I have long been arguing that the UK government should not be taxing, regulating and banning its way to net zero, as that will collapse business here, lead to more imports, and fail to save the world as they wish.Ā I have argued that the Green revolution can only work when it is a popular revolution, with people rushing to buy its products because they are better andĀ more affordable. The government needs to back off from its expensive and often self defeating ideas, and listen to the public. The innovators need to find the ways in which their products can be cheaperĀ and better as well as greener.
My critics here want me to take on the scientists over global warming which I have no wish or need to do. I accept that CO 2 like methane and water vapour is a greenhouse gas and I understand that governments and many scientists want a bit less of it. The case I am making is their policy proposals are wrong in their own terms, and damaging to economies and lifestyles for no good reason. Cutting CO 2 here to import more from somewhere else is stupid. Some of the green products fail to cut CO 2 despite the claims. So what is the point of them unless they are better and cheaper?
Yesterday I pointed out that it is the undue haste to make people buy electric vehicles that is doing grave damage to our car industry. Despite subsidies to buy, subsidies to install chargers, and plenty of publicity battery cars still only account for 15% of the UK industry’s sales. I haveĀ not myself bought an EV, yet I have usually been an early adopter of new technologies. I had one of the first mobile phones, took to the internet early, moved from maps to sat navs and the rest. So why do I not buy an EV?
I would suffer badly from range worry. My modern clean diesel car went 630 miles on the last tank full of fuel and still said it could do another 55 miles when I filled it up. It means I can go anywhere in England from my home and return withoutĀ needing to refuel. I read test reports of EVs where journalists sympathetic to the newĀ vehicles have to report problems finding the right kind of charger with the right kind of payment system available and ready to use when they go longer distances and need to recharge.
I would suffer from impatience waiting for the recharge. I can refuel at any one of thousands of diesel stations, pay and exit in less than five minutes. That’s good service.
I would worry about the costs of refuelling. Electricity is mainly a secondary fuel, made from burning gas or biomass or coal. We are a long way from most electricity reliably coming from renewables. With all the generation and transmission losses it will be dearer than simply burning a primary fuel in your engine. In due course the government is bound to put a tax on it, as they cannot afford the loss of fuel duties and VAT as and when more peopleĀ switch from petrol and diesel. If they put a similar level of tax on electricity for cars as they do on diesel it would be very expensive to run.
I would worry about possible damage to the battery should someone run into my vehicle. It must be dearer and more hazardous to repair an EV given the way the battery is part of the chassis and vulnerable in a shunt.
I would worry about weight and tyre wear, as theseĀ vehicles are heavier.
I would dislike the way they are trying to be mobile phones on wheels, with too any things controlled through a touch screen. Touchscreens in cars get clouded from fingers touching , are difficult to read when the sun is shining on them and often do not respond to your first or second touch. Switches are easier to see , always work and are more positive generally.
I am told they are fast. The truth is you cannot use extra speed these days as all roads are speed controlled and frequently heavy traffic usually impedes even reaching the permitted speed. My current car is potentially faster and more powerful than I could ever use on our roads.
I am told they cut CO 2 substantially. I do not think so. On a typical day only 20% of our electricity comes from wind and solar, with no solar atĀ night. Most EVs on many occasions areĀ mainly refuelling using electricity generated from fossil fuels. Scrapping a diesel car with some life left in it and buying an EV adds to world CO 2 because of the amount generated when making theĀ new car and destroying the old.
I am not surprised that EVs are still only 15% of sales. They have only been high in countries with large subsidies to boost purchases. Contrast that with the pads, laptops and mobile phones that fly off the shelves with no subsidy and no government urging. They are part of a popular revolution. I will look at other green products in future pieces. I await an electric car that I would like to buy.
June 3, 2023
The most serious aspect of climate alarmism is the role of China. It joined in the initial hysteria because it saw an opportunity to gain leverage over the West. It encouraged alarmism and gave real support to reducing fossil fuel emissions but not for the same reasons. China had a simple pollution problem from particulates, sulphur dioxide and other products of coal combustion in its cities. But the Western alarmists took this as agreement with their arguments on climate. China anticipated the shift to the critical minerals necessary for electrification (which it had encouraged), and so entered and dominated the sector. Result: Western dependence on China for Green Energy. Western demand now exceeds world supply. This has serious consequences for the West: not just higher prices but shifting liimited supply of critical materials from the advanced weapon and sensor systems needed for defence into domestic, transport and general use. Now China is the only country producing affordable electric cars. It may not be check mate, but it is check.
One benefit of the introduction of electric cars is rarely commented on. the increased competition has led to remarkable improvements in internal combustion engined cars. The engine management systems – computer controlled of course with a large proportion of semiconductors from China – and the engines themselves have become very much more fuel efficient.
The Ukraine war has shown the need for energy security and how the price and availablilty of energy impacts every aspect of the economy and has direct impact on people’s lives. Germany – the benchmark Green Energy country – is now in revolt over mandataory heat pumps, the heat hammer. Germany knows the consequences of energy dependence on a hostile power better than most. It has set its eyes on Ukraine’s vast reserves of critical minerals and that is its motivation for supporting Ukraine. if it has these resources within the EU’s borders then it and the EU can reduce dependence on China. Von der Leyen only in the last week or so has announced reconstruction of Ukraine will be based on the needs of Green Energy. the EU is already dictating policy. Ukraine’s resources will be axploited at vast profit, mainly by German industry, financed by international aid. It’s a no brainer for germany and the EU, which obviously will cut the UK out of the post war reconstruction bonanza.
What is the UK’s strategy? I have a feeling there is no point in even asking. UK doesn’t do strategy, just as Alastair Campbell once said, we don’t do God.
June 3, 2023
The EU cannot afford the re-construction of Ukraine, there will be no bonanza. If we get involved we will end up paying and not get any benefit. The bill belongs to Russia, win or lose. If they win, they have the whole bill to pay. If they lose, the rest of the world must make sure Russia pays, but I doubt it will or that the Russian economy could do it. They may be a ‘world power’, but in fact their economy is middle of the road and low for its size.
June 3, 2023
That is why it will be international aid, all donations welcome but don’t expect to participate in the profits. the EU will determine all the acition. As you know it is very good at spending other people’s money for its own purposes.
June 3, 2023
I suspect we would have been cut out of this even had we remained in the EU. Germany gets what Germany wants, then and now, until cut down to size by a host of allies. Ukraine needs to beware. Poland and UK will always be cut out to feed the Teutonic machine.
June 3, 2023
”What is the UKās strategy?”
Who knows, I thought that our UK strategy was to follow the UN WEF strategy
June 3, 2023
To be fair the UK has at least in the last few months got as far as drawing up a list of critical minerals. The EU under Germany’s leadership did that years ago, hence its deal with Ukraine for access and supply before Putin invaded. But what the UK intends to do with its list is anyone’s guess.
June 3, 2023
Peter agree with much of your comment, and certainly Germany and the EU will put as much pressure as they can on Ukraine when and if this War ends. We have to make sure that our support will not be forgotten by Ukraine and their successive Governments, and we need to make sure we do not get frozen out of future agreements (supply of goods, materials, and services) by the EU, as you can rest assured they will try to continue with trying to “teach us a lesson” for leaving.
Are our Politicians aware of the risks ahead, and are they up to the job to protect the Uk’s interests. ???
June 3, 2023
Alan, I’m sure ordinary Ukrainians will not forget Britain’s role, especially Johnson’s visit to Kiev in April 2022 to stop Ukraine signing up to the peace deal being prepared by Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Turkey. It would have probably offered them a much better outcome than the one they’ll finally have to accept. Yes, I’m sure they won’t forget the hundreds of thousands of extra deaths they will have suffered as a result. And for what purpose? To teach Putin a lesson? Some hope.
All wars end with talks. Time to start now – there’s been enough dying for not much real gain on either side, as far as I can see.
June 4, 2023
Hat man
I agree most conflicts end with talks, but those talks have to take place when the aggressor is removed, to be meaningful in any way, otherwise you are simply rewarding aggression.
Remember Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” agreement, millions died after that because Hitler was still in power.
The sad fact of life is that innocent people are forced to die, on the wishes of politicians, who do not expose themselves to the same danger, by leading from the front anymore, but instead lead from a secure and safe bunker at home where danger to them is absolutely minimal.
Afraid the lessons of history are never learn’t for long.
June 4, 2023
OK Alan, you can keep watching what you seem to think is a morality play about punishing evildoers. In the meantime real people with real loved ones are dying for nothing. Unless you want NATO to fight for Ukraine directly, there is no serious prospect of the moral victory outcome you seek. And I’m sure you don’t want WWIII. I agree with you that there are lessons to be learned from history. One of them is surely that there are times in world events when Bismarck’s Realpolitik prevails. Or as our Mr MacMillan once put it, ‘politics is the art of the possible’. Let us give Ukraine security guarantees for the best future still possible, if a ceasefire can be negotiated.
June 3, 2023
The only EV I have and will ever drive is a golf cart.
June 3, 2023
What about the latest lunacy from Ireland. Culling 200,000 cattle. Taking a leaf from Ruttes book.
Of course France and Germany won’t be affected.
Is that the idea of the FTA with Australia, to bankrupt our sheep and cattle farmers to achieve net zero.
June 3, 2023
FTAs are about trade, exporting and importing valuable goods. If Ireland want to cull cattle because they can’t compete with us or Australia that is their choice.
Personally, I see an export opportunity for British beef Farmers.
