I agree with Keir Starmer that spending Ā£100 m on a bat tunnel over a small section of HS2 is a bad idea. The issue is what is he doing about it?
I do not recall him previously intervening over the crazily escalating costs of the project. He is not this time identifying excess costs in HS 2 that he can control.
HS2 is a crucial example of state investment failure. It has been completely nationalised for its whole life, and has been given unbelievably large sums of money as it runs through any budget or spending buffer its highly paid executives get Ministers to approve.
I voted against it when Parliament decided to go ahead. The original business case was poor, depending as it did on taking passengers away from the existing routes. Now costs have more than trebled the business plan is one of ruinous losses.
The PM implied the very favourable treatment of bats in the planning process will be downgraded, yet when a Minister was asked to explain how Ā and when there was no answer. The PM needs to do more than express public anger late in the Ā day about one detail of a badly failing nationalised industry. As its custodian with power to change the management and change the project he needs to tell us exactly how he will put it right. This is about more than a bat tunnel or Ā£100 m. It is about a Ā£100 bn dud nationalised railway, greatly delayed and cancelling planned services to Northern cities.
December 7, 2024
HS2 is a uniparty virtue signalling project slavishly following the EUs TenT directive.
It is probably not within his gift to cancel it without permission from Brussels
As with many aspects of government after Brexit we are kept in the dark about what’s agreed
The cost of giving away the Chagos Islands is another secretive agreement of giving away taxpayer money
The failure to publish how many immigrants are drawing universal credit which Reform are trying to establish
The whole government is a tissue of lies and desemination which is happy to bankrupt us.
December 7, 2024
Indeed so often we are governed by single interest Quangos – the Committee for Climate Change, English Nature, Historic Englandā¦ all totally batty.
A good article by Matt Ridley in the Spectator about the bet between Steven Pinker and Martin Rees. āWuhan wager: the $400 ābio betā that predicted the pandemic.ā But why even as early as 7/7/21 did Rees want the lab origins (if true – as they surely are) to be kept hidden from the public?
The Spectator also asks does Beckham deserve a Knighthood? – well about one million times more than Sadiq Kahn does and far more than many others who have them. A friend of mine ocasionally worked with Beckham for Vodaphone and found him very sound and professional indeed.
December 8, 2024
Has JR ever done a calculation on how much government waste would have been saved had MPs followed his advice for all the years he was in parliament? The ERM, the dire EU treaties, HS2, the over regulation of everything, the misguided wars, the botched devolution, almost everything Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May did, the Climate Change Act, the absurd energy policies, net zero, low skilled immigration levels, policing, justiceā¦ it must come to at least Ā£100k per household minimum.
Reply It would have been a lot of money. In recent years I was always pressing from at least Ā£20 bn less annual spending and unusually Ā£40 bn plus, just offering them the easy options.
December 8, 2024
So much waste that could, so very easily, be cut. But zero political will.
December 7, 2024
What drives HS2 supported by nearly all parties? Is it incompetence, mad group think, vested interests or corruption? No other sensible explanation surely?
December 7, 2024
@Ian Wragg; Most of the UK’s main railway routes, and block freight train infrastructure were TEN-T complaint before TEN-T was written, other than ERTMS compliant signalling.
But heck, why not kick the EU in their shins when our own politicos mess up. What next, blame the EU for the lack of fruit and veg in the shops, when the real problem is the UK’s attitude towards farming and what counts as skilled employment?
December 7, 2024
So Ian is correct then Jerry.
It is an EU project.
December 7, 2024
+1
December 7, 2024
@Sam; Stop waffling!
Did I say TEN-T wasn’t a EU project? The only part of TEN-T that is relevant to the UK, even post Brexit, is the requirement to install ERTMS compliant signalling, but then only routes likely to carry through trains to/from the EU and that is *not* HS2 as there is no plan currently to connect it to either HS1 or the CTRL.
December 7, 2024
Wrong again Jerry.
HS2 is an EU project.
Why so defensive?
December 8, 2024
Wrong again Sammy. Why so defensive? Trying to deflect due criticism from the last Tory government perhaps?
HS2 is a 2009 born and breed Whitehall DfT vanity project that the following Cameron lead government should have scrapped as part of their “austerity” agenda.
The EU would not have been so hamfisted, or tightfisted, and phase 1 of HS2 would connect with HS1! The only EU involvement in HS2, via a grant, has amounted to about ā¬39m, that on a 2020 DfT budget envelope of Ā£98 billion… š®
December 8, 2024
See my post below Jerry
You are wrong.
