Labour is declining to promise much for fear of letting people down if it wins. Its biggest of just six first steps or pledges is to set up Great British Energy, bringing bills down by £300. There is no way such a body could cut bills.
The lengthy paper that purports to explain the soundbite proposal is long on words but short on detail. Great British Energy would have wide ranging powers and duties. It would directly invest in nuclear, solar and wind, as well as in experimental new technologies for hydrogen and storage.
How would it taking on responsibilities for the build out of Hinkley and Sizewell make any difference to the long time they are taking to complete? How would it accelerate the work already underway to support and then commission a fleet of smaller nuclear reactors? What does Labour and GB Energy know that would enable them to extend the lives of existing nuclear stations due to close. If there is a safe way to do this it should be done by the current managers and safety inspectors.
The only cost/spend number in the paper is a budget of £1 bn a year for local energy projects and Council owned companies. I highlighted yesterday how several of these lost us millions and some went bust. This could be more good money after bad.
The idea Labour could get to all no carbon UK generated power by 2030 is absurd. They admit they need to quadruple the size of the grid, criss crossing our countryside with avenues of pylons. They have hugely ambitious targets for onshore and offshore wind and solar. They say they can add almost 100GW by 2030. There is no way enough projects can be designed and financed by then for such a huge increase. Most current nuclear stations will close by 2030 .
To help force the pace of these investments the state would need to borrow tens of billions of pounds. They may want it to be off balance sheet, but however they do it it will be taxpayers and energy buyers who will pick up the bill. This is all unaffordable, will not happen and will not lower bills.
May 28, 2024
It would be another board with a very well paid chief executive and supporting team – another great opportunity for political patronage. It has also got a snappy name.
Apart from that, I am not sure of the benefits.
May 28, 2024
But JR, your party and govt.’s copied “Red Ed’s” “Marxist” energy policy, why do you think it would not follow again as they have time and again? How about the EU environment level playing field dictating energy policy?
We read today the utterly useless quango called the Environment Agency, to implement EU law regs and rules, paid their staff £8.7 million in bonuses! A quango paying bonuses from our taxes! JR your party/govt cannot stop wasting our taxes.
We currently pay extra in our community charges for work EA failed to do, so we pay twice for incompetence. This was a Blaire construct taking away work from councils. It failed after slavishly following EU rules so instead of putting work back to councils at no cost to taxpayer and saving £3.5 billion by scrapping EA, it allowed councils to charge us extra on our community charge! So we pay both for EA and councils! Sunak told councils to increase by the maximum. Could he not have scrapped EA give some of the money saved from scrapping EA back to councils? £8.7 million bonuses JR! Still you,had 14 years to change but did……….nothing.
May 28, 2024
Don’t mention Peter Mandelson
May 28, 2024
That’s easy. The ‘work already underway’ would make a snail’s pace look like the speed of light. 2015 was when the government announced looking into SMRs. 9 years on and Rolls Royce have already decided not to build one of the two factories that they planned to build components – fed up with your government’s lack of action. 2 factories were planned at sites in the North East – bringing well paid, highly skilled work to an area that really needs it.
May 28, 2024
The 4 million Tories imported over the last two years don’t use energy do they? Nor carbon footprint, nor waste or water, nor housing, nor health treatment, nor schools. They are of no benefit to the country whatsoever other than the 2,700 golden visas.
May 28, 2024
The only con is the fossil fuel industry’s carbon capture and storage scam – on which Sunak’s governmrnt has wasted £billions
What Labour are proposing is to roll back the £billions and £billions in subsidies that this government has paid to the fossil fuel industry to develop uneconomic oil and gas fields in the N Sea. Not to mention more £billions spent on the £65/month subsidy paid directly to the energy companies in the winter of 2022/23.
Under pressure from the right of the party Sunak’s government has actively obstructed the development of more free energy from home grown onshore and offshore wind, which is the cheapest form of energy available to us. Nimby campaigners such as the failed ex Environment Secretary Therese Coffey are actively obstructing the expansion of the National Grid. Thanks to his incompetence Grant Schrapps presided over the failure of the 2023 renewables auction. The list is endless.
Under Labour’s proposals cheap renewable electricity for all is on the horizon. Why dont you support it?
Reply There is nothing free about installing ,running and maintaining wind turbines and providing reliable back up for when there is no wind!
May 28, 2024
Well Sakara, for once you are right. Carbon capture and storage is indeed a pointless scam . It wastes huge amounts of energy and money for zero benefit. CO2 is harmless indeed beneficial plant food, tree and crop food.
May 28, 2024
SG
Agree with your carbon capture comments, but there is no such thing as free energy because it all requires investment to harness it.
Wind is not 100% guaranteed,
Solar only works in daylight hours.
Biomass burns trees and the emissions need filtering.
Nuclear has a waste (and a possible safety risk) problem, which most people simply ignore.
Tidal works 24 hours a day, and we are surrounded by it, but is a hostile environment.
Gas and Oil you do not like, so where do we go from here.?
May 28, 2024
A mirage is also on the horizon.
And who is Grant Schrapps?
May 28, 2024
SG :
Energy from wind is not “free”. Firstly there are rental charges from land owners for onshore turbines and rental charges from the Crown Estate for offshore turbines at least up to 12 nautical miles from the shore. Secondly there are very expensive development, infrastructure and maintenance costs which need to be paid.
