I read today that the Chancellor is going to take on the ultra greens in Labour and insist on more building. She wants to change planning law so net zero arguments cannot stop new homes, data centres and other developments.
She needs to understand that to get growth the UK also needs a lot more cheaper energy. She needs to explain to Miliband that the more renewable power the UK has added, the higher the price of electricity and the more we rely on imports. The UK will not catch up with the US with electricity four tines the US price. We have not solved the big  problem of storing wind power. On very windy days we pay a fortune to get somec wind farms to shut down. Sone developments cannot  go ahead in this country because they cannot secure an electricity supply.
We need to put in more gas fired plant while we wait for that nuclear we have been promised.
January 26, 2025
The Chancellor hasn’t got a hope in hills chance of achieving anything whilst the CCA and treacherous Mays Net Zero legislation is still i force.
There is neither the will or majority in government to repeal these laws which will be upheld by activist left wing judges.
Until we get power cuts there will be no change in this ruinous policy foisted on the country by Milibrain and his pals.
January 26, 2025
Quite so. Over the past few posts our host has simply advised common-sense policies; frankly these suggestions are all too clear. I don’t expect the socialist dogma driven Labour leaders to reverse course, but why is it that Ms Badenoch cannot say the same things?
So far, the Uniparty is still in power.
PS, I watched a bit of the Climate and Nature Bill debate – there were very few who mentioned the problem of energy storage or what to do when the wind doesn’t blow, and most supported all the Climate change legislation. A rather depressing debate for those with common-sense.
January 26, 2025
Ditch net zero, have a bonfire of red tape, fire the half of the state sector that does net harm or nothing useful, cut taxes and drill baby drill. Just a 180 degree U-turn on everything labour and the Con-Socialists stand for Rachel!. Get the government out of the damn way! She is not going to stand for blockers on her own side well all the government needs to resign then.
âWe have not solved the big problem of storing wind powerâ says JR but the way to store electricity is as a pile of coal, a tank of diesel or natural gas and convert to electricity only as needed. All the other methods:- batteries, compressed air, hydrogen, pumping water up hill, lifting weights up hills or lift shafts⊠are absurdly energy wasteful, often dangerous and prohibitively expensive!
January 26, 2025
The UK pays much more for electricity than other Western countries who are just as focused on Net Zero as the UK. So you’re exaggerating. Why?
I don’t know why UK electricity prices are so high compared to other similar countries. Our over-dependance on gas? That we don’t have the facilities to store gas properly? The companies who supply our gas?
Reply No. High prices come from need for back up for wind and reliance on very dear imports because we closed too many fossil fuel stations.,
January 26, 2025
Or stored as nuclear fuel.
January 26, 2025
If you believe that it’s about saving the planet then you’ll accept any cost. Of course you may have to pretend that it will be cheaper to get public support. If storage of renewable energy is inefficient then you simply produce more to be inefficiently stored. If you don’t want the UK covered in windmills and solar panels then you consider putting them elsewhere and using the energy to produce synthetic liquid fuel which can be shipped here. South Georgia used to produce whale oil, and I imagine there is plenty of wind there and very few people to object so maybe that would be a good place to site a plant producing synthetic fuel:
https://www.repsol.com/en/sustainability/sustainability-pillars/environment/circular-economy/our-projects/synthetic-fuels/index.cshtml
Just a thought.
January 26, 2025
So two tier microphone grabber Mark Rowley actually says something sensible “Big Tech “enabling” phone thefts!”
Of course the industry could make it very difficult indeed to use reuse stolen phones or even bits of stolen phones but of course they choose not to. Rowley says the trade in stole phones is worth ÂŁ20 million PA. But as circa 200,000 + phones are stolen PA just in the UK these thefts are probably worth more like ÂŁ120 million to the phone industry in post theft replacements. Also good new for the insurance industry in premiums plus even the government wins in 12% insurance tax and 20% VAT.
Buy Mark Rowley they are therefore v. unlikely to do so unless forced to by governments? Perhaps a tax on the phone companies for every one of their phones that is stolen that was not suitably protected from reuse! About the same tax as the retail value of a replacement similar phone. So they have no incentive to augment phone thefts.