I’m not being defensive or political I would just like to get the record straight.
December 7, 2024
Nobody can reach the EUās shins – itās on its kneesā¦.
December 7, 2024
@LA; Even easier to kick then in some place else then, and no doubt some unthinking Reform ‘dreamers’ will try! š®
December 7, 2024
Lynn
Had a chuckle at that one.
December 7, 2024
@Ian wragg; “The failure to publish how many immigrants are drawing universal credit which Reform are trying to establish”
Perhaps after establishing who claims what socail security benefits Reform UK might like to establish how much UK tax is being lost to the Exchequer via evasion, avoidance and loop-holes? Having done so perhaps Reform UK could then inform the electorate how they intend to recover, close and tie-off such losses, which could be then used to support the NHS, education (remove VAT from private education, for example), reequip the three UK military services, advance independent UK aerospace capabilities, repair our roads etc.
December 7, 2024
Classic whataboutery Jerry.
December 8, 2024
@Sam; Yes, I agree Sammy, just as waffling on about “immigration” is classic whataboutery, at best simplistic thinking, at worst simple scapegoating of minorities. Don’t let the draft upset your hair…
December 7, 2024
‘How much tax lost’ –Well the Tories never tried did they! And this Labtrotcommie lot are hardly likely to want the electorate to know!
December 7, 2024
Good morning.
Let us not forget the history of this project. For it was part of the EU plan, the TEN-T.
https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-themes/infrastructure-and-investment/trans-european-transport-network-ten-t_en
I have been critical of government in the past but, this is a legacy of our membership of the EU. A legacy we will just have to deal with and pay for. Yes the costs are stupidly eye watering, but this is what happens when you place ideology over good common sense. The ideology of a United States of Europe.
Well that’s the good news. At least we won’t have to spend large sums re-nationalising it then š
As I said yesterday, all our original railways prior to WWII were financed, built and run by private means. Only since WWII and the failed experiment of government intervention and spending have we suddenly developed a taste for this kind of State largess.
And here is another thing. Whilst watching a YT video on the history of the Hawker Aircraft Company (now BAE) I learnt that that too was the victim of State interference. Yes, the British government of the time decided that there were too many successful British aircraft companies and so decided to amalgamate them into one big failure. We also at the time decided to tax the talented to the eyeballs and created a brain drain in which the USA gained much.
You can always tell where a government has been by the mess it leaves behind.
December 7, 2024
Ademdum
Under – Military Mobility (see above link) we read
Shades of WWI me thinks ? And who said it was just a ‘Common Market’ and, ‘all about trade’ ? š
December 7, 2024
Tell Jerry because he never got the memo
December 7, 2024
he probably read ‘all about trade’ as ‘all about tirade’. And he would be right.
December 7, 2024
@Mark B; Shadows of NATO more likely … and a good thing, unless you’re Vladimir Putin!
As for the āCommon Marketā and, āall about tradeā, only those who fail to read/understand the Treat of Rome make such stupid comments. Back in the 1960/70s people such as Powell, Benn, Shore & Foot et el seldom if ever talked in such terms, they fully understood the threat to their political freedoms the proposed centralized Federal entity brings, in the same way some of the southern States in the embryonic USA originally refused to join.
December 7, 2024
There was no mention of a Euro army back in 1975 Jerry.
December 8, 2024
@MiB; Their was no mention of NATO back in 1940 either!
But in any case, as usual, you are wrong Martin, the “Treaty establishing the European Defence Community” has been on the agenda since 1952, only left unratified because Britain and France permitted West Germany accession to the NATO alliance.
December 8, 2024
Read what I said Jerry.
In 1975 there was no mention of an EU army.
Decades later it was still being denied by them.
December 7, 2024
@Mark B; Sorry, HS2 is *not* a direct result of the EU’s TEN-T Regulations, the current ECML, WCML, much of the MML and the West of England mainline are complaint with the 160 km/h (100 mp/h) minimum speed requirement of that document and have been since the mid 1970s or before! Specific to the WCML, the “Pendolino” trains, in service since 2002, are capable of 200 km/h (125 mph) and both track and signalling support this speed were appropriate.
