Dear Kemi
The UK vehicle industry is being badly damaged by the threat to ban sales of petrol and diesel cars from 2030. This is sooner than our main competitors, leaves insufficient time to create EV models people want and can afford and destroys a very successful UK ICE industry. Do you want all those factories to shut soon? Where are plans for new factories for making EVs with the batteries they need? How would you stop people importing nearly new ICE vehicles they want from 2030? Why do both government and Opposition want to wipe our current factories off the map?
There is a threat to our gas and oil boiler manufacture and installation businesses from the proposed ban on these boilers in new homes from 2025. Given the very low take up, high cost and questionable performance of heat pumps it would be wise to delay this ban until more progress has been made with finding good value good performance alternatives to gas and oil boilers.
I am copying Grant Shapps in to the correspondence as these policies are also unhelpful in trying to cut CO 2 emissions. EVs require a lot of energy to manufacture, and need a lot of electricity to recharge the batteries. Most days in the UK the bulk of this energy comes from fossil fuel generation. Heat pumps also need plenty of electricity to run and again often work from power mainly derived from fossil fuels. It makes the extra cost of the imports bizarre.
There is no point shifting industry from the UK to overseas to shunt round the CO 2, and no point in closing our oil and gas fields only to import these fuels instead. The UK needs to earn a living, to invest and create jobs here, not end up dependent on others.
Yours
John Redwood
June 5, 2023
Much more of this madness and the British arm of the vehicle manufacturing industry will be having the last rites said over it.
What about all the smaller companies in the supplier chain? The impact on those who cannot afford a EV replacement?
Above all where are the real hard nosed in your face for all this costing?
With the decline in the taxable population how the hell will all of it be paid for?
Surely not a massive build back better programme? Who the hell is actually running this country?
June 5, 2023
The WEF – through the people they’ve embedded in the Government.
June 5, 2023
And Kemi went to the Davos meeting. Another wef stooge.
June 5, 2023
Taking instructions
June 5, 2023
Let’s face it…007 knows all about those meetings. A load of egotistical, unelected idiots with too much power telling us how to live our lives.
June 5, 2023
@Donna
You might wish to follow @ANTIWEF on Twitter ?
June 5, 2023
@Donna +1
Why do we have elections? Why do we have the HoC just money down the drain all the while someone external calls all the shots
June 5, 2023
@ Donna
Even the staunchest supporters of the Con party and the most trusting must realise what is happening, surely!
June 5, 2023
Donna.+1. How do we rid ourselves of them? Most MPs or wannabee MPs are not cut from our host’s cloth. They’re just WEF stooges.
June 5, 2023
TT,
The real costings point is key. Why did government ministers never ask the basic questions about EVs, and CO2 reduction more generally:
– What is the audited, independent analysis that demonstrates over a lifetime that EVs are more efficient?
– How much effect will the banning of UK ICE vehicles have on global CO2 emmisions?
– What are the total econimic costs and benefits of the policy?
I could go on but you get the point. Why didn’t the fully rounded debate happen? It does if a new nuclear plant is to be built, or even a new dual carrigeway.
June 5, 2023
Reasoning with an increasingly totalitarian state run by globalists is pointless. Their policies are uniform throughout Europe.
June 5, 2023
@Chris. Absolutely true. Reasoning will not work. They are too powerful and arrogant. Apart from Hungary, Europe is in their grasp, although support for anti-globalist parties is on the rise.
June 5, 2023
PeteB
Just by chance this dropped into my inbox today and puts a different colour to their spectacle lenses
The Wider System Costs Of Renewable Energy.
Willis Eschenbach wrote a piece over at WUWT last week, about the widespread use of Levelized Costs of Energy, and their failure to deal with the wider system costs of different sources of generation.
He mentioned this OECD study, which attempted to measure those wider system costs:
https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/nuclear-energy/nuclear-energy-and-renewables_9789264188617-en#page1
Paul of NaLoPKT has put together a very good article that highlights the real costs when WE put together his report. he states that the figures are out of date but it shows up the difference and that if one price has gone up it applies to the rest of the equation
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/06/04/the-wider-system-costs-of-renewable-energy/
June 5, 2023
Proper government analysis of energy stopped when the late Professor Sir David Mackay, author of Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, no longer advised DECC. No one in parliament seems to have even read his book, I which insisted on using real numbers and making them add up. Before he passed he said that wing was not the answer and if we really wanted to stop using fossil fuel, I nuclear run all the time was. There is no way to store electrical energy for the necessary weeks.
June 5, 2023
wind not wing and omit I. The flipping new prediction corrects when out of sight.
June 6, 2023
John, you are getting there! Your next trick is to find out about CO2 and its non-effect on the climate. Call on the GWPF. Have you lefties also crashed the towed caravan industry as well?””
June 5, 2023
Good morning.
Dear Sir John,
There is no point in writing to her, there is nothing she can do. In fact, there is nothing the government can do, not whilst they allow others to pull their strings.
You need to cut the strings.
June 5, 2023
What strings are these, Mark? The Conservatives have been in power for THIRTEEN years. If things are going badly, there is no one else to blame
June 5, 2023
The globalists (WEF, WHO, etc) are never out of power. Vote Labour for accelerated decline, more immigration and a return to the EU.
June 5, 2023
What makes you think that the EU27 would want the UK back?
June 6, 2023
They love our money and obedient politicians.
June 9, 2023
I hope you realise it is a well known fact in psychology that people who feel they don’t have agency on their own life are the first ones to go for conspiracy theories to explain all they can’t understand.
How many of those on this blog?
So what is the flavour of the day today? WEF, EU, WHO, LabourLibDemSNP, civil servants, Macron, Biden, Sunak, … ?
Ever looked in the mirror and realised how pitiful you are?
Sir John’s diary and its bandwagon of lost souls.
June 5, 2023
Well let start with one shall we. He who pays the Piper, gets to call the tune.
June 5, 2023
Except of course the British tax payer. We have paid the piper all our lives but get less and less opportunity to call the tune. The tune is directed to us by outsiders, many of whom we do not elect. As usual, ‘follow the money is a more accurate’ statement and we can see where that goes – the usual clique who get richer whilst the poor get poorer. The rich are never satisfied even if they have more money then they can ever use – it is a sickness with these people.
June 5, 2023
I genuinely have no idea what you mean. The country is run by the Conservatives, and has been for 13 years.
June 5, 2023
Yes!!!
Huge scissors…NOW!!
June 5, 2023
Whistling in the wind John.
Net Zero rules ans that’s the end of it.
They’re coming after the farmers next. Look at Holland and Ireland.
June 5, 2023
Yeah, they want the land for more housing – much more profitable than growing crops. Short term money rules.
June 5, 2023
Mark B
There is every point in writing to Ministers, because at least it shows not everyone is following the fantasy land ideas of the few.
Good also that it is short and punchy, so the reader is left in no doubt about the subject matter the content and the questions raised.
Good also that it comes from an established member of the same Party, who has had real life experience of a Ministerial position, and commerce and industry.
Thank you John, let us hope that the usual media pick up on it, and run it further.