January 26, 2025
How would you, as a phone company, do that? A phone is a phone is a phone, known only by its model number, serial number, wifi address, bluetooth address.
The only information that relates to a person is the information that one inputs at the time of purchase (which seats in the phone memory) and the one inputted with the SIM card.
Once the phone is stolen, the SIM card replaced and the memory wiped out the phone is still there but might have moved to another phone company.
So how is a phone company (Apple, Google, Motorola, Samsung, Xiaomi, âŠ) originally involved with a mobile phone connected via a SIM of a given company (Asda, BT, EE, giffgaff, Lebara, O2, Sky, Talkmobile, Tesco, Vodafone, âŠ) going to be held responsible if the SIM card is changed?
January 26, 2025
Oops âwhich sits in the phone memoryâ.
I should also have been more precise distinguishing between âthe manufacturing phone company (Apple & co)â and âthe phone network company (BT et al.)â
January 26, 2025
The US, Germany and France have invested about the same per capita into Net Zero (I’m not saying I’m a fan of Net Zero). So there’s clearly something wrong with your maths!
Also, Japan has invested even more per capita.
All of these countries aren’t struggling with energy prices as bad as the UK, in particular the UK. So you’re exaggerating and deflecting from the real cause of high energy prices in the UK. I don’t know the answer to that. Trying to figure out. But I know exaggerating Net Zero doesn’t help (as it negatively affects our growth in Green Tech and Tech connected with that worth billions).
January 26, 2025
And not saying this to give you a hard time. But I am seriously planning to become a Tory MP. Even though there are about a million+ people more qualified than me to become one (but they don’t want to become MPs – so someone else has to try i.e. me! (Also I don’t have the experience at moment plus trying to figure out the political landscape. What’s going on under the bonnet .. And even if I do get the experience I need, still only have a tiny chance of becoming an MP).
Best wishes
January 26, 2025
well said LL. We need to return to the common sense we and our fathers had! coal, oil and gas for a start and rip up all the nonsense of zero carbon trash.
Follow that with people with an education in Westminster not the greedy loonies who have been bought and corrupt!
January 26, 2025
Energy cost is the prime driver of growth or lack of. Energy prices are determined by availability. When we had massive coal production it provided cheap power, that also set the benchmark for other energy options. Oil and ultimately gas had to be competitive with cheap coal in a free market world or it would not be extracted due to lack of demand.
Those basic drivers of economics have been destroyed by the Green environmental movement who have removed market forces from the energy price foundation and have thus destroyed the free market discipline of energy from functioning.
For an economy to grow it must have a free market, which must include energy competition allowing economic forces to drive it. When the state attempts to manipulate the most basic foundation of society i.e. energy availability/cost, then the market is closed and decline in economic activity will follow.
Welcome to communism.
January 26, 2025
How does the government control energy prices? Please explain.
Reply By rigging the electricity wholesale market and imposing price controls on the consumer market!
January 26, 2025
Rob Evans,
An excellent post. I agree one Hundred percent with you.
I think we also need to separate the climate change religion from the green religion. The two are not the same. Anyone with any scientific knowledge knows that our tiny contribution to world C02 is akin to peeing in the ocean. Only those on the payroll of the state cannot see it.
The green agenda is a little different, no one wants to foul their own bed. It is sensible to look after our planet but some people want to go too far and appear to be more interested in power and control over other people.
We should adopt the slogan….
“Net Zero or Growth? You Can’t Have Both.”
January 26, 2025
+1 There is a big difference between caring about the environment and the Climate Change/Net Zero SCAM.
January 26, 2025
we need to separate the climate change religion from the green religion. The two are not the same.
Indeed not the war against CO2 which is plant. tree and crop food does nothing for the environment CO2 greens the planet nicely. A bit more CO2 and cheaper more reliable energy please.
January 26, 2025
@Rod Evans – and not a once or milligram of World CO2 reduced. In reality the ConSocialist and now Labour(along with Parliament) Policy of offshoring much needed wealth creating Industry has resulted in increasing World CO2 emissions exponentially. Their actions have contradicted their sound-bite speeches and achieved the opposite to what they infer. You get to question which Country of our Competitor nations are our so-called MPs working for?
Not that anyone has proved CO2 to be the real problem.
January 26, 2025
Indeed – but what they imply and some may infer from it.