The HS2 project was ‘sold’ as a alternate route, to add capacity, whilst any link to HS1 and thus the possibility of direct trains to European Cities from the UK Midlands, the North and Scotland, using Berne Gauge rolling stock, was never core to HS2 (hence no phase 1 link to HS1), if it had been the core design criteria for the project then a new route up the East coast would have made far more sense, linking into both St Pancras Int and Stratford Int stations, thus HS1 and the CTRL.
Sorry the HS2 fiasco was born and breed here in the UK by our own politicos, and some sort of national vanity.
December 7, 2024
HS2 was a political scam from the get-go, weāve promised a full review days before the 2019 election and the day after it was a done deal ā¦.scam
December 7, 2024
Sorry Jerry you are completely wrong, HS2 was part of an EU designed transport policy of the Core Network Corridor.
Their policy for a North Sea to Mediterranean corridor for high speed rail travel was binding on the UK under the terms of the subsidiary principle.
It was also designed in accordance with EU regulations.
Try searching…Was HS2 part of EU policy….and look at the articles there, some from the EU itself, saying yes its part of EU policy.
The UK was keen to be good Europeans and with very keen pro European Andrew Adonis as the then Secretary of State for Transport HS2 was born.
December 8, 2024
@Sam; All you are doing Sammy is proving the old adage, repeat a lie (or half-truth) long enough and some will start to accept it as fact… TEN-T is far more relevant to the contiguous European mainland, especially to the east and south, the railways of Spain, for examples, have benefited greatly from it.
Go and actually read (and *understand*) the TEN-T specification; apart from needing up-to-date modern signalling the WCML already complies with the specification and thus requirement as part of the EU’s “Core Network Corridor.”, as does the ECML.
Of course the EU will include routes, existing or planned, in their over all Transport policy, that doesn’t make the design, funding & building of such routes “a EU project” though, even if partial (or full) funding came from the EU handing back our own money. There are plenty of major Trunk roads in the UK that are also included on that EU transport plan, that have been greatly improved or rebuilt since 1973, but that had been penciled in for such work by the DfT, since 1945, some since before WW2.
December 8, 2024
You’re off on tangent Jerry talking about funding, design and building.
What I said is correct.
Even the EU agree.
Why are you so reluctant to search and read the EUs own statements.
December 7, 2024
It appears that we never learn from history …even the immediate history
December 7, 2024
Subsidising a multiplicity of military aircraft companies became prohibitively expensive for the taxpayer as the aircraft became more sophisticated.
The railways were not in good shape pre-WWII because of increasing competition from the internal combustion engine. The idea that a privatised railway could do anything but lose even more money after it had been split under John Major into a multiplicity of artificially created new companies with highly paid executives was naive in the extreme.
December 7, 2024
Even well before WW2 railways were rarely maintained adequately, steam engines aged, shortcuts made, failing signalling, rolling stock uncaredfor, stations and refreshments priced for the well-off. Then WW2 meant everything went into breakdown mode, owners could see the loss-making future and Government buying the shareholding a rescue mission.
December 7, 2024
The whole HS2railway is Bats. It is a monument to government incompetence in just about any way that is measurable.
For those desperate to get from Birmingham to London to Birmibgham faster, a hop on air service is a viable private alternative. For every journey, passengers have to get from points of arrival and departure whatever the transport means. So investment in car parking and seamless transit to air is essential. It will not happen as long as Rasputin and his Ludites are in charge, or most politicians for that matter. HS2 is a glaring monument to political incompetence, until a bigger and better whiz emerges from their dormant brain cells. Only the bats will get to their destination faster.
December 7, 2024
Enthusiasts asking for bats to be protected sounds inoffensive, quaint even.
Then you create a quango like Natural England with a Ā£60m budget staffed by 2000 starry-eyed inspector-zealots who love not just animals like bats, but plants, entire habitats and even things like “natural processes” (e.g coastal erosion) and care nothing for human beings, business, employment or community. They goldplate-interpret EC and home-grown laws that wealthy, influential NGOs push through parliament and happily use the laws to, for example, demand that coastal homes aren’t protected from erosion (no matter the owners won’t be compensated for their loss).
In the space of about 40 years we have made many infrastructure projects unaffordable, unless backed by a HS2-type collective madness at Westminster and by billions in public spending.
But it’s not HS2 costing a ridiculous sum that really harms us, it’s all the very many small local infrastructure projects and economic activities that are blocked by the environmental lobby (and their punitive legislation/regulations) that deny us a decent place to live. There’s a balance to be had between conservation and progress; it’s swung too far in one direction for too long.
