energy – it is hugely damaging.
August 16, 2022
We can get electricity from coal for about 15p a KWH even on a small scale yet business rates can not be more than three times this and home rates two times. A hugely rigged market.
August 16, 2022
Meanwhile idiot ministers like to be seen blowing up coal fired power stations and exporting energy intensive industries and jobs.
August 16, 2022
LL – with the resultant loss of control of emissions quality.
August 16, 2022
There is also the need to increase the capacity of politicians to have some basic sense when in Government.
August 16, 2022
To encourage an increase in capacity the consumers and commercial business owners need to feel in a positive frame of mind. In the last few years Government have introduced a feeling of fear of the future, closed down business, and at the same time increased taxes, so we all now have less disposable income.
We now have the perfect storm of hugely increasing prices in life’s essentials, further reducing disposable income.
Afraid the mindset of Government has to change dramatically if you want an economic improvement.
Yes the nightingale hospitals and the using of private healthcare were sensible and reasonable ideas at the time, but they failed to come to fruition due to lack of overall management of that sector.
ÂŁBillions has been pumped into the NHS of late, but to what effect ?
August 16, 2022
Oh dear John. The elephant in the room again. Those migrant numbers you have mentioned regarding water supplies also apply to everything else you’ve mentioned here. How are we supposed to cater for hundreds of extra people coming in daily, who contribute nothing and expect top notch treatment? Some immigrants were protesting on a hotel roof yesterday moaning about their lot. Get out of here if you don’t like it should be the message. We have a million people on the housing waiting list as it is. There is no way we can keep up with the demands on health, housing and schools etc. We are turning into the cess pit of Europe. This island and it’s people have had enough of words and no action. Even Albanians are having a laugh at our expense. Thank God for GB News. The BBC sure as hell don’t highlight the problems. What is happening will affect us all John and make whst was a pleasant country into a hell hole. Unfortunately the minority who think all this migration is good are ruining the country for the decent majority.
August 16, 2022
We have more people living in this country than ever before, 5.5 million more over the 12 twelve years Sir John’s party has been in government. Yet we don’t have the capacity to do anything about ÂŁ60m. worth of food left to rot in our fields as reported today… because of ‘staff shortages’.
Staff shortages? Or because at every level we in this country go on tolerating incompetence?
August 16, 2022
The average gas and electric bill is expected to rise to ÂŁ4400 per year. That is ÂŁ3000 additional spending per household per year.
Meanwhile the average sea high water mark has not moved a millimetre from before the industrial revolution to today. I doubt the Conservatives can stop the rot in two years. They will need to clear out the woke rot from the civil service immediately. The only hope is Labour and the liberals are worse.
I cant see how any political party can survive these levels of extreme stupidity.
August 16, 2022
Afraid I have to agree, Javelin. There’s a nasty political crash coming and I think we’ll go from bad government to even worse.
The Conservative Party has made a right mash of it, at least since the Brexit vote if not for some time before. They’ve got too many competing factions and faces.
If it had been left to our host things would have been different, but there’s not enough like him in there, as far as I can see. Very disappointing for outsiders, no doubt also frustrating for the few sensible MPs, too.
August 16, 2022
Labour’s answer to ‘the underlying problem of power shortage’, that you rightly identify, is more onshore wind. That’s according to their spokeswoman, whose name I can’t recall, who was on Newsnight last night. It’s frightening that such people have influence over a major political party’s key policy. No challenge to this was made by host Mark Urban of course.
August 16, 2022
Your government is fully on board with this,
‘Anybody undecided about the masterplan of the WEF, which our politicians and mainstream media either ignore or deride as conspiracy theory, should read its blueprint Future Focus, published in June 2022. The Executive Summary asserts that âsocieties, the global economy and the planet face unprecedented challenges and disruptions that remain urgent and require an unprecedented transformation of the worldâs economic, environmental and social systemsâ. The future is encapsulated in a terrifying hub-and-spoke diagram, in which every aspect of our lives revolves around digital identity: education, health, banking, food and travel. The tentacles of the WEF monster are spreading all over us’
August 16, 2022
It’s a horrible way for humanity to go, you’re right to call attention to it Iago. I wish we had politicians who would call this WEF plan out.
Some African nations, Russia and a few others seem to be pushing back, so the WEF plan may only roll out in the West. That’s my hope for humanity, anyway.
August 16, 2022
Notice that they state ‘unprecedented challenges’ without so much as naming one.