If wind is now the cheapest form of energy why are we still paying wind companies subsidies to build new wind projects? The offered CfD for the next renewable auction round, AR6, is £100.27/MWhr (2023 price) which is double nuclear for anywhere in the world but the UK (even for the same EDF EPR technology as the Hinkley Point C plant) and for gas when the carbon tax has been removed. And never forget that wind energy is weather dependent and hence chaotically intermittent whilst nuclear and gas are reliable and in the case of gas, dispatchable. So wind requires a full back-up system unless our electricity is to have the chaotic intermittency of the third world. For the last 28 days the 28 GW of installed wind has provided an average of 3.8 GW.
May 28, 2024
I see that Baroness Brown, who sits on the CCC, thinks that wind farms will need rather more than £100.27/MWh if they are to be built in sufficient numbers. As a director at Ørsted (interesting conflict of interest) she should know: they will be finalising their submissions for AR6.
The current average realisation fior wind including direct subsidies is about £150/MWh. There are of course substantial additional costs for transmission, grid stabilisation, curtailment and backup to add to that.
May 28, 2024
The UK isn’t the only country Investing billions in CC and S Sakara.
I’m disappointed you are so dismissive of this wonderful climate saving emerging new technology.
May 28, 2024
Fortunately billions have not yet been spent on CCS. With the exception of a couple of projects where the CO2 is used to flush oil more oil out of the reservoir, projects of any size have been abandoned long before completion.
May 28, 2024
There are very good reasons why the country is not already carpeted in wind turbines despite lavish subsidies. There is insufficient wind to make the investment profitable even with the subsidies. Imposing turbines will require more lavish subsidies and produce power inefficiently. It will also cause considerable problems for local distribution grids that are designed around predictable power flows outwards to consumers.
May 29, 2024
@Sakara Gold
> actively obstructed the development of more free energy from home grown onshore and offshore wind, which is the cheapest form of energy available to us.
I agree with John.
Coal and gas is free as well, it is the cost of extracting it and turning into energy that is the problem.
Same as wind.
A coal or gas generator can last 1/2 century, not so a wind generator.
For some reason (I can guess at the reason), nobody mentions the cost of upgrading the grid infrastructure to connect these useless machines, that can’t produce power when needed, and produce power when we don’t need it, but we still have to pay for!!
Of course we will still need to pay the cost for real on demand generation, to cover when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
Solar is worse, the amount of power just to purify the silicon using coal (That’s why China can make panels cheap) emits more co2 (If you think co2 is a problem, I am still waiting to see the proof), than a panel will save in it’s lifetime.
I won’t go into the insane taxes on coal, oil or gas, that can only be an attempt to impoverage the country.
People like yourself have been fooled and somehow think this is good for the planet.
You need to do some research, but I doubt you will do that as you seem to be a beliver of this new religion.
You should also look at the cost of putting additonal load on the grid, by the govenment pushing EV’s and heat pumps onto the grid.
Somebody knows the truth, as it is obvious that smart meters are being pushed, not for the customers benefit, but for demand control (Variable pricing, cutting you off, to stop grid collapse etc).
Why is nobody doing the numbers at all, we are either being controlled by idiots, or people out to destroy us!!
Oil, coal, gas is needed to make a lot of products that we need to live !!
Of the top of my head, it is essential to manufactue medicine to keep us healthy and fertilisers to grow food (The reason for recent food inflation).
Whoever is pushing this crap, and whoever setup this system needs to be sacked and prosecuted.
> Under Labour’s proposals cheap renewable electricity for all is on the horizon.
Somebody is telling you a lot of lies to push this “power” grab.
I think any that party that is prepared to dump this crap should win the next election.
May 28, 2024
Great British Energy is an oxymoron. It will be neither great nor british or energetic.We have large reserves of Coal, Oil and Gas under our seas and land which our government declined to fully exploit and a future Labour government absolutely refuse to touch. Add to this the enormous oil and gas potential around the Falkland Islands.
So what are Labour left with. The total dishonesty of a Nett Zero religion. Importing all coal, oil, and gas needs at World Prices, vulnerable to any warmongering despot worldwide. They are betting their house on a proliferation of intermittent power windmills that cannot exist without subsidy by you the electricity user. No talk of introducing Rolls Royce SMRs just a couple of foreign financed and owned large atomic reactors of open cost, delivery, and questionable function. An inheritance from an energy disfunctioal consocialist government.
It has and continues to add up to the UK paying three times as much as the USA and many others for their sources of power. Large swathes of UK industry have either ceased or disappeared abroad as a result making us strategically very vulnerable. What remains of our fossil fuel industry is constrained by a business plan that ensures that we pay world prices for our own fuel. Ignore the politics , but follow the money for answers. No indication that GBE will alter this one iota. If past performance of politician controlled national enterprises are indicative it will cost the end user more. Look to all those councils nationwide that have gone bust because their politicians and civil servants chose to play in a casino way beyond their paygrade.
If you have any talent, get out before it is too late. To those of us left, strap on your five point harness for a very bumpy ride.
May 28, 2024
Well that saved me a lot of typing Agri – Thank You. We are going to sack one lot of incompetants and (in the process) let in an even more useless bunch. Depressing isn’t it?
A nice young lady from the local Conservative Party came canvasing yesterday. Sir John’s replacement hasn’t been appointed yet of course, so I wasn’t willing to promise anything. I did tell her that if CPHQ sends us some young ex-SPAD, masquerading as a ‘conservative’ wannabe, then there’s not a hope in hell that I’ll vote for them. Unfortunately, I’ve been deeply disappointed by recent Tory Governments, who have promised much and delivered very little.