December 7, 2024
If its not to protect bats, its a certain newt…. or some lost winged bird that only arrives here once a year but briefly.
December 7, 2024
I recall reading that the passenger trains to be used on HS2 will be incompatible with existing station platforms because they require a different level of platform for safe entry and exit and the trains are too long. If true it seems an extremely stupid idea. Who thought it was a good idea?
December 7, 2024
HS2 was an extremely stupid idea for so many reasons not quite as mad as net zero. Needless to say nearly the uni-parties supported both. We are government by unscientific morons and/or people on the make serving vested interests.
Why do you need high speed for such a short distance. High speed trains have to have few stops to be high speed – fewer stops means much longer end connections overall so they usually then take longer door to door in the end. So what is the point of saving 10 mins on one bit of the trip? While lengthening the two other end connection bits. Plus you can easily work on the train anyway for that extra 10 mins anyway.
December 7, 2024
The bats ā¦ you had to be Bats to vote for it.
December 7, 2024
Not a problem – they will use new platforms and gauging at the mere handful of stations served….remember no stops between start and finish. Rolling stock restricted to the 1 or 2 HS routes !!
December 7, 2024
John Redwood wrote: “I agree with Keir Starmer that spending Ā£100 m on a bat tunnel over a small section of HS2 is a bad idea. The issue is what is he doing about it?ā
Personally, I donāt think that it is up to 2TK, rather it is of major concern to the bats.
What are the bats going to do about it?
December 7, 2024
fly under it at night and get killed I imagine.
December 7, 2024
I forget the exact figures handed out to the ever expanding false industry of ‘consultants’, for HS2.
The report I read detailed all the perks the tax payer was coughing up for, for the consultants/experts and their business colleagues. Colossal sums of money before even a nut and bolt had been purchased.
This seems to be the way of things where consultants and ministers join heads together. A lot of money gets spent without any recourse to those footing the bill when they are exposed as not really being that much of an expert at all.
You’d probably get a better job done at a fraction of the cost by consulting those on the coal face!!
December 7, 2024
It is amazing how many so called energy āconsultantsā do not even know the basic difference between energy and power listen them to a few minutes and is clear they do not have a clue. Even Kwasi did not have a clue. The governments advisor chris.stark@energysecurity.gov.uk has some sort of half law degree and Lord Gummer a history degree.
Emily Thornberry once said āif there is no wind we can just use wave energyā! So what does she think causes the waves? A giant dropping rocks in the sea perhaps? Soon to be ennobled for her brilliance as shadow climate change secretary it seems!
December 7, 2024
Let us not forget, this HS2 project is a prime example of what the Public Sector regard as ‘an investment’ in public services.
What more needs to be said.
Net Zero anyone?
December 7, 2024
+ 1
December 7, 2024
+1
December 7, 2024
Putin’s lackey Lavrov has been expanding on Russian maximalist demands over the Ukraine “special military operation” during Thursday’s stage-managed “interview” with the discredited right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson
Lavrov stated that the war criminal Putin will use “any means” to prevent Washington and its allies from inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, listing “red lines” and again making meaningless nuclear threats. He is aware that Trump is susceptible to flattery and spoke positively of his ability to make a deal – in Russia’s favour
For “strategic defeat” you can read the overthrow of Putin’s kleptocratic regime and the forced withdrawal of Russian forces to the internationally recognised borders.
Trump, who personally prevented the House of Representatives from voting on $28bn of American military support for six months 2023/24 – which cost Ukraine thousands of civilian and military casualties – has said that he will end the war in Ukraine in “a day” – apparently by capitulation to Putin’s demands
The world tried appeasement of a German dictator’s territorial demands in the 1930’s – with disastrous results. Whatever agreement Trump wants to end the war, it must be with the full agreement of the injured party, Ukraine and Ukraine’s European backers
December 8, 2024
Why do you say Tucker Carlson is “discredited?” He is an extremely successful journalist who does what the tame hacks in the MSM stopped doing a long time ago …. asking questions and reporting his findings.
Or do you believe that only one side of a dispute should be allowed to “make their case?”
December 7, 2024
Given all the costly, unneccessary activities government spends and wastes taxpayers’ money on, It is difficult not to draw the conclusion that corruption is rife within Whitehall and Westminster.