August 16, 2022
“Water companies âsold off reservoirs that could have eased droughtâ Firms gave up sites for reserves without building new ones, says former head of Natural England. Water companies have sold off reservoirs that could have helped ease drought to housing developers, the former head of Natural England has said.” (telegraph.co.uk)
Leaving the UK’s infrastructure to the private sector means the government issues a lot of “guidance” and not a lot of “must” instructions. The “Water industry strategic environmental requirements (WISER): technical document” is a classic case.
reply The Regulators control the amount of capital the businesses are allowed to use!
August 16, 2022
And who controls the Regulators?
Let me see…..that’s a tough one. Could it be …. the Government?
August 16, 2022
Donna
Don’t be silly. Have you not heard of the game of, ‘Pass the buck’ ?
August 16, 2022
In future centuries, if you were teaching history to a class of students and wanted an example of a country brought to its knees by a combination of deliberately destructive policies and the sheer incompetence of the governing class , Quangocracy and Public Sector, you couldn’t find a better example than the UK.
It’s not just the CONs fault; they simply delivered the same policies Labour or the LibDems would have. But they are going to be blamed since they’ve been in Government for 12 years and did NOTHING to prevent it and a great deal which has made it a whole lot worse.
Over 20,000 illegal migrants have now entered the UK this year. We were told that they couldn’t be deported because they were possibly fleeing war-torn countries and anyway, we didn’t know where they were from. Then Nigel/Tice found out that 40% have come from EU-aspirant, NATO member, Albania. But STILL not a single one has been returned.
Sir John, your Party doesn’t deserve to win the next election. The fact that Labour doesn’t deserve to win either just demonstrates the depth of the hole we are now in.
August 16, 2022
âMinisters were right to keep what little coal generating plant we have left on stand by in case the renewables produce too little.â
Official SSE video of Cop 26 President, Alok Sharma, triggering the explosive demolition of Ferrybridge coal-fired power station last year :
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1429456184902393858/pu/vid/720×720/JwPnpycxEiyBmqVJ.mp4?tag=12
August 16, 2022
Extraordinary video! All in a good day’s work for a previous SoS for Business & Energy. I wonder what achieved after lunch.
Seriously, the transcript is chilling. To camera,
effectively “we will destroy our energy infrastructure because this will show the rest of the world what they need to do”. He then presses the detonator and turns around. “Boom”.
What in earth do the Chinese and Indians think when they see this madness?
August 16, 2022
Well I wouldnât mind receiving ÂŁ700,000 pa with bonuses on top for officiating at a water company.
I might however have some qualms regarding the squandering of water either through negligence or dogma.
(Still..maybe shrew drowning is ok now we know they carry monkey pox đ)
And I donât think Iâd have the gall to build myself a huge swimming pool!
August 16, 2022
Does this really come as a surprise to anyone?
As far as I’m concerend this has been quite obvious for a very long time and I have no technical background in this (energy markets) area at all. I know the expeerts have been raising red flags about this for years but the green lobby has relentlessly pushed it’s agenda of net-zero and the political classes have not had the guts to challenge it.
By all means work towards renewable energy but please do so in ways that actually make sense. It makes no sense to stop UK ‘fossil fuel’ investment in this country, whilst bringing it in from abroad with zero transition plan in place. The stupidity of this is now apparent but I’m not hearing many shouting this from the rooftops. Quite the opposite, it’s all the “evil” energy companies fault – they are busy profiteering at our expense.
No they are not – “We” (our Leaders) shut down gas exploration and development, stopped all hope of fracking here, shut our gas storage facilities and demolished coal fired powewr stations without building any reliable replacements. Our political leaders (all colours) caused this energy disaster and now all they can propose is that we further devalue our currency (and impoverish us all) further by pillaging the magic money tree again. How stupid can we get?
Well judging by the public reaction to Starmers latest brainwave – we are rapidly approaching moron status.
August 16, 2022
+1
August 16, 2022
+1
August 16, 2022
I like everything you’ve said SirJ….but no mention of Fracking for Shale Gas; its the only game changer in town
Reply I agree with more onshore gas and have set out how
August 16, 2022
Statement â I irrefutable support the fracking of shale gas and demand that this government issue the authority and licence to immediately start drilling today (and a quota to be sold direct into UK market at price set by government)
August 16, 2022
I doubt shale gas will be any game changer. No doubt the government can muck up the contracts to exploit it, and it will end up in the global mix for us to pay just as much for it as anyone else in the world.