This Net Zero Fiasco/push thinking simply has to change, and change rapidly if we are to remain competitive and jobs are to survive.
June 5, 2023
Good points that I can agree with.
Thank you.
June 5, 2023
BA. Yes agree with you. John is one of the few in the party talking common sense.
June 5, 2023
Surely a statement of the blindingly obvious but clearly not obvious to this appalling scientifically illiterate & fake Conservative government. Both bans (ICE cars and gas boilers) should not just be delayed they should be scrapped and we should get fracking, drilling and mining our local energy resources rather than relying on (less efficient) imports plus more R&D on better nuclear and in other areas. The export all our jobs and freeze agenda is moronic but so much of the Sunak agenda is mad job destroying, fake green crap, tax to death socialism.
Dismal rating for these ConSocialists and Sunak – I wonder why? Could it be that they got everything wrong for 13 years and then did the complete opposite to what they promised?
June 5, 2023
Even if the bans were reversed, it will be too late to save British industries, which have already advanced their closure plans. Why should they believe a government change of heart? I wouldn’t, and would expect the government to shaft me once again.
No doubt they will blame it on Brexit. What a cop out for our useless government.
June 5, 2023
@Lifelogic
The usual claptrap post from your pen. Did you know that the Taiwan company ProLogium has broken ground on a new, next generation, long-range solidstate battery megafactory near Dunkirk in France? Somehow, Macron has also persuaded China’s Envision AESC, local startup Verkor and the ACC consortium (including Mercedes and Stellantis) to also set up battery gigafactories in the same area. Apparently, France is courting Chinese EV giant BYD and Tesla with tax breaks to also build EV gigafactory car plants.
How come the French have attracted all this foreign inward investment and not us? Doubtless, the government’s fossil fuel lobby infuenced decision to withdraw support for the BritishVolt battery gigafactory played a major part. Do you ever post anything other than fossil fuel lobby disinformation and bullshit?
Reply Subsidy was offered but they needed to show some progress with potential customers and other investors
June 5, 2023
If you offer enough subsidies companies will go to farm the subsidies. If they stay for long when the subsidies run out is rather different.
long-range, solid state, battery mega-factory – lots of buzz words I am surprised they did not get AI, environmental, ESI and Digital thrown in there too!
Most batteries are fairly solid state, long range just means they store more energy, mega-factory mean large factory. What actual battery technology are they using or have you not looked into this the laws of physics and battery chemistry will not change? I suspect you are being taken in by press releases aimed at stem-illiterate people like 95% of MPs.
June 5, 2023
Is there a fossil fuel lobby?! The UK seems to have set more ambitious timescales than other developed countries for heat pumps & electric vehicles. I doubt if they’ll be met. The IEEE published a paper explaining how ambitious the EV transition is. Governments sometimes seem to behave as though 50 individual steps will go right and none will prove unexpectedly difficult. The years 2060 or -70 seem more realistic targets.
Meanwhile, peak oil gets ignored even though it’s more likely to prove our undoing than climate change. See, e.g. the blogs Our Finite World, Surplus Energy Economics and Consciousness of Sheep. I read them regularly.
June 5, 2023
I have just reread it. Everything I said is correct so which bit do you think is “claptrap”.
Nothing even seems to be remotely pretentious, insincere or empty language – rather simple correct and true in fact.
June 5, 2023
France still has a nuclear power station at Dunkirk and it’s cheap electricity. The Saudi of Wind is producing expensive electricity and couldn’t compete for manufacturing. British Volt was doomed when government decided to reverse the industrial revolution and use windmills instead of steam.
June 5, 2023
Sakara. Have you seen the mountain of solar panels we are going to have to dispose of as well as defunct batteries and wind turbines blades?
June 5, 2023
F U S
Well said.
June 5, 2023
LL, the correct term is ‘STEM-illiterate’. When a nation which depends on the quality of its science and technology can appoint a Minister for Energy who doesn’t know that electricity once generated has to be used at once or immediately stored (I saw this in real life) then there is little hope for us.
JF
June 5, 2023
Indeed they often even confuse energy with power and the units for them. A bit like confusing Shakespeare and Beowulf for a ministry for English & Drama or Cameron forgetting which football team he supported!
June 5, 2023
Or energy minister – Selwyn College, Cambridge, from 1982 to 1985, where he read Philosophy and Law but failed his degree.
June 5, 2023
So nearly 300 die in an appalling rail crash in Indian and we get extensive BBC and MSM coverage – but in the UK excess deaths almost certainly from the Covid vaccination program (even in the young who never even needed such vaccines) is at least 200 times this figure so far and is still increasing by about three times this figure each week. Yet no serious investigations or inquiries or BBC/MSM coverage? Injuries like myocarditis etc. must be circa 10 times this figure.
See the depressing figures from South Korea who are addressing the issue – instead of trying to censor and cover it up.
June 5, 2023
+ 1000
June 5, 2023
You need to ask if that is because of the, Counter Disinformation Unit ?
June 5, 2023
+1
June 5, 2023
LL
About 2,500 excess deaths every week and nobody, including my MP, shows any curiosity at all.
June 5, 2023
Alas I believe your pleas, Sir John, wil make no difference. The Government is hopelessly out of touch , tone deaf and thoroughly misguided in its policies. It does not know what to do in the country’s best interests because the Conservative party itself has no foundation in a philosophy of conservative Goverment that all in the party agree on. This weakness makes the Party ineffectual in government. The only policy that seems to be agreed in Government is to keep the UK closely aligned with the EU for fear of doing something worse.
June 5, 2023
“It (this government) does not know what to do in the country’s best interests” May I help them – cut the vast government waste, cut and simplify taxes, stop currency debasing with QE, get real incentives to actually work, cull net zero completely, have a bonfire of red tape, relax and speed up planning, get a sensible energy policy, get fracking and drilling, get migration (legal and illegal) down to sensible levels of say 100,000 net and take only people we really need and higher earners, scrap all the soft loans for worthless degrees (circa 75% of them are), get the police and courts to tackle and actually deter real crimes for a chance, get fair un-rigged competition in energy, healthcare, transport, education… stop blocking the roads, a windfall tax on gold state sector pensions (the private sector workers can no longer afford to carry these people & pay their largely undeserved pensions), abolish the absurd BBC licence tax, stop the wars on motorists, landlords/tenants, small business, the self employed, fix the pot holes… that should keep them going for the 18(?) months they have left.
In short a 180 degree U turn on every single issue you and these ConSocialists have pushed for 13 years Sunak. Oh also deliver a real Brexit and scrap your Windsor Framework disaster for NI.
June 5, 2023
I see the government is piloting Universal Basic Income (UBI) in two areas of England for a two year period. People will be paid £1600 a month. This is far above what pensioners are expected to live off. This Government is creating a self-entitled, lazy population. Why bother working when you can get this amount doing nothing?
June 5, 2023
Communists has won out – next you’ll have to wear a little red badge to show you’re in receipt of universal basic income …all under a tory government
June 5, 2023
Christine
I find UBI a shocking development. But, this is straight out of the WEF marxist agenda.
June 5, 2023
Why don’t they ask Sir Klaus KPMGB and King Charles and Bill Gates to run the country and have done with it?
