Venezuela has been brought low by printing lots of money, by price controls and nationalisation. A potentially rich country with the world’s largest oil reserves, Venezuela has seen its income per head fall from $12,000 in 2011 to just $1877 last year after a decade of price controls and nationalisation.
Zimbabwe, once a relatively prosperous agricultural state with plenty of food has seen its income per head fall to $1362 a head and lived through food shortages. Compulsory land transfers and price controls have not been kind to the economy.
Sri LankaĀ has been less extreme but has seen its income per head fall to $3698 last year and experienced food and other shortages as controls have been used. As a Professor at Colombo University wrote of their price control “it has never sorted out our supply shortages, but is has eliminated the quality goods from the market, and it has created a black market for good quality products, and it has not helped in any way eliminate poverty”
Food riots, protests against government, high inflation and damaging price controls have created misery in each of these potentially successful countries. Price controls have taken too many goods off the shelves, have bankrupted businesses that could otherwise have supplied more, have driven foreign companies out and put off more investment in capacity to supply. They have bred black markets, fostered smuggling subsidised and price controlled goods out of the country to sell at better prices elsewhere and prevented imports.
Why do so many people think they would work? Why will they not study what happens when they are used widely in inflation ridden economies?
September 5, 2022
Good morning.
Political pressure and economic illiteracy.
It is so easy just to print lots of money and let someone else further down the line worry about the consequences. Look at Lockdown ?
It was so much easier for the government to tell people to stay at home and pay them to do so, or āEat out to help outā and subsidise peoples food. It is popular for the government and their just so much easier. Rather than just to tell people the truth and make them face reality.
But it isnāt just price controls is it ? It is government subsidies, bad legislation (eg The Climate Change Act) and money printing. Subsidies distort the market, and money printing devalues the currency. Bad legislation and making foolish agreements leads to bad policies and the inability to adapt to change. All done to avoid reality and making tough decisions, coupled with a dose of self-aggrandisement and virtue signalling.
It seems we are to pay for the mistakes and failings of the political class. A reality few will be able to afford.
September 5, 2022
COP26 the president of Sri Lanka was being glad handed by all and sundry congratulating him on his net zero policies.
Eliminating synthetic fertiliser has devastated the countries agricultural and impoverished the population.
Just like Treasonous May and her net zero nonsense.
I hope at some stage these idiots are held to account.
September 5, 2022
+1
JRs blog today graphically illustrates the utter failings of his party and govt over 12 years to provide cheap reliable self sufficient energy. May and Johnson carrying on with EU inter connectivity and ridding us of our own cheap coal, oil and gas proven to be reliable. EU level playing fields on environment and state aid, two more handicaps to doom our country and independence.
The invasion across the channel continues. Why is this not an EU agreement matter rather than an agreement with France? UK has paid over Ā£200 million to France for nothing in return. UK continues to pay EU its yearly subscription of about Ā£12 billion, when will your party and govt refuse to pay a penny unless action is taken?
Somehow nutter Johnson and his Tory party is happy to give away N.Ireland to EU by annexing it under EU control by a border down the Irish Sea without a murmur or protest or shot being fired but unfathomable wants to spend our taxes by the billion through military action to help Ukraine from Russian control! Please explain your partyās nutty logic to us JR? I am sure we the UK taxpayer cannot afford it. I blogged for a long time we cannot literally afford your party in govt. Time has proven this to be spot on.
LL, is clearly wrong it is time for change. You had four chances and failed each time. Your party keeps enacting Labour policy and appointing former Labour ministers. I think this is the only way a,Conservative party will emerge, hopefully Reform Party.
September 5, 2022
IW :
Agreed.
Sri Lanka is the first country to be destroyed by Net Zero.
It won’t be the last if this suicidal CAGW/Net Zero lunacy continues.
September 5, 2022
Ian Wragg.
Thank you. I did not realise May was the one who started the Net Zero nonsense.
I thought it was Boris that had started it.
September 6, 2022
@Pauline Baxter; The road to net-zero began well before Mrs May became PM. COP21 and its Paris Climate Accord was in 2015, but that just built upon both the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 1992 UNFCCC, their so called “Earth Summit”. Nor did that 1992 “Summit” just appear out of the ether (so to speak!), concerns for the environment had long being used by all political parties since the 1980s and before to explain-away or excuse (potentially) unpopular policies.
All any UK PM since John Major, perhaps even MT, might be guilty of is feeding ‘Topsy’, not giving birth to it!
September 5, 2022
@Ian Wragg; “I hope at some stage these [net-zero] idiots are held to account.”
What a wonderful idea, and one that will set a precedent for all future govts and politicos to live in fear of, for much the same reasons some suggest the ‘Partygate’ investigation be stops or at least its remit substantially changed!
September 5, 2022
Damaging an economy, reducing living standards and leaving people deciding whether to heat or eat versus maybe breaking Covid regs but causing little or no damage.
Very uneven comparison there Jerry.
September 6, 2022
@Peter2; So should Mrs Thatcher have feared being “held to account”, beyond the ballot box, back in the early 1980s when inflation was higher than when she became PM, when unemployment was higher than when she became PM, when the recession was deeper than when she became PM?
September 6, 2022
How is that relevant to your original comment where you spoke about net zero policy and party gate?
September 7, 2022
@Peter2; You appear to be in favor of, or at least defending, populist “kangaroo courts”, rather than direct democracy via the ballot box! My comment(s) were in reply to what Ian Wragg said, not your goading, I take it you did read his post?
Whatever…
September 7, 2022
When did I say that or even intimate that view Jerry?
Stop making things up.
September 5, 2022
Mark B,
It seems obvious to me, and I’m sure to you, that if you control the production of an important resource below the level of demand then either the price will rise or rationing will be necessary. In the first case those with fewer resources will be priced out of the market, and demand will be brought to match the artificially restricted level of production.
And then there’s politics. Any government that cannot dominate the narrative when it wishes to use brute force capitalism to correct a situation of its own making is a very silly government indeed.
I hope Sir John will excuse me if I suggest that his message, that the Gods of the Copybook Headings cannot be denied, needs a softer emphasis. Yes, I read the introduction to his last piece, but it was in my opinion insufficiently emollient to placate those who watch the approach of winter with fear. Yes, he has a solution and a way of getting through, but the perception is what will count.
Softer presentation and more contrition from all those who brought us to this point would be advisable, whether they are guilty or merely guilty by association makes no difference.
JF
September 5, 2022
Julian, Sir John is one of the few true conservatives in a largely liberal government. What can he do? Resign? not helpful.
September 5, 2022
Mark,
Agree price controls are one of many problems. Subsidies, legislation, ‘targetted’ taxes and the rest also do damage.