So if you thought it was “our gas” think again. It will belong to the energy companies, and we will have to pay for it on the basis it was never ours in the first place.
August 16, 2022
Correct – If our shale gas enters in international futures energy markets…its a waste of time drilling
August 16, 2022
Noone is going to build new export capacity for our own gas at considerable cost while there is a domestic market to satisfy and expensive imports to be backed out.
August 16, 2022
OK, as long as the fracking occurs in the Conservative red wall constituencies in the the north of England first. The response of the local voters when they start feeling the earth move under their feet will be; interesting. Don’t even think about it in Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex MP constituencies.
Earthquakes caused by gas extraction in the large Dutch Groningen gas field have been blighting 350 square miles of the district for years. Thousands of homeowners have and still are claiming damages to property. Finally, the government gave in and production is supposed to end this year. Alas, Mr Putin may well have postponed that decision for a year or two.
August 16, 2022
Earthquakes….in the Netherlands…hilarious nonsense acorn
August 16, 2022
As usual, because you shoot/write from the hip without even spending a minute checking whether there might be anything sensible in a particular contributorâs post, you get egg on your face.
dutchnews.nl 29/03/2018 âDutch to stop drilling for gas under Groningen by 2030â:
August 17, 2022
Just tremors heffy
Not earthquakes.
Like the hilariously low richer scale limit imposed on UK fracking businesses which is the equivalent to an HGV lorry passing by your house.
It’s part of a deliberate campaign by lefty greens to stop fracking.
I will remind you when you come on here moaning about power cuts and huge fuel bills.
August 17, 2022
Ritcher, P2. And thatâs not the point. You ridiculed acorn because he was quoting earthquakes in Netherlands, and indeed there had been tremors of a magnitude large enough to create extensive damages of houses worth millions of euros. So PM Rutte does not want to extend gas extraction. And acorn was right.
(Cf multiple references on the web).
August 18, 2022
But it is Europes biggest gas field which has been operating for decades and is reaching the end of it’s useful life.
You two are trying to conflate Earthquakes and fracking.
And you have failed.
The tremors as you admit are not earthquakes.
Richter scale 2 are defined as ones which humans find difficult to experience but get picked up by recording machinery.
Even level 3 are small tremors.
Acorn was totally wrong
August 17, 2022
Life inside the Dutch earthquake zone
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61901033
August 17, 2022
Twaddle acorn.
First it isn’t to do with fracking.
Secondly the figures recorded on the Richter scale make them tremors.
Not earthquakes.
August 16, 2022
Acorn, I think you mean Mr Biden postponed that decision. Up to 2021 the EU was all set to receive ample gas supplies for the future via Nordstream 2. But in the autumn, US pressure on Germany led to cancellation of that gas pipeline to Europe. Russia still wants to export gas through other pipelines but that’s not “the West’s” plan, and so the well-behaved obedient EU is trying not to buy it any more. So the Dutch will either have to go on fracking, or freeze this winter. I think they’ll go on fracking.
August 16, 2022
Burn cheap on demand and easily stored coal if needed and abandon the net zero religion is another game changer.
August 16, 2022
Agree
August 17, 2022
Would that be the cheap Russian coal?
August 16, 2022
Talking of capacityâŠ
Does Net Zero apply to EVERYTHING?
Like Zero Borders?
Zero water?
Zero food?
Zero fuel?
Etc etc
Zero nasty old carbon leeching humanity?
But who will be saved? A brown, CO2 starved, dying planet spinning into obscurity?
Maybe âtheyâ did this to all the other planets in the solar system!
August 16, 2022
Don’t forget the 3 biggies that our government is enforcing
Zero Happiness & Zero Enjoyment & Zero Fun
August 16, 2022
I get the strong impression that Johnson has no worries.
August 16, 2022
Zero Worries
August 16, 2022
+1
August 16, 2022
sometimes net-zero sounds like a good idea when applied to Westminster. A few exceptions granted, but 95% emptied wouldn’t be noticed.
August 16, 2022
Yes! Zero Robert Peel policing, zero army, navy and airforce, and zero interest rates.
August 16, 2022
And zero punishment for malfeasance in public office.
August 16, 2022
The shortage of capacity in energy, services and infrastructure is a deliberate policy by the communist fifth column residing in our Government, Parliament, Civil Service, quangos and institutions.