June 5, 2023
@Lifelogic – that’s a big stretch you seem to be asking them to do what we empowered them to do in numerous elections and pay them for. How would doing your job help your self-esteem on the World stage of numpties?
June 5, 2023
Spot on. And bring back conscription that would sort out a lot of our problems !
June 5, 2023
If they did all this we would become Great Britain again. As it is we are a nonentity and destined to be a 3rd world country.
June 5, 2023
Blowing air on a steering wheel can’t turn a misguided bus right.
Is anyone in the cabinet qualified to operate, or knowing where to go without being told?
June 5, 2023
Our country is capitulating to a global dictatorship with not a shot being fired.
We are almost standing in the streets watching them take over.
Somewhere over the past decades we have lost our spirit of identity, too much woke, diversity, and this belief we have to be all things to everybody.
We the real British people are the hardest hit.
June 5, 2023
Good words that I fully support
June 5, 2023
Too right Turbo. We have lost our way thanks to useless political parties.
June 5, 2023
Universal basic income of £1,600 a month to be trialled in two places in England. Scheme to run for two years and participants will be monitored to see what effect it has on mental and physical health claims the Guardian. This is £19.2K PA which is more than the take home pay of a junior doctor (after their student loan interest commuting costs) – a moronic plan so who is paying for this lunacy.
You do rather well if you have two parents and four children all still living at home all on this scheme with all earning on top of this basic income. But if you are single and paying rent or a mortgage of say £1,400PCM and cannot work not so clever.
June 5, 2023
Who’s paying the bill?
June 5, 2023
Sea_Warrier
Who do you think.?
We have family members who take home less than this after tax, and that’s after working 40 hours a week, what sort of a signal is this to them !
We are going mad, and certainly losing the plot, working from home now considered a right, and now just stay at home, and do as you like.
Illegals put up in Hotels in Westminster, probably one of the most expensive area’s in the Country, and they are moaning, good grief if I was seeking sanctuary from war, then I would sleep on the floor if it was safe !
It would seem our Governments priorities have now well and truly morphed into fantasy land.
June 5, 2023
Junior doctors often take home less – after you take off their student loan interest and costs of commuting!
So they leave and go to Australia, Canada, USA or go into the city. Who can blame them.
June 5, 2023
It does seem high. The basic state pension is only ~£9,000 per year, or £7,500 if you were born before 1951. How can it be right that people aged 18-65 are to be offered 2-2.5x more than ‘oldies’?
I’ve always supported an *affordable* UBI, with no means-testing [aka red tape]. I think people should also be free to go out and work if they feel able.
June 5, 2023
The hard working tax payer.
June 6, 2023
I gather that it is a small-scale experiment run by a think-tank. I would hope that a Conservative government would never have anything to do with UBI but I wouldn’t put it past Starmer’s lot.
June 5, 2023
Universal Basic Income will increase inflation as does any handing out of “free” money. Why is that a good idea ?
June 5, 2023
And will it be like benefits at the moment?
The more you qualify for …the more you get?
Like free seats at sporting events and half price entrance fees etc.?
Not to mention preferential treatment from healthcare and utilities.
June 5, 2023
Universal Basic Income was on the list of the WEF in its great reset agenda! Along with no private car ownership, 15 mins cities, CBDC etc.
Gas boilers and non compliant cars and vans – scrappage of millions of them. How green is this? I don’t buy it. We are seeing more and more evidence of net zero’s illogical and contradictory, harmful to the environment, more CO2 creation to convince me… our government are definitely not running the country.
The WEF stooges need to be identified and sacked (sacked – not just moved to another position.)
June 5, 2023
Many believe that Science fiction often opens a window on the future Sharon.
Fans of ‘The Expanse’ will recall that when Amos returns to Earth, the global population has two citizen classes, those who are employed and the (larger) ‘Basic’ group. These are those folk who have no employable skills and are entirely housed and supported by the state. James SA Corey (the author of the original novels) clearly had a sense of this trend some years ago… 🙂
June 5, 2023
Sharon
Yes, sacked, also for attendance of any WEF event by cs or MP’s. It is a truly sinister organisation.
June 5, 2023
@LL @Sharon – ‘There are now more than 2.5 million people out of work because of long-term health conditions.’ …?
Say one thing then go the other-way. Experts warn the current system has created a “lost generation” who may never work again because it incentivise them to remain on benefits. – now the intension is to compound the situation.
Who do we pay to ‘manage’?
June 5, 2023
I bet illegal immigrants and refugees can claim it …and their families
June 5, 2023
Robert Jenrick “migrants need to share hotel rooms so the tax payers gets value for money”.
So what “value” for money does the tax payer actually get Robert? Ever higher taxes, higher hotel bills and less choice, more pressure on doctors, hospitals, roads, school places, police, social services… is this the “value”? I am sure we are all very grateful for this wonderful value received! Price is what you pay value is what you get with this government nearly 50% of GDP is the price and the value received back is virtually nothing of value!
June 5, 2023
Every major Conservative policy hurts the vast majority of voters.
June 5, 2023
Javelin So true! Talk about putting the interests of your electorate first – can’t remember when that idea went out of the window!
June 5, 2023
+1
June 5, 2023
So vote them out, yeah?
June 5, 2023
Pearls before swine. Reading the comments the fact is that the population, for good reason, considers the political class hopeless.
Times they need to be achanging!
June 5, 2023
Not just on this blog but on every blog, quality paper and internet discussion groups. Despite the msm ‘s best endeavour’s, word is out. The Government is not Governing in our best interests, but their own and other international bodies. They simply have to go. Sunak’s only offers us what will help his re-election chances, not what the Country needs. Please tell him Sir John, just to go. We need the Starmer administration before people will finally vote for Reform. The Tory’s have had their 13 years of chances and ……. seriously failed in every area. The Party needs to be destroyed before reforming as a right of centre CONSERVATIVE party. Those already in it should join and shape the new Reform Party. If we wanted Green, liberal, consocialists we would have voted for it. Not this pretendy conservatives.
June 5, 2023
Your comments are right Sir John but for one big floor in what you say, and that is you are assuming that the tories or labour are in power in 2030 to carry on with the biggest con to mankind in the form of the net zero/climate change rubbish, eventually the public will see through the lies and put there country first and not the buddies
June 5, 2023
Correct – take a look at Germany to see what is starting to happen when these bans actually start to take effect, the politicians who imposed them will quickly lose support.
June 5, 2023
It’s already happening. Popular dissent will grow and become very vocal before direct action will follow. People have had enough of the net stupid religion and all the minority wokish rubbish. Why should we be tolerant of stop oil, bend the knee, gender identity nonsense and lefty minority groups of all kinds and be forced to, pay for it!!!!!!!!!!?? Quite. No we shouldn’t.
June 5, 2023
How depressing it is that Sir John is forced to write such a letter to supposedly Conservative Ministers, spelling out the obvious consequences of the Government’s capitulation to the “green” nutters and the Net Zero lunacy.