There’s some talk about the battle for the ‘soul’ of the Conservative Party. It’s a battle they need to get right if they want my vote again. Fool me once, fool me twice but keep trying to fool me and even the most loyal voter will eventually walk away. The sad truth is that given the dreadful political choices currently available, many voters have been effectively disenfranchised.
May 28, 2024
From your description it sounds like it is both a disastrous idea and a con.
The energy policy track records of all governments since the original “dash for gas” post privatisation of the energy industry have been woeful. There has been a consistent failure to recognise the need for capacity to replace ageing facilities, to explore the potential for further development of the UK’s oil and gas reserves. This has been coupled with a misguided obsession with CO2 culminating in the absurdity of the Cameron/Clegg policy to pay businesses not to operate to save CO2 and the May and Johnson lunacy of Net Zero declarations. Labour’s latest Great British Energy wheeze is but the latest demonstration of why none of these parties is fit for office. They all deserve to be booted out of office.
May 28, 2024
Nothing more than a political and ideological vehicle for punitive green totalitarianism.
The Tories have betrayed our nation to appease the powerful woke Marxists but Labour is an existential threat of a kind this nation has never seen before
ps Steve Baker attacking Farage. What a pathetic, sniveling weasel
May 28, 2024
Sir John, I think we can agree that the Labour proposal is both a con and a disastrous idea (net zero by another name). I doubt if there was an Electrical Engineer any where near this proposal. This is why Political interference gives the idea of tax payer ownership of utilities a bad name.
A true socialist aim would be to make the cost of energy the same for everyone. Which is currently not the case when you take into account deals from energy companies.
With the totally thoughtless blanket subsidies I ended up paying £8 per month for energy at one time. That can’t be right in any one’s book.
We were a leader in the development of Hydrogen use until Gordon Brown scraped the project. Where would we be now if supported then by a Labour Government. Fewer EV’s and big batteries that are an environmental hazard and from a morally questionable source.
Unfortunately we are in a time when you can’t trust any thing the main political parties say. Perhaps not so much an untruth in what they say, just that they are not competent to achieve anything.
I note that no one is trying to stop the Ukraine War and the Palestine War.
That might be worth voting for.
May 28, 2024
Foreign policy/military adventure disasters like Iraq and Afghanistan are simply memory-holed, John. Now none of the parties want to talk about them, and epecially not about what they cost. It will be the same with Ukraine.
May 28, 2024
politics to-day! I despair, we are surrounded by fools.
May 28, 2024
@MFD – how does insulting ‘fools’ help. Although as they say ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.’ That’s more than a Hat Trick over the last 14 years. CCHQ the Conservative Party we get it you hate us…. please stop
May 28, 2024
Sounds like Labour actually have no clue how to get to ‘net zero’ Nor why they are wishing to do so. Exactly the same as the Conservative party,
As I said previously, you’re the Blue/Red Uniparty.
May 28, 2024
@Old Albion +1 , as Starmer said in an interview yesterday he is a ‘Socialist’ and as he told the BBC ‘Westminster is too constrained… Once you get out of Westminster, whether it’s Davos or anywhere else, you actually engage with people that you can see working with in the future.’ So like Rishi he sees the UK run by the unelected Globalists in Davos. Like Rishi he is comfortable taking his orders from the disciples of the Socialist Klaus Schwab, preferring to ignore the electorate too enforce people into his image, his Socialism and his version of Democracy.
May 28, 2024
The Three Blind Mice – Conservatives, Labour, Lib-Dems…
May 28, 2024
+1
May 29, 2024
The fourth blind mouse is not even on the map – the Green Mouse. Does that not give an indication of the population’s opinion of the Green scam?
May 29, 2024
on yes
May 28, 2024
Agree
May 28, 2024
It seems to me there is very little flesh on the bones on anything they are setting out as pledges. True to form the Conservatives won’t robustly fight them on anything.
As perverse as this may sound, a dose of reality may do the electorate some good, so let’s have all the lights go out. No doubt the Union bosses will be looking to make themselves relevant in the socialist workers paradise and will find something to call a strike on, and the lights can go off again.
Happy days in the land of Angela Rayner Milton Keynes ‘settlements’.
May 28, 2024
Exactly right both a disastrous idea and a con. You say:- “The idea Labour could get to all no carbon UK generated power by 2030 is absurd.” If you switch to renewables you need back up for when the wind is not blowing we have no practical low carbon back up it will have to be gas or coal or burning wood at Drax which produces more CO2 than coal per KWH.
If we all switch to EVs and heat pumps the grid will need to be 10+ times larger not 4 times. Anyway wind and even solar power still use loads of fossil fuels to manufacture, connect up and maintain. Large numbers of diesel ships and tons and tons of concrete needed.
So the tories will (in the very unlikely chance they win a majority, a 4% chance perhaps) will increase personal allowance by inflation for pensioners. Having cheated us all while in power why would anyone trust them now?
May 28, 2024
LL : “Large numbers of diesel ships and tons and tons of concrete needed.”
Yes, fixed offshore wind requires 1000 times more concrete and steel per unit of power than large nuclear and 2000 times more than for coal or gas.
May 28, 2024
Children running the show after being taught by the conservatives
Almost 3 weeks with wind only giving us between 2 and 5% output
Do they intend to rewrite the laws of physics.
2000 new pylons desicrating the countryside, being dormant 75% of the time.
More imports from hostile states.
May 28, 2024
It’s a disastrous idea and a CON, since it relies on the climate change scam to justify it.
But when more £tens of billions are squandered and the lights go out, the Labour Party will simply blame the Not-a-Conservative-Party for 14 years of failing to provide a secure supply of energy and with that finger-pointing, they will be right.