Pursued not only by restricting supply but also by encouraging massive immigration, both legal and illegal.
In the case of energy, for instance, they have restricted oil and gas exploration/production in the North Sea, banned fracking and coal and reduced our nuclear capacity to next to zero.
Replacing fossil fuels and nuclear with intermittent and expensive wind and forcing the electrification of transport and heating is designed to be the worst possible option.
Just consider that the proposal for just 96 GW of electrical power for 2050 will only power 24 million 4KW heat pumps. There are already 28 million homes in the UK and this does not take into account all the power needed for evs, businesses, industry and agriculture etc..
The CCC/BEIS/Governmentâs Net Zero Strategy is so insane it has to be a deliberate policy to reduce our standard of living and thus increase control over us through shortages.
August 16, 2022
“Of course government needs to help those in need pay their bills,”
Even people on decent wages are being driven into hardship. The gap between those who bother to work and those who don’t is getting ever closer.
Better to cut VAT which has risen with inflation but which is not classed as being inflationary in itself for some mysterious reason.
But yes. The lack of foresight in failing to provide extra capacity for the extra millions of people is ultimately to blame and we – who complained about this vociferously – were told to shut up because we were being racists.
The reckoning has arrived as we tried to tell you many many times it would and there is nothing can be done about it, which is why Government and Parliament has decided to remain on holiday.
80 seat majority + Out of the EU = no-one to had the turd parcel to now that the music has stopped.
August 16, 2022
The growth of product for biomass/oil reduces food production. Why is it an advantage when much is being said about food shortages?
And although coal for steel is not a directly related to energy why have your leaders still not acted to open the Cumbrian mine. It is typical of all talk. They still don’t wish to depart from green insanity, allowing us all to suffer as a result. They don’t care about us, only their globalist philosophy.
August 16, 2022
Sure the government are chucking money at the NHS without much idea of what it will buy. However, your memory does not seem to recall that it was the Osborne ‘Austerity’ that cut bed numbers by 13,000 and that he cancelled nursing bursaries, even though he was fully aware that the population was increasing exponentially. This is a big reason why the NHS was under pressure during the Covid period and still is. We still have low bed per capita capacity. The 2012 Lansley re-organisation of the NHS debacle is costing many millions in unnecessary management costs but the Tories cannot of course own this error and still they try to make it work by hosing money at it. It will never work like this. Nightingales were a great idea and built brilliantly, but just one flaw – there was insufficient nursing capacity for them. The other topics you raise can similarly be laid at your party’s door – after all you have been ruling for 12 years. It seems you think they only took over yesterday and were not responsible for any of it.
Reply Ministers have been trying to get NHS managers to recruit and train more medical staff!
August 16, 2022
The Nightingales were a bad idea. The people sick with Covid most likely had comorbidities that required a general hospital for their treatment.
Nightingales would have been a good solution to large numbers of injured coming back from war.
August 16, 2022
A PR stunt that got nobody believing it.
August 16, 2022
Lockdown was a PR stunt
August 17, 2022
What is needed to help solve the NHS problems is to go back to when I was a lad and bring back convalescent homes. These took people who were well enough to be discharged from hospital but needed further looking after before being sent home. They would be staffed by lower qualified nursing staff, and with say a qualified Matron and Doctor. This would also free up the blocked beds of people with nowhere to go and relieve the ambulance services as well. You don’t need degree level medics for this kind of work and is totally wasted in hospitals at present. Why MP’s cannot think simply and logically I just don’t know. It seems they just want cheap or, more likely to destroy the NHS so they can sell most of it off. There is an old adage – ‘Buy cheap, buy twice’.
August 17, 2022
Reply to reply.
Trying to get NHS to train more. What with bursaries cut, and making them pay for their own education? A fine idea. I note no comment on the Lansley cock-up which is still Tory policy.
August 16, 2022
A big help from the Government would be a cap on VAT. The Government is making millions from the misery of huge energy bills. Businesses that are energy intensive will soon go under if nothing is done to increase supply and reduce prices.
August 16, 2022
The perfect storm has arrived after ministers have been told for the last 15 years that renewables won’t do the job. Some of them are so thick or just cannot accept that what they have done is now detrimental to the country. There will be massive bankrupties and firms going under. Still we have all 3 main parties to thank for where we are now and likely to be for a very long time.