But it’s even more depressing knowing that it will be ignored. The anti-British Blob and the Not-a-Conservative-Party have signed us up to the EU’s Environmental Regulations and to operate “a level playing field” so we can’t compete with “our friends” in the EU. The other day Sunak confirmed this by claiming that you don’t compete with friends demonstrating that he is not, and never was, a Brexiteer.
Environmental Policy isn’t under OUR control. The Germans and Italians are challenging the EU Politburo over the timescale for banning ICE cars, since they don’t want their car industries destroyed. THEY may force a change in policy which will get the Not-a-Conservative-Party off the hook; but there isn’t a snowball’s change in Hades that Badenoch or Schapps will.
June 5, 2023
Just imagine a UK free of the costs of net-zero, imagine a Tory government 13 years ago abandoning to quest of net-zero and not adopting the UN IPCC report, disbanding the Climate Change Committee and channelling all its efforts on UK growth, low taxation and less government
What a country that would be
June 5, 2023
John’s a climate change advocate and endorser so this letter is without sincerity.
The sadness is seeing Tory politicians on their knees paying homage to a collective, totalitarian ideology that is in direct contradiction to their true, lifelong held beliefs
Get off your knees Mr Redwood, it’s unedifying
Reply Do not lie about me. I am trying to stop bad policies by appealing to people who believe in global warming. I am not stopping you and others arguing about the science if you want to.
June 5, 2023
Nope!
To left wing nut jobs JR is a “ denier”
For which we can be thankful.
He can’t really do much more than he is doing with TV, radio and articles. Don’t forget that he was snubbed by the rotten BBC for his views. I suppose he could emulate Mr Brigen but that really didn’t end well.
( Worst of all it got me called a liar because I muddled the names Reform and Reclaim)
We are rapidly approaching the point where bad things happen to dissidents.
Softly, softly etc…..
June 5, 2023
He’s the only Tory putting his head above the parapet …maybe followed by Jacob Rees-Mogg on GB News
June 5, 2023
Dom, I think John’s record should speak for itself (see e.g. Desmog for many quotes). It seems to me there’s a more urgent issue here, which is what to do if you’re an MP in a party in government that goes against the national interest and your traditional values. It’s worth imagining for a moment you’re in that position, Dom. Are you wasting your time trying to influence policy from within, or would you be better off leaving it and speaking out? When GB News gets better ratings at times than the BBC, you know there’s a constituency of voters out there who would support you, but you also know the Red-Green lobby think they have the next election sewn up. The government’s CDU news control unit, exposed in last Saturday’s Telegraph, involved itself in the 2019 general election, and in the next one may come hard down on voices that dissent from the narrative, such as Reform UK. If it was me, I would first stay in the party and try to ensure ministers at least see the counter-arguments to the net zero narrative, which in the Westminster bubble they might not otherwise do. However, I would also monitor whether they show any sign then of changing their views. If they didn’t, and it seemed I was indeed wasting my time, I would think a new strategy was needed. I would give up on trying to influence ministers. Perhaps go for a high-profile ‘party-within-a-party’ like the ERG, which would attract media attention and could have greater influence on the public than individual MPs can. There must be enough Tory MPs who want to keep their seats beyond 2024 to make that a worthwhile avenue to pursue. Let’s see what happens.
June 5, 2023
DOM
I think, Sir John is picking his battles. You cannot take on an army of EnviroMENTAL Zealots in awe of Climate Change and expect to win. As we have witnessed and keep saying – They are not listening. So you ask them to explain their actions / policies which are clearly contradictory to achieving the goals of their religion, that of Climate Change. These people have been brainwashed, like people were brainwashed into believing a virus with a very low mortality rate was worth trashing the economy and ruining the lives of millions.
June 5, 2023
In 2022, UK renewables provided 38 per cent of the country’s electricity generation, nearly as much as gas (at 40 per cent) and we became a NET ELECTRICITY EXPORTER for the first time since 2010.
Renewable electricity last winter displaced more than a third of the UK’s entire annual gas demand for power generation. Without it, the UK would have had to increase net gas imports by more than 22 per cent (including gas imported via pipeline)
Generating the same amount of electricity using CCGT would have required around 95TWh of gas – equal to 110 tankers of LNG – or the amount more than 10 million UK homes would burn over the winter.
June 5, 2023
Live generation currently in the UK:
Gas: 12.2 GW
Nuclear: 5.3 GW
Wind: 3 GW
Solar: 2.4 GW
Gas and nuclear don’t require back-up systems. Wind and solar do: the back-up systems are gas and nuclear (both of which we largely import due to the moronic policies of the past 15 or so years).
Wind and solar will NEVER provide sufficient and consistently reliable power. They require massive subsidies and back-up systems….. so we have to pay twice.
June 5, 2023
@Donna
Wrong! No subsidies are paid to wind or solar farms and have not for the past eight years, unlike the oil and gas majors that got £billions in direct subsidy payments last winter. Not to mention the £20billion they are going to get for their carbon capture and storage scam over the next few years. In total the oil and gas majors have received ~$ TRILLION in subsidy from the world”s governments, mostly the USA
June 5, 2023
I consider paying wind companies when the wind doesn’t blow and paying them to shut down when it blows too strongly to be a massive subsidy. As is the cost of providing back-up provision for when they aren’t working.
Wind and solar will NEVER provide sufficient consistently reliable power.
British householders have to pay so-called green levies to subsidise the lunatic renewable industry.
June 6, 2023
sounds like a subsidy to me
June 5, 2023
SG
The UK and EU nation’s finances will find a huge black hole when the many billions of taxes paid by fossil fuel companies reduces.
How can you claim no subsidies are paid to renewable energy companies.
Ridiculous.
June 5, 2023
Its a sad story
June 5, 2023
@Sakara Gold ‘Without it, the UK would have had to increase net gas imports’ or by using our own resources we wouldn’t have had a concern either way.
June 5, 2023
Maybe we could ‘frack’ for shale gas ….just a thought
June 5, 2023
SG :
As I write the 27 GW of installed wind power is providing just 1.54 GW (4.86% of demand).
Because renewables are so unreliable we need to run gas turbines to ensure generation always equals demand. So not only do we have the expense of keeping two systems running, more gas s consumed because the gas generators cannot be run efficiently as they are constantly being ramped up and closed down to match the variability of the wind.
So which electricity were we exporting? Fossil fuel generated electricity or renewables generated electricity? And why would we have “surplus” electricity to sell when we constantly need gas turbine generated power to match the variability of the wind? I suspect that the exported electricity is sold at negative prices because this is cheaper than paying wind constraint payments.
There is no economic non-fossil fuel backup system for renewables and hence there is absolutely no point in renewables unless the country is prepared to live with expensive and intermittent electrical power.
Only nuclear can provide affordable, abundant and reliable low carbon emission power and in fact the RR SMRs provide cheaper power than renewables as well as consuming 1/1000th the amount of steel and concrete per unit of power compared to wind turbines.
June 5, 2023
In renewable they include burning young coal (wood chopped down forests imported on diesel ships) at Drax which actually causes more CO2 than coal and can only be renewed in perhaps 100 years or so. Plus as the renewable in not on demand it is worth far less than the on demand fossil fuel energy. It also make fossil fuel energy far less efficient to compensate.