From the 1950s to the 1990s Hong Kong grew GDP per capita massively more than the UK. In the end average income per person was higher in HK in 1996 than it was in the UK. This was achieved by successive goivernors making sure they did nothing to constrain the economy – a very short tax code being the highlight. Read up on John Cowperthwaite, governor in the 60s.
It isn’t complex to get to a successful economy. For the most part the the key is to keep the State involvement to a minimum (or zero if you dare).
September 5, 2022
Many thanks, but I think you will find that I was mentioning here, John Cowperthwaite both quite sometime ago and often.
š
September 5, 2022
Don’t doubt you. Sound advice and good role models bear repeated exposure for all readers on here.
September 5, 2022
Tax complexity is at another tax on top of taxes as it OTT regulation and red tape. Everyone is poorer as a result other than essentially parasites in the regulation and compliance industries.
September 5, 2022
in a word let capitalism run with lowest possible interventions.
September 5, 2022
Your penultimate paragraph is about to be repeated. Ms Truss is suposed to be announcing a significant package of support today.
WHERE IS THE MONEY COMING FROM?
The Ā£ is falling which fuels inflation and requires interest rates to be increased to defend it, which means large borrowers and house mortgage loan holders have less spending money.
Since the Tories took over in 2010, we’ve had one PM after another who have damaged the nation, will Ms Truss be the one to put Country and People first?
September 5, 2022
Some of it could be borrowed back from the energy producers who suddenly have a lot of extra money coming in unexpectedly and have no immediate practical use for it. Those who say that increased UK government borrowing would be inflationary may have forgotten that since 2004 the UK has been a net energy importer:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04046/
and with higher global prices even more money will be flowing out of the country, and recycling some of that into UK government bonds would be a short to medium term corrective, albeit with interest costs.
September 5, 2022
We could then lend money towards investment in expanded production at home and in friendly countries abroad.
September 5, 2022
@Peter Woods; “The Ā£ is falling which fuels inflation and requires interest rates to be increased”
Dammed if she does and dammed if she doesn’t then! The GBP is falling at the moment because there is the expectation that consumers (and businesses…) will be have great difficulty paying future energy bills, if savings have to be found that will affect discretionary and quite possibly non-discretionary spending (both C2B & B2B), which in turn will hit business turn-over, and that might just send some over the cliff, businesses bankrupted, mortgage holders defaulting…
In short if nothing is done the economy is in real danger of sliding into recession and that will also further weaken the GBP. The real question is; can the country afford NOT to do something, the only question is what and how big.
September 5, 2022
Political pressure and economic illiteracy.
Indeed the same reasons Boris & Sunak printed money, caused vast inflation, increased the size of government and taxation to nearly 50% of GDP, run the NHS as a communist monopoly to kill nearly all real competition, push ahead with net zero and HS2 and locked down the economy for a year.
Good luck to Liz she will need it. Save us from Starmer/Sturgeon,
September 5, 2022
Tim Stanly today – Borisās haters have destroyed British politics
In the most shameless way, they sought to demolish his character for narrow political ends
Well he largely destroyed himself with the assistance of lefty, green crap, pushing expensive wallpaper dope Carrie. Assisted by the many deluded remoaners and the manifesto ratter tax to death, currency debaser & fool Sunak. What a waste of an 80 seat majority.
Truss needs to undo the manifesto ratting, tackle illegal immigration, undo the vast tax increases, scrap net zero, have a bonfire of red tape, build more houses, scrap the ECHR, scrap no win no fee legal claims, sort out the HR lawyers, stop the wars on landlords and the self employed, get fracking, mining and drilling, scrap subsidies for renewables & HS2ā¦ in week one please as only 18 months to get it right.
September 5, 2022
Lifelogic
Your whole last paragraph is a wish list that the nation {well nearly all of it} wants to happen
Get a life pal because it just ain’t going to materialise. Politically this country has been going around the S bend for decades starting with Blair and finishing with Johnstone. None have them have ever worked on the principles of buy what you can afford. Corbyn in the news wants a winter of discontent, the man is on another planet. All the things you list are very important but so is all the other #### that is lurking below the surface. Few talk about it as no one is listening, those who are choose to ignore it. Tried to get a detailed post on the real affect on the disposal of all this green crap yesterday., Never saw the light of day as this post won’t. These are the reall hidden costs that will rise upto engulf us. Face it this country as is, is finished.
September 5, 2022
@LL; “Good luck to Liz she will need it. Save us from Starmer/Sturgeon,”
Best she doesn’t take your economic advice then! What do you not understand, those ‘economically illiterate’ plebs who decide elections are demanding action, if the Conservatives fail them they will turn to others, and if they do let’s prey they turn to Starmer & Sturgeon. As bad as those two will be, things will be be even worse should the LDs, Greens or other party’s further to the left be in office with a hand on the nations tiller.
September 5, 2022
Forget Sturgeon she’s just a noisy neighbour soon forgotten, just like those blokes in Ireland and N.Ireland – whatsisname?
September 6, 2022
@MT; I wish you were correct but any party with 40 to 50 MP’s at Westminster can not just be dismissed as “noisy neighbors”, given they may hold the balance of power in any future Labour lead coalition – in the same way as those “noisy neighbors” from NI could not be ignored post Mrs Mays act of election folly.
September 5, 2022
Hastily gathered facts, available to allā¦even ministersā¦ on the internet.
Apparently, price control is about 4,000 years old.
200 years older than the Code of Hammurabi where it was always thought to have originated.
Diocletian had a go with maximum prices and minting ( but not enough gold and silver) and caused inflation. Taxes had to be paid in goats etc.
It took until Adam Smith to discover the joys of the free market.
Didnāt stop the corn laws though, but that was fixing prices at a higher level?
(Price control has always been a disaster).
The French Revolutionaries adopted price controls to counteract their OVERPRINTING of moneyā¦.well!!
Strangely Hammurabiās (absolute control freak) code reads very much like the Covid rules!
September 5, 2022
@Cuibono; Anything can be proved with a internet citation, anyone want proof the earth is flat?! š
September 5, 2022
I see no citation.
September 5, 2022
@Mark B; “It is so easy just to print lots of money and let someone else further down the line worry about the consequences.”
Hasn’t it always! Indeed, let others deal with the mess left behind by past half baked political dogma. Only trouble is this time the stench of passed errors is coming back to suffocate many of those who were front of stage making the mistakes, those who closed the UK coal mines, those who put income tax cuts before UK energy independence, sacrificing it for quick and short term private profit etc.