August 16, 2022
Energy prices have been bought in for the next couple of years and are now setâŠthe only tools left in reducing the energy bills is removing the government takeâŠthis government should immediately remove or reduce fuel duty, VAT and the green levy
August 16, 2022
Unfortunately, the NHS is just a money pit. It doesnât matter how much money they are given they will just waste it. Take my local NHS which has spent hundreds of thousands removing the word WOMAN from its literature replacing it with PEOPLE and they have the gall to put it on social media as if itâs a good thing. Where is the business case for this wanton waste of taxpayersâ money?
August 16, 2022
Or my friends office where they had a cash surplus so spent it on new lap tops and chairs which weren’t needed. Pathetic.
August 16, 2022
We should reward departments if they achieve 20% efficiencies by maintaining their budget and penalise departments that achieve less than 20% with budget cuts
August 16, 2022
Sir John,
I could not agree more with you about our energy needs and the supply solutions!
August 16, 2022
actually you will find that NHS managers, and complicit politicians, systematically ran down the numbers of NHS beds over decades. all as they supposed benefit of various changes they made, such as sending people home sooner after operations. reducing beds was a justification cost savings wise, for a whole bunch of hobby horse changes in the NHS. none of that was balanced with increasing population size, or spare capacity needed to cope with any peaks of demand from a national emergency etc.
NHS is badly managed by its execs, badly conceived and structured, the incentives are not in the right places, and the politicians would do well to stop clapping it.
August 16, 2022
Absolutely right. We have a series of capacity crises, almost as if governments (similar features are evident in other countries) were planning a population cull – which we will get to some degree this winter as a consequence of people not being able to afford to heat and eat, becoming ill and perhaps not able to secure hospital treatment. We should watch excess deaths figures closely, particularly through cold weather.
August 16, 2022
Thereâs a very good YouTube video by David Starkey on the planned intention of the WEF lockdowns
And guess what, another covid vaccine, surely everyone knows NOT to get a needle in the arm by now?
August 16, 2022
L_C, I certainly know that as soon as my surgery says I can get it, Iâll go get my âDual-variant Covid boosterâ. You do what you want, but do not expect everybody to follow your âleadâ.
Funny how the anti-vaxxers are trying to get some âcommunity supportâ to justify their inaction: âthe fish bowl effectâ?
August 16, 2022
I guess that due to your age, you don’t anticipate living long enough to find out if there are any long-term health implications from these rushed, emergency-authorised, jabs.
I wonder HOW you can have an emergency-authorised jab, when (according to the Government) there is no longer an emergency?
August 16, 2022
Could you be more explicit and explain why âthese rushed emergency authorised jabsâ will have âlong term health implicationsâ. And please be nice, quote your references so that anyone can search and check who the authors are, who finance them, which party or think-tank (if any) supports them. And see if your references quote the number of vaccine side effects with respect to the number of administered vaccines, what these side effects exactly are, whether some particular population is more likely to display such side effects, ⊠well practically a proper scientific discussion, not simply quoting that Prof So&so or Dr Blablah had said so.
Thanks a lot in advance.
BTW: If I am as lucky as my parents and grandparents were, I might still be around for 15-20 years, I guess long enough to see any long term effect of the Covid vaccines developing.
August 16, 2022
Hefner
More fool you!
August 16, 2022
To each his/her own.
August 16, 2022
Funny how I could predict you would leap to do as requested, Hefner, by your pharma dispensary.
Do please bear in mind that someone who doesn’t want a Covid injection, or doesn’t want any more, but is very happy with vaccines against life-threating diseases isn’t an ‘anti-vaxxer’. That applies to me and many others who have now had a year and a half to study the situation. They and I will indeed do what we want, and for good reason.
August 17, 2022
The bivalent vaccine for the Wuhan variant that disappeared 2 years ago and the Omicron variant that causes colds? There is no cure for stupid.
August 17, 2022
Thanks, Neil.
August 16, 2022
I’m with you there L_C.
I currently have Covid despite a couple of vaccinations. Just on queue, the CDC is now backtracking on many of the claims made about their efficacy – they quietly put something out last week.
August 16, 2022
Right now wind power is only producing 3.19GW of electricity despite the UK having an installed wind power capacity of over 27GW. Politicians are pathetic to think the UK can be powered only on wind and solar renewables.
August 16, 2022
+1 I just wonder how subsidy to date our government has funded these pointless windturbines
August 16, 2022
That’s quite a rap-sheet against your colleagues in Parliament, Sir John. As for ‘Ministers were right to keep what little coal generating plant we have left on stand by in case the renewables produce too little,’ that’s only because of a campaign here on your website to pressure Kwarteng & Co to do the right thing. We, the people, can claim that success. Ministers? They did stuff all, content that spending billions on smart-meters was a good idea.