January 26, 2025
+ 1 , I agree with you Rod!
January 26, 2025
I find it unbelievable that we are having to repeat these arguements ad infinitum. Realistically we are standing before a class of D stream degenerates with a prefered propensity for committing social crime against those for whom they have a congenital hatred.
Until they self destruct or four years is up we are stuck with them. The polls are begining to turn against them and their enablers from the so called previous government. The electorate are not happy.
January 26, 2025
+1
January 26, 2025
Rachel is conflicted with attempting paths opposite each other stuck in a spot.
January 26, 2025
We also urgently need to drastically reduce immigration
January 26, 2025
Yes
January 26, 2025
sorry Kenneth , we need to go further and stop migration unless one is on the list of needed skills along with a reduction of those who refuse to work.
January 26, 2025
Reverse! Deportations aplenty required.
January 26, 2025
She needs to end the link of renewable pricing with that generated by gas.
She also needs to guarantee much lower prices.
Mr Vince literally is as happy as a pig in muck
January 26, 2025
Dale Vine was on Question Time talking drivel like nearly all of the panel and chair. David Davis the only sensible one and even he was a bit lefty, still sitting on the fence on net zero and not to pro the self effacing, modest, quick acting and sensible Trump. At least he is sound on Lucy Letby. Mathew Parris the fake Tory was, as usual, wrong on everything but is occasionally amusing. None other than David seemed to have much a clue about science, energy, economics or logic.
January 26, 2025
Vince not Vine
January 26, 2025
NS :
“She needs to end the link of renewable pricing with that generated by gas.
She also needs to guarantee much lower prices.”
Firstly, renewable energy is more expensive than gas. Secondlly, renewable energy is parasitic energy bexause it cannot function without a full parallel gas backup as no grid-scale storage of electricity exists or is even planned for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shne and what is the real value of electricity that is chaotically itermittent? If you understood that renewables are more expensive than gas and the way electricity is supplied in order for supply to match a chaotically variable demand you would not request the ending of the link of renewable prices with gas prices.
Of course Mr. Vince is happy. His windfarms get paid higher prices than gas prices and his electricity is guranteed to be bought whether or not the electricity is needed.
January 26, 2025
I suppose we should be slightly relieved that the moronic Climate and Nature (appropriately named CAN Bill) has been kicked down the road to July.
The Chancellor is currently getting a hard lesson in economic reality, which is always very uncomfortable for a socialist. She’ll soon get a hard lesson in legislative reality as well: the Climate Change Act, the Climate Change Committee and an activist Judiciary are going to prevent her from pursuing the policies she now says she wants.
That’s what happens when you take power away from Parliament/an elected Government and pass Acts which empower unaccountable Acronym Organisations/Quangos/Committees and give the Judiciary the power to “interpret” and therefore make up the law based on legal challenges made by extremist Eco activists.
Etc ed. I am not publishing allegations about named Labour donors. Please take these matters up elsewhere if you have evidence of wrong doing.
January 26, 2025
Ms. Reeves seems to be busy, also saying we cannot keep footing the bill for jobless Britain â so she will bring forward a plan to cut sickness benefits in weeks. Socialism in action!
Bernanke led the drive to make interest rates artificially low for an overly-extended period, all to rescue politicians from making awkwardly unpopular choices, so it is perhaps to be expected that contemporary politicians want the same deal on their watch. At some point though, surely, the music has to be faced. Whether Ms. Reeves will last long enough to even see the start of that is, of course, increasingly open to doubt.
January 26, 2025
One of the few good ideas to come from this government so far is to streamline the planning process. I have read that some projects, such as lower Thames crossing, have spent several millions on thousands of pages of reports before getting anywhere near approval. If this is sensibly much reduced to something succinct then at least it’s a small step in the right direction.
Let’s see if they can turn a good idea into good reality, i.e not just allowing building anywhere but focus on the few things really required to make a sensible decision. I have my doubts.
January 26, 2025
Correct and we need to ‘drill baby drill’ for our own plentiful gas and oil!