The only reason for there not to be price controls, and central planning, with regards the energy sector is either political pressure and/or total economic illiteracy. How many companies would you like to see go bust, or families have to chose between eating or heating, in the next six months Mark B and do you honestly believe our national GDP will not also be adversely affected. There is far more chance, due to high energy prices (compared to energy companies and their shareholders having to take a “hair cut”), that the BoE will need to crank-up those printing presses as energy costs first fuels inflation, then a slow down in economic growth, perhaps wider employee unrest [1], with eventually economic stagnation -Heath era Stagflation in other words!
I can fully understand why our host hold the opinions he does, after all he is defending his political legacy, but what of you and others, what are you defending?…
[1] be warned, localized but co-originated, unofficial trade union or other, action can not be legislated away
September 5, 2022
Yes, Mark mistakes of the political class, but all egged along by a vast majority of the public who were swayed by scientists that if they went to work they could die or kill their grandparents day after day, week after week. A three-week circuit breaker turned into three months as unions made their threats, France made their threats if we didn’t shut. People have got very short memories. Boris was accused of wanting to kill the public when he wanted to end the lockdown early.
People who said just isolate the frail and elderly were pilloried, Teachers didn’t want to go into the classrooms mainly the few younger ones braved it for key workers’ children. Everyone seems to have a very short memory.
September 5, 2022
“but all egged along by a vast majority of the public”
I don’t think so. The fear propaganda was put about by the media and the government to scare the public to death.
September 5, 2022
John, perhaps you donāt recall the pressure on Boris to close down, many people felt he closed down too late, people will tell you he didnāt close down often enough. He was flanked on virtually every news item by scientists, reports and stats from Sage and other experts.
Do you think Boris and his cabinet encouraged the media to blast him with constant daily calls for more ventilators, more PPE, more removal of freedoms? I donāt. They wanted him to close down longer after Christmas 2021 he stood firm, one of his best decisions. Starmer and all the rest called it wrong.
September 6, 2022
@a-tracy; Remind me, how many CV19 attributable deaths or serious incapacitations occurred, many of them within the working age population (18-67), after the FIRST lockdown ended, and the same then happened after the SECOND lockdown. To make an error once is forgivable but to make the same error twice in short order was unforgivable. How many non CV19 deaths, or ongoing illnesses have occurred between the first lockdown ending and the vaccine rollout because the NHS became swamped with further CV19 cases and were thus unable to treat many non Covid patients. The only reason we did not end up having a fourth lockdown was due to the success of vaccine rollout.
“People who said just isolate the frail and elderly were pilloried”
Yes, because those who said such things obviously had no clue how such a policy would work. How would it have worked were a school age child or working age adult lives in an family with either an old or frail family member; what about those fit and health of working age, who seemingly would be expected to ‘turn up and carry on’, but have caring responsibilities for an independently living relation -as I do. Make exceptions some said, support those with (unofficial) caring duties, fine; but just watch as the ‘find a granny’ fraudsters flourished.
“younger [teachers] braved it for key workersā children.”
Indeed, and not just teachers, after all those key workers’ were not just NHS staff but supermarket staff, transport workers etc, but all were backed up by targeted regular screening and testing, of the key workers themselves, their household families, and the teachers.
“Everyone seems to have a very short memory.”
Perhaps, but then some seem to have no memory at all, what is more at the time they appeared to have cloth ears too, subscribing to the same style of idiotic pseudo science as those who push AGW theories, only having ears for whatever suited their politics!
September 5, 2022
Some answers to your questions.
Most people have not run a business (of whatever scale) so can’t immediately see the problem with price controls. They have never studied economics (even the basics are not taught in schools). They are not interested in examining the issue further, especially since the media doesn’t point out the link between the controls and poverty.
Maybe understanding would gradually improve if there was a “Chance card” in Monopoly which said “The government has introduced price controls, all your rents are reduced by 50% for the next 5 moves.”
September 5, 2022
Indeed I have never formally studied any economics but surely it is so blindingly obvious that if you fix prices below the cost of supply you will not get anyone to supply it for long or to invest in that industry. I think I worked this out about the age of 12. But then it is also blinding obvious that if you have income taxes at 98% you crippled an economy and raise rather less tax – but this was it seems beyond the double first in Greats one Denis Healey. Or if you enforce net zero and intermittent renewables (for no sensible reason) you push up energy costs and cripple the economy pointlessly. Yet about 95% of MPs and Truss still seem to support this insane vastly expensive religion. Bonkers Boris ever believes that wind energy is nine times cheaper than gas!
September 5, 2022
Believes, just reads the dishonest drivel written for him or just lies through his teeth perhaps? He was once (pre Carrie) a sensible, low taxes, small government, low regulation, climate realist & libertarian. He won his majority on that basis but is now become the complete opposite.
September 5, 2022
You don’t need to fix prices below the cost of supply, nor do you need to allow excessive profits when in a virtual monopoly for essential products. Cost plus profit has always been good enough for most businesses and has only come to this because greed can form an unofficial cartel.
September 5, 2022
Lifelogic.
‘Bonkers Boris even believes that wind energy is nine times cheaper than gas’
Well he must be right.
After all Ted Heath who took us into the E.E.C. sailed, probably just as far as Greta Thunberg!
So there must be something in it, mustn’t there !?!
I wonder if Boris can sail himself away somewhere.
September 5, 2022
Gas was 11 times cheaper than gas last week. The difference between prices in Europe and prices in the US, and the difference between shortage and self sufficiency. The cheapest wind farm in operation currently is the two thirds of Triton Knoll that exercised its CFD before prices starting moving up last summer: that is priced at Ā£94.81/MWh. I doubt that Boris knows this, nor indeed do most MPs and journalists. The last third of Triton Knoll is enjoying full market prices.
September 6, 2022
Am curious how “cfd contract prices were delayed” and then the electricity sold forward. The price it was sold forward perhaps being less than the cfd price or reasonable forecasts. What gives?
OFGEM should be following the money and contracts.
Price controls don’t work if they discourage investment. Price fixing and suppression of any meaningful new supply is also not good for the economy. Which do you think is worse.
September 5, 2022
Price is the mechanism that matches supply with demand. Shortage of supply the price rises and suplliers find it more profitable to supply more. Hence the problems with the failed free at the point of delay, rationing and often non treatment NHS.
September 5, 2022
Here the only way to decrease demand is rationing, delays, making it very inconvenient, GP gate keepers or making it dangerous – all these are used by the NHS.