June 3, 2023
@None+of+the+Above The Irish cull is a EU directive to reduce CO2 in Ireland, cows suffer flatulance – Meat is bad.
The Irish have no problem competing, but as with the farmers in the Netherlands they have been given their marching orders
June 3, 2023
Methane Ian. Cows belch methane.
June 3, 2023
Thinking of Ukraine, us, covid and cattleā¦
Wilfred Owen. from āAnthem for Doomed Youthā
āWhat passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
ā Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,ā
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.ā
June 3, 2023
expect Ireland to stop importing meat ….ha ha, and home killed will be cheap.
Pity the vegetarians.
June 3, 2023
EV bikes quite good – like being 16 again and I can get up them steep hills.
June 4, 2023
Not as good as āmotorbikesā if you are in the mindset for ābikesā.
June 3, 2023
A very good list of reasons why not to commit to EVs and as an Irish comedian use to say ” there’s more”
It is not buying the car it is running it and more reports are highlighting the high cost of insurance and for even what could be considered a light impact the vehicles are written off due to concerns over battery safety.
There is a far greater risk from fire and it has been reported an electric bicycle was only just thrown onto a landing in a block of flats before bursting into flames. A car ferry transporting new vehicles was reported lost due to a massive fire starting from an electric vehicle in the hold.
The government wants to stop the masses flying it would seem. What impact are electric vehicles going to have on the caravan industry in its many shapes and form. The cost on sites to provide chargers and the affect on getting to the desired destination. Maybe a special compartment enabling the use of a diesel generator for the journey.
As normal government hasn’t thought the whole thing through.
June 3, 2023
Indeed ferries and the channel tunnel should perhaps consider this.
June 3, 2023
Gabe
They already have, some ferry companies will not allow auto gas vehicles on their boats, probably because it is a minor after market industry and standards are rather vague, but think once the mainstream manufactures produce anything in volume, under set rules and safety regulation it will not be a problem.
Unless that is there are some large re-calls due to safety.
June 3, 2023
Good morning.
I think that this is the right approach. Everyone now sees the contradictory nature of what is going on. From forcing BEV’s on the market place to ULEZ and the false claims that it is to cut emissions.
I believe the powers at be know that the number of cars will fall considerably as it becomes increasingly more expensive and difficult to run and maintain a ICE vehicle. They can see revenues falling as MPG and miles per kWh improve. No one in government ever stops to ask the question on reducing both the size and cost of government and, improvements to efficiency which will lead to a reduction in cost.
The tragedy though is, that since we have signed away through various environmental agreements, we have relinquished control to the UN and the EU, and as such, can no longer act independently.
The rudder on the SS Great Britain is stuck and it is all a head full straight for the rocks, and when we hit them I bet both the Captain and his crew will abandon not only the sinking ship, but the hapless passengers as well.
June 3, 2023
Mark B
Iām inclined to agree with your comment. I read yesterdayā¦North Korea now have an executive position at the WHO! So now, both China and North Korea are in positions of influence at the WHO! What could possibly go wrong for the ādemocraticā western countries?
JR I agree with what you say about electric vehicles and them being like a computer on wheels, the fire hazard (this has been kept quiet for a while now) , the practicalities of charging, distance per charge etc. Not points to draw one to want to buy one.
We need to replace our tow car very soon, and it will be diesel again. Iām guessing, towing must put more pressure on the battery, and Iāve no doubt reduces distance per charge! I donāt want to run the chance of a flat battery down a country lane with a caravan on the back because we couldnāt find somewhere to charge it. When towing, the car charges the caravan battery and powers the caravan lights. And what does one do with the caravan whilst charging?
June 3, 2023
HI Sharon
Yes a couple of the motoring programmes have completed fuel efficiency tests on towing a caravan, it almost halves the range due to extra weight and wind resistance, and yes at many charge stations you would need to unhook the caravan due to lack of space for your vehicle and others.
June 3, 2023
Towing anything much with an electric car is not really sensible or practical. But then again electrics cars are not very practical anyway. Hugely expensive and short lived too. The greenest thing you can do is prob. to keep your old car going or get a suitable second hand towing car.
June 4, 2023
All āagreementsā (treaty law) can be easily reversed. As with Brexit we need to elect a Government which will do that, or compel the existing one – by whatever means. We are 66 million – they number in a mere hundreds of thousands.
June 3, 2023
EVs might sound cheap to run in miles per KWH of charge but remember the large battery and car deprecation and financing costs. Overall they are far, far more expensive to run, this despite the market tax and road price rigging for EVs. They can easily cost Ā£1 per mile just in depreciation and finance costs. This before fuel, insurance, maintenance tyres, insurance… plus you probably need to keep an ICE care for the longer journeys or towing.
June 3, 2023
Autotrader had over 500 used low mileage MGs for sale yesterday. Many had low ranges and for a 3 I year old car the battery will already have reduced capacity and last 5 more years. Maybe buy one cheap for local trips in London to be keep Cleanair Khan happy.
June 3, 2023
Can you clarify Stred? Do you mean 3.5 years and not 31 years?
June 4, 2023
Sorry. My software updated keyboard keeps adding I s.
June 3, 2023
Well if you pay pay say Ā£14K for a car that only lasts 5 years and perhaps does say 30,000 miles in that time then finance and depreciation is about 66p a mile even before insurance, electricity, the charger(s), maint, tyres…when it needs a new battery it is essentially worth virtually nothing.
June 3, 2023
As Sir John says, electric cars are not competitive for the average driver. Electric vehicles need to double their range to achieve this, as well as battery components halving in cost, and this will not happen in the next seven years.
June 3, 2023
Probably not even after 7 years either without an unexpected breakthrough. Lithium is not likely to get cheaper or change its energy storage physics/chemistry.
June 3, 2023
Many people are not anti EV it is just they are too expensive with too many unknown costs and believe it or not people do care about the environment but still we hear nothing about the safe environmental disposal of all the components at the end of its working life.
The government (taxpayers) are going to subsidise a massive car battery plant which will rely heavily on materials that will need to be imported. Operationally it will use a lot of power in the production process and we all know where the reliable 24/7 power comes from. Sod it, it doesn’t really matter it is only our money, don’t worry ,be happy.
June 3, 2023
Indeed engineering and economic stupidity.
June 3, 2023
An electric vehicle with a battery for about 50 miles range seems sensible as a second car, used for local shopping and the daily commute. Charge it at home. If everyone did it, it would be much more pleasant for me on my bike on cold foggy mornings.
June 3, 2023
Indeed and if you want to go further put a diesel generator in the back! Or get a hybrid or a petrol range extender charger (like some BMWs offer). Also a 50 mile only battery should not cost that much when it needs changing after 4+ years. Smaller battery cars do more charge discharge cycles & so last rather less long in practice before the 50 miles becomes say 28 miles.
June 4, 2023
You canāt hear the EV sneak up on you so you are in more danger in a bike with EVs in the road than with proper cars.
June 3, 2023
Agree – Just look in a large supermarket car park, the average value is @Ā£10k ….so how does this government think that the average pleb is going to buy an EV for @Ā£30-40k
June 3, 2023
I think my three cars are worth about Ā£7K in total but all seem just fine to me. Golf Cab, Audi Cab and Volvo V70.
June 3, 2023
Ahhh. A Golf and a Volvo – Good man. Scrap the Audi though. It has a reputation due to certain drivers.
June 3, 2023
I respect your decision to enter the debate on the change from ICE vehicles to EV’s. It seems that you are considering the purchase of an electric vehicle and have started to do the research on the practicalities (and the difficulties) of owning one.
I have a RHD Tesla which sits on my drive being charged up in the summer via my solar panels – with free electricity, as I’m on the FITS scheme. The range that I get depends on how I drive it and the outside temperature but 500 miles is usual. You program the SATNAV with your destination and it tells you where the public chargers are on your route and how many miles are left before a charge is necessary. You get used to the 20 min break while charging, you get to talk to nice people and enjoy good coffee. Its very quiet to drive. When you brake the car absorbs the momentum and re-charges the battery with the recovered energy!
I was astounded by the inovative tech in the Tesla, but there are other, smaller EV’s more suited to city driving and new models are on the way. I suggest that you take one for a test drive, there are some real bargains available in the second hand market at the moment.
June 3, 2023
How much did your Tesla and the solar panels cost?
Oh and your house, since many houses in the UK don’t have a driveway on which to park an EV or the space to install solar panels (mine included).
The vast majority of “ordinary” people can’t afford an EV.
But that’s the Eco obsessive’s objective: to price them off the road.
June 3, 2023
You say “When you brake the car absorbs the momentum and re-charges the battery with the recovered energy!”
Well yes to a degree with some cars but it wastes at least half of this energy in the process (back to electricity, voltage conversions, back to battery and back again to the motor). Also if you drive sensibly and look ahead then good drivers should not need to brake very much anyway. Also the systems that do this make the car heavier and means much more to fail or go wrong.
In a similar way the systems that stop the engine to save fuel when in traffic jams need different batteries and systems that are rarely justified by fuel saved. Unless you like to spend hours in traffic jams that is. A replacement (special) car battery on a Merc (to work this system) cost me Ā£240+ it will certainly not have saved more than Ā£10 of fuel over the 5 years the battery lasted for (at best). So more energy will have been wasted in making this special battery than would ever be saved. But doubtless it enabled the car to pass some ill conceived EU fuel standards.
But it made more CO2, use more resources and made the car far more expensive and less reliable.