June 5, 2023
Give it a rest please. Try turning off the fossil fuel stations and you will soon regret it. Its a religion with your type.
June 5, 2023
SG : “In 2022, UK renewables provided 38 per cent of the country’s electricity generation, nearly as much as gas (at 40 per cent) and we became a NET ELECTRICITY EXPORTER for the first time since 2010.”
How much was sold at negative prices ?
From Energy Live News 31/05/2023 ;
“UK ‘power dumping’ raises concerns over energy management :
National Grid ESO has reportedly paid up to £550/MWh to dump excess power into neighbouring countries”:
https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/05/31/uk-power-dumping-raises-concerns-over-energy-management/
The excess was renewable power because NGESO needed to keep the fossil fuel generators running on our grid to provide inertia to the system and prevent grid instability leading to blackouts.
So renewables require subsidies, a parallel system of fossil fuel generators to provide grid stability and backup and then excess power is sold at negative prices to avoid constraint payments!
June 6, 2023
https://www.mygridgb.co.uk/last-12-months/
Over the past year gas at 106 and wind 66.
Nuclear share is about to be cut when only Sizewell left. French imports are nuclear but they are also being kept open temporarily. The renewable % from biomass is mainly from Drax and is not really zero as the transport and manufacturing of pellets creates CO2 and replacement trees take 40 years ago to grow. Wind varies hugely month to month. The figures are from a green zealot site.
June 6, 2023
Oops. Gas 104 Wind 62.
June 5, 2023
Good stuff, Sir John. The zealotment must be made to listen but I fear it won’t, as it has indoctrinated itself and its electorate.
Dominic Lawson wrote a good piece in The Sunday Times yesterday about the stupidity of the government subsidising the importation of wood-pellets for burning at Drax. The government’s accounting of CO2 is fundamentally dishonest, and we are taking hits on our tax-base and balance of payments.
We are at the point where the government needs to audit, quickly, every last element of its ‘Net Zero’ lunacy and ditch all programmes that fail a common-sense test. Half of them can probably go.
June 5, 2023
+1
June 5, 2023
Astonishing that your common sense epistle even needs to be written and sent to two so-called Conservative Party ministers. What a sad commentary on the current state of the affairs of government, and why the whole lot of them need to be turfed out at the next election.
June 5, 2023
The Telegraph today:- Lockdown benefits ‘a drop in the bucket compared to the costs’
Draconian measures were a policy failure that saved as few as 1,700 lives in England and Wales in spring 2020, major study finds.
I am not even sure they saved any deaths at all. While they may have delayed some Covid infections for some at real risk they also delayed infections in many more younger people who were are no risk (and thus delayed earlier natural vaccinations for them). So the mechanism is surely more likely to have increase overall deaths in the end is it not? As many sensible people (they ones who were censored at the time) pointed out.
Delaying some infection until a working safe vaccine was found might have made sense but A. it was unlikely to be possible to delay that long B. It delayed nature vaccinations and C. we now know the vaccines we had were neither safe nor effective (indeed this was clear when they were rolled out had they been honest). So they have caused very significant net harm as is very clear from the stats. The natural vaccination route was far superior and would have been quicker too.
June 5, 2023
Blow after blow for UK citizens, tax payers, business and industry. All delivered by our own government, to support NZ.
Meanwhile immigration relentlessly increases population numbers, more people are unemployed and more people are living on benefits while fewer people pay tax. Is it mainly new migrants on benefits?
It all looks like a deadly combination to drag down this country to third world status. Surely no Brit with pride in their country could invent these damaging policies, so where do they come from?
June 5, 2023
BOF
“Where do they come from”
May I suggest, Minority Group Think who have a sense of entitlement, who’s ideas have been elevated to a science, by fools with absolutely no common-sense.
It starts with the contrived method of MP candidate selection, which ends up with this fiasco.
June 5, 2023
Parliament has boxed itself in since the mindless passing of the 2008 Climate Change Act. Group think dominates parliament, former Prime Minister May’s arbitrary commitment to 100% Net Zero by 2050 followed by former Prime Minister Johnson’s equally arbitrary destruction of our car industry by banning new ICE’s by 2030 was never adequately debated and yet again the public was not consulted. These knee jerk examples of pure virtue signalling have damaged our industrial base and weakened public confidence in our political leaders. Your letter makes good points but surely it’s too late, a concerted push back was required immediately these unworkable ideas were first announced and public opinion should have been sought. You are now virtually the only lone conservative voice in parliament and I very much doubt the Business and Net Zero Minister will listen? We are heading for a train smash Sir John!
June 5, 2023
Well said. +1
June 5, 2023
Sir John, you copied your letter to Grant Shapps, on record as saying ‘The science is beyond doubt for Net Zero’. His Ministry has Net Zero in the title. I think he will just continue what he thinks ‘the science’ is telling him. Just as happened with SAGE and Covid, except there we learned within a year or two that ‘the science’ just meant certain well-funded scientists’ opinions, which quite often turned out to be unreliable. I fear it’s going to take a lot longer to expose ‘climate science’ as ‘climate fraud’. To my knowledge, there is no group in this country called ‘evidence based climate science’, as there was an ‘evidence based medicine group’ questioning the wisdom of the government’s Covid response.
June 5, 2023
‘Science’ is a history of corrected mistakes.
The Conservative Party is overdue for a correctional facility.
June 5, 2023
I suggest you google Watts Up With That? and Net Zero Watch.
Government-Approved Climate $cientists produce the results they’re being paid to find.
June 5, 2023
Philip P there is the World Climate Declaration drawn up by over 1100 scientists from across the world. You can sign it on their website.
June 5, 2023
Some of them were scientists, Enigma, not all. But my point is, how many are well-recognised and practising at universities or research institutes in this country? None as far as I can see. Profs Carl Heneghan and Sunetra Gupta could at least make their voices heard in some newspapers on the Covid issues, but I don’t see their equivalent in the climate arena. I’m not arguing the rights or wrongs of climate change here, just seeing a disparity in potential public influencers.
June 5, 2023
Maybe these politicians believe the totally skewed-question opinion polls? The polls that deliberately seek left wing views.
I do think it is a great shame that having purposely and pointlessly all but destroyed Christianity ( and particularly nasty lefties call it “ believing in a sky fairy”) they have created and adopted a new religion which is something akin to one of those awful cults etc ed
“Divide and rule” = ordering your law enforcers to stand back when statues are being destroyed and roads are being blocked. An old imperial trick to stop anti-govt. unification. But these recent govt.s have not a grain of subtlety …everything they do looks ooky.
June 5, 2023
The seeds of common sense continue to fall on stony ground.
June 5, 2023
Yes SJR, put more succinctly our industrial policy towards the car industry, the ICE, and our own sources of energy, it’s extraction cost and use, is a gold plated screwup created by government itself. In fact in terms of governance, the incumbents at Westminster are an unmitigated disaster.
June 5, 2023
A characteristicaly concise letter laying out the situation perfectly.
It is inexplicable to me why successive ministers (and PMs) have allowed the green extremists to influence policy in such damaging ways. Since Boris left No 10, It can only be the civil service dictating policy, rather than someone much closer to home (his).