September 5, 2022
Nice theory, but it doesn’t happen with virtual monopolies. It can happen with widgets, where there is competition but not with a controlled market (which after all is what the world market is, with prices set by city spivs). Subsidies to take the sting out of too high prices only encourages more too high prices and not supply. The producers find they can produce all the profits they want and more to the extent that they ‘don’t know what to do with all the cash’ by producing less and thereby ensuring their over priced stocks last even longer. With ever higher prices, and the subsequent profits, pray tell what is the incentive to produce more to reduce the profit? I hear that even Germany is lobbying the EU to introduce a windfall tax, which they more accurately describe as an ‘Exploitation Tax’ which is a much more appropriate description of what is happening and why the so called ‘cheap’ wind energy has to be priced the same way is beyond me, except to line the pockets of the already rich at the cost of the ordinary person.
September 5, 2022
Can you imagine the kind of economics which would be taught by the left-wing “educators” in State Schools.
They’d come out convinced that “free” public services really are free; the Magic Money Tree really does exist and the Tooth Fairy is a real person.
September 5, 2022
+1 that is what the labour party push.
September 5, 2022
and those pockets we reach into don’t exist – just grab whatever you need.
September 5, 2022
@Wanderer; True, but totally irrelevant when these mere Plebs are faced with the stark choice between eating or sleeping, or perhaps loosing the roof over their heads. It is also true that there are many very opinionated ‘academic economists’ who have only been schooled in Monetarism theory, they have never lived-by or studied any alternative. The next general election is but 24 months away…
Anyone over the age of 50 knows, anyone under the age of 50 hears, that things can be better AND WERE. In fact those at most risk now, pensioners, know that there can be price controls on energy (and perhaps not just energy) and at the same time the nation can have an increasing GDP, can have increasing personal wealth etc; after all they were part of the economic miracle delivered by the first post WW2 Conservative government (1951-64)!
September 5, 2022
Bloomberg Reports 4th September
āEuropean ministers will discuss special measures to rein in soaring energy costs, from natural gas price caps to a suspension of power derivatives trading, as the bloc races to respond to the deepening crisis.ā
September 5, 2022
What they really mean but do not say is that they intend to impose a largely arbitrary amount of rationing, and hope it won’t do too much damage.
September 5, 2022
Price controls do NOT work but then they were never meant to work. Their primary purpose is as a political tool not as a humanitarian response to a human situation.
Political leaders in the West are intent on realigning our world and that requires a strengthening of the status quo. Price controls help to appease the bodily mass thereby assisting the political centre.
MT knew the truth and didn’t baulk at telling others. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the despotic minded Left and the toffs in the Tory party hated her for it, that you cannot buck the market. Free price signals are fundamental to understanding the strains and stresses of supply and demand without which we are blind to events
Do not let political leaders conceal the reality of what we are facing across the West. It is nothing less than an assault on our very souls
September 5, 2022
+many
Plus MT was an intellectual in the true sense of the word..ie she was bloody clever.
A Blue Stocking.
And I believe she had a real political dream.
Maybe she, like many others, underestimated the satanic nature of her enemies.
I meanā¦lookā¦they just shut down our world!
September 5, 2022
Thatcher did though still make make very many huge errors she killed off many excellent grammar schools, buried us further in the antidemocratic EU, failed to deal with the communist NHS, failed to cut taxes and the state sufficiently, fell for the CO2 devil gas religion, appointed a proven fool who failed his O level maths as Chancellor and let him joint the ERM (a moronic price control on the Ā£). Failed to get real freedom and choice in education, healthcare, housingā¦
September 5, 2022
@ Lifelogic – and don’t forget the Thatcher economic miracle only lasted thirty years! Overall though, a better record than anyone else managed during the lifetime of us boomers.
September 5, 2022
@DOM; “Price controls do NOT work but then they were never meant to work. Their primary purpose is as a political tool not as a humanitarian response to a human situation. “
Nonsense, quite the opposite! Promises of jam tomorrow, just so long as you totally embrace market forces, has always been political smoke and mirrors, not a humanitarian response to very human situations, of those who favor a dog-eat-dog style of capitalism.
Energy companies need not be unduly effected by any price cap, for one thing they would all be in the same boat, whilst any cap would take into account the needs of repair and renewal, but secondly such a cap would not touch their alternate streams of income, such as the highly profitable services sector, selling maintenance contracts and such-like, in fact I have heard it said of some billing companies they claim to make more money from these then they do actually selling KWh’s of energy.
MT, by which I assume you mean Margaret Thatcher, had she remained as PM, would have almost certainly lost the 1992 election, that is the stark truth why the party dumped her (Maastricht being a tool not the cause), just as any prospective leader in the current Conservative parliamentary party will loose the next due election should they try to copy MT or listen to those who do not want price controls in one form or another; and the long the issue is left festering the more likelihood the electorate will want nothing less than re nationalization!
The Tories did not win the 1979, ’83, ’87 elections, Labour lost them, best some on the right remember that when they try celebrating past ‘glories’, TINA has long since died…
September 5, 2022
DOM.
If MT stands for Margaret Thatcher, I agree with you.
Was it Major the Party put in her place?
What a nonentity he was. He allowed himself to be pushed around.
Let’s hope we’ll do better this time.
Toppling Boris was done too late. His function was to ‘get brexit done’.
Not to wreck the U.K.’s economy.
September 5, 2022
I thought cuibono ‘Plus MT was an intellectual in the true sense of the word..ie she was bloody clever.’
was referring to me….’ then I thought she??
September 5, 2022
And all the signs are Truss will be enacting price controls. If so your first vote will be against your new PM. Maybe thatās why I saw it is suggested you wonāt be getting a job or or prefer your independence?
And then slowly we will see all the other Santa promises rowed back on/broken as reality kicks in.
I have seen her called Boris 2. So spendthrift and BS the order of the day.
September 5, 2022
Well I do not think so and certainly hope not. Truss has moved from the left to sensible free market policies as Mark Littlewood of the IEA attested the other day. Boris was a sensible small state, libertarian climate realist but just went mad post Covid/Carrie/and reaching No 10. Let us hope she can actually save the UK from the dire Starmer/Sturgeon.
September 5, 2022
Goodness Nig1, give the woman a chance to show the colour of her jib. Nobody, none of the papers guessing what is going to happen know the facts. Who has shown you signs that you trust so to condemn her out of the blocks?
September 6, 2022
cut
“The term originated in the sailing navies of the mid-18th century, when the nationality of warships sighted at sea could be accurately determined by the shape of their jib long before the national flag could be seen. For instance, French jibs were cut much shorter on the luff than English ones, giving a distinctly more acute angle in the clew.”
September 5, 2022
I see Truss has now said she wont interfere with the BOE. So given in to political pressure. Letās leave it āunfit for purposeā First promise broken.