June 4, 2023
My relation, a āMotƶrheadā observed that my brake discs had rust on them. I told him that all good drivers have rust in their brakes because they āglide to a haltā. Only an idiot brakes excluding an emergency – you know – like turning a corner and finding a spent EV abandoned in the middle of the highway because it canāt even be pushed out of the way.
June 3, 2023
Bargains? Well find out how long the battery will last (with decent range) what is the guarantee? Also what the cost of a new battery Ā£15,000 perhaps? Not such a bargain perhaps?
June 3, 2023
A guy on YouTube blew up his Tesla with dynamite as they wanted $22,600 to replace his damaged battery. So we need to ask what is the life of batteries in these electric cars? My diesel car is over 13 years old and still has plenty of life left in it. During this time I’ve had one replacement battery that cost around Ā£70. I would put money on it that my car is more cost effective in the long run. I could easily afford an electric car but the economics make no sense.
June 3, 2023
Indeed your car over its life time is far better than running two or three electric cars (or one with needing two or three batteries) even in CO2 terms (should that bother you – it should not).
June 3, 2023
Christine
Just part exchanged my 23 year old petrol 3 litre V6, for a new 2.0 litre turbocharged diesel.
Depreciation was Ā£12,000 over those 23 years, and it was still going strong, but heavy on fuel consumption since the change to E10 petrol made it 20% less efficient in miles per gallon than previously.
New diesel is averaging 50 plus MPG over 2,000 miles usage so far !
Our second car is now 16 years old is again 2.0 litre diesel, and returns on average 45 MPG
Depreciation so far Ā£9,000 over 16 years and 85,000 miles
Plan to keep it another 5 years at least as it will not depreciate any more in Value.
June 4, 2023
Yes in accounting terms I believe the best āvalue for moneyā in a cars file time is between 7 and 12 years old. Of course you can run a jag for 30 or 40 years, so great value for money and a pleasure to drive too.
June 3, 2023
Question for Sakara.
How much has your Tesla depreciation cost you so far?
How do you charge it at night if you want to use it next morning?
What would you do if another car pulled out from the side of the road as you were passing and it crashed into the chassis battery? This is almost happened to me twice in 2 months and I only avoided a collision by swerving into the other lane.
Do you feel guilty about your solar tariff subsidy being added to the bills of poorer customers?
June 4, 2023
Answer.
Ā£25k
Carbon fuel.
Write off or serious fire.
No.
June 4, 2023
Sorry. I looked up the Tesla 3 and depreciation is less on secondhand models. Still 10x my Skoda diesel though, I which cost 10k and is now 8,5k after 2 years and 12k miles.
June 3, 2023
Well that’s amazing SG because previously the best performing (in range terms) was supposedly the Tesla ‘S’ Long Range which can get upto 403 miles on a full charge but most Tesla models are rated in the 300-400 mile range. However, Which found that most EVs (when tested in real driving conditions) were not capable of these mileages in practice with most brands delivering far less (170-260). I guess you must have a newer model Tesla or maybe a Lucid Air?
BTW My one year old (petrol) ICE has can easily do 450-500 miles on a single tank. Hard to judge exactly but I believe it was at least Ā£12k less than a similar sized EV – so the cost of 8,510 litres currently, which is about 77,000 miles of ‘free’ driving by comparison (nearly 20 years in my case). Sounds a lot cheaper than plugging it in at home?
June 3, 2023
+1
June 3, 2023
I canāt answer for SG but I can run the EV for a week on about Ā£4 electric recharge around 150 miles I think, but thats only because late night energy tariffs have reduced this month. The car only needs servicing after 2 years. No serious problems with it, other than the speeds on the road advisory panel is often incorrect. You get quickly used to not having a gear stick or column in the centre of the car, the screen doesnāt have glare inside the cabin because the roof is tinted, you can talk to it so you donāt have to touch it that often.
I chose not to buy it in case I didnāt like it and Iāve extended the rental term for another year because I really like it and that dropped the monthly rental by a lot of money, they are expensive to rent for sure. Previously I have always bought a car and run it for a couple of decades. So the battery life does trouble me, I hope the manufacturers address this as it will seriously affect the second hand market and people who like to get the best value out of running a car for a long time. The inside is very basic looking pleather, that took time to get used to when compared to our old Merc and BMW, but now it is much easier to clean and I like the streamlined look of the dash and it has a massive windscreen without an instrument panel to get in the way.
The beeping sometimes just because there is a person walking on a narrow pavement or if there is a bike on the road takes a bit of getting used to. The Kia hybrid we have on trial is also doing well, very useful on local journeys done powered by battery power with a fuel backup. We got this because like John we donāt want to worry about recharging out and about, my sister-in-law reported a serious problem getting to a recharge unit that had been vandalised and the next fast recharge station was 18 miles away and was booked up solid. City controllers/mayors and gov where the effects of ICE motors seems to be most polluting really need to suss out the recharging in apartments and terraced streets, they need to start with replacing buses and taxies with EVs giving good incentives to do so. Hopefully China or India will produce a bus that recharges it self from solar panels on the roof, I think theyāre the only countries who could afford to do so cost effectively.
I like the smart braking too, take your foot off the gas and the car brakes itself.
June 3, 2023
I have a Tesla Model 3, which is the smallest and lightest model in the line-up and also the most efficient ā it is extremely reliable and has never needed a service in the 2 years I’ve had it. The battery and drive unit are protected by an eight-year/100,000-mile warranty, while the rest of the car has a four-year/50,000-mile warranty. The Model 3 costs new much the same as an Audi A4 or BMW 3 Series with equivalent performance, it is exempt from emissions-based congestion zones and road tax – while company car tax is just 2%. At the moment you could snap up a pre-owned 2019 one with 30,000 miles for less than Ā£25k. The range does decrease if you use the heater too much, or the aircon (but not the super efficient headights) but you should still get about 400 miles on a charge if you don’t hammer it. The 500 miles was a typo
You can charge it up overnight on Economy 7 which admittedy was a bit pricey over the winter, but still only about Ā£12 for a full charge. An 80% 50kW “rapid” charge on one of Tesla’s service station chargers takes less than an hour and costs about Ā£15 thanks to Kwarteng’s 20% VAT
June 3, 2023
Well SG the Tesla 3 AWD has a list price of Ā£51k and a range of 374 miles (according to Tesla). It is quick, with a 0-60 of 4.2 secs and a top speed of 145mph. I smiled seeing that Tesla suggest that you can “save an estimated Ā£29,600 compared to the petrol equivelent”.
Well my lovely red Alfa was Ā£12k cheaper than your Tesla (when new) so my earlier cost estimate was correct. At the traffic lights, I can (only) get up to 60mph in 6.6 secs, although on the autobahn I’d match your top speed (and I suspect keep it there for longer). In reality of course, I rarely ‘floor it’ and don’t live in Germany. I will have to pay road tax and servicing of course but the EV tax saving will be eroded over time as Government strives to replace lost revenues. I suspect that the Tesla insurance premium will be higher than on my car…
In precis. My carbon footprint will be lower than yours for at least the first ten years of ownership. During those ten years, I can pay the road fund, get the car serviced and still effectively get “free” petrol, simply because that Ā£12k more than covers those costs for a low mileage driver such as myself. In fact my road fund and first service will be covered just by the interest earned on that Ā£12k saving ( Ā£480 at 4%). Not denying that you have a nice car but neither the ‘carbon’ nor the ‘financial’ savings claimed for EVs are present in my case. I also happen to like Italian cars…. š
June 3, 2023
BTW – Just checked the kerb weight of a Tesla 3 AWD which appears to be 1928 kgs. By comparison the Alfa weighs in at 1429 kgs. That’s a 500kg difference (or nearly half a ton!)
The Tesla AWD is fast but does need 435 bhp to get there. The Alfa has less than half that power. It’s certainly a lot of extra weight to drag up hill and down dale…
June 4, 2023
Ian – 1,829kg Tesla, BMW 3 1595kg – the Tesla does seem very safe and holds the road well, donāt forget to add in the weight of the fuel of an ICE vehicle about 45kg and the oil in the engine (it is nice not having to go to a filling station every week), most of the weight in an ICE is at the front whereas the new EVs have weight dispersed more evenly to make it less skittish on the road. Iām a newish convert, if they canāt improve the battery life Musk will have to find a way to have exchangeable batteries and work on making them lighter. Remember the size of mobile phones when they came out compared to what we have now and the battery life now in comparison, we had to carry a large battery in a bag around with us to get a full days use out of the phone, I remember my Mum telling me theyād never catch on.
I am more worried about the cost, the terrible second hand re-sale market because of the battery deterioration and the end of life disposal of them.
June 3, 2023
I guess you have a bunch of Tesla Power Walls to store all that “free” electricity?
Is this really cost effective for the average person and is it really a realistic CO2 neutral solution?
June 3, 2023
SG, which Tesla car models have a range of anywhere near 500 miles ?
I’ve seen many Teslas out on the road, and they look shoddy to me, unlike a Mercedes or an Audi.
June 4, 2023
The new Kia EVs and hybrids are worth a look my colleague switched from BMW and is pleased with the change and cost savings.
June 4, 2023
Hybrids do t qualify as āgreenā.
June 4, 2023
I believe some do Lynn if itās plug-in and can travel daily shorter journeys on its battery alone. The Kia we are trialling only needs the petrol if it goes over 37 miles between recharging. Itās done over 600 miles so far and still has a near full petrol tank around Ā£35 of petrol fuel in total. There were big delays getting it, it was delayed five months from the original expected date. We swapped because the 17 year old Merc was getting too expensive to fix and to fill up.