Ministers need to get a firm grip. There is now a clear electoral policy divide between Labour and the Conservatives because Starmer says he would not grant any more North Sea oil and gas licences. It shows he just doesn’t understand the damage to our economy such a policy will do.
The dates of 2030 and 2035 for cars both need putting back by at least five years and this needs to happen now.
Similarly, our recent conversations here and elsewhere prove that heat pumps are an effective solution for very few UK households and the overall cost, including structural changes to each house is not only not cost effective, it is simply unaffordable.
June 5, 2023
Sir John: “I am copying Grant Shapps in to the correspondence as these policies are also unhelpful in trying to cut CO 2 emissions.”
Suggested amendment: “I am copying Grant Shapps in because he was the oaf who decided to inflict the 2030 new ICE car sales ban, having apparently consulted only Lord Deben, Caroline Lucas and Swampy so as to honour the manifesto pledge to consult on the earliest feasible date for such a ban. He needs to be told that he is not the Green Messiah, he is a very destructive little boy.”
June 5, 2023
Supposedly green measures which just move pollution and jobs abroad do not cut net world pollution, and are making this country ever more uncompetitive. That is the reality of most of our green measures. Invented by people who expect their own money to come from the public sector, financial services, or other service sector, and with little input from the real wealth creating people of this country.
June 5, 2023
Hi john
On top of the government not supporting the UK
the people of the UK don’t support the UK there are more French and German cars on our roads, we are putting our own people out of jobs councils should be buying British vehicles, the post office have renewed their fleet of vehicles with French are Germany vans, the police are also not supporting the car industry they are all EU cars especially london.
And the thousands of a disabled car should all be British these are replace every three years,
supporting the UK car second hand market,
what happened to the little blue three wheels car? the disabled used to get
Now it all top of the range EU Cars my supposedly disabled neighbour has a BMW
This is not supporting the UK car industry
Thank you
June 5, 2023
George Sheard
Well said and if all the charities registered with the tax office can only get assistance and tax breaks if and when they purchase only British made or assembled vehicles.
June 5, 2023
I don’t believe anything will change in terms of NZ policy in this parliament Sir John. There is simply no political will to challenge what has become the “accepted science” – no matter how simplistic or moronic some of the NZ solutions are in practice. However, as time progresses (and these policies are proven to be unworkable) then hopefully they will become an increasing challenge for any political party to support (although I’m sure they will try).
I think Starmer has made a very serious mistake in committing to ban all North Sea oil and gas development. I’m sure the NZ agenda will become increasingly unpopular with people faced with ever increasing energy bills, brown outs and increasing car costs. I suspect NZ will become as devisive as Brext has been and will be the key issue around which any new political force will have to focus to gain traction. Immigration is an issue for many but one that often doesn’t impact folk personally. Being able to get to drive and heat your home impact us both immediately and personally. Vague promises of a new shiny green future won’t last long when faced with practical reality.
June 5, 2023
Its only “accepted science” because the Climate Change Committee proclaimed it so …the actually words are ‘undisputed’ like 2+2=4 therefore the media don’t have to air opposing views
June 5, 2023
If the govt. wants to do something about packaging then rather than loading the cost onto our creaking weekly shop it should just ban it!!
Ban all packaging and therefore brand loyalty and advertisement.
Go on I dare you dear govt. I bet making packaging is VERY carbon rich.
You have no probs whatsoever in banning things in our little lives.
All packaging to be banned by 2030.
No! Let’s make it by the end of 2023!
June 5, 2023
Then nothing would stand up on supermarket shelves and that is the basic reason for today’s packaging. When I was a lad, before supermarkets, there was nothing like the packaging as products were mostly handled by shop workers and often weighed and wrapped in simple paper. I remember standing outside Sainsbury’s window while Mum was inside and being fascinated by the girl patting butter into blocks before wrapping in grease-proof paper.
June 5, 2023
In France, all fruits and vegetables have to be packed in paper bags. These bags are usually available in different sizes, 500 g, 1 kg, 2 kg.
This results from a regulation (voted on 10/02/2020) that applied from 01/01/2022 and funnily enough a French directive not a EU one
(this last comment just to circumvent the usual anti-EU ranting).
June 5, 2023
A dear and departed Wokingham historian, Ken Goatley, once told me about a long gone grocery shop in the town where a large round of cheese stood on the counter. If a customer wanted a chunk of Cheddar the lady shopkeeper would carefully lift the cat from it’s slumber on top of the (unwrapped) cheese, cut the required piece then carefully place the cat back on it.
June 5, 2023
+many
Remember the big tins of biscuits? And the sugar and tea being weighed out into blue paper bags?
And those big red bacon slicers?
So little packaging as you say.
I never witnessed the butter patting to my knowledge but I do remember cheese cutting with a wire on a board. And yes! White-tiled Sainsbury’s where I think you had to go walk round in a fairly controlled way. Were there railings? There was a very old fashioned one in Gants Hill in the 70s. And those airborne cash/change things.
All so much more civilised than today.
June 5, 2023
At 24 minutes in, the clingfilm on a cucumber keeps it fresh for fourteen days longer.
June 5, 2023
This Conservative Government with 13 years at the helm, has not sort to answer the questions posed by a changing World. If ICE’s are the problem, why with 13 years in power have they not conceived a 100% viable alternative, let alone a cheaper one.
The narrative is that EV’s are the only answer, are they?. Yet were is the home grown self-reliant and resilient electricity to charge them to come from, it is not wind, it is not solar. We are now told to expect a winter of energy rationing. Importing someone(Countries) else’s owned facilities cost twice as much as would home grown alternatives. Why was it that British Volt was not a good home for taxpayer investment, while the intension to give money to an Indian conglomerate is a good place to throw money? These foreign investors have the luxury of home Country protection, these type of deals are not reciprocated. Meaning UK enterprise is disadvantaged by their own Government.
Imports to this Conservative Government are more important than UK resilience.
The real problem with this Conservative Government is they seek in the first instance to punish, because they want a change of direction. Good management would first create the viable alternative and then change direction through persuasion, before even contemplating punishment.
The Conservatives with 13 years supposedly in control have done nothing more than create virtual signal sound-bites and raise taxes to preen personal self-esteem and ego. Do we need them?
June 5, 2023
Excellent letter SirJ, I only hope the media pick up on it
June 5, 2023
Spot on. But will the Civil Servants take these points on board and give ministers the common sense advice that is needed or are they running their own agendas designed to emasculate our nation ready for re-absorbtion?
June 5, 2023
On one hand ‘ban ICE vehicles’ and on the other hand ‘subsidise EVs that nobody wants, nobody can afford, nobody can charge, nobody can use for long distance and uses more co2 to manufacture’
On one hand ‘stop new oil & gas north-sea licences’ and on the other hand ‘import oil & gas’
On one hand introduce new ‘grocery tax levy’ and on the other hand ‘reduce income tax by 2p’
Absolute lunacy
June 5, 2023
“The UK needs to earn a living, to invest and create jobs here, not end up dependent on others.”