September 5, 2022
Surely they should at least retire the (39% overdrafts for all) complete idiot and pusher of green crap who is in charge of the BoE?
September 5, 2022
Nigle. I think you put to much trust in the main stream media.
September 5, 2022
There are price controls on energy all over Europe. The countries that have introduced these caps all have consumers paying a lot less than British consumers, they all have inflation rates much lower than the UK, they all have growth rates much higher than the UK, and none of them has chosen as their headline economic policy of the last few years the introduction of border controls and red tape on trade with their biggest markets. Go figure
September 5, 2022
It would be good if you could actaully get your facts right Gary – but I suspect that wasn’t your intent.
The EU ‘average’ inflation is currently just below the UKs but that’s certainly not true of individual EU countries. Holland, Spain, Greece, Poland, Hungary (I won’t detail all the other smaller Eastern states) are all above the UK. I’m also pretty sure Hungary has been controlling it’s borders a bit more than Brussels likes too.
The EU has a very difficult time ahead and I’m really not sure it can survive in it’s current form. Whilst i don’t have very much sympathy for Brussels, unfortunately we cannot insulate ourselves completely from their troubles but we shouldn’t have the same gas supply issues.
However, we have another advantage, in that we control our own currency (assuming of course that our leaders don’t keep devaluing it). Just be grateful that we are not tied to the Euro like the Greeks or Italians, because it won’t be managed in their best interests that’s for sure.
September 5, 2022
@ Gary Megson – the “headline economic policy” to which you refer has resulted in only very marginal differences thus far this year in growth and inflation though. 2022 1H growth has been 0.7 per cent. in the UK contrasting to 1.1 per cent. in the Eurozone and July 2022 year on year inflation 10.1 per cent. in the UK contrasting to 8.9 per cent. in the Eurozone. The immaterial extent of these differences weighed against the delight of our liberation from the Evil Empire suggest figuring need not take very long at all, particularly when prospects are taken into account.
September 5, 2022
I note you missed off unemployment figures gazza.
September 5, 2022
Gary Megson.
I am surprised if you are still living in the U.K.
What is stopping you from moving to your beloved E.U.?
September 5, 2022
Are you saying everything is rosy in Europe, Gary? I suggest you take a look at Reuters instead of relying on the British media. Europe is fast heading to recession, some countries in the EU already are. The British Ā£1bn per month is dropping significantly soon. The Euro sank this morning.
What are the inflation rate comparisons for August 2022? Which Countries have āgrowth rates much higher than the UKā in 2022? What source are you using? Iām genuinely interested. Do their inflation rates include energy and food is all measured equally?
September 5, 2022
Much less commented on are the widespread rationing schemes that are being developed in Europe. These are designed to try to reduce effective demand (the remainder after rationing) below available supply. There is as yet little understanding of the likely impact of the rationing measures, partly because there is little understanding of how draconian they may need to be. Expect widespread shortages to develop as industry shuts down.
I note that National Grid are being extraordinarily cagey about the Demand Side Response plans they are developing which are essentially bribes to accept power cuts.
September 5, 2022
Why do they believe?
Because they believe they didn’t do “the right” kind of money printing, price controls and nationalisation.
And you can add the UK to the list of socialist, failing states to your list ….. and for the same reason. Socialists ALWAYS run out of other people’s money.
Meanwhile, another 3,000+ criminal migrants were given a “free” ferry ride into the UK over the weekend …… to the land of “free” accommodation; “free” food; “free” healthcare; “free” dentistry; “free” legal aid; “free” education; “free” money and “free” mobiles. Did I forget anything? Oh yes …… after breaking our laws and preying on the British people, many of them will be given “free” legal defence and – after several prosecutions – they may get a “free” holiday in one of HM Prisons.
And STILL the anti-British Establishment will refuse to repeal the Human Rights Act and resile from the ECHR.
September 5, 2022
Donna,
+1
The socialist Tories are blind to their own destruction. Still trying to out socialist Labour. Three PMs promised to get rid of ECHR and all three lied to get elected.
September 5, 2022
Donna :
Agreed.
Despite having no ID they are free to roam our streets as they please, free to work…. and free to abscond as and when they wish.
Six Government departments, including the Cabinet Office and the Home Office, are funding lobbyists and political campaigners who seek to change Government policy. They have used Ā£50m of taxpayersā money since 2018 and spent nearly Ā£7.7 million on groups actively fighting the government in the courts over its Rwandan resettlement scheme.
September 5, 2022
Donna. +1.
Surely preventing invasion of the country is the function of the Ministry of Defence.
Funny how Elizabeth 1 managed to defeat the Spanish Armada without having an M.O.D.!
September 5, 2022
The +1 particularly applies to getting us out of the ECHR.
September 5, 2022
As with any scheme that didnāt work before, āitāll be different this time!ā But it never is!
My husband has a book entitled, āCorporate Amnesiaā
The experts just wonāt learn from past experiences. Sadly, our experts (of nothing) are trying the same thing in all western societies. Though, I think they know exactly what the outcome will be.
September 5, 2022
It is not usually just “amnesia” but vested interests who are on the make, crony capitalism or pork barrel politics! Often vested interests paying “consultancy” fees albeit often declared ones (or even actually bribing) those in positions of power. Or feeding them duff information. Surely HS2, net zero, the religious war and plant food, the Millenium dome, test and trace, vaccinating children not at any risk,,, can only be explained such? But perhaps I am too cynical but usually I find I am not cynical enough!
September 5, 2022
All government control is disastrous. Some are obvious, most are insidious. Central control has never worked in the entire history of the world and yet people are so poorly educated (or brainwashed) in history that they fall for the same failed policies over and over again.
September 5, 2022
Price controls can be introduced democratically by such governments in times of emergency, or, as is generally the case, they can be imposed non-democratically by powerful cartels internationally, and to the enormous detriment of the people of this world.
It is the latter type which is by far the most damaging.
The problems experienced by John’s headline countries were caused by many factors, the major ones being externally imposed upon them by ideologically-opposed powerful nations, and the price controls were largely a symptom of rather than the cause of those.
September 5, 2022
So the problems in Venezuela were caused “by ideologically-opposed powerful nations” were they NLH?
Nothing to do with corruption in the Chavez/Maduro governments, their almost total economic mismanagement including nationalistion of the economy (banks, telcos, food producers), their almost total dependance on oil exports, coupled with a heavy reliance on imports of most basic commodities. In other words, a Socialist experiment on a huge scale that cost the Venezuelan people dear.