June 4, 2023
They might not qualify as green but certainly donāt pollute as much in centres of towns where traffic hardly moves at more than 20 mph.
June 3, 2023
Sir John, you are doing a fine job of critiquing the net zero scam on its own terms, so I for one would not wish you to ‘take on the scientists’. In any case, this would be a battle you would not win. As has been said, 97% of the scientists agree… with their funders.
June 3, 2023
Thatās not strictly true, Richard. Clintel and over 1000 scientists signed a declaration stating there is no climate emergency. A Canada based open letter was sent in 2019 to the UN signed by 500 scientists stating the same. Itās just that the pro emergency scientists have louder voices. Anti emergency scientists tend to be discredited to shut them up!
June 3, 2023
They don’t get funded and are sometimes sacked as it doesn’t go with the religion.
June 3, 2023
Similar to what happened to Galileo when he backed the Sun-centred model of the solar system !
June 3, 2023
Indeed they alas often do.
“Stop the net zero policies that will add to CO2 and damage the UK economy”
The following certainly do this.
1. replacing perfectly serviceable ICE cars with EVs
2. the push for so called renewable but unreliable wind and solar energy that need gas, coal or biofuel back up.
3. Running gas stations less efficiently do to the need to back up wind power,
4. Chopping forests down to import on diesel ships to burn at Drax – worse than coal.
5. Importing methane on ships rather than using local methane or even coal. Get fracking!
6 Solar panels on roofs rarely generate enough energy to justify the energy needed to install and maintain them. Can also be expensive to clean etc. when on roofs.
Even the over insulation of homes can use far more energy than this can ever save and make little economic or practical sense.
7. Heat pumps can sometimes make sense but rarely do especially in older homes and very expensive and often noisy too.
8. The green hydrogen wind energy storage system is insane outside a few very specialist areas. Very energy wasteful and a very expensive way to store energy.
June 3, 2023
What scientists think is a matter for them alone.
Demand drives our economy.
Consumers buy what they choose for themselves.
June 3, 2023
Bloke, subsidies are being used to break the rules of free choice and competition.
June 3, 2023
Yes, daft Govt tries to distort EV incompetence with subsidy, yet it canāt disguise the waste of a bad buy. Consumers remain free to decide and many will choose to keep their ICE motor and dump the bad Govt instead.
June 4, 2023
Never take a Govt bribe – itās to do what you would otherwise not do. Trust your own judgement – the subsidies are transient, your purchases are not.
June 3, 2023
Agree – I wouldn’t buy an EV because I’m skeptical about the UN IPCC reports and any imposed government BAN
June 3, 2023
The public are not interested in this green crap if they were there would be more than one MP in Parliament, any thing to do with net zero climate change ozone layer is just smoke and mirrors to fleece every last penny from the people of this great country no matter which party is in power, we need a very big change in the way this country is run and government to come clean on the true facts about the environment and stop using the planet to screw us left right and centre, to start open up coal fields to fuel our power stations and get on with fracking the fuel beneath us
June 3, 2023
Agree 100%
And what happened to the idea of new small scale production? Raincoat factories?
Still strangled at birth by regulations.
There never was a bonfire.
As ifā¦
There is a wonderful woman in India ( appears on YouTube) who takes on the globalists in every way. She said recently that India is super rich in small enterprise ( like we were once) but that global forces are trying to subsume all that for their own profits. Just like they have done to us. But at least she is wary and understands what is happeningā¦and presumably has no vested interests.
June 3, 2023
Youāre not even allowed to build a motor go-kart in your shed anymore ā¦no wonder thereās no longer any enterprise in the UK
June 3, 2023
Good grief!
Are they really that terrified of competition?
They probably, rightly are because the shed built version would actually work!
June 3, 2023
The people only voted for one (1) Green Party MP out of 650 …doesn’t this tell you about the level of net-zero interest in the UK
June 4, 2023
Government should NOT be allowed to legislate for anything not in its manifesto, and must be compl]Ellen to complete its manifesto pledges within the parliament – or be banned from standing in the following election.
That would concentrate their minds.
June 4, 2023
+1
June 3, 2023
If the Net Zero lunacy was being imposed because CO2 is a greenhouse gas and “governments and many scientists want a bit less of it” they could easily achieve it by changing their own behaviour.
For a start, the EU Parliament could stop its monthly trek from Brussels to Strasbourg and back again. The COP Boondoggles could be held by zoom. Someone could take away Sunak’s passport, to stop him flying around the world to posture and preen with other, equally hypocritical, national “leaders.” King Charles could ditch the helicopters, planes and luxury cars; he could restrict himself to one palace and adopt a far less luxurious lifestyle.
Reducing CO2 is impossible unless India, China (and many other countries) agree to join a global drive to wreck their economies and abandon their building programmes for coal-fired power stations. They’re not going to do that.
They are watching as western governments are wrecking their economies and deliberately impoverishing their own people and can’t believe the level of stupidity on display – or their luck.
It has nothing to do with reducing CO2. It’s about CONTROL of “the peasants,” and the introduction of a Chinese-style “social credit” system to reduce their consumption.
June 3, 2023
Donna
ā It has nothing to do with reducing CO2. Itās about CONTROL of āthe peasants,ā and the introduction of a Chinese-style āsocial creditā system to reduce their consumptionā
Absolutely it is!
June 3, 2023
+1
June 3, 2023
+1
June 3, 2023
Donna
On form again today Donna, very well said
June 3, 2023
Yes Donna. Exactly right.
June 3, 2023
Indeed. I suspect the Chinese/Indians and Eastern states invented climate change/CO2, bogey gas, to take over manufacturing, knowing the level of knowledge/competence of our PPE leaders.
June 3, 2023
Cripes! Should we be removing water vapour from the atmosphere too?
June 3, 2023
Bob Dylan ‘a hard rain’s a-gonna fall 1963.
extract.
And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, that roared out a warnin’
I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
I heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
June 3, 2023
SJR makes many strong points proving how awkward electric cars remain, including impact damage to their clumsy batteries as yet another high risk many hadnāt considered.
EVs waste so much effort carrying dead weight batteries everywhere, limping like a man carrying a post box on his back just to deliver a letter. Make batteries light, or take them off! Bumper cars carry two people and dodgem. Maybe the road could bear the weight easier.
June 3, 2023
When you order a Tesla can you insist it drives itself unaccompanied to your address, parks and hoots before turning the engine off?
June 4, 2023
If Tesla were fully automatic small cars would grow in the garage overnight from a 13 amp socket.
June 3, 2023
A very good piece Sir John.
I would take issue with CO2. A greenhouse gas it may be but at .04% of the atmosphere it is a very minor trace gas, so the warming effect must be minimal. I read from informed sources that it is at an historic low and that should it drop below .02% life on Earth will start to struggle. It is essential for life!
Your demonised diesel car is an excellent choice and very clean with modern exhaust filtration systems.
Pretty well everything that requires tax payer subsidies is wrong in principal and NZ is a fanciful construct of addled minds or, worse, a means of destroying the economy and controlling people.
June 3, 2023
Agree with every word
June 3, 2023
Lets just consider Net zero and then think actual Government policy. Importing 1.2 million immigrants a year this year, last year and every year above promised levels. No real serious effort to cut this at all whilst spinning lies. A tiny proportion of these immigrants are “gold” visas. The vast majority are students, their “DEPENDENTS (SERIOUSLY)” and minimum wage workers and their families who immediately become a burden to English taxpayers. In and out of work benefits, health costs for their families, education, housing and many other costs. So does their large number add to the carbon footprint or are they a benefit to English taxpayers?
This is the same Government that won’t allow fracking but allows imported fracked gas from elsewhere. It penalises and places windfall taxes on our energy companies but allows imports of oil and gas. It refuses to allow affordable extraction of our own oil and gas or coal generated power. However imports coal from elsewhere and doesn’t place charges on goods produced by coal powered manufactured goods elsewhere on the globe. It charges our companies carbon taxes.
Our Government are fools. No education, no strategy, no brains and certainly devoid of any common sense to look after the people of the UK.
June 3, 2023
Timeaction how can studentās families claim anything? They are supposed to pay a medical insurance fee or their country refilled in some cases where reciprocal arrangements exist, how much treatment is the NHS giving and how much is recharged, i wonder now how much we are recharged by Australia, New Zealand or Canada? How many student families are claiming and how much, what exactly are they entitled to? I read that foreign students are paying around Ā£15k per annum to uk universities for their training and arenāt eligible for UK student loans am I wrong?
June 3, 2023
My only criticism of Sir John, for whom by the way I have enormous respect, is that he and his party try to distance themselves from the woke fascist ideology that is now infecting the economy and its financial system that powers some of it. I find that utterly hypocritical and deliberate. You can no longer separate the economy from woke.