There is nothing the current Government/Parliament can do, even if they wanted to, without repealing the CCA and Mrs. May’s edict (was there even a vote in Parliament for this?) to achieve net Zero by 2050.
Back in July 2022 the climate activists, ClientEarth, won their case against the government at the High Court, which ruled found that the net zero strategy, which sets out plans to decarbonise the economy, doesn’t meet the Government’s obligations under the Climate Change Act to produce detailed climate policies, that show how the UK’s legally-binding carbon budgets will actually be met. The ruling also states that the government’s net zero strategy did not add up to the reductions necessary to meet the sixth carbon budget, which is the volume of greenhouse gases the UK can emit during the period 2033-37.
As a result the government last March announced a ramping up of their Net Zero Strategy, known as “Powering Up Britain”, which included the £20bn CCUS project to reduce global CO2 emissions by 0.01% per annum together with many other spending plans and the intention to increase the price of domestic gas to incentivise the uptake of heat pumps.
So our climate and energy policy is now in the hands of High Court judges and how much do they know about the climate and our energy industry to be able to make such important judgements? Or care about the UK’s economy and security? Very little I suspect.
June 6, 2023
Client Earth lawyers received a grant from HMG.
June 5, 2023
We badly need an opposition party that will question everything the Government does, instead of one that appears simply to serve as a role model for the incumbent Government. The only real questioning such as yours, comes from the Government’s own side, but the Government knows that the likelihood of there being sufficient ‘No’ votes to defeat it is zero, particularly as it can count on the support of the Opposition for most of its policies.
I will not be voting Conservative at the coming election as I think the biggest disaster would be a Sunak victory that will prolong the deeply unsatisfactory status quo.
June 5, 2023
Thank you Sir John,
An interesting case but we would only take you and your arguments seriously if we felt inclined to do so.
If we didn’t we know we can safely ignore you as you will do nothing to pressure us as others do. You are an extreme party and thus government loyalist, and whatever we do, no matter how harmful it is to the country’s economy or identity, we know you will stay on our side.
Sincerely
Kemi
June 5, 2023
“You are an extreme party and thus government loyalist, and whatever we do”
Yes. Party before country.
The joke is, it’s not even the party John Redwood joined, when he led us all to believe he was a Tory.
June 5, 2023
“the proposed ban on these boilers in new homes from 2025” In New Homes it is not a problem, other than the misconstrued influence by foreign producers on UK Building Regs(but that is another story), makes it just that little bit harder. What they don’t have is the resilient affordable vast amount of electricity to make them a positive proposition. Not forgetting the other demand for the same – EV’s
The real problem is where boilers need replacing in the existing housing stock, it is just not viable for home owners. The only and cheapest option for the majority of homeowners is to make themselves homeless, and get the State to house them. That of course wouldn’t work, this Conservative Government because of its numerous ‘Ponzi’ schemes and lack of management skills needs immigrants, lots of immigrants to pay the bills and they must have the housing first.
This Conservative Government just as with the baulk of Parliament is self satisfaction of seeking punishment and not real answers.
Labour got rid of our ability to provide resilient electricity, this Conservative Government has continued the theme by not just ensuring ,but virtually guaranteeing that after 13 years of their rule and mismanagement they will not permit the UK to be a viable self-reliant and resilient nation. There you have it Folks an elected Parliament that for the most part is anti-UK and refuses to serve their voters.
What’s going to happen, after 13 years with no management ability on show with this shower at the helm, they will pontificate, talk to the media, virtual-signal, create inquires, gallivant around the World ‘look-at-me’ – but do what they are paid for NO CHANCE.
June 5, 2023
Nature cannot be lied to. That is a big problem for politicians.
We are beginning to hit the buffers, EV cars are of limited use, sooner or later the ICE makers will have to be allowed to continue working. Similarly gas and oil boilers will have to be allowed to continue – perhaps new builds forced to go with heat pumps. In the UK such a move must go with enforced building standards. The building industry is as untrustworthy as the politicians.
EVs and heat pumps face the same problem – they are up against laws of nature that cannot be fiddled or nuanced. No and I mean absolutely no major improvement is even possible however hard the manufacturers work. No magic solutions are round the corner. TBF batteries might improve a bit over the next 20 years but the problems of materials and electricity provision remain. There is no way out for the politicians, time for another volte face.
Bad news for poor Kemi, she will be forced to face reality, except that she will be out of office soon so someone else’s problem. So we go on.
June 5, 2023
‘’EV cars are of limited use’’ only good as golf-carts and milk-floats ….and they stopped being milk-floats because of the expense and poor efficiency
June 5, 2023
Reading the comments here, you can see on the World Stage all the major Countries at least by population will be laughing at the UK and their Government model. While they get on a prosper as they get to feed off what is left from the destruction of the UK Internally.
June 5, 2023
With the destructive impact of NZ being reinforced at every turn by nearly the whole of Parliament it will be the people who will decide and as the reality of what is really going on I believe that we are rapidly heading for more than just a disgruntled vote. It will be the only thing that will maybe make them listen.
Even some unions are against it that must tell them something.
June 5, 2023
Writing to ” Kemi ” I should think is a waste of time ; she – like most of the Cabinet members are ineffective . Public polls are sufficient evidence that the Government has lost its place with all ages of voters ; only a drastic change in leadership is the only hope . The automotive industry is a major contributor to our economy and influences a host of innovative developments ; we would be absolute idiots to put it in the control of other countries .
June 5, 2023
Lifelogic +1000
Also see Paul Homewoods ‘not a lot of people know that’.
‘Climate change fears are empirically baseless’.
June 5, 2023
Dear SJR,
I have been doing a bit of research over the weekend on Hydrogen fueled cars. That is Hydrogen fueling a cell that produces electricity.
Currently Toyota have such a car called the Mirai retailing at $40/50,000 depending on trim. That is £40/49,000.
Range on a tank 4oo miles.
Filling Time 5 minutes max.
Total Hydrogen use about 6 Kg.
Hydrogen produced from fossil fuels with an attedant CO2 creation in the UK costs £10/£15 per Kg. As the UK refiners are possibly the ones producing Hydrogen this way, is the price artificially high to protect their petrol/diesel business. I ask because Hydrogen via electrolysis in the USA is reputed to cost $3/$6 per Kg with anticipated reductions over the next ten years. Hydrogen via electrolysis is what is required because it is a clean/green process. I have maintained that the UK could do it via our intermitent windmills.
I believe it is the way to go green for all road transport and it can be done minus all the downsides of rechargeable electric vehicles. Why not talk to the engineers of Toyota and get the full story, before we are blindsided by this myopic drive to pure electric. I am not anti electric as such, especially after experiencing the near F1 acceleration, but there are too many disadvantages.
June 5, 2023
Indeed the Toyota Mirai is now on is second model, the main problem it has, is the lack of current filling stations with hydrogen facilities, last time I looked about 6 months ago, there were 11 yes just eleven in the UK, rather more in Europe, but still nowhere near sufficient to coax people to purchase this sort of vehicle.
I certainly do agree that this is probably the closest yet to clean energy, depending upon how the Hydrogen is developed, and currently the filling up/recharge times are the closest we have to ICE cars.