Meanwhile, Matt Goodwin explains on his Substack that the NaCP allowed 4 million immigrants to enter the country between 2020 and 2023 (data from ONS) …. about twice the rate during the Blair years.
And by 2036, the population is projected to grow by another 6.6 million, of which 6.1 million will be because of immigration. The Establishment is destroying ENGLAND and is replacing the native population.
May 28, 2024
I wonder way the tories never closed the door ?
May 28, 2024
Donna : “The Establishment is destroying ENGLAND and is replacing the native population.”
That’s the idea. To enable the Communist Net Zero agenda to proceed it is necessary to change to a more compliant electorate before the electorate change them.
To quote the last two lines of Roald Dahl’s pig poem :
“And so, because I feared the worst,
“I thought I’d better eat him first.”
May 28, 2024
So Wokingham borough council and many others have told parents that “all schools” are “heavily oversubscribed” and “there is no guarantee of an immediate school place” for those leaving private schools due to the evil VAT on school fees tax. Do they not have a duty to provide the school places these people are already paying for.
Perhaps the people earning £140k in order to pay school fees for perhaps two children reduce their hours to just 10 hours and take up state places for their two children. Cost to the state perhaps £18k for the two places and circa £55k in loss of tax and VAT. A total of £73k and worse educated children too. In fact even more if you add in employers NI and the corporate profit reductions. Yet labour think this policy will raise more taxes! They are deluded & spiteful shooting themselves in the foot idiots.
May 28, 2024
Pure counterproductive evil from Starmer’s Labour there attacks on Landlord essentially theft are counter productive evil too, they will not even help tenants on average either as so few will let things out. Still Socialist Gove had the same evil agenda. Thanks goodness he has gone.
May 28, 2024
Their! I blame auto correct and aging eyesight. But why have two spelling when we do not have two pronunciations? Let spellings evolve. Give up the ghost and the wright too.
May 28, 2024
The Mail suggests 40% may quite private schools. This seems a bit high to me but certainly 20% is quite likely. Then, due to fixed overheads the schools and fewer pupils they may have to increase fees by even more than the 20% VAT. But as I illustrate the main tax loss may well be people just reducing their work hours as they no longer have school fees to pay. It will be a huge net loss to education and to tax receipts. It certainly will not contribute anything to labours mad spending plans.
May 28, 2024
The answer to your question, LL, is of course they still have a duty to provide enough school places. But they can no longer build schools, because all new schools must be established as free schools (Tory idea). At the same time a council like Wokingham Borough is forced to approve house building to a formula that produces a massive uplift in the local population (Tory idea). The result is what you see: increasing numbers of families worried about the availability of school places this autumn. And Wokingham Tories are wondering where all their voters have gone. (Not to mention the party members and activists.) Well, you reap what you sow.
May 28, 2024
The paper sounds like an exam paper from a D grade student who realises that volume of answer is required but doesn’t understand the subject. The student has however recalled a few of the more important words from the course and hope the examiner will be impressed by their inclusion.
This is better than Labour’s stance of trans and taxes where they have just completely misunderstood the problem.
May 28, 2024
‘It would directly invest in nuclear, solar and wind, as well as in experimental new technologies for hydrogen and storage.’
Directly funded by Treasury? Where does it find the money?
May 28, 2024
They could spend zero taxpayer money, just by allowing coal, gas & oil to satisfy our needs …remember those days of cheap energy
May 29, 2024
@glen cullen
> remember those days of cheap energy
When I first bought petrol in Wokingham in 1978, it was less than 80p a gallon.
That is about 17p a liter!!!
Most of what we pay now is tax (With the VAT on the tax).
May 28, 2024
Political soundbites are what drives some voters to put a tick against certain candidates or parties, which is about the most immature reaction possible, but it seems to work for most parties.
Oh for an educated informed electorate that could see through the shams and misinformation that are so much a part of the election process.
Now if the labour party had said they would investigate and remove some of the bad legislation put in place by the Tories and reinvigorate our personal freedoms, those might have been soundbites worth following, but to make the energy situation worse by installing another expensive quango to waste our taxes, when for sure labour could never deliver anything like they promise will be nothing but a disaster.
Political parties – especially the big 3, take us all for mugs – give us more of the same and we still vote in one of them. Perhaps it will be different this time, some think.
Fat chance!
If labour get in as expected, it will not just be more of the same, made extreme by inept policies and administration, you can bet, fickle as we are, that we will soon be wanting a new election to kick them out, begging for the good old days of Tory rule — What a system of government!
May 28, 2024
“This could be more good money after bad.”
Like Covid Lockdowns, net harm Covid Vaccines, HS2, the net zero insanity, EV subsidies, renewable subsidies, the sick joke Covid enquiry, soft loans for worthless degrees about 75% of them, about 60% of the state sector, the vast over regulation of almost everything… things the Tories and Labour have pushed.
May 28, 2024
“[GBE] would directly invest in nuclear, solar and wind, as well as in experimental new technologies for hydrogen and storage.”
There’s the key to its failure – the I-word. We all know that when socialists use “invest”, they only ever mean spend, subsidise or squander. In the context of keeping the lights on, it is frightening.
May 28, 2024
Off balance sheet is a con because no finance of that size will be provided with guarantees so on the hook one way or another.
I have no doubt your analysis correct and should be part of Tory attack lines but when you are struggling to generate a bullet proof manifesto and find enough candidates I doubt whether it will happen.
Particularly when your spokes people are pre occupied with getting out of the problems crested by this ludicrous national service idea bounced in everyone. ‘Parents being fined if their kids don’t turn up or a massive energy question costing umpteen billions over the next decades?’