Woke ideology that seeks to weaponise humanity, climate and life itself is leading for example to banks closing branches who seek ESG certs, reduce the sinister invention that is CFP’s. green, racial and transgender woke is also infecting advertising with racial ID, product availability, closing manufacturing ie ICE cars, education etc
So the Tory party fear opposing woke but they cannot hide from woke and its effect on the economy. Woke is fascist and it’s Marxist. It seeks TOTAL CONTROL but people are fighting back against this cancerous poison. It is time SJR and his party recognise the dangers of woke especially in the green space
And climate scientists are now merely paid activist lackeys who will pump out any old crap for a few shekels. Opposing these leaches exposes their duplicity and that’s a positive
I see Labour received Ā£1.5m from Just Stop Oil funder this week, next day they commit to ending all NS oil exploration. This stinks
The BBC is also now woke fascist and what do the Tories do? Sweet FA, they leave it alone. Why? Because the Tories don#’t give a toss any more. That’s what upsets me
If the Tories won’t defend this nation from racial, gender and green woke poison then we are screwed. At some point the people will wake up. I believe when Labour come into power they will step over the line and trigger a fightback from people finally waking up
June 3, 2023
I wish I could boycott some of these Woke companies but I don’t use any of their products. You have to wonder why they are committing commercial suicide. They latest advert from North Face is a joke and will alienate the majority of their customers. Targeting children’s clothes with perverted logos is also a big no-no. It’s good customers are fighting back because our politicians are just weak or in collision with these radical cults.
June 3, 2023
DOM, ++++++++. I agree wholeheartedly with your comments
June 3, 2023
Net Zero is not about CO2, it is now a Marxist religion directed to total control over all of our lives. This can be seen in the behaviour of the adherents – they are oblivious to any kind of rational argument against any of their actions. We need the equivalent of the Reformation to break their grip on Western society.
June 3, 2023
+1
June 3, 2023
I completely agree Sir John, an excellent summary. Parliament and Civil Service officials including the Climate Change Committee are out of step with public opinion. Their failure to consult and listen to public opinion on Net Zero will be their undoing.
June 3, 2023
Why are people planning to vote Labour? It just doesn’t make sense as they will only make things much worse.
June 3, 2023
Christine.
I donāt think people are planning to vote Labour. They just wonāt vote unless a new party representing sound judgement and common sense stands at the election.
June 3, 2023
Not voting just makes the minority of zealots one side or the other the most powerful, donāt you think thatās what the higher powers want.
June 3, 2023
Why, Christine? Here’s what I’d say. Depending on the person, it’s because:
1) They want somewhere to live they can afford, and that’s what’s Labour is promising.
2) The Tory government has increased taxation.
3) The Tories are arrogant but at the same time incompetent.
4) There’s a feeling that we’re being governed from abroad.
MT would have understood all four reasons, I reckon.
June 3, 2023
Clough,
1) what is labour promising on housing? How many low cost homes are they building and with whose money and where?
2) The Tories have increased taxes on the middle and upper earners – it has reduced them for people under Ā£35k, the personal allowance for tax and NI has increased and for national insurance has significantly increased. It has substantially increased the NMW/NLW 10% this year. They could do more on VAT on key purchases but we are told regularly the lower earners are most affected by food costs and there is no VAT on most essential food products, the 5% on home energy should be removed as promised, a lot of social housing near me has solar panels on the roof.
How many solar panels are on schools and hospitals if theyāre so efficient and effective?
3) I agree a lot of Tory MPs seem arrogant but there are a lot that arenāt. I also hear a lot of arrogant Labour and LibDem MPs. They all seem to believe they can spend the same money twice by borrowing more for future generations to repay, the plates are stopping spinning soon. You never hear them say weāve made x money, local councils just seem to introduce loss making enterprises that only cover wages and the ratepayers end up topping up the losses! All parties.
4) Agree.
June 3, 2023
A-Tracy
Re pt 1:- 150,000
https://conservativehome.com/2023/03/07/bartek-staniszewski-labour-promises-a-new-deal-on-housing-but-fails-the-key-challenge-of-increasing-supply/
June 3, 2023
5) And Labour is giving everyone a unicorn.
June 3, 2023
+1
June 3, 2023
Imagine having motorways descending for miles at a few degrees then ascending the same recurrently. Could āwater powerā push the cars?
Rainwater poured into car hoppers at the peaks could empty when they need minimum power to reach the next. Current motorways are often slower.
June 3, 2023
Well said Sir John. I agree with all you say except this part “I accept that CO 2 like methane and water vapour is a greenhouse gas” There’s simply not enough of it to be a problem;
CO2. 0.045%
Methane. 0.00017%
Water vapour, Very variable, usually between 2% – 4% and of course is practically uncontrollable.
June 3, 2023
Well water, CO2 and methane clearly affect heat and light radiation in and out and indeed that climate (as do millions of other factors). But there is no reason to think there is a climate emergency. Even if there were the net zero lunacy āsolutionsā being pushed do not work anyway.
June 3, 2023
I see it is being reported in today’ press, that there was an alleged disinformation policy department within government, to counter those who criticised Government Covid policy, I wonder if there is also a similar department that is trying to shut down Net Zero discussion/criticism and the policies that go with it. Perhaps it would explain why so much common-sense is at the moment failing to appear from many politicians, I of course exclude our host, who has always been outspoken about this topic, and who’s posting today reads like a breath of fresh, and contains many of the logical thoughts and reasons why I have recently purchased a new diesel vehicle.
The only failing I see with Modern vehicles of all types, ICE vehicles included, is the mass of complicated electronic features that are included for so called safety reasons, which are nothing the kind if you drive sensibly, and are attentive to road conditions and the possible actions of other Drivers and pedestrians.
June 3, 2023
Think smart-meter, think smart-EV …..its about control, they can switch you on & off whenever they like
June 3, 2023
BA. Yes I read this too. I can believe it is being used to stop a lot of sensible discussion in the public domain. The only place you get to hear a lot of what is actually going on is through GB News with Farage, Neil Oliver and Lee Anderson. I find the BBC report on a lot of nonsense and never mention an alternative view.
June 3, 2023
+1 appalling and they were shutting down the people who were right. As we also see with the attacks on Andrew Bridgen.
June 3, 2023
Alan, what you’re saying is more than likely, as the CDU was set up in 2019, before Covid. I think you’ll find this was under Theresa May, and coordinated with the EU, who did something similar.
June 3, 2023
Think you have summed up exactly the current status & why EVs will not take off. People need to see product & cost benefits not be forced into a purchase because politicians say so! EVs are only suitable for those who drive short distances every day. Not yet a cost effective solution for the majority.
June 3, 2023
‘Fiat has called on the government to boost incentives for British motorists to buy EVs, after warning that growth in UK sales of the vehicles has tailed off after a key subsidy was scrapped last year.’
The people arenāt buying EVs because the people donāt want EVs
June 3, 2023
A plan by the Irish government to cull 200,000 cows at a cost of ā¬600 million over the next three years in order to meet carbon climate
June 3, 2023
Why cull them at all? Just stop inseminating the cows. Typically cattle go to ‘market’ at 30 months old.
It wouldn’t take long for the population to fall away.
June 3, 2023
Stop Nett Zero in its entirety. By all means have targets for the overall cleaner life we wish to achieve, but with no timescale punishments or penalties. Absolutely cease penalising the motorist who in past purchasing decisions has gone along with government’s encouragement only to find themselves blindsided. Diesel, quite erroniously, has gone from the vehicle to have to satans friend, largely down to government ignorance. Leave the targets we wish to achieve to our engineers and scientists to resolve and let the market decide. That way we arrive at solutions and everyone is happy.
Kerb the autonomous powers of devolved government in England at least. What Sadiq Khan is doing in London is a luxury we can live without, unless you wish to kill off the capital.
Try governing with consent for the benefit of the people rather than the vested interests whose interests now predominate. Their undemocratic coupe is the catalyst for rebellion, the way the Brits normally rebel at ecection time. Those that think choices are limited, which on the face of it they currently are, should remember the speed with which the Brexit party arose to dominate the last EU election we participated in. In the current dire situation I hope it happens again.
June 3, 2023
Physical switches in a car can be operated without having to look at them, e.g. one can stretch an arm out to turn the radio off and the hand goes straight to it through practice.āNot so with a touch-sensitive screen where one must look to touch and then look for feedback.
June 3, 2023
I agree. VW have come under attack overt this and, to their credit, will be going back to buttons. Trouble is it will not be for sometime.
Let us hope others follow suit.
June 4, 2023
Yes. I think it very dangerous for the driver to feel that they are a passenger and donāt need to pay attention ābecause the car will do it all on its ownā. You need to pay attention all the time when in charge of a vehicle, not intermittently when the adverts come on!
June 3, 2023
Sir John, by accepting the premise that we must aim for net zero you allow the siren voices to dictate policy because it is a “crisis”.
You sensible market led approach which excludes the accounting scams will not be heard because we MUST STOP everything.
First we need to depopularise net zero, by discrediting the carbon theory then market driven solutions can take over
June 3, 2023
Why is a wealthy individual financing Just Stop Oil criminals and also financing the filth Labour party?
Why is it not a criminal offence to finance those who then break with intent seek to break the criminal law?
Surely Labour are also committing offences by accepting cash from someone who knows he is financing those who intend to break the law of the land?
The Police stand by and simply watch JSO criminals break the law while law abiding people are prevented from stopping those parasites from breaking the law? Surely it’s incumbent on us all to stop others from breaking the law? I believe it’s still lawful to carry out a citizen arrest?
It really is time the Tories decide WHOSE SIDE THEY ARE ON. Is it the scum Left or the moral majority. At present we can see John”s party is on the side of the Left out of simple political convenience
June 3, 2023
Some great posts today Dom.
June 3, 2023
The Blue-Green Socialists still have a 65 seat majority. They could declare Just Stop Oil and Extremist Rebellion are terrorist organisations – which is what they appear to be – and it would immediately become illegal to fund them.