I also assume that the problems in Siri Lanka had nothing to do with a xxxx ruling family that decided to ban artifical fertilisers for “eco” reasons (hey! Lets virtue signal and maybe International neighbours will overlook our other short comings) which resulted in national crop yields dropping by over 30%.
As for Zimbabwe, please! A Marxist dictator who took the best managed agricultural economy in Africa and turned it to ash and ruin – whilst etc ed .
Well you might think this was down to external influences but it doesn’t seem that way to me. I think corruption and economic incompetance driven by leftish ideology was the main cause.
September 5, 2022
So the uprising and violent ejection of the white farmers, including numerous cases of killing the black farm staff was caused by external forces to Zimbabwe? utter nonsense.!
September 5, 2022
Those at the top of the Labour is Party have never run a business so their simplistic attraction to price controls is not surprising. But we voters with experience in the commercial world would now no longer be shocked or even surprised should a Conservative government introduce further price controls, so far has the Party fallen in our estimation. Boris Johnson: thereās nothing wrong with being woke; Sunak: get used to higher energy costs; Truss: fracking ok but only with local consent; regional public sector pay boards proposed one day then withdrawn following inevitable protest from expected quarters. These are not conservative policies borne out of conviction and care for the future prosperity of the nation. I expect Truss to announce energy price control ā as an essential temporary measureā – which sets a further precedent which is difficult to erase and sends us further down the road to a Venezuelan economy.
September 5, 2022
What is the point? We’ll get what our politicians want and democracy will be neatly sidestepped as all our politicians seem to want the same thing, ie. to destroy the UK (and are succeeding), and what our politicians want will be the only options offered. Maybe a manifesto will promise something different, but it will be discarded the day after.
Cynical? You bet! Experience brought me here.
September 5, 2022
What CAN we guarantee of our future? Mass immigration, net zero, HS2, and a totalitarian government that will remove individual choice by pricing ‘undesirable’ things out of existence (eg. motor cars), from ALL the main parties which now have very little to distinguish them from the other main parties.
September 5, 2022
Price controls on the world’s major gas & oil producers like Saudi ARAMCO, and ADNOC in UAE ?
How ?
September 5, 2022
+1
September 5, 2022
The G7 attempts to declare price ceilings only serve to restrict the supply available to them still further. More rationing required to share out what’s left.
Moreover the supplier reaction is to cut supply – not just Russia, but OPEC. Utterly self defeating, when they should be working to increase supply around the globe.
September 5, 2022
But what price controls are you talking about? The kind of proposal which is being mooted is not for a permanent system whereby the government should set the price of a standard loaf of bread or any similar articles on sale in the shops, but for a temporary government intervention which arranged that the retail prices of energy would be set back to the retail prices which obtained at some selected point in time before wholesale prices started going through the roof, with the government compensating the retail energy suppliers for selling it on at a loss. That is the simplest and most transparent way to protect all people and businesses in the UK from the present surge in wholesale energy prices, which otherwise will wreak havoc with their livelihoods and even endanger their lives.
September 5, 2022
There’s a very dangerous path to walk here. Keep on printing and you devalue the pound even further- when energy is priced in dollars – it sounds like a Catch 22 situation. I think some energy ‘allowance’ will have to be made, if you like a basic ration of subsidised energy – but beyond that folk are going to have to cut back usage or pay the going price.
September 5, 2022
It needs to be comprehensible to the average citizen.
September 5, 2022
You don’t have to print new pounds if you can borrow existing pounds from those who for the moment have more pounds than they can productively use in other ways. In particular, I have in mind those who have been sucking an increased quantity of pounds out of the UK in exchange for the energy they produce and can now sell at much higher prices than before, which is why it has become necessary for the UK government to intervene to limit the extent to which those higher wholesale prices are passed through to retail customers in the UK. Of course this is not cost free because the UK government will not just have to repay the capital sums but also pay interest.
September 6, 2022
Is it necessary to print money anyway? From what I understand Sir John says, the government is already sitting on 77 billion of excess taxes, rising every day, which is most of the way to covering the emergency for now. Maybe cooler heads will develop over the winter, but we need urgent action now to prevent tragedy. Economic theories can wait until we can sort things out.
September 5, 2022
Obviously it would be much better if we did not have to walk it, but successive governments over the past five decades have made that inevitable by turning us a net energy importer, which apparently happened in 2004.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04046/
September 5, 2022
Whilst I agree price controls need to be used wisely, many the same socioeconomic problems can occur in countries that do not allow direct price controls, more so should “price gouging” raise its ugly head or just be suspected. Nothing should be ruled on or off the table, given the current worldwide circumstances, even more so when such polices may get rejected simply out of party political dogma.
There are plenty of countries who use, or have used, price controls such as RPM, either a price floor or ceiling, to protect consumers and/or the countries vital industries. Indeed UK govts -both Con and Lab- have used price controls in the past, and still do, although now it tends to be disguised as tariffs on imports (or questionable bans on health/safety concerns) which in effect impose a price floor.
Our supposedly free market UK Tory govt of the last twelve years, more so the last two since leaving the EU, have not used tariffs (price controls) wisely, I for one would welcome cheaper USA produce for example, but such products are either banned outright or have high tariffs to protect our own industries and farmers.
September 5, 2022
Here’s another price control – council tax.
Can I opt out and just pay for the items relevant to me? I expect to pay for my rubbish to be collected, for the road network to be maintained and parks looked after. I’m happy to contribute to education on the basis it’s a collective benefit. However, I resent having to contribute to inflated executive pay and the care costs of those who have squandered all the money they ever had and not put by for their old age.
September 5, 2022
what about diversity managers, cycle lanes, a headcount freeze….etc
September 6, 2022
@Dave Andrews; Vehicle Excise Duty is another example of Tory ‘price control’, a price floor, people pay the full due amount regardless of actual road use, their vehicle could well be parked-up on the same bit of public road the entire 6 or 12 month duration of the fee!
VED, like the TVL fee, is long past its sell by date.
I said Tory price control because the 1979 Labour party manifesto pledged to abolish the tax.
September 5, 2022
I often bang on about over generous benefits.
I found a website that makes my case for me.
It is called.
https://www.entitledto.co.uk/
You can check out how much youād get in a given scenario.
Wooooooo!
September 6, 2022
@Cuibono; Strange how some are (apparently) very quick to condemn websites or organizations who help people to claim those benefits they are entitled to but are either very slow or fail entirely to condemn websites and organizations who help people to claim as many tax reliefs and deductibles etc as they are entitled to.