No 10 is a ‘kindergarten’ with Sunak appropriately its figurehead. No wonder the ‘big beasts’ have taken their ball and gone home.
May 28, 2024
If this idea helps Labour gain power and they then do, Labour’s reply to criticisms following is likely to be that it is too early to judge.
Effective Opposition proposing scrapping the scheme might not be possible until 4.5 years later during the next election contest emerging.
That again would pose a dilemma for those voters who are conned in the first place; uncertain about whether scrapping it would be right or wrong.
If by remote chance it works, then it works. If it’s solely a con, that might also work to keep Labour in power: Cunning but deceptive generation of power.
May 28, 2024
This will just be another HS2, costing huge and delivering little. Even once it gets built, it will be staffed by effectively the public sector who will see it as grounds to strike for better pay and conditions.
May 28, 2024
When have these Government ‘enterprises’ not cost the tax payer a fortune? In the energy market Nottingham Council’s Robin Hood Energy and Bristol Council’s Bristol Energy were not stunning successes .
May 28, 2024
It would be completely and easily affordable – if you’d just stop wasting money. Get rid of everyone with the word ‘diversity’ in their job title. Replace the Hose of Lords with a small, elected second chamber. Have a bonfire of the QUANGOs. Stop the boats and send illegals home. Stop mass immigration. Stop pointless degrees. Stop councils wasting money on non essential services. In short, stop spending our money like confetti.
May 28, 2024
create thousands of first class UNI places by ending Chinese student particiption ie. dominance.
May 28, 2024
+many
May 28, 2024
Socialist clap-trap of the highest order. Let’s start with the existing competition…. what will GB Energy do, that makes money, that the others are not already doing? Who is going to run it, some seconded civil servants? Oh, for sure it’s a sinecure for Labour donors, retiring politicians and similar grandees. But never mind, Sir K is not shy about changing his mind on such ideas when he sees the bill.. Don’t waste your breath on it.
May 28, 2024
At least they are at last facing up to the infrastructure needed to support their precipitate dash to net zero. However, given the present state of our planning system, there is no way that the necessary infrastructure could gain planning consent, let alone be delivered, by 2030.
May 28, 2024
Have to agree the State running anything efficiently is laughable given past experience.
The problem is they are getting air time because the private commercial companies are seen to be making profits, and are taking people to Court for non payment of bills, resulting in poor publicity.
Yes in an ideal World it perhaps would be better if the State ran the necessities of life, power, water, etc etc.
But where do you stop, and would it really be any better or less expensive, the State has got involved with trying to force smart meters on us on the lie that it will save customers money. Another failed project.
The problem with Government is no real long term thinking, and the problem with Private companies is that they cannot rely upon what Government says from one year to another (taxes, subsidies, regulation, demand etc), so they cannot plan long term either. Hence the confused messed up thinking we have now.
May 28, 2024
So where was Labour ….the party in opposition…
The party now of “great ideas”?
When all of this was cooked up?
When May and whoever else signed us up to goodness-knows-what?
Where was the sound advice? The simple back-of-a-fag packet calculations so they could scream across the House….
“ This will never, can never….. work!!
Labour backed every single madness that has landed us here!
The Uniparty in total destruct mode.
May 28, 2024
I see Mr Sunak is now promising tax free state pensions in the future, what a laugh, I am paying tax on my state pension now.
Why, because I paid extra at the time with SERPS, Graduated pension, and I delayed taking it for a couple years to get a 10% increase. Yes it goes up by 5% for every year you defer it (good value when interest rates were at less than 1%)
Clearly Sunak is looking at a basic State pension, but has he not been told that millions of us were forced to pay extra in years past, to get a little extra, at an extra cost..
Once again a sound bite of a clueless leader, what an absolute farce his promises are becoming, if he really did not want to tax pensioners, why did he allow Hunt to freeze the personal tax allowance.
As for guaranteeing the Triple lock, the Conservatives reneged on that a few years ago, I think when he was Chancellor.
May 28, 2024
Its a net-zero scheme which could’ve been devised by either tory or labour …labour shouted first
May 28, 2024
There’s only one way to get cheap security of energy supply – fossil fuel
May 28, 2024
The Antarctic seems to offer massive future opportunities.
May 28, 2024
They (Labour) come up with this nonsense, and they will not consider a Cheap Energy source; Fracking, with an increase in home grown Gas production. We are Importing massive amounts of expensive fracked Gas from the USA?
Home grown Fracked Gas is by far, one of the cheapest sources of Energy available to us!
The trouble is;
Who has blocked home grown Fracking, already?
Who has got us dependent of USA fracked Gas, in the first place?
It’s just a contribution (to a Cheap Energy Strategy), but one that has become very important!
I’m not too sure I would accept any of this, from Labour or Conservatives?
BR
RDM!
May 28, 2024
Looking on the bright side, they’ll have more than enough material for several new series of ‘The Men from the Ministry’. 🙂
May 28, 2024
Sir John
Of Course its a Con. These things always become a total failure because we have a failed Political Class, they want things in their image and under their control.
What is always instantly forgotten is Politicians and Governments do not have the experience, the ability, or the capability to run things hands on in a competitive World. they have an ever growing list of failure behind them.
All that is needed is for politician, government, the blob even, to stop meddling and lift all the constraints and costs they force on to Society for their own personal ego an self-gratification.
The individual, the entrepreneur, industry are more than capable of full-filling our needs, their constraint is political interference and the sort of invented bureaucracy that pops up for no other reason than personal self-esteem by the bored.