I’m currently enjoying Tom Bower’s excellent ‘Broken Vows: The Tragedy of Power.’ One of his most shocking revelations is how ‘New Labour’ came into power and then immediately increased NHS bed-capacity by 25% – even though there was no rationale for the increase. I hope that Liz Truss will find some time to read the book before she gets to No 10.
August 16, 2022
I think we could do with a 25% increase in beds now, if only we could staff them!
A wealthy nation can only get better when general health is maximised. Think of all the wasted potential output lost due to workers unfit, waiting for cures, operations – let alone other people unduring misery even early death in the extraordinary queues for treatment. A national disgrace.
August 16, 2022
Staff â I see thousands of them walking, back and forth, in hospital corridors shuffling paperâŠnot that many in the wards
August 16, 2022
As far as the NHS is concerned, there are more fundamental questions that need to be addressed before considering putting in any more money.
We are now spending roughly the same per head of population as Germany and France.
I know more about the German System as we lived there for five years, and had our first child in a University Hospital there.
The German system is insurance based and provides far better follow up treatments that are offered here. A retired friend who had a serious heart operation was sent for two weeks at a cure clinic, a kind of R & R facility. By contrast, another friend had a quadruple bypass under the NHS recently, and was sent home within three or four days !
The argument goes that paying for healthcare from central taxation is far cheaper than insurance-based schemes
but the German system shows that to be untrue. For the same expenditure, Germany has 40% more doctors per head of population, many more beds, better follow-up treatment and outcomes are better.
Where is the NHS going wrong ?
What has happened to all that extra money that it has received since Brexit ?
These questions need answering before a single extra pound is spent on the NHS.
August 16, 2022
A report in 2018 by the OECD was already pointing that the UK was 34th out of 36 countries for investment only being beaten to the bottom place by Portugal and Greece. Another report âThe Economy 2030 Inquiry: Stagnation nationâ, 151 pp, July 2022, is well worth reading, at least its executive summary, p.7-23. Then for the most studious, try to figure how Truss or Sunak (or Sir John)âs proposals fit with its recommendations. Then realise how poor our âgreat thinkersâ are.
As noticed elsewhere we have plenty of people advocating private entreprises but to provide âcoffee, sushi ans so-called Cornish pastiesâ in train stations where there are âpoint failures, shortages of train staffâ and further announcements âapologies for any inconvenience causedâ, instead of defining where the high-paid jobs are going to appear.
August 16, 2022
There are such things as Coffee Shop Apprenticeships now, Hefner
.
The Government redefined what an apprenticeship is rather than helping to create real ones. Builder friends tell me of the extra work they have to take on to train a real apprentice. They should be subsidised to do so.
The alternative is to import trades people and then subsidise people on crap pay in crap jobs for the rest of their lives through high tax.
August 16, 2022
Depends how you measure it heffy
Cash?
Percentage of GDP?
Percentage of increase?
Growth of investment over X years?
Asking because you didn’t mention how the figure was arrived at.
August 16, 2022
Read the reports.
August 16, 2022
Just thought as you were quoting them to bolster your argument you might explain.
Glad I didn’t have teachers with your attitude.
Ask a simple question and you refuse to answer.
August 16, 2022
Worried your argument might fall apart when the methodology is revealed eh heffy?
August 17, 2022
Too lazy to read 17 pages, eh P2?
August 17, 2022
There are two sides to a story Peter. Hefner only ever sees one.
9 Jan 2022 â Major British companies plan a surge in investment in 2022 to meet strong demand and respond to climate change. Source Reuters
6 Dec 2021 â UK business investment is expected to rebound strongly in 2022 because of a generous government tax incentive and the need to upgrade assets Source FT
22 Jun 2022 â Investment in UK tech companies has continued to grow rapidly in the past five years, rising to ÂŁ8.2bn in 2021, up from ÂŁ4.1bn the previousâŠsource BritishBusinessBank
13 Jun 2022 â UK is Europe’s most attractive location for future FS FDI · Global investors indicate FS investment into the UK is set to rise further this year. Source EY
August 17, 2022
It was your headline claim heffy.
Too lazy to justify your headline?
August 17, 2022
Thanks a-tracy
heffy knows the information about his data will undermine his headline.