Just saying…
September 5, 2022
Forget about all these packages Truss might bring in. What’s more important is a long term solution to the energy crisis we find ourselves in because of years of stupidity from our politicians. We have to become self sufficient in energy because Putin nay never have to sell his gas to Europe again with all the other markets at his disposal. All this talk of short term solutions is sticking plaster. The wound will open again. Stop kicking the can down the road and address something now that should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. Yes, we all know it will take a few years but there’s no way around that. We must take the action needed NOW.
September 5, 2022
Certain things should be left to the whims of the market other things should not.
Would we privatise the SAS or SBS ? These organisations are both tested at the zenith of the ultimate competition on Earth – way beyond any professional sport and way beyond the skills, tenacity, endurance and privations of a Premiership footballer – and that ultimate test is war. No. It would be silly to privatise them. It would be disastrous and corrupting to privatise them. It would cause a reduction in their standards to privatise them and it would be deadly for the country to privatise them (though I expect Woke is about to defeat them finally.) They cannot afford to ‘lose the cup’. There is no returning next year to win it back.
It is, therefore, the height of dogmatism to say that nationalisation is incapable of producing excellence. The SAS and SBS are nationalised organisations and are acknowledged to be the most feared in the ultimate human competition in the world which is war. Incidentally, nor do privatised organisations produce brain surgeons nor rocket scientists (though they might employ them) – these are considered to be the other examples of peaks of human achievement and their doctorates are earned in the public sector.
Where infrastructure is rigid and is strategically essential for the existence of civilisation then privatisation and outsourcing “let the market decide” is disastrous as is being proven. Even Tesco cannot operate without these vital networks.
Billions paid out to shareholders. Not ONE new reservoir built. Rip off prices on railways, profits off-shored. Global prices for electricity, suppliers using Greenism to explain shortages, governments blaming quangos for failures.
Across the board tax cuts would be a good start. The Government loses nothing but that which it has stolen through piggy-backing on price rises.
The People – on pay freezes since 2008 – are watching.
They have noticed that they are being blamed while the Spanish practices, perks and privileges and pay rises in Government go on.
September 5, 2022
Sir john, Can you do anything about the coming crash? I know some Venezuelans… And some Rhodesians too.
September 5, 2022
Pruce controls are are indeed dangerous and leaders must have courage to say so and get away from them.
Beyond this I would like Ministers to be more detailed and critical of cliched ‘whatareyergonnado’ questions. All we get are cliched answers based on we are ‘spending supporting billions’.
The other day Liz Truss said something about cutting back the NI increase.
Although slightly different from ITax the usually critical broadcast media said the rich would benefit more than anyone else. Why did no-one accuse them of bias at least as when a tax rate increases they are happy that the rich pay more than anyone else.
Are they supporting a tax regime that constantly takes money away from the better off but never gives it back in reductions?
Ministers must attack questions from the broadcast media which has assumed far too arrogant a position.
September 5, 2022
Off topic, surely by now members of the ERG should have realised that it is always potentially a very bad idea to allow our Prime Minister to go off alone and have a private meeting with the Irish Prime Minister?
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/truss-eyeing-early-trip-to-dublin-for-talks-on-protocol-3830902
“Truss āeyeing early trip to Dublin for talks on protocolā”
What are the odds that she will betray us, just as Theresa May and Boris Johnson betrayed us?
Here’s my idea: UK Prime Minister Liz Truss should head up a delegation consisting of reliably patriotic MPs and officials, and the meetings should always be between the UK delegation and an Irish delegation, and she should never be allowed to meet the Irish Prime Minister on her own or agree anything on her own.
September 5, 2022
All coming to a town near you this winter.
Governments never seem to be proactive and wait until the damage has been done before trying to fix it.
Businesses are what you need to worry about. With high taxes and crippling costs, many will go under which will cause mass unemployment. Meanwhile, the government dished out over a million visas last year. Will these people ever leave the country when no longer required? I doubt it very much.
September 5, 2022
Off topic, I don’t see the sense in this from Kwasi Kwarteng writing in the FT:
“The business secretary commits to the independence of the Bank of England, adding: “We believe co-ordination across monetary policy and fiscal policy is crucial””.
If co-ordination across those two policy areas is crucial they should both be under the same political control.
September 5, 2022
Sadly Denis, that is the last statement I would ever want to hear from a future Chancellor. He has basically dismissed the Fiscal tools available to a sovereign currency issuing government. We appear to be continuing the neoliberal ideological myth; that is, the government has to “borrow” back its own previously issued monopoly currency, before it has any money to spend. You can bet that the think-tanks such as the IFS, IEA, etc, will continue to headline “government borrowing”. They have to perpetuate the myth to remain solvent with their neoliberal donor’s money.
September 5, 2022
It sounds as though the BoE has already got the measure of Kwarteng.
September 5, 2022
Just wait to EU radical intervention into markets starts soon.
September 5, 2022
Oh come on, Sir John, price controls come in many different forms and cannot all just be lazily lumped together. There is a world of difference, for instance, between price controls that allow the seller to make a profit and those that don’t.
Or between price controls on goods that are produced domestically and those that are imported.
Or between goods where there are competing suppliers and where there is a monopoly.
Or controls restricting legitimate price increases (where there has been an increase in the cost of supply) and controls restricting artificial, profiteering, price increases.
My suggestion that energy prices be restricted to actual cost of production + 7% legitimate and reasonable profit margin would work just fine!
September 5, 2022
āVenezuela has been brought low by printing lots of money, by price controls and nationalisationā¦.. Why do so many people think they would work?ā
As a senior labour politician, who later became its leader, said in 2013 :
āChavez [Venezuela] showed us that there is a different and a better way of doing things ā¦ Itās called socialism, itās called social justice, and itās something that Venezuela has made a big step towardsā
Unfortunately socialistsā moral superiority gives them the religious belief that the ends justifies the means and as the inevitable consequences of socialism are always increasing poverty as āother peopleās money is spentā, socialism eventually leads to harsh authoritarian socialist governments such as evidenced by those of Stalin, Mao and others.
September 5, 2022
So Liz Truss wins a closer vote than commentators predicted, and for me a very telling 30,000 members not voting.
Possibly supporters for candidates rejected earlier decided they would not vote any further.
September 6, 2022
Not only that, Truss became PM by using an electoral system which included transferrable votes (if the Conservative Party used FPTP, the members would have been choosing between Sunak and Mordaunt) and which also included the votes of 16- and 17-year olds.
If she can be elected as PM using transferrable votes and the votes of 16- and 17-year olds this time, the same should be the case at the next election as well (unless the view of the Conservative Party is that what’s good enough for the Conservative Party is not good enough for the rest of us).
September 6, 2022
Well the length of time it took to elect the new PM is similar to the long time it takes to form a government after elections are over in countries with PR systems
September 7, 2022
And the sky didn’t fall in, and the world didn’t end.