So why don’t they? I guess it’s because they are happy for “the peasants” to be terrorised by them …. and Uncle Klaus wouldn’t like it if they did anything meaningful to prevent their campaigns.
June 4, 2023
Better be careful! By the same light those who arm a combatant are at war too.
June 3, 2023
Well said SirJ, the voice of common economic sense, your argument is mirror across to the government ban on gas central heating and the subsidy of heat pumps ….there’s debate that these ‘bans’ could bring down the German government
June 3, 2023
glen cuÄŗlen
I do hope so, the that will set a precedent. If it has happen to them?
Heed the warning.
June 3, 2023
If our STEM-illiterate politicians did the sums they could find a route to Net Zero that would at actually work without crashing the economy.
1. Frack, and substitute UK sourced compressed natural gas to replace all oil, diesel, solid fuel uses.
2. Using the savings made by converting our economy to low CO2, cheap and secure methane we then use the savings made to fund a fleet of SMRs, gradually converting away from fossil fuels.
If Net Zero is actually necessary (which I doubt) then this route will get us there with an intact economy. If in ten years time the ‘scientists’ notice that they’ve miscalculated then no harm will have been done as we’d be better off and more secure.
JF
(While I’m here… fund research into the global warming effects of oil and surfactant pollution lowering ocean albedo. Then look at the results of those problems together with the warming caused by feeding the oceans with dissolved silica, sewage and farming run-off. There’s a good canary in the coal mine: see the warming of the Sea of Marmora.)
June 3, 2023
Dear Sir John
I agree on all counts.
This is NOT about taking on the scientists about global warming – it is about taking on some seasoned project managers to focus on delivery rather than making unrealistic promises just to be seen politically correct.
Taking time now to focus on the āHOWā will actually expedite the process at lower cost and win public support. The current haphazard process gives no confidence whatsoever – bit like much of what Messrs Sunak and Hunt are saying at the moment.
Kind regards
Graeme Dexter
June 3, 2023
Sir Redwood,
Nut-zero is pointless as 90% of the world, including Germany, China, India, all of Asia, Africa and South America will be increasing their fossil fuel usage, mainly coal, for the foreseeable future.
China is building 85 new coal power stations per year and financing another 100 in the third world.
Any reductions of our 1% of global CO 2, will be completely drowned in this deluge.
June 3, 2023
Thank you for your excellent piece Sir John, it sums up my case exactly.
I lean towards the ‘Lawsonian’ view of climate change, especially as there is evidence that Carbon Dioxide follows increase in atmospheric temperature and not the other way round.
But this has largely become a moot point because of group think.
I am far more concerned with toxic waste from mining activities and damaging waste in the marine environment than the production of CO2 which trees and other plants thrive on.
My Wife and I have just returned from East Cornwall after visiting Family (they have no parking or charging facility) so it is just as well I have a diesel engined car. Averaged 53mpg and still have half a tank of fuel. Audi have a system of recirculating exhaust gases back into the engine to facilitate a more complete combustion and a filter which captures all particulates.
Incidentally, although we are comfortably off pensioners, we cannot afford a new or nearly new car of any type. So I’m going to stick with what we have.
Keep up the good work.
June 3, 2023
“I would dislike the way they are trying to be mobile phones on wheels, with too any things controlled through a touch screen. Touchscreens in cars get clouded from fingers touching , are difficult to read when the sun is shining on them and often do not respond to your first or second touch. Switches are easier to see , always work and are more positive generally.”
Anyway, should motorists be jabbing at a cloudy screen instead of concentrating on driving safely?
June 3, 2023
Most things are automatic, windscreen wipers, lights, dipped headlights, you can talk to the control panel and give it instructions with less hand movement than you would have changing gear. I see the downsides on recharging but the control panel isnāt a problem.
June 3, 2023
I have a diesel Euro 6 engine and it is a wonderful thing. Highly refined and while only 2 litres provide 200 HP and over 400 newton metres of torque. On a motorway it does over 60 mpg, on a dual carriageway over 50 mpg, around town with “start stop” it is high 40’s mpg. All this and adblue it produces 120 gm/km. It is the highest level of sophistication for an ICE and yes well over 600 miles range on a full tank. It is less polluting than an equal powered petrol engine which usually is in the 30 mpg consumption range.
So answer me this, are caravan and motor home users ever going to find EV a better alternative to diesel?
By the way in most of Europe diesel is 20 cents/litre cheaper than petrol whereas in the UK diesel it is 20 cents/litre more expensive, the UK Government isn’t governing it’s playing games with the electorate.
June 3, 2023
Sir John
As usual you are correct at every level, the problem is your Party has allowed their leadership to be stolen from under their noses. We have a Socialist Cabal in power that has no intention of acting as if they were Conservative, or putting the UKās economy front and centre. No economy equals no money to keep us secure and protect our future.
Without an economy there is no UK, your chosen Conservative Government and its leadership have put falling into line with WEF and the collective āBlobā mandate of Government first and foremost by the unelected unelectable bureaucrats is how the will dictate direction. What they will not do is serve the people who actually voted for them and empowered them.
June 3, 2023
A plug in hybrid would, to some extent, make sense for me. Retired, most of my journeys are less than 20 miles return. And Iād have an engine for longer journeys. BUT, on a longer journey, once the battery is discharged and I am using the engine, the ICE engine, is then having to lug around a heavy battery and electric motor that are dead weight and contributing nothing. The fantastic economy figures for plug in hybrids are nonsense on longer journeys.
That said my non plug in hybrid – Toyota Yaris – does 60 to the gallon.
For me, and (I think) for many people, a small electric runabout would suffice for 90% of journeys, with a ICE car kept just for long journeys. When you can get a little electric car with a range of about 40 to 50 miles – for, say, Ā£15k – Iāll buy one. But I want to keep an ICE car too.
June 3, 2023
Keep an eye out for the Ikea car š from Sweden.
June 3, 2023
I would not want to alarm anyone or tell lies but I do think that in the interest of our poor frying planet we should turn our attention to VOLCANOES!
Apparently they constantly emit gas, not least CO2!!
Grotto del Cane, Valley of Death in Java,Death Gulch in Yellowstone Parkā¦all have CO2 emissions.
Apparently the Delphic Oracle depended on inhaling CO2 so Apollo could speak through her.
Youād think that would interest our leaders what with all the divination that goes on? Maybe a small fissure on the floor of the House?
Anywayā¦weāll see when they go off with their ropes and pick axes to seal all the volcanoesā¦
Or could they use volcanoes in some way to offset our carbon footprint?
āIt werenāt us it were that there volcano!ā
Interestingly Heathfield (Sussex)railway station was lit at one time with natural gas ( methane?). Had to put a stop to that of course!
June 3, 2023
Sir John
This weekend sees a weekend of sport and some of us enjoy seeing F1. F1 is primarily based in the UK, lots of fantastic engineers, and is a massive earner for the UK economy.
Our very enlightened ConSocialist Government in recognition of F1 contribution to the UK economy and the strength and depth of enterprise is supplies in support of the UK as a whole ā has banned F1 from being based in the UK from 2030. As that is what the ban on ICEās means
More of what the UK is good at being trashed on the High Alter of WEF Socialism by their UK disciples ā that sums up the thinking of the idiots that have stolen power.
F1 will survive, the rest of the World isnāt engaged in the race to the bottom, its a UK only enterprise.
The wider UK Conservative Party must be proud of the destruction they have created in their 13 years in power. And it is the Conservative Party that is the fault line, by winning the election with a massive majority they get to chose the parties leadership, therefore the PM. The electorate empowered the Party not the Government, the fact they have chosen to ignore that is a cross they will have to carry into the next election
June 3, 2023
‘A team of climate scientists and published by the European Geosciences Union reveals that the Antarctic ice shelf area has grown by 5305 km2 from 2009-2019, gaining 661 Gt of ice mass over the past decade.’
So why do I need to buy an EV ?
June 3, 2023
There! I said just the other day that we need to go back to coal.
Warm the planet up a bit.
Bravo the brave scientists who let that particular cat out of the bag!
June 3, 2023
Bravo indeed ….whats been lacking is a balanced arguement, a view from the other side of the net-zero fence
June 3, 2023
There is no point in that, because it is the media and politicians who are pushing the case for global warming.
My solution would be to insist that the media and others who constantly come up with distorted ‘facts’ be told to prove them.
The politicians and famous names who keep spouting nonsense and repeating fake ideas, (Like polar bears are becoming extinct), should be shown up for their ignorance on the subject and investigated to see what they gain from taking this stance.
We hear today from GWPF that the Antarctic ice shelf area has grown by 5305 km2 from 2009-2019 – So let’s work with the real facts and kill off the innuendo and fake news from those that should know better!
June 3, 2023
Hear, hear.
June 3, 2023
Sir John, you have expressed in a polite and measured manner the very same points about EVs that Neil Oliver of GB News would make in one of his monologues via rousing rhetoric. If we add to the mix JRM’s maxim “politics should not be about making people’s lives difficult”, recently illustrated in his own ultra polite criticisms of the dash to Net Zero (which Neil Oliver and many others would rightly label the Great Leap Backward), we are looking at a formidable political force ranged against current – and utterly misguided – orthodoxy.
We may then in turn ask ourselves which banner would be most effective for this message of logic and reason to be delivered under.
June 3, 2023
Agreed Sir John. I fear that innumerate Politicos will cause us far more damage than any of the presumed climate effects.