December 7, 2024
āthe costly, unneccessary activitiesā, ācostly, unneccessary and very often totally counterproductive activities. HS2, Net Zero, the 75% of degrees that are vitually worthless by cost three years amd Ā£50k+ of debt, the road blocking, the lockdowns, net harm Covid Vaccines, everything Sadiq Kahn does, Sunaks QE, Starmers employment act, the war on motorist amd lamdlordsā¦
December 7, 2024
Yet one more example of this labour government being all about image rather rather than being effective.
Do they think we can be persuaded to believe that they are working for us by using sweet words, when we can see they are doing the opposite.
It’s the opinion of many that HS2 was permitted to drain so much cash from our taxes because it fitted in with EU rail policy and intent to link all major regions by fast trains. No doubt this is something Starmer will need to fix before the EU gives him the green light to get us back inside EU control.
That this project has cost so much, well over the original estimates, shows not just incompetence and wealth transfer. We were deliberately deceived about the true cost. It would not have gotten started if that had been known.
This is why HMG is afraid to give a realistic cost of netzero, for it will be so much more expensive than the worst estimates, never mind what it does to our quality of life.
The political establishment is hell bent on getting their way on whatever fancy ideological white elephants they conceive and they have become expert at keeping actual costs a big secret.
December 7, 2024
In a recent press conference on mass immigration Starmer admitted that āthe great replacementā is not only real, but was in fact Conservative government policy — That must mean it is still government policy.
He didn’t say that he was going to cancel this because it’s all tied up with the deception over climate change.
December 7, 2024
Review his words
https://odysee.com/@MarkCollett:6/Starmer-Migration:9
December 7, 2024
Surely this Bat ‘problem’ was a known-known, or were there no route surveys done before HS2 was given the final go-ahead. In any case HS2 is an unnecessary vanity project in its entirety, what did the last Tory govt do about it, other than to appoint successive eco zealots to DEFRA etc since 2010?
If opposition to this rudderless Labour govt can’t come up with more than just brickbats Starmer is getting a easy ride, probably all the way to 2034 and perhaps beyond. Meanwhile Starmer is getting a free ride on his Net-Zero pledge, no doubt because such eco policies tend to be a cash-cow for the capitalists who finance it, I see the electricity generators are suggesting another price hike to consumers bills after talk of New-Nuclear during Starmer’s “Reboot” announcement…
December 7, 2024
The petition signed by 2,967,542 people to call a general election was probably doomed from the start – after all such petitions have no legal persuasion behind them, but it did show how unpopular this government is.
Their reply didn’t answer any of the issues behind the petition:. It opened with a false idea:
Wrong! – It was elected by default because so many people were in apathy with democracy and couldn’t see any difference between labour and Tories.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700143?reveal_response=yes
December 7, 2024
@Bryan Harris; By your logic the 2015 Cameron majority had no mandate either, given only around 65% turned out, whilst the 2019 Johnson majority did a little better with a 67.3% turnout, thus more than a quarter of the eligible electorate failed to cast a vote in each of those elections – does that make the Brexit referendum, and the WA, null and void, of course not.
So 3m have signed a petition calling for fresh elections, only another 17m to go to equal how many failed to vote in 2024, at least the plebs don’t need Photo ID to sign those Number 10 petitions…
December 7, 2024
But Bryan never mentioned any voting percentages Jerry.
He was talking about how Labour recently got elected by default.
And I totally agree with him.
December 8, 2024
@MiB; Yes he did, his last paragraph is a reference to low turnout, unless by “apathy” he meant dissatisfaction with the then Tory govt, in which case his comment was even more of a rant, fancy that, dissatisfied plebs choose another Party to govern them!
Martin, you (and Sammy…) would agree with a brick wall if I was having an argument with one….
December 8, 2024
Apathy with democracy…is what Brian said.
You’ve managed in your own mind to develop that to make that mean disatisfaction with the Tory government and stretch it further to your argument about previous voting percentages.
That’s a big stretch there Jerry.
But you carry on if it pleases you
December 7, 2024
It wouldn’t surprise me if the bats decided to live in the tunnel and the train had to proceed at 2mph
December 7, 2024
Far too many Ministers including Prime Ministers are unqualified and inexperienced to make these decisions. I seem to recall the euphoria from Boris Johnson when this project was announced. Similarly Teresa Mayās declaration of Net Zero by 2050! Our energy policy is in complete disarray. Both examples have resulted in vast amounts of money being wasted. Why arenāt those responsible for the decision making failures properly held to account? Itās obvious our system of decision making and the calibre of many in high office is failing the electorate. I strongly suspect this Prime Minister and his Ministers fall into this category!