May 28, 2024
Originally the idea of being able to patent an idea, a product etc, was so that there was a protection from rivals while the patent came to fruition and moved to an earning situation – so a return on time and money invested could be achieved.
The rivals to enterprise in the UK is the State/Government, they are so wound up with creating taxes to hide their failure to manage expenditure, want to be seen as doing something that they have become the enemy.
What is need is a similar pact of no interference from the State/Government while things were got up and running.
That would then be the freedom needed for enterprise to move things forward for all of us.
May 28, 2024
Who will they get to plant the pylons?
Rustle up a few dead navvies from 1830?
Labour doesn’t even support the working class any more!
Look, I watched miserably from my window during The Great Imprisonment as loads of vans and lorries meandered aimlessly up and down the firmly shut road.
All to lay one teeny cable.
HS2 (thankfully) beyond capabilities…
What Labour is proposing is physically impossible.
Labour…can’t work…won’t work!
May 28, 2024
PM – Can you stop everyone talking about immigration & rwanda
SpAds – It would have to be outlandish and so ridiculous
PM – Yes yes what is it
SpAds – National service for 18 year olds
PM – Do it
May 28, 2024
….SpAds but there will be over 500,000 over 18s every year!
PM …right so we fudge it a bit?
SpAds …of course. The bright ones can do Cyber stuff with their gaming laptops, the dim ones can give up one weekend per month.
PM …doing what?
SpAds – volunteering!
PM – great. Public goodworks, community spirited stuff?
SpAds ..thats it in a nutshell.
May 28, 2024
A good analysis showing yet again that we need less government, not more government (and Labour is wrong about that).
However I think politically speaking Labour is making an error in gloomily saying (which every Party ignored in the 1992 general election) that the economic position is so bad they are offering virtually no hope of economic benefit or better service by voting for them which will not encourage people to vote for them and so somewhat depress their vote. Better to claim afterwards when in power that they can do little because they have found the economic legacy to be far worse than expected! It is important to generate hope to maximise one’s vote. In 2019 one of Labour’s mistakes (not their biggest one which was to refuse to accept the democratic vote for Brexit) was to make so many expensive promises that their promises lost credibility. There is a tightrope (especially for a leftwing party in opposition) to be walked on this. So though I am expecting Labour to win a sizeable overall majority (on quite a low poll), I don’t think it will be quite the annihilation of the Conservatives that the present opinion poll lead would cause.
May 28, 2024
Labour and their Great British Energy Company will make things worse, not better! Every Labour Government leaves the people of the UK worse off, and this time will be no different.
If the Conservative Government had implemented conservative policies, got a grip on government spending and reduced taxes, they would be far ahead of Labour. The biggest problem is the conservatives expect us to believe things will be different if they are re-elected. Their problem is simple and summed up in the sentence below.
What you do speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you say!
May 28, 2024
“This is all unaffordable, will not happen and will not lower bills.”
Although there are politicians who believe they can change the laws of physics they do have the power to rig markets and fix prices. The Communists in the USSR/Russia have done this for a century which is why their economy is so weak and living standards so low.
The reason for GBE is to have complete control over our energy to rig the market and destroy the West by sabotaging its access to affordable, abundant and reliable energy.
For instance, Chris Skidmore’s Mission Zero requires gas prices to be increased so heat pumps can compete with gas boilers. But more importantly will be GBE’s ability to control the availability and access to energy using electrification and smart meters and all the propaganda and messaging required to condition the population into accepting reduced and intermittent energy use as will be required when we are running on weather dependent energy sources. The average power from the 28 GW of installed wind power since the 01/05 has been just 3.8 GW. There is no plan for grid-scale electricity storage because anyway the local grids can only take 1 – 2 KW per household so continuously running heat pumps and ev chargers in every house connected to the same substation is impossible.
The Greta Thunberg “How dare you” denunciations and Covid guilt proclamations will be used by the BBC to make the population comply. Such as “save energy, save the NHS”, “save energy, eat one hot meal a day”, “save energy, stay at home”, “save energy, shower once a week”, “save energy heat only one room.”
May 28, 2024
Putting politicians and bureaucrats in charge of our energy … is a frightening thought.
May 28, 2024
‘Botswana’s government has granted a tax holiday for a 450 MW coal power project in a bid to encourage private sector investment in the sector.
Botswana has an estimated 212 billion tonnes of coal resource that remains largely untapped. Africa is going for coal.’
UK – Wind & Imported Energy
May 28, 2024
But we’ll save the planet!!😂
We should save ourselves and START MINING!
May 29, 2024
Africa’s coal is the grey ‘dirty’ type they have in Eastern Europe. Funnily enough they adopted the 3rd Reich technology and made oil from it, as did Hitler.
May 29, 2024
Meanwhile Uzbekistan has ,this week, placed an order for six mini nuclear power plants with Russia.
May 28, 2024
Has Labour been studying alchemy?
After all, it thinks it can change base metal into gold.
State schools to absorb private school refugees when state schools have NO places. Kent?
Build a new Leeds every year to house the newcomers?
Where will the new cities go? On platforms?
Labour has lost touch with reality.
What will happen when people are FORCED to give up their petrol/diesel cars?
And gas boilers?
May 28, 2024
‘Labour has lost touch with reality.’
—-what’s new?
May 28, 2024
Tory, Labour & Green plan
Too much spoil, just dig a hole and put it in
Too much fossil fuel; just erect chinese built wind farms
Not enough energy; just import energy and erect more wind farms
May 28, 2024
Politicians only learn the hard way, and sometimes not even then. Unfortunately the tax payer pays for all the lessons for these delinquents.