June 3, 2023
The only way “green” will work is if it is commercially viable.
I think that is perfectly possible through conservation and innovation.
The problem is that this drive has been hijacked by socialists, communists and Marxists.
If it could be a market-driven effort, it will work.
While the extremists and unelected are driving things, it will fail
June 3, 2023
Dear Sir John,
I think your critics would prefer you to actually take on the Government to get them to follow your advice on net-zero. Just asking the Government questions and giving your readers your views and advice is not getting us very far I am afraid. Clearly they just ignore you. A very great pity but this seems to be the reality.
You are more in the Reform Party, and even the NF camp, than the Conservatives who have totally lost the plot and sold out to the Globalist left elite. Even the labour party is a shadow of its former self of my younger days. Your efforts are appreciated but you are part of a very small minority in the Conservative Party with no power to bring about change I am very sorry to say.
June 3, 2023
Logic the case for electric vehicles can only be made when the UK is resilient and self-reliant and has an abundance of cheap electricity
The Conservative Party after 13 years in power instead of ensuring a UK energy structure they have exported it to foreign primarily foreign government control and ownership. That is 100% opposite that their duty in power demanded of keeping the UK safe and secure.
In reality this Conservative Party has hocked the right of the UK to exist. That is not being Phobic about Foreigners, but all the deals the Conservative Government have done with Foreign Nations on the crucial parts of UK existence, security, integrity, are one sided. In every other Nation the UK taxpayer is tasked with funding for its strategic needs, their own Governments would not under any circumstances permit a similar reciprocal arrangement having their own taxpayers funding a UK owned strategic infrastructure in their own domain.
That’s how dumb and stupid these people in power in the UK have shown themselves to be.
June 3, 2023
Unless the Government changes its tune concentrating on electric cars would put us at the mercy of outside producers . I have a petrol car that has a recorded mileage of 41mpg ; it is just over 3 years old . At its recent MOT examination I questioned the Service manager whether he would select an electric car over a petrol driven one , his immediate reply was ” No”. Honesty is always the best policy .
June 3, 2023
Bert Electric cars donāt need as much servicing.
June 4, 2023
They use the recovery services and the Fire Brigade more though.
June 4, 2023
Do they Iād seriously like to know how many times the British Fire Brigade has been called out in a year to EV vehicles and for what main reasons?
I find the limp mode on ICE diesel vehicles cause far more recoveries than anything else even when you service them more often than that stipulated by the manufacturer. The DPF filters replaced more regularly than the handbook asks for and adblue costing a fortune.
Iām a recent convert to EV and Hybrid, I had all the same concerns, my main concern is still cost, the number of people it would put off the road altogether as the second hand market is too unreliable, but I have to be honest Lynn, I like the cars.
June 4, 2023
But large amounts of hours unavailable being recharged. Liquid refuelling maybe 2 mins averaged over a month or so.
June 4, 2023
Thats why on of the cars is a hybrid and not both EV so on longer journeys we can use petrol. However, one charge lasts all week in the Tesla and it charges at night on the lower cost tariff.
June 4, 2023
The hybrid Kia needs charging more often but most under 35 mile journeys are completed solely on battery.
June 3, 2023
Instead of amending the HRA and leaving the ECHR so we can DEPORT criminal migrants, Jenrick has just had a lovely trip around north Africa and parts of Europe …. clocking up the air-miles and increasing the Government’s CO2 emissions.
Has he stopped any criminal migrants from coming? Has he deported any? No. But he’s made a pretty good job of pretending that the Not-a-Conservative-Party is going to try and do it.
Watch what they do:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/06/02/robert-jenrick-fight-people-smugglers-stop-the-boats/
June 3, 2023
@Donna +1 – yes an incredible diatribe, lots of taxpayer money spent all to get out of actually doing some work or even his job. It sums up this Government in it entirety, people unfit for purpose extracting as much noise as they can all with the aim of stroking self esteem. We pay these people!
June 3, 2023
He was writing strategy, not actually removing illegals or taking real actions but filling a few paragraph inches with bullshit. The problem he has is like the rest of the electorate no one believes him anymore. He wrote of removing 1000 Albanion’s over an unknown period of time whilst failing to acknowledge we get this figure………..daily. We have waited years and still no action.
June 3, 2023
To make an EV produces a similar amount of CO2 as a conventional vehicle emits in 50,000 miles. It makes far more sense for most of us to stick with our existing car than to replace it with an EV. Also the battery is such an integral part of the car that they have to be written off after comparatively minor accidents.
June 3, 2023
@J+M It would appear that this Conservative Government wants rid of all types of manufacture, with their import only directive. If even more CO2 is produced abroad to satisfy UK demands – that just doesn’t count,
Wind-farms rely on foreign government involvement with Chinese components. Solar energy from imported Chinese components. UK based Nuclear energy is French Government controlled. All anticipated EVās if not built actually in China is 55% Chinese content for the forceable future, even the mainstream Teslar in the UK is Chinese.
The kick in the teeth for UK enterprise, foreign companies get UK Taxpayer subsidies and grants, UK owned enterprises donāt.
June 3, 2023
The Tories have always been against nationalisation, except when owned by foreigners, like EDF.
June 3, 2023
Methane in the atmosphere is oxidised into carbon dioxide and water as are all hydrocarbons. The sun converts the carbon dioxide into vegetation which feeds animals. Therefore those who are preaching that we need to eat grubs and give up meat and diary are lying. Why not make lying to pervert public policy a serious criminal offence? Why not abolish the teaching of Arts subjects and mandate the teaching of science so that ignorant fools cannot continue to restrict our lives with unnecessary laws that have no lasting effect on the environment?
June 3, 2023
āI accept that CO 2 like methane and water vapour is a greenhouse gas and I understand that governments and many scientists want a bit less of it.ā
Iām afraid, Sir John, that this statement completely destroys any arguments you have concerning the expense and impracticality of green replacements for fossil fuel devices, such evs for ices.
The activists at the BBC, HMG, DES&NZ, XR, JSO etc. will simply call you selfish to be demanding that green devices should match existing fossil fuel devices before transitioning when Net Zero is absolutely essential for the planet and hence for all life on earth to exist. They will accuse you of not caring about the lives of your children and grand children or those of billions on this planet if you donāt make the necessary transitions to evs and heat pumps etc..
They will say that Net Zero is so important that it will be necessary to ration energy, food, heating, transport to achieve it. In fact only a select few will be able to have personal vehicles at all and be able to travel freely outside of their designated areas. So the expense and impracticality of evs is of minor importance.
June 3, 2023
Original Richard, this is absolutely right. Unless you immediately declare the principle of net zero to be absurd nonsense, you enter a complicated, confused battlefield, with infinite little arguments pro and against this and that, as we see above.
It’s vital to insist there is no man made global warming and that everything which is based on that premise is therefore pointless.
Reply It will be more difficult to change governments on the theory than change policies which are damaging even given their beliefs and aims.
June 3, 2023
On what theory when no contrary view is allowed or discussed? Every year no climate changes. Wheres the global warming or the melting icecaps?
June 3, 2023
Reply to Reply :
I respectfully disagree. CAGW is a religion/cult for some which history shows us that many will follow to the death. Then there are politicians who will never accept that they are wrong and will continue with their policies to the bitter end.
Finally there are those who will simply follow the religion/cult simply because it brings them a fortune. For them the following can always be applied :
“It is always possible to wake a man that is sleeping but impossible wake a man who is pretending to sleep.”
June 3, 2023
UK Peak car Production 2,332,376.
Since the Conservative Government has taken office the UK has lost(given away) 48% of its car manufacturing.
Further perspective the UK now exports 78%(was 75%) of its 700K production so a UK revenue earner.
It doesnāt do reciprocal trade, level playing field trade or even free trade. Its sole policy is of destruction and to disadvantage the UK.
All that will soon be gone we have an import only Conservative Government, determined to sacrifice a whole āpeopleā on the back of personal self esteem and ego.
There is not a single economic reason for them to trash the UK as a whole in the way the are doing. NetZero is a smokescreen for malicious destruction.
June 3, 2023
OT but amusing today to see a bunch of Remainers who want to rejoin the EU single market moaning about the FTA with Australia. So, an FTA with the EU with whom we have a trade deficit is good but an FTA with Australia with whom we have a trade surplus is bad, and import of cheap beef from Ireland is good but from Australia is bad.
June 3, 2023
I agree with all your points, and totally understand that you wish to highlight better ways of getting the public on board with the agenda.
However, catastrophic man-made global warming has been proved by experts to be a lie, and policy based on a lie is just that – a lie.
News has come out today that the government runs a Counter Disinformation unit, which during the āpandemic emergencyā spied on – and tried to censor – anyone flagging up erroneous government policy. The Telegraph comments āThe company flagged discussions opposing vaccine passports. Many of the issues being raised were valid and have since proved to be well foundedā. Those censored included Professor Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford. In other words, accurate information and facts were labelled disinformation by a government committed to one side of the argument and one side only.
You say you accept CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That is not the same as saying human beings are causing any warming, nor that CO2 is detrimental. While I appreciate that not everyone is able to follow the scientific arguments fully, I would be very wary if I were you of being āhappy to acceptā everything and anything the government tells you on any scientific matter, including the so-called āclimate emergencyā.
Reply I am trying to get policy change from an establishment that does believe in global warming.
June 3, 2023
Never, ever, cease to press your point SJ.
Hopefully the truth may stick and hopefully way before the next GE. Or are they too indoctrinated as puppets of the Mandarins of Whitehall? We are not the cause of the problem!!