Will it ever take off, not any time soon with the current rate of progress and filling station availability.
June 5, 2023
Fuel cells can show some promise but much energy is wasted in making the hydrogen and in storing it. Other fuel cells than hydrogen are available.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/comparison-fuel-cell-technologies
June 5, 2023
Correction
For $40000/50000 read £30000/40000.
June 5, 2023
I’ll stick with petrol & diesel ….you only need alternatives if you believe the UN IPCC report
June 6, 2023
According to the CCC technical report, Green hydrogen from electrolysis costs about twice as much as Blue hydrogen from methane reformation, which is the main source at present in the UK. This is the government plan, with reformed hydrogen hubs and the waste carbon dioxide pumped under the North Sea.
June 5, 2023
A point of order. What qualifications do the Business Secretary have in order to run this department?
I fear today’s Minister’s are lacking key qualifications that would be mandatory out there in the Private Sector but are conveniently by-passed in Government Departments. Ditto the Civil Service Mandarins who run them.
Is it not time to place expertise and hands-on experience before any old school tie within ALL Government departments and to let these experts do their jobs their way?
The ultra-successful Covid vaccine distribution has proven just how more efficient they are. So who pulled the plug on them? Any suggestions?
June 6, 2023
No-one pulled the plug on them, Derek. They were fast-tracked, given zillions in funny money, backed with wall-to-wall coercive ad campaigns, plus some mandates, and so of course they got the jabs into people’s arms pretty quick. And now it’s repent at leisure.
June 5, 2023
The biggest change I have noticed in my lifetime is that too many now
believe that the world DOES owe you a living!
Who’s educating these deluded folk?
Economics not comics required urgently.
June 5, 2023
“There is no point shifting industry from the UK to overseas to shunt round the CO 2”
In answer to this eminently sensible point, I imagine the response will be something along the lines of our having to set an example to others, etc etc.
June 5, 2023
+1
June 5, 2023
“I am copying Grant Shapps in to the correspondence as these policies are also unhelpful in trying to cut CO 2 emissions.”
You can wake a man who is sleeping but you cannot wake a man who is pretending to sleep.
June 5, 2023
Just reading the name Grant Shapps makes me shiver
June 5, 2023
Morocco has plans for solar panels in the Sahara .(DT 2nd June)
I noticed that the minister in charge is the
Moroccan energy transition minister .
TRANSITION being the word which implies an intelligent ,all things considered,planned approach .
June 5, 2023
‘Transition’ the new buzz word, which actually translates to government ban and enforcement of competition
June 5, 2023
I will probably watch this on Wednesday:
https://mailchi.mp/policyexchange/507211011-1990128-0o91yxt1m3-1990504?e=421327b755
“Race to Net Zero: Can the Energy Bill Unlock our Low-Carbon Economy?”
“A speech by Andrew Bowie MP, Minister of State for Nuclear & Networks, and after in conversation with … ”
But I have to say that I see no prospect for any return to sanity in the near future.
June 5, 2023
Its net-zero tunnel vision, the brainwashing is complete
June 5, 2023
Go to the Far East,, and noboby talks about ‘net-zero’ its just not on their horizon
June 5, 2023
A much more significant threat is being announced casually today than this one industry getting decimated.
“A universal basic income of £1,600 a month is to be trialled in England for the first time in a pilot programme.” Who gets to choose the 30 participants? What are the criteria for this choice? I can’t believe what I read; the ambition £1600 for everyone, regardless of whether they can be bothered to work or not.
As someone that’s always paid more in than just my family’s state costs in life, I give up; seriously, I GIVE UP; you’ve done me in, why bother? More will say, why bother anymore if any Mizzy or Jack can be rewarded for being idle?
I’m not a regular church attendee, but I remember the Bible warned of the consequences of not providing your bread to eat and the risk of idle hands.
June 5, 2023
Agree A-Tracy. Of course it will improve their mental health. Who wouldn’t be happy getting this money fir doing NOTHING. Why do we work and pay tax to keep these morons?
June 6, 2023
They’ll be no better off because everyone in work will want their pay differentials maintaining ++ to account for the extra 42% taxes they’ll be on (51% if they’re English and went to university since Blair stiffed them in 2008 and Osborne made sure they can’t pay it off before 30 years are done with them with scheme two in 2011 meanwhile protecting their Scottish, Welsh and N Irish students.
How much will rents go up to then when people get their money for nothing? Stop this roundabout. I want to get off.
June 5, 2023
In Europe they’re claiming the reduced number of illegal immigrant boats is due to adverse winds and a lack of outboard motors in May, is Sunaks announcement today claiming that his plans have reduced 20% of illegal boats nothing more than sophistry
June 5, 2023
19/05/2023 The PM presents his £1bn National Semiconductor Strategy with £200 mn spent before 2025 and the remaining £800 mn before 2033.
In the meantime the EU mobilises €43 bn via the European Chip Act (09/08/2022) and Intel (2nd producer of chips after TSMC) is putting $30 bn ($17 bn now, $13 bn before 2030) to create a factory in Magdeburg, Germany, and R&D centres in Italy, Poland and France, with a possible second factory in Italy, with production scheduled in 2027.
siliconrepublic.com, 05/04/2022, ‘Intel can help boost Europe’s chip sector, but more innovation is needed’.
What is the SoS for Business and Trade thinking about these developments?
Isn’t it (as so often with the UK) too little too late?
June 5, 2023
Even the BBC is now reporting from anonymous interviews with former Home Secretaries that immigration is surging because liberal entry policies were implemented to encourage the students and workers that ‘the economy needs’, and the public were just told what they wanted to hear. The economy is an end in itself and the people and culture of this country an irrelevance. Just as well then that Cambridge University is teaching that the Anglo-Saxons never existed.
June 5, 2023
The net zero model is based on only the elite driving their own cars, only the elite flying outside the UK on holiday so they can stop the “Plebs” spoiling their resorts. Destroying the car industry is just a means to an end which is carefully kept hidden – they hate the general public having the freedom of movement personal transport gives them. So it is back to a pre-war existence for the many but prosperity for the few. Politicians and the establishment know this perfectly well and the media generally are complicit in keeping mum about the true Green agenda.
June 5, 2023
+1
June 5, 2023
A lots been said about UKs ability to manufacture EV batteries; but what’s NOT been said is the lack of manufacturing in the UK of EV tyres, EV chip/ecu and EV motors …we’re just an assembler of EVs ….no skilled engineering workforce nor supply chain required – just cheap labour
June 5, 2023
The country is going to hell in a hand cart John under your government. I bet nobody will take notice of your common sense letter but will carry on losing jobs and losing votes. They all need sacking.
June 6, 2023
@Fedupsouthener – it already there, 13 years of effort and their only achievment
June 7, 2023
I’m listening to this discussion:
https://policyexchange.org.uk/events/race-to-net-zero-can-the-energy-bill-unlock-our-low-carbon-economy/
and thinking that I don’t believe either we or the planet need net zero CO2 emissions, but I definitely want us to be self-sufficient in energy and working towards net zero CO2 emissions may be the best way to get there.
June 7, 2023
What was Kemi’s reply? I assume that there was one. If not, why not?