That’s why he can’t respond.
August 16, 2022
But if you do read the reports, you’ll see through that pretentious guff immediately.
Neither is ‘a report by the OECD’. The first is a 4-year-old anonymously authored TUC publication, the stats (claiming to be based on GDP capital investment comparisons) not at all supported by the OECD figures to which it links, and the evasive note: Please “contact the TUC press office to request more detailed data and comparison charts on all the OECD countries in the comparisons.”
(Together with the obligatory attack on the Conservative government by the TUC General Secretary.)
The second ‘2030 report’ is just more predictive modelling by the usual leftwing economist groupthink, paid for by the Resolution Foundation (its Guardianista Labour thinker Torsten Bell to the fore) and the LSE-based CEP, also the Nuffield Foundation. Pages 7-23 are generalised allegations about the role of the state in promoting ‘fairness’, very light on supportive facts and heavily biased towards conclusions.
August 17, 2022
Thanks mancunius, at least you are doing the homework.
August 17, 2022
You thank mancunious for destroying your headline heffy?
Hilarious.
August 17, 2022
Petentious guff he calls it heffy.
August 18, 2022
mancunius read the report. He is free to consider anything written by the TUC or the Resolution Foundation, the LSE or the Nuffield Foundation as pretentious guff. Thatâs his right based on his own preconceptions and ideology. Some people might take these recommendations more seriously. Other people view reports from the Institute of Economic Affairs, Adam Smith Institute or the Centre for Policy Studies as similar right-wing pretentious guff. Isnât it what democracy should be?
Obviously P2 who does not read, does not take the time to do any search was quite happy to provide a vacuous comment. Am I surprised?
August 18, 2022
I do read heffy its just when you give us one of your headlines such as this one from the OECD, I think a trained academic like what you are, might explain just a little about how the headline claim is created.
Statistics and data….isn’t that what you and your pal billy keep demanding of others?
August 18, 2022
Statistics and data, explained in about 150 pages with graphics, and you expect me to condense that into something you might understand. Sorry I am not Hercules and would be unable to do such work, specially for you. That would be âjeter des perles aux pourceauxâ (cast pearls before swine).
August 19, 2022
I thought you might use your undoubted huge intelligence and academic skill to explain to us lesser mortals how your headline was produced heffy.
But you are being very coy.
Refusing to explain
We are left wondering why.
Still…you got your headline.
August 16, 2022
Dear Sir John, the only long-term energy strategy, so far as one can surmise, is to make it more expensive so that people are forced to use less. This strategy is unannounced so it has not been debated, challenged or its implications dissected in depth. But it has all come suddenly and unexpectedly so that the side-effects are now all too obvious: how are families on even average incomes going to cope, will the lights and boilers stay on and how will systems manage in more extreme weather brought by climate change?
Sir Keir has now exposed the absence of a realistic Government plan for consumers. He has also given Whitehall a strong negotiating position to oblige Centrica to reopen a fifth of the Rough gas storage for winter without paying through the nose. The other urgent priority is to ensure that there is enough coal stockpiled to fill the gaps, not just for this year but sadly for several more. It is a long time since we needed to ask:”Have we enough coal for the winter”.
August 16, 2022
At the moment markets are signalling that from December onwards they expect a storage draw to help meet demand. Anything not in storage by then will be too late to put into storage, because it will be needed immediately.
August 16, 2022
You have almost answered my question Sir John.
I said perhaps you were no longer advocating taking VAT off energy supplies because you were worried we would all go so mad using energy that the country would completely run out.
Yes of course we need URGENTLY to increase capacity.
And it will not be done by increasing use of sun and wind.
August 16, 2022
From what you say, it sounds ds as if Ministers asked for more NHS hospital capacity but the Civil Servants/ NHS managers did nothing about it, even going the other way, abandoning the Nightingales.
I have just been reading about the opening of a new private hospital facility in London. The article pointed out that such institutions have the advantage on being able to concentrate on surgery, having no A & E facility. This made me wonder why the NHS does not follow this example with specialist units devoted to reducing the surgery backlog? Too much blue sky thinking needed?
August 16, 2022
Just stop NHS consultant doctors doing private work in the afternoonsâŠsometime on NHS premises
August 16, 2022
Then they’d probably do private work all day. The problem seems to be more about the strong pension and tax disincentives to keep working.