But cheer up! Things are getting worse and they are almost at the point where there will generate the much needed and long awaited backlash.
May 28, 2024
‘Ed Davie falls into Lake Windermere 5 times’ during campaign. See what I mean about no ability to learn. Having fallen in once we want a politician to have the wit not to try again!
DWP taken for suckers and £50 million by Bulgarian gang claiming benefits. The DWP need to be prosecuted.
4 footballers run a £280 million cocaine racket. All African.
All of this has to stop. The whole world believes Britain and the British are stupid and extrapolate that we ‘stole our wealth from them’.
We need a Very Strong Conservative Movement after this election will be see conservatism effectively expunged from the Palace of Westminster.
May 28, 2024
I suspect that the real purpose of any new GB Energy company would be to provide highly-paid employment to the likes of the otherwise unemployable Paula Vennels.
May 28, 2024
The “Net zero carbon” debate.
There’s a lot of debate about “Net zero carbon”, much of it in the “Red Top” newspapers and by ignorant politicians. The debate is pointless, net zero is unavoidable and the sooner people realise it the better. The situation is clouded by politicians hoping to gain influence by telling people what they want to hear rather than the truth.
Since WW2 we have all enjoyed an increasingly prosperous lifestyle thanks to an abundance of cheap locally produced fossil fuels. However the supply is not unlimited and at some point it will be gone. It has been prophesied that the world will run out of oil for example since the 1960s when we were supposed to run out 1980. This of course never happened. Technological advances enabled oil to be recovered from places never dreamed of in times gone by. However at some point it will happen. Before it does, the prices will rise due to the extreme methods necessitated to find and extract it.
In fact it can’t be allowed to happen, we need oil for so many other things apart from just burning it. We use fossil fuels (hydrocarbons) to make textiles, plastics, steel/other metals, cement, bricks, explosives, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers just to mention a few. A very major use is to make tarmacadam/asphalt for our highways.
It’s very hard to imagine how else we could make most of these things without oil or coal. There’s going to have to be a lot more recycling in the future.
Much of what oil and coal remains is in distant lands, in the hands of hostile foreigners or in parts of the world racked by wars and unrest. These people won’t hesitate to hold us to ransom if it suits them.
If we are to maintain our lifestyle, we need a transition to other local energy sources and for the alternatives to be as diverse as possible. We also need to spread the transition period over as long a period as possible in order that the expense and chaos is minimised. There are huge technical problems and it WILL be expensive, we are all going to experience a reduced standard of living until the necessary changes to our energy infrastructure are complete and paid for. However, renewable energy sources, unlike fossil fuels, come for free. Once transition is made and the infra structure paid for, electricity should be cheap.
Climate change.
Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. The effect of CO2 in the atmosphere causes “greenhouse effect”, ie retention of solar heat that would otherwise escape. There are other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere too, water vapour being the main one.
This was first determined two hundred years ago and can be also observed on other planets.
Harder to predict are secondary effects, some of which are positive (in the technical sense) and some negative. This is what all the controversy is about.
Whiles it’s true that the Earth has been subjected to regular climate change in the past, this has taken place over many thousands of years. This regular rhythm was first determined and the reasons for it a hundred years ago. The changes in the climate we see today has taken place in a century. So, none of this is new stuff and not hyperscience.
Positive feedback effects are inherently unstable ie, it is a self perpetuating runaway event. Examples are:-
(1)As permafrost in the Arctic melts, methane gas is released (another strong greenhouse gas).
(2) As ice disappears in the polar/arctic regions, more solar heat is absorbed instead of being reflected back into space.
(3) As the sea warms, it can absorb less carbon dioxide.
Which may or may not be a good thing, no-one is quite sure.
Negative feedback effects slows down climate change and leads to a degree of stability. Example:-
As the air warms, there may be more clouds which would reflect sunlight back into space.
It’s better to think of events as “climate change”, some places may even become colder (at least initially) including us.
Even a small change in weather patterns will have massive agricultural, economic and social effects that are largely unpredictable.
The big arguments are not about “if” but “when”. Of late, it seems that events are happening sooner than predicted.
The Various Associated Myths.
(1)We still have coal in the UK.
UK mines were shut down for good reason. As a mine becomes older, it becomes less economic until the numbers don’t add up. Once abandoned, unless a mine is maintained it rapidly collapses. Reopening is not an option. A very small amount of coal is still mined by opencast means, however the remaining life of these mines is short.
(2) We have undiscovered gas in the UK.
Nobody yet knows if we have further gas yet to be discovered. If we do it won’t be much. Most of our gas is imported from Norway and the Middle East. The interim plan is to generate electricity stations using gas.
(3) Recent weather events are entirely natural.
While there are little glitches in the word’s weather patterns, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the changes in the weather the oldies amongst us have experienced are more than a glitch, something far more sinister is afoot.
The interim solution.
New technology gas fired power stations are twice as efficient as the traditional power stations. Home heating to be by means of electrically driven heat pumps. This gives us a lot more bang for our buck but this can only be an interim solution for the next few decades because even imported gas will gradually become ever more expensive and finally unavailable. It buys time so permanent solutions can be implemented. It’s very hard for politicians to get their heads round this because, as we all know, they are only concerned about the time to the next general election. Any links to other countries, physical or commercial, can be disrupted. We need a robust system that can’t be mucked about with by other parties.