September 7, 2022
And it’s an interesting contradiction to see how so many on here don’t like what government does while not having one in place is also a problem.
September 7, 2022
Well on that ridiculous definition I suppose you are right.
But in terms of having a dicisive result soon after an election it seems PR is a failure and an unstable one at that.
September 5, 2022
As far as I am concerned, this is OUR country. It does not belong to any giant corporation. The coal, gas, sunlight and wind belong to all of us – not to any corporation. Why government canāt organise things so that our natural resources are harnessed and used to create comfort for all of us is a mystery. Why canāt you do that Mr. Redwood? Letās face it, doing things your way is putting many people into a āheat or eatā situation. This is not acceptable. If you canāt do anything about it, leave the stage and leave to people who can.
September 5, 2022
So now we know that it’s Truss wot won it. We will now have to wait and see what policies she introduces, but the initial rumours are NOT encouraging. We are told that she will raise the threshold for the higher rate of tax. MADNESS! What she needs to do is raise the personal alowance, from Ā£12,500 to Ā£20,000. This would benefit BOTH basic rate payers as well as higher rate payers. If she increases the threshold for the higher rate she only benefits those on salaries over Ā£50,000 – hardly a policy that will benefit the Red Wall voters, or promote levelling up, or endear her to those who are suffering the most in the current cost of living squeeze.
September 5, 2022
Not high inflation but hyper inflation.
Price controls were an attempt to bring down the hyper inflation.
But as there was no increase in production the price controls failed as did the local currencies.
So shop shelves were empty and things were bought on the black market with foreign currency.
The abandonment of the Zim dollar followed, prices controls were removed and the goods were priced in US dollars. The black market collapsed and goods reappeared on the shelves.
September 5, 2022
QE is price control of rates or a attempt, which just failed. Another policy gone wrong, with support by all party in the commons.
You might be able to keep energy prices down but what about the rates on businesses and household facing two hundred per cent increases in their debt they owe.
September 5, 2022
2120 in one day, Serco offering to rent dwellings from landlords for long terms (did I read five years?) to house asylum seekers and to pay for any damage to property. There is no intention to stop this.
September 5, 2022
Introduction of the price cap on power was a massive mistake. It merely told the energy providers what they were allowed to charge. The government then is effectively setting the price. If the cost is significantly below then massive profits – if the cost is above the company(ies) go bust and the government (taxpayers) bail them out.
There was never any price cap on petrol (though tax was altered) and as the price went through the roof both supply went up and demand down – end result price is now into the 1.60ish after having reached nearly Ā£2 not so long ago.
I only studied Economics up to O Level – but most of this stuff is common sense.
Like with the Victorians insisting the rail companies run a 3rd class service perhaps a safe option would be to insist on a low gas/electric tarrif up to a certain level (enough to heat a small house or flat) then let the market set the price after that level of consumption – just a thought.
September 5, 2022
I think you are right. Something like the first 5kWh per day (including on prepayment meters) charged at 30p/kWh with no standing charge, with further consumption charged at a much higher rate that would provide a market based incentive to curb consumption of electricity, and a similar scheme for gas, with perhaps also a safeguard for those who have no gas and have to depend either on electricity or oil.
Something similar may be needed for industry. We may need to largely halt housebuilding: kiln firing of bricks and tiles is now so expensive that it makes little sense. Share a house and share a heating bill instead. We will need to prioritise sectors that produce essentials. That will require intelligent thought: we should try to ensure we have fertiliser for instance. That will require similar measures elsewhere if we are not to see it simply being shipped abroad.
September 5, 2022
The overmighty media keep saying Miss Truss has got to put supporters of Mr Sunak in the Cabinet. Well, let one of them be Mr Raab as he is sound in every other respect. It was a mystery why he ever supported Mr Sunak in the first place as he should be a natural ally of Miss Truss.
September 5, 2022
“.. Mr Raab as he is sound..” – so say you through your tinted spectacles, aptly named rose.
September 5, 2022
I hope Miss Truss will take a leaf out of Mrs T’s book and not read or listen to the media. Bernard Ingham did that for her and she was able to get on with her work without being unnecessarily upset.
September 5, 2022
“Compulsory land transfers and price controls have not been kind to the economy.”
Kicking the whites out John?
September 5, 2022
Because, in answer to you last para, they think that rules and law answer all. They should tap into free enterprise and only legislate to curb the excessies. Free enterprise will assess the market need and respond to it far better than any government body ever will. However in the countries you mention there are other factors at play deep in political philosophy, grievance, and corrupt greed, so common sense is too often on the back burner.
September 5, 2022
Beware of Greens bearing gifts.
Originally pitched by the UK Energy Research Centre, the approach would see nuclear and renewable generators that are supported by the Renewables Obligation (RO) subsidiary offered new voluntary, long-term, fixed contracts.
According to Energy UK, the proposal could reduce energy bills by between Ā£10.8 billion and Ā£18 billion per annum from next year. This would equate to a Ā£150-250 saving for a typical household, in addition to a Ā£6.7 billion to Ā£11.1 billion cut for non-domestic users.
In reality this is an attempt to lock in very high prices for ROC renewables for the long term in exchange for a relative pittance of short term price reductions. ROC generators provide about 80 TWh a year, and their contribution is fixed give or take how windy or sunny it is since the scheme is closed. They are getting Ā£6.6bn in ROC subsidy this year on top of market prices boosted by Ā£35/MWh by carbon taxes worth a further Ā£2.8bn. Given that we should expect gas prices to fall back as supply is increased around the world in 3-5 years we should simply cancel their subsidies until power prices return to normality.
September 5, 2022
The data below is for the 24-hour period 00:00 to 23:59 4 September 2022.
Number of migrants detected in small boats: 1,160
Number of boats detected: 25
WHATS LIZ GOING TO DO
September 5, 2022
Well Sir John.. did you get the call yet? minister for ‘far away’ i’d say..
September 6, 2022
He would be the only effective Opposition!
September 5, 2022
051917Z
It is oft said ā the aphorism usually attributed to Einstein ā that trying something that has already failed and expecting a different outcome is a sign of lunacy.
Socialism we know to be the politics of the ignorant. Ought we then to be surprised by socialists’ persisting in trying political schemes that have failed ā often many times ā only to see them fail again?
Ī Ī
September 5, 2022
Yeah! Endless Tory governments, repeating them over and over again, thatās not mad at all.
September 5, 2022
Or expecting subsidises to encourage sustainability and profitā¦.no subsidy encourages further subsidy. The Drax wood pellet power station is a fine example, as is offshore and land wind-turbines