June 3, 2023
If we are to believe the stats we are given, the UK emits less than 1 per cent of the global total of Carbon per year.
Regardless of the thoughts of those who desperately fear human ‘created’ CO2 and Carbon why can they not appreciate that this country, OUR country, really is a LOW Emitter (0.9%) and nowhere near to levels of the world’s biggest “offenders” China, USA and India (30.9%, 13.5% and 7.3% respectively at 2021 according to Statista)?
Why is it always the good old UK who has to knuckle down in a vain and naĆÆve attempt to persuade the Rest of the World to follow our example? Is that working? Nah! no chance.
Why not refuse to do anything until those real baddies have cut their own levels?
If they truly followed the previously agreed “rules”, they would be doing much more and spending much more, rather than watching the thick Brits bankrupt themselves over a pointless vanity project. Man cannot change the weather and weather determines climates, with a lot of help from the sun god. And we should also remember without those greenhouse gases planet EARTH would be freezing barren wasteland rather like MARS. Greenhouse gases contain Water vapour without which the planet would lose much of the heat generated by the Sun. If CO2 were the main factor of Earth’s temperature rises why is the planet Mars not much hotter than it is? It’s atmosphere comprises 96% CO2 and very little water vapour. Although it’s further from the sun, why is it not multi degrees hotter than own own?
June 3, 2023
āI accept that CO 2 like methane and water vapour is a greenhouse gas and I understand that governments and many scientists want a bit less of it.ā
For most of the last 500m years, since the start of the Cambrian explosion, CO2 has been many times higher than today and showing no correlation with temperature.
From 150m years ago CO2 has been dropping steadily from around 3000 ppm down to as low as 180 ppm, just 30 ppm above the lowest level that plants can survive. This has been caused by shelled marine animals using more CO2 than was emitted by volcanoes and which formed the 100 million billion tons of carbonaceous rocks in the earthās crust. This very low level of CO2 has occurred 9 times over the last 800,000 years including at the last ice age just 11,000 years ago.
Just how much less CO2 in the atmosphere do the government and many (government funded) scientists want?
Currently it is around 400 ppm (4 molecules per 10,000)
280 ppm during the Little Ice Age 500 years ago?
180 ppm during the last ice age which ended just 11,000 years ago?
Note that the optimum for plant growth is around 1500 ppm and the safe limit for humans for continuous exposure is 4000 ppm.
If Net Zero were to become a world-wide cult and volcanoes did not emit sufficient CO2 to combat the take up of CO2 by shelled marine animals then eventually the CO2 in the atmosphere would drop below 150 ppm and all life on earth would die.
June 4, 2023
For once most of your comments are correct, OR. Only your last two paragraphs can be argued against.
a- How do you know that what you call the optimum concentration of CO2 for plant growth is the optimum for atmospheric physics?
b- Volcanoes emit mainly sulphur components, their contribution to the balance of CO2 atmospheric concentration is minimum. Otherwise when major volcanic eruptions had happened in the past, Krakatoa, Mt St Helens, Hunga Tonga, ā¦ a spike in global CO2 concentration should have been visible. Only very localised increase in CO2 around recent fierce volcanoes were seen whereas plumes of ashes/sulphate were tracked by satellites over thousands of kilometres.
c- The take up of CO2 by shelled marine animals is known to happen when there is an imbalance between the concentration of atmospheric CO2 and that in the upper layers of ocean and the process is far from being understood. Do you know things that bio-oceanographers donāt? Are you from the lab in U of Southampton mapping these processes?
(news.mit.edu, 05/04/2021, āStudy reveals uncertainty in how much carbon the ocean absorbs over timeā). southampton.ac.uk
June 4, 2023
The oceans contain more CO2 than anything on land. When atmospheric temperature rises the oceans release that trapped gas causing the rise in CO2 emissions. Temperature rises are the cause of higher CO2 levels NOT the reverse. The lag appears to be between 600-800 years.
Check out Dr Patrick Moore’s (ex Chief of Greenpeace) video on the subject here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX1z_6pvM-Q
June 5, 2023
āOceanic carbon cycleā on wikipedia shows that Dr Patrick Mooreās view is rather incomplete, and the flux of CO2 from ocean to atmosphere is counter-balanced by a bigger one from atmosphere to ocean (well worth a read and a comparison with what Dr Moore is saying).
June 4, 2023
You are probably wasting your facts on those who will not listen. As the sayings suggest, there’s none so deaf as those who will not hear nor none so blind as those who will not see.
These apply to Downing Street and Whitehall and the big pity is that there is nothing we of the back streets of Britain can do about it YET!!
Perhaps we should copy the disgruntled French who really know how to show their displeasure at Government. He who shouts the loudest always gets heard.
June 3, 2023
āI accept that CO 2 like methane and water vapour is a greenhouse gas and I understand that governments and many scientists want a bit less of it.ā
The work of Professors Happer (Princeton) and Wijngaarden (York University, Toronto) based upon real data has shown that at current levels of both CO2 and methane increasing their levels produces negligible amounts of additional greenhouse warming because of IR saturation.
They published their paper in 2019. Their findings have never been refuted by the IPCC, just ignored.
Check out on YouTube āMethane ā The Irrelevant Greenhouse Gas Dr Thomas P Sheahenā
June 4, 2023
It is rather unfortunate that your repeated comments appear to always been accepted by Sir John and mine much less often.
The original Van Wijngaarden and Happer (on arxiv.com 2006.03098) paper was correct and accounted for the adjustment to the original forcing introduced by the increase in concentration of greenhouse gases (Table 5 compares their increase in surface temperature with that obtained thirty years before by Manabe, with very good agreement).
From there on the Happer & Wijngaartenās papers have only shown the forcing (the instantaneous change in radiative fluxes: the original Figs. 4 & 5 of the 2006 paper) not the forcing and the response to the forcing. In fact H&W could not provide that because their subsequentcomputations are just for three situations and not a proper calculation that should include profiles over the whole of the Earth.
Therefore their paper has been ignored because 1/ while done in the 2010s it does not bring any new insight to the question, and 2/ by refusing to consider the response to the forcing in these more recent papers they again do not bring anything useful.
I do not doubt your eagerness on these questions. I simply think you have a very limited view of the actual question at hand. Try read more widely.
There is a lot to be discussed about the economics of doing or not something about climate change. It is getting more and more difficult to ignore the āeventsā over the last few years: February winter freeze in Texas, the heat waves in north west US, California and Australia, the standing precipitation events in Bangladesh and Pakistan these last three years, or the very high temperatures in Northern India, and Mediterranean Europe.
Well maybe it is not that difficult if one is just concerned about the weather over the UK (but still wondering why some people might want to move to ācoolerā climates).
June 3, 2023
Just watching āBatteries For EVsā select committee 23rd May on the parliament channel ā¦.its all about chasing government subsidy /support, nothing about private investment, nothing about competition, nothing about return on investment, nothing about materials, customers or work-force ā¦.it was all about complexity of government and getting big subsidies playing one country against another
June 3, 2023
In research terms it would be advantageous to get feedback from the 15 percent of Electric car users.Afew random reviews are negligible in contrast to the many, however I must agree not enough thought has gone into the science.
June 3, 2023
There’s some climate change. It’s just that the uncertainty is far higher than either side admits. Temperatures in 2050 could even be slightly lower than now.
On an income not much more than the new state pension, the notion I could ever drive a BEV is crazy. I have a 2009 Skoda diesel. In summer, fuel economy is around 3.5 litres per 100 km (85 mpg), much better than a petrol car would be, hence GHG emissions are *lower than a petrol car*. Its winter fuel economy is about 10-15% poorer than in summer. When it needs replacing, I’ll probably get another 2nd. hand Skoda diesel. It’ll see me out.
The 1999-2005 Audi A2 diesel, with ultra-lightweight aluminium bodywork, was even more economical and innovative than my current Skoda. It was prematurely discontinued, the reason had something to do with the EU refusing Audi R&D funding to help get the cost down further. The A2 TDI weighed as little as 800 kg (0.8 tonnes).
The many BEVs that weigh 1.5-2.0 tonnes will cause tens of times more road damage than an A2 and plenty more than my Skoda, due to the disproportionate effect of axle weight on road wear. The result will be more potholes. The UK will struggle to afford to repair them. If it doesn’t … well, as usual, individual drivers will foot the bill and curse the government. A ‘road tax’ related to road wear might be a good idea, even if this disadvantages BEVs slightly.
June 3, 2023
I agree 100% with Sir JR’s concerns. The combined ULEZ/LTN/EV enforcement by the state does look very much like an attack on the lower and middle classes by a wealthy elite. I pass the local EV power point every day, and see drivers parked there ‘tanking up’. They sit or stand around for hours, with empty, impassive expressions on their faces, playing with their mobiles or just staring into the air. They have no apparent time deadlines, impatient employers, tasks to achieve, places to get to…
Perhaps they are all claiming to be WFH? Or perhaps now no employer dare ask what an employee is actually doing during working hours? Do they all ‘work for the state’?
June 4, 2023
John, you could make some more efficiencies on vehicles by allowing the personal taxes on company cars to reduce after the initial three years so people run them for five years. It was kept at three to help whom? The car manufacturers, the second hand market? Who? The car importers because we donāt make enough for our market to support British manufacturers.
June 5, 2023
Simply brilliant and the TRUTH. Government policy must change and quickly before we are even poorer.