January 26, 2025
The biggest issue for both labour and tory, is that they keep trying to satisfy the green party polices, the EU green concept and UN/WEF/Davos drive to net-zero âŠthey need to scrap net-zero; they need to shout out loud and publically that net-zero is costly, restricts growth and doesnât work
January 26, 2025
Net Zero is not designed to work , it is aimed at destroying Great Britain.
we have to fight for its destruction
January 26, 2025
âShe [the Chancellor] needs to understand that to get growth the UK also needs a lot more cheaper energy.â
Our electricity will become ever more expensive as the Uniparty implements their Net Zero policy to decarbonise our electricity â 2030 for the Reds, 2035 for the Blues â using mainly wind power.
Firstly, because wind only produces over a year a third of the energy of the installed capacity it is necessary to overbuild by 3 times to get the amount of energy needed over a year. Newer turbines may be better but theyâre not all new and wind turbines need replacement every 20 years compared to gas and nuclear which last 2 to 3 times longer. This requires a massive subsidy. When the wind blows âjust rightâ this overbuild produces an excess of electricity which cannot be stored because there is no grid-scale storage for electricity existing or planned and cannot be used by consumers because the local grids can only handle 1-2KW/household continuously. So this means constraint payments to the wind suppliers only mitigated by some export at negative prices. More subsidies required. When the wind doesnât blow, and it can be almost at zero, then we need to have gas generators on standby with power equivalent to the full required demand. If the gas generators are only running at about 5% of the time, as planned, this will require enormous subsidies to keep the gas fleet well maintained. More subsidies. NESO in their âClean Power 2030â report for the SoS of DESNZ estimate a âsystem costâ of ÂŁ133/MWhr which is double the current cost of gas generation even when including carbon taxes. It is also most likely an âHS2â estimateâŠ
This is why decarbonisation will be so expensive as well as being an enormous threat to our energy, economic and military security.
Reply. Yes,well put . Higher prices,the need for massive overcapacity and less efficiency are built in through the renewable preference driven wholsesale market rules. Rigged against customers.
January 26, 2025
The same is true for electric vehicles, trucks & fork-lifts; you need to buy two (one always on charge) to ensure continuity of service/business i.e police cars and 24/7 warehouse
January 26, 2025
It’s more theatre.
If the Chancellor was really serious about all of this she would stop funding Miliband’s exotic projects. She would put a stop to the huge waste going on renewables.
She has to look as though she is responding to issues noted everywhere. As Chancellor she should have as much authority, if not more, than other cabinet members, so why doesn’t she just reign in the worst excesses of netzero?
The answer is because netzero rules – it will always bypass common sense and even if the Chancellor was serious about changing things, which I don’t believe for a moment she is, she wouldn’t do it because the whole government is wedded to their obnoxious cult.
January 26, 2025
Money removed from the economy (Tax) the way it is conceived in the UK is just Tax and destruction of the economy. Tax is required to ensure the basics are in place, security, safety and resilience – it is not needed for anything else. So when it is taken to fund ideological political doctrines it is just money removed from the economy. It doesn’t return and it is never rewarded
MP’s, Government need in the competitive World think UK.plc, how does it get the edge on its competitors,its USP, above all they need constant reminding they are in place to ensure the UK’s shareholders( the taxpayer) gets value. Every penny not used productively for a commercial return, is money wasted, money that is removed from the UK’s is a removal of the driver for its economy. MPs, Government need constant reminding that it is their ego, their personal self-esteem that is holding the Country back, they are trashing a Country and a People,m for why do they just think it is because they can?.
Then again as a one Party Marxist State under the banner of the Uniparty (labour, ConSocialists, LibDems, Greens) they forget their purpose and are comfortable with the damage they have and are doing. The donât even hear what they are being told, they donât understand logic or common-sense they prefer to fight those that empower and pay them – rather than allow us all to pull in one direction to beat the competition.
Bankruptcy seems to be preferred rather than admit they have made millions of missteps
January 26, 2025
âWe need to put in more gas fired plant while we wait for that nuclear we have been promised.â
What promise?
The UKâs electricity supply is moving in the opposite direction. In 1997 nuclear generated 26% of our electricity. NESOâs plan for âclean powerâ by 2030 is for 11-12% with no further new build. NESOâs Holistic 2050 Future Energy Scenario is for just 8%.
January 26, 2025
âI read today that the Chancellor is going to take on the ultra greens in Labour and insist on more building.â
Do you mean the âGreen Ultrasâ?