December 7, 2024
By renationalising the railways the government is going to take on 100% of the risk and, the ridiculous surrender to the rail unions in her first day in office will inevitably cover the railway balance sheet in yet more ink, in the same colour as our short-serving transport minister’s ludicrous hair.
The problems with the railways are not caused by privatisation, it is the way successive governments have failed to support the private managers in standing up to the Unions. Spanish practices are as well entrenched in today’s rail industry as they were in Fleet Street until Richard Murdoch stepped in and sorted it out by moving everything to Wapping.
TfL under Khan is just as bad, and, unbelievably, he’s getting a knighthood !
It’s these expensive decisions by Starmer not to tackle waste and the falling productivity in our bloated public sector since July that have created the infamous black hole.
December 7, 2024
15 years ago the Labour government said HS2 would cost Ā£37bn;Currently we don’t know how much it will cost; Figures ranging from Ā£68bn to Ā£120bn are now being quoted including the rolling stock; this is how out of control we are of the public finances going into this reckless and idiotic scheme, and what does it achieve.
A 20 minute timesaving to get from London to Birmingham,an investment of Ā£1 of taxpayers money to get a return of 90p,a rail line to bridge the so called divide between north and south and a vanity project which was to give the UK a high speed railway similar to Europe and Japan.
Conservative and Labour have continued to support this project over the last 15 years and have not had the guts to cancel it.The only PM who got close to it was Rishi Sunak.When has any Government said that we can’t afford this project.Affording something seems to be irrelevant to Politicians; its about spending more, taxing more and borrowing more.
This project should have been stopped 10 years ago and the money spent on public services, infrastructure etc.
The lessons of the channel Tunnel should have been learnt; a project that’s never made money; Hinkley Point Nuclear power station is another good example of a project that is now looking for money and where the budget is out of control; thank goodness Boris Johnson’s idea of a bridge from England to Northern Ireland has been shelved
The UK can’t run projects like this any more; we don’t have the money and anyone approving a budget for future projects should look at the figures they’re presented with and treble them.
December 7, 2024
It was intended to create more traveller capacity between London and Birmingham.
Stop laughing you – go and stand in the corner!
December 7, 2024
Hi sir John
You can not estimate how much a bag of cement will cost next week never mind next year delays put prices up not building for the future is a lack of forsite good job the Victorians never said that it to expensive to building the sewers the river thames will still be smelling foul
when the Bridgewater company
Were building the Bridgewater canal they said it was to expensive but it eventually got built with higher cost
the industrial revolution wouldn’t have happened without the canals just look at them today amazing
Nothing works well when the government controls it you should know that John after
16 years of failure
December 7, 2024
At the beginning I thought that HS2 was simply the UK part of an expensive project to whizz EU bureaucrats around Europe as the tickets would be unaffordable except to those on the public payroll. If a new railway was needed it should have been, to use an aircraft analogy, a Jumbo jet instead of a Concorde, so many people could travel up and down the country at very cheap prices.
But I now realise that it was simply designed to waste money on a grand scale in order to justify high taxation, as well of course, as allowing some to make very good money.
December 7, 2024
It is curious that Parliament should spend Ā£100m on a bat tunnel when they have no misgivings on spending Ā£billions on subsidising bat, bird and bee choppers, aka, wind turbines.
BTW, if green energy is now the cheapest form of energy, why is it still being subsidised? Or why is Parliament considering introducing CBAM when surely our cheap, abundant green energy will give us an enormous cost advantage over our foreign competition?
December 7, 2024
Well nothing āgreenā about so called āgreen energyā, nothing wrong with a bit more atmospheric CO2 in fact it greens the planets rather well as CO2 is harmless net beneficial tree, plant and crop food.
The idea that wind and solar are cheaper energy after the capital costs (now with much higher interest rates) plus the back up costs is cheaper than coal or gas is drivel. On demand easily stored coal, oil, gas, nuclear (though this is rather less on demand) is far preferable.
December 7, 2024
+1 Bat and bird chomping eco crucifixes.
December 7, 2024
The first paradox is that the more “cheap” renewables you add to the system the more expensive it gets. You still have to provide full backup for Dunkelflaute, but you also need more and more pylons and subsea cables and substations, and more and more of the output is worthless surplus, driving up the cost of the useful portion of output.