May 28, 2024
But the coal is still there now ready to be mined, the gas is ready now to be extracted or fracked and the oil is ready now to be drilled …..its politicians that have stopped our natural energy exploration and exploitation for the benefit of UK
May 29, 2024
Nonsense. All UK coal mines are exhausted. They were shut down for good reason.
No-one knows how much gas we may have but it won’t be much.
May 29, 2024
‘The UK has identified hard coal resources of 3 560 million tonnes, although total resources could be as large as 187 billion tonnes’ – https://euracoal.eu/library/archive/united-kingdom-6/
May 28, 2024
The ocean is an excellent emitter during the polar night, but a poor one when covered in ice.
May 28, 2024
Sir John,
Are you sure that ‘costings’ even come into play where the Net Zero religion disciples are concerned ??
May 28, 2024
Labour is the new Black Rock
The only subsidies will be based on DEI and ESG.
May 28, 2024
Government wants full control of energy via smart-meters and I’ve read this morning that government now wants full control of your cash money via central bank digital currency (CBDC) known as digital pound …thats what you get voting tory
May 28, 2024
GC :
Yes, the purpose of CBDC is to be able to introduce carbon credits where the elites will be able to exchange carbon credits for small tokens which will enable the plebs to buy meat once a week and enable the elites to keep flying to their villas at the weekends.
May 28, 2024
£1bn a year?! Good luck with that…🤣
May 28, 2024
It seems we have inflation on Company House fees of 261% & on top of this you now have £40 data protection fees PA.
So many time wasting & expensive rackets from government. No only taxed to death but huge unpaid time wasting for the productive sector in compliance too. A vast parasitic job creation scheme.
May 28, 2024
Agreed – well said.
May 28, 2024
All that is true but of course the Conservative’s Net Zero policies are equally infeasible. I’m quite happy to have Starmer as PM when he’ll have to U-turn on every single one of his election pledges in this area, it will strengthen the position of a proper “Conservative” party to displace him at the next election or the one after that.
May 28, 2024
‘The state-held utility of South Africa, plans to operate some coal-fired power plants for longer than initially envisaged, currently, some 85% of South Africa’s electricity is generated via coal-fired power stations.’
Looks like only the UK, EU and the USA are going wind net-zero
May 29, 2024
Turkey is generating record amounts of power(both in absolute and % of total generation terms)from coal- this year up to 36% of the total.
May 28, 2024
All the labour policy means to me is lots more state interference in the energy market, making it ever more expensive to operate here, and forcing more work and jobs to India and China.
May 28, 2024
In a further response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Macron has decided to send a contingent of French special forces (believed to be French Foreign Legionaries) to the war zone
General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Kyiv’s top commander, said paperwork had been signed to allow French military instructors to visit Ukrainian training centres, following talks with Sebastien Lecornu, the French defence minister.
Many European countries already have SF active in Ukraine and Russia itself. Reports in the media mention Germany, Poland, France, UK, Netherlands, Estonia and Denmark.
The notable exception is America. Biden refuses to allow SF deployment, as usual on the grounds that this would be “escalatory”
May 29, 2024
Perhaps you -and Macron -should look up what happened the last time France intervened in Southern Ukraine-in 1919-they were defeated at Kherson and Nykolaev,forced to withdraw in disorder to Odessa;at which point the sailors of the French fleet in the Black Sea ran up the Red flag and mutinied.A humiliating withdrawal followed.
May 28, 2024
OFF TOPIC.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey took a dive (several) into Lake Windermere while paddleboarding as he outlined his party’s plan to tackle the sewage crisis.
Local Lib Dem candidate Tim Farron joined his party leader at Low Wood Bay Watersports Centre where the pair had mixed success, being pictured taking multiple plunges.
During his visit to the Lake District, Sir Ed said local environmental experts should be represented on water companies’ boards to ensure sewage spills are taken seriously.
Sir Ed ensured he’d get a taste of the pollution.
May 29, 2024
I don’t think Windermere was polluted before Ed fell in – 5 times 😂🤣
May 28, 2024
The useless Holden (party Chairman 🤯) hoping to parachute himself into a safe southern seat.
Wokingham be warned!
May 28, 2024
Labour’s lead down to 12 points.
Now bring back Boris and drop all the old climate rot.
Hung parliament?
Looks like National Service is a winner!
A very cautious “WOOHOO”.
May 28, 2024
WHY did Sunak call an election for July 2024 when January 2025 was a valid time. Rats deserting a sinking ship before the SHTF????
Donald J Trump will be President of the the US inJanuary 2025 and PANIC will ensue everywhere.
Nothing can stop what is coming, NOTHING.
May 28, 2024
Does anyone know why he called the election, it seems that only the SpAds and PM knew
May 29, 2024
Ask Andrew Bridgen.
May 28, 2024
I can’t believe it but Reform are actually beginning to tick some of the boxes for me as a voter (National Service, debate about some forms of nationalisation, and more). I’m still going to vote Tory but Tories have to pick their socks up quick.
May 28, 2024
The Labour plan is based on one day in August 2022, when gas prices soared due to forced liquidation of out of the money short positions. It isn’t even based on one day in August 2019 when the fragility of the grid was exposed by blackouts – nearly repeated as recently as 22nd December last year.
Detail is taken from the group that conjures the Future Energy Scenarios at National Grid, used to underpin the diktats of the CCC and most DESNZ policy. The solutions unsurprisingly require lots more grid.
GBE and the National Wealth Fund are there to channel taxpayer funds into every heavily loss making project they can find: floating wind, hydrogen hubs, local wind farms etc.
The result will be higher bills and taxes and unreliable energy supply, with an ongoing economic collapse as energy using industry closes and moves abroad.