This is just talk. The Uniparty policy of Net Zero is to de-industrialise and de-grow the economy. It is the very essence of the Net Zero policy to save the planet. We are to consume less with the rationing of food, energy, heating and transport. Read the Absolute Zero report.
If the Chancellor talks of âgrowthâ it can only mean the growth of the Civil Service, higher spending to justify higher taxation to reduce consumption, and increased GDP through massive immigration. It certainly wonât mean growing GDP/capita.
January 26, 2025
It seems that Ed Davey has the answer – a customs union with the EU, as he explains here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G6kKZI-YPM
He even thinks that this would strengthen our hand in our negotiations with the evil Trump.
Here is what the House of Lords EU committee had to say about that, December 13 2016:
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldeucom/72/7207.htm#_idTextAnchor045
I notice one particularly interesting feature of Turkey’s customs union deal with the EU:
“Turkey imposes the EUâs Common External Tariff on all goods imported from non-EU countries that are covered by the customs agreement. Turkey has no involvement in decisions about the Common External Tariff or setting the direction of the Common Commercial Policy. It is also not able automatically to secure additional market access via EU FTAs with third countries, but these third countries have access to Turkeyâs market.”
January 26, 2025
It’s very convenient for the pro-EU Establishment that the economy is tanking. Makes it so much easier to advance an argument that we need “closer links with the EU or to rejoin a Customs Union.”
You’d be forgiven for thinking that they’ve done it deliberately …. which is precisely what I think.
January 26, 2025
@Donna +1
I would guess it was always the plan, the faux Tories kept us tied tight, Kemi refused to stop EU rules governing the UK. The Establishment of weird Politicos never gave up the fight and go on to support the UK. It was always that power should be with the unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats
January 26, 2025
These regressive ideas would not stand a chance if we had an effective organisation to oppose them.
January 26, 2025
Even today when wind is generating about 50% of the present demand, as I type, we are still importing 17% of our electricity from our European neighbours. With Putin assiduously mapping the network of undersea cables and ships from countries friendly to him “accidentally” dragging their anchors, this is a very fragile state of affairs.
January 26, 2025
From the Telegraph
âThe Chancellor warned Labour MPs and peers not to âput their own interests above those of the countryâ as she laid out a string of reforms to kick-start the economyâ.â
âThe Chancellor will also strip green quangos of their powers to block building, saying they have wielded an âoversized say on the future of our economyâ.â
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/26/rachel-reeves-labour-blockers-new-homes-growth-ed-miliband/
To be clear she only appears to be talking about âplanning lawsâ more homes for the channel invaders comes to mind… Good agriculture land is needed without resistance for more Chinese supplied wind and solar farms. She is not talking about the economy and how it could grow to fund a tomorrow. She still believes it is only the State that can provide. Marxist command and control
Then as we saw this week âMore than 80 Labour MPs had signalled their support for a Liberal Democrat Bill that would have made the UKâs climate and nature targets legally binding.â – As they donât believe in the UK or its People, they shouldn’t be in Parliament representing us, the People.
Its no longer time for talking, the whole of the century has been about destruction a ânew home or airportâ means nothing when the economy is being stolen with astronomically high taxes, high energy costsâ. There needs to be a focus on the real economy, real wealth creation, the money to fund our and our childrenâs future
January 26, 2025
She spent 6 months talking the country down and it seems she will now spend 6 months talking the country up, but itâs all just talk because all the while the governmentâs actual policies are depressing employment and growth. As an example her promotion of the Heathrow third runway – this will never happen.
January 26, 2025
No one sensible wants to attempt to store wind energy. That is why energy is normally generated according to demand; this is what we used to do before the advent of green lunacy and net zero.
January 26, 2025
Indeed why generate electricity before it is needed and then have to very expensively store it?
January 26, 2025
Dear Mr. Redwood,
Wind turbines that do not produce power when there is no wind and have to be shut down when it is too windy with associated large subsidies.
Solar panels that cover large areas of arable land and are useless when the sun doesn’t shine.
The premature closure of our coal and many gas power stations.
Huge payments to remaining gas power stations when they have to be cranked-up to provide power on windless and cloudy days.
The premature closure of our own North Sea oil and gas resources.