The second paradox is that when it gets it gets windier the real cost paid by consumers increases. Extra CFD generation averages ~Ā£150/MWh, while ROC subsidies add almost Ā£100/MWh to that portion of output. It does nothing to reduce the cost of other supply from nuclear, hydro and CCGT that must be kept on to ensure grid stability: in fact, we have wound up having to pay extra compensation via the Capacity Market to keep their full capacity available for Dunkelflaute. We also pay for curtailed output and the subsidies on any exports via the interconnectors. These are the real costs, rather than the distraction of a lower nominal wholesale price that mainly serves to change which pocket subsidies are paid from. All of this is far in excess of the cost of CCGT generation (Ā£60-80/MWh since the energy crisis abated) or even cheaper coal that we have shut and not replaced.
December 7, 2024
Not āParliamentā rather āThe Conservativesā who lumbered Starmer With the HS2 shambles to sort out.
December 7, 2024
HS2 was a Labour project championed by Adonis. The Conservatives should have quashed it in 2014 before much money had been spent. Imagine the fuss the BBC, the Lib-Dims and Labour would have made if Cameron had !
December 8, 2024
Back then it was EU inspired and many countries were joining in the concept. The Conservatives felt left out and wanted to rejoice with ‘yes us too!’.
December 7, 2024
Bats rule!
The Greywell Tunnel on the Basingstoke Canal springs to mind. I gather you can’t navigate through it…
December 7, 2024
Odd, I always thought bats could fly and as such had moveable homes.
Maybe he should learn how to make money out of tunnels and talk to his mate Sadiq Khan, he certainly knows how to fleece the motorist. He is about to open a new Thames Tunnel to keep London moving, the Silvertown Tunnel, but out of fear they wont pay his exorbitant costs and keep using traditional routes he is going to enforce tolls on the Blackwell Tunnel users, maybe Tower Bridge will be next.
He could also close London it appears to be in his gift. Then 2TK will have tunnels to play with
December 7, 2024
Bat even have radar so as to avoid hitting object even in the dark. Perhaps high steed train are harder but they could just slow down for that section adding perhaps 1 minute or so to the journey perhaps but surely better than Ā£100 million doen the drain? Anyway bats will need to evolve so as not to hit trains or wind turbines surely?
December 7, 2024
BBC reporting over 40,000 homes & businesses without power today, but nationalisation & net-zero & smart-meters will save the day ā¦.ah but you canāt any longer put coal or wood on your fire, nor buy a new gas boiler, nor buy an internal combustion engine 4×4, nor buy a cigarette to charm your nerves, nor travel on a diesel train or car without being taxed or fined to death ā¦.best to stay at home or fly (by electric aeroplane) to sunny climate ā¦great nationalisation afoot
December 7, 2024
Indeed stick with gas or oil and buy a small petrol generator to power the central heating pump and a few lights.
December 7, 2024
I’m installing an encapsulated diesel generator for the same purpose. It is legal to run one on red diesel, which is no more than Ā£1 a litre. The built-in 56 litre tank will run the house for at least 75 hours, longer than most likely power outages. It will provide enough power for the central heating pump, the boiler, lighting, LED TVs, and some sockets. No need for a kettle – we have a gas Aga for the winter, plus a new gas fire just fitted in the lounge, and a 14kw wood burner in the conservatory. When we have a date for when we can no longer get a new gas boiler, we will be installing a second one in the garage next to our current 5 year old one.
PS glad I don’t live in Wales with this weekend’s power cuts. I’m certainly not stupid enough to drive an EV, but nobody ever mentions them when there are power cuts. Imagine getting home and wanting to charge your EV overnight but there are power cuts. I can keep the tank of my Cat 6 Audi diesel mostly full. That’s enough fuel for 640 miles.
These simple steps together will make us as Miliband-proof as it’s possible to be.
December 8, 2024
+1
December 7, 2024
BBC failing to report that most of them are in another country, the Republic of Ireland.
December 7, 2024
“Deny, Delay, Defend” plus Dodge, Duck, Waffle & Weave have been the hallmarks of this government and the last one on many key issues, especially mega black hole HS2.
No one gets fired or held to account.
Truly appalling incompetence by nincompoops ad nauseam.
December 7, 2024
Not sure why youāre criticising Starmer for Conservatives failures. At least heās said that giving bats priority is ridiculous – not a single Conservative minister said that in 14 years and HS2 is entirely a Conservative project.
Reply Labour started and supported the project and now wish to expand it again