August 17, 2022
Mark – everyone in private sector pensions has this same disadvantage. A million pound pot buys you about ÂŁ45,000 pa at 65 with spousal transfer, how are defined benefit pensions treated to stop people accruing over a ÂŁ45,000 return without paying extra tax?
August 16, 2022
… using NHS underlings for support and admin.
August 17, 2022
Why were the Nightingale hospitals hardly used, and then abandoned, William? Because the NHS were running a National Covid Service, and Covid patients actually ill and needing hospital treatment were far fewer than the doom-mongers predicted.
August 16, 2022
So the RAF has completely stopping hiring white males, in order to try and achieve diversity targets.
What exactly are our politicians doing and saying about this?
August 16, 2022
So its all about government quota and targets and not about the equal opportunity of the best âpersonâ for the jobâŠâŠââ government quotas and targetsââ seems woke to me
August 17, 2022
considering white working class boys are the most disadvantaged in society now this also shows a complete disregard for reality, they get the worst schools, least chances of entering university, and are actively being stopped from entering many careers in the name of diversity which is fake
August 16, 2022
An interesting contribution by Jonathan Portes âI worked on the privatisation of Englandâs water in 1989. It was an organised rip-offâ. guardian.co.uk 16/08/2022.
August 16, 2022
No bias there with this Labour man and the Guardian heffy.
August 17, 2022
You have a funny take on free expression P2. Should the Guardian be âexcommunicatedâ, and/or only the âso brilliantâ IEAâs Mark Littlewood or DTâs Allister Heath be required reading? I thought you were for a âdecent debateâ.
August 17, 2022
dailymail.co.uk 15/08/2022 âDirty dozen water firms that need to clean up their actâ.
More acceptable, P2?
August 17, 2022
Well you keep introducing articles and research papers heffy but they all from one side and therefore very biased.
I’m not surprised.
Just that your sources need properly exposing so people get a better view of who is actually making these claims.
And what statistics are they using.
Like your UK investment report above.
PS
Thanks for your Daily Mail reference..that must have been a real trial for you to read.
August 17, 2022
I read the Daily Mail web site almost every day just to be aware of what is likely to appear among comments to Sir Johnâs daily post. So no real trial. Anybody who tries to figure out what is going on and how some papers push their agendas reads very different websites. Donât you?
August 18, 2022
It seems you very rarely quote from newspapers other than the Guardian or writers who publish in the Guardian heffy.
Maybe you should read a bit more widely?
August 16, 2022
We certainly face capacity problems with electricity generation, but perhaps we are also threatened on the gas front.
Norway has agreed to continue to export as much natural gas as it can to Germany in order to help reduce fossil fuel dependence on Russia, the two countries’ leaders told journalists on 15 August in Norwayâs capital Oslo. The northern European countryâs gas extraction industry is already operating at full capacity, meaning Norway would have to tap into new gas fields and expand exploitation to do more. Norway would be delivering âthe maximum of what we canâ deliver, prime minister Jonas Gahr Store said during an official visit to the country by German chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Have the Germans got their beach towels on Norwegian gas that could be supplying us? Will the Norwegians be diverting gas that should be landed here? At least they are talking about new fields and enhanced development.
We should have been talking to the Norwegians. There are limits to how much gas we can supply ex LNG, and our storage only lasts a few days if called on at maximum supply rates. We cannot expect any gas from the Continent at times of tight supply. Demand to run gas power stations will be at maximum when the wind doesn’t blow. Gas supply could get quite tight, much as it did during the Beast from the East.
August 16, 2022
Mark :
Letâs hope the Germans continue to de-mothball and bring back online their coal-fired power stations, particularly as I believe they wonât be cancelling the closure of their 3 remaining nuclear power plants :
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/01/germany-puts-coal-power-plant-back-on-network-after-gas-supply-cut
Unlike the UK where our ministers are triggering themselves the explosive demolition of our coal-fired power stations.
August 16, 2022
The Royal Navy reported 78 illegal immigrants on 4 boats crossing the channel yesterdayâŠ.but even the RN have given up
August 17, 2022
Truly bizarre operation of the interconnectors to France. We had several hours when Eleclink, that runs through the Chunnel, was exporting close to maximum, while the IFA1 link that it literally adjacent (they both terminate at Sellindge in Kent, and either side of the A16 autoroute near the tunnel exit in France) was importing several hundred MW and so was the IFA2 link. There can be no excuse for wasting electricity in transmission losses while routeing it in circles and profiting from transmission charges.