The importation of bulk liquid gas from all over the world to replace our own.
The importation of large and costly amounts of power via overseas interconnectors.
The importation of millions of tons of wood-pellets from across the Atlantic Ocean for burning which is apparently green?
A national grid so antiquated and over-capacity that new power sources cannot be connected to it.
Margins between power generation and consumption becoming dangerously close during cold spells.
Closing down old nuclear power stations and a failure to plan and build new ones on time and on budget.
The highest electricity prices in the world and an outright refusal to admit that high energy costs are directly leading to the loss of jobs and industrial capacity in the UK.
Only our useless politicians could conspire to produce the absolute mess that is the UK’s energy policy and, furthermore, put a person in charge who thinks more of the same is the solution.
January 26, 2025
and when the sun does not shine is usually on the cold winter days and nights when we need most of our electricity!
January 26, 2025
Labour doesn’t have joined-up thinking, but rather unhinged thinking, if ever there was any rational economic plan. They are guessing what to do, reacting to the reality of the impending turn down still repeating their default plausible excuses.
Meanwhile Trump sees them through his tough business experience mulling over his to play his ace cards advantage.
January 26, 2025
I live in a beautiful area of the UK but it is being sacrificed on the altar of Net Zero. Plans are afoot to carpet it with solar panels, housing and interconnectors. When this beautiful area, along with its rare wildlife, has gone, it is lost forever. Net Zero isnât Green itâs destructive and lining the pockets of political donors.
January 26, 2025
well said Christine.
January 26, 2025
Correct does not even save CO2 either not that CO2 is a serious issue.
January 26, 2025
Net Zero is a death cult.
In the short term, hydrocarbons produce fertiliser and if the Green Ultras get their way millions will starve to death.
CO2 is the gas of life. In the long term, if CO2 drops below 150 ppm, then plants die and all life on the planet. It has been in the geologically recent past as low as 180 ppm having been on a continuous decline for the last 150m years when it was 4 times higher than today.
Shula and Ott on the Tom Nelson YT “Missing Link” video show both theoretically and experimentally that there is no greenhouse effect from the greenhouse gases, such as water vapour (the largest) and CO2, at the planetâs surface because of a phenomenon known as thermalisation making the IPCCâs radiative model and hence that CO2 controls the temperature completely invalid. In fact at the top of the atmosphere the greenhouse gases cool the planet.
January 26, 2025
The media today highlights not only is UK energy 4 times the price of our major competitors. Even our close neighbours of the EU, Germany has its steel works paying under half the price for energy as our steel in the UK
On another line, it is reported – Rachael absolutely happy that we join the back up with EU Trade & Customs. Again that would mean accepting their laws, Rules and Regulations without any say being permitted by the people of the UK. It also means reneging on trade with countries outside of the EU, as the EU protection racket blocks it. It suggests why they are wreaking the economy to cause a ‘Fait accompli’ and indicates why Kemi the other part of the Uniparty refused the UK permission to drop EU Laws.
January 26, 2025
Just to go with the flow Ed Davey has joined in with the need to be back in the EU to bolster the economy – does he honestly think that is what is wrong in this Country
January 26, 2025
Before the EU suggested that we might join it I had never heard of this Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention and I know nothing about it. But this article from June suggests that probably it would be worth little to us anyway.
https://citp.ac.uk/publications/should-the-uk-join-pem
“The contribution of PEM countries to the VA of UK exports is rather small (Figure 1). Excluding Coke and petroleum products, which exhibit by far the largest PEM VA content but already face a 0% Most Favoured Nation tariff in the EU, the PEM countriesâ VA share ranges between 1.1% and 2.8%. The low shares suggest that joining PEM would not be a game-changer for UK exports to the EU.”
Our goods exports to the EU comprise only 7% of our GDP so it would need a large percentage increase in their volume and value to give a significant percentage increase to the overall economy. By my reckoning the one-off hit we have taken on those exports translates to a loss of GDP of about 1% but in the other direction we are no longer paying in to the EU budget each year and that saves the government about as much money as it would have raised from that 1% of GDP.
January 26, 2025
Your points are absolutely correct . It was perhaps unsurprising to hear a Labour MP stating that the Civil Service can create the growth without using private investment.