Labour’s big difference with the Conservatives was going to be a big programme of net zero state investment and subsidy. This would be backed up by stricter targets to be enforced by tougher and earlier regulation to force us out of our cars and into our heat pumps. How they complained when the PM made a speech favour of a slower and less regulated pathway to low carbon. Conservatives want the PM to do more to show he has turned away from unrealistic targets, dirigiste regulations and wasteful subsidy.
The Labour approach was full of lies and implausibilities. Where did they get £28 bn a year from to pay for the programme? They now admit there was no £28 bn and they cannot find it.
They say they will have moved over fromfossil fuel electricity by 2030. No way. We still cannot store much wind and solar for wind and sun free hours and still lack grid to handle so much more interruptible power.
They say many more people will insulate , buy heat pumps and switch to electric cars. You cannot achieve that by just spending more taxpayer money on subsidies and tax cuts. Half the country will not even accept a “free” smart meter let alone have their homes made into a building site for a heat pump.
Maybe they would get us to deindustrialise at a faster pace to make us ever more dependent on imports whilst cutting CO 2 produced here. As for the favoured green jobs they would create plenty of those in China.No sign of realistic plans to wrestle the manufacture of solar panels, wind turbines, big batteries or electric cars away from now well established Chinese dominance.
February 9, 2024
Good morning.
Well at last they haven’t been spending the last 14 years telling us they will cut immigration and not doing so.
As I have said before, trying to convince the other side is that bit worse is not a vote winner.
We know how bad they are going to be. So when the money markets stop lending they will have to cut spending. And that is not going to sit well with their ‘Client State’.
February 9, 2024
Being a bit more sensible on Net Zero is not really a vote winner. You need to junk the whole nonsense and get back to realistic policies.
February 9, 2024
@cynic
I am no scientist.
Whether I believe there is a “climate crisis” (or not) depends on which expert I listen to.
Before any politician spends our money, disrupts our lives and causes an increase in our personal expenditure in a march towards net zero …… I would expect the experts to be involved in a full, open, transparent, independent and well publicised discussion in order to convince the plebs.
The farmers riots which are currently taking place on the continent hopefully convince Governments of the need for consensus.
February 9, 2024
The ones who think they can control the climate by adjusting CO2 and by us paying more taxes are fools, liars, deluded priests or just on the make. Listen to the sensible physicist types like Lindzen, Clauser, Happer no shortage of sensible honest and brave scientists actually telling the truth.
February 9, 2024
I would go with that proposal, junk Not Zero- it can never be achieved anyway. Its a bunch of lies!
February 9, 2024
1. CO2 is not a real problem not even the main greenhouse gas which is water vapour.
2. Wind, Solar, Hydrogen, EVs, public transport, walking… save no or no sig. CO2 anyway.
3. Net zero just exports CO2 production (and jobs) at best.
4. Millions of other things affect the climate most of which we cannot control or even predict.
If only 1 of these statements is true then the net zero agenda is clearly idiotic and all four are true!
February 9, 2024
Indeed anyway Labour and the Sunak’s Conservatives are as one on the net zero religion. Even to the extent of killing of steelmaking jobs (vital even for UK defence) at Port Talbot. No sensible energy engineer or rational physicist would follow this governments mad Net Zero and energy agenda. It is total insanity in environmental, practical, engineering and economic terms. A slight touch on the brakes from Sunak and Starmer is welcome but not remotely sufficient.
To win the election ditch Net Zero, reduce net immigration from 750K to 100K, cut taxes, cut red tape, cut the size of government, cut government waste, deliver law and order and some services that actually work (NHS, Dental, Housing, Police, decent roads/schools… and stop lying (you have not even started to cut taxes they are still rising Sunak) but after 13+ years who would trust them again.
You flip chart broadcast Sunak was a gift to people to edit & point out the vast difference between what you say and what you have actually delivered. 12% inflation, 750K net migrants, highest taxes for 70+ years, no growth, housing shortage, 10% + excess deaths from net harm vaccines, rip off energy from your net zero religion…
February 9, 2024
+1
February 9, 2024
Not to mention the ECHR.
February 9, 2024
LL,
When Sunak was campaigning to be leader he was going to frack, when leader dumped the idea!
February 9, 2024
I’ve just spent 2 months in the US and I saw no sign of a green revolution there. The UK is bankrupting itself and destroying its manufacturing on the altar of net zero for no reason. Voters need to get rid of all the main parties before it’s too late.
February 9, 2024
+1
February 9, 2024
Chance would be a fine thing , Christine
February 9, 2024
I’ve just been on a certain website reading a huge number of words regarding Net Zero…word salads…that’s what such diatribes are called….saying precisely nothing.
WHY are our leaders obeying them? ( Is it debt?)
Who gave them control of the world?
February 9, 2024
Net Zero yet again – but government is not listening. Labour is not either. So it’s just point scoring as to which party will be worse.
Meanwhile, there is a two hour interview with President Putin. I have not fully reflected on it yet. It’s obviously a big coup for Tucker Carlson- not since Frost / Nixon has there been similar.
After one hour forty Boris Johnson is discussed. Putin says he put the kibosh on a peace plan which both parties were ready to sign.
Putin also claims to be an Orthodox Christian. When pushed he says it is part of being a Russian, but then offers platitudes about the virtues of other faiths and how they all coexist peacefully in Russia. Carlson does not explore the virulently anti-religious phase (against Christianity at least) in Russia’s recent history.
The interview is definitely worth watching.
February 9, 2024
The Ukrainian negotiator had initialled the peace agreement, Russia has a copy. Everyone remembers Boris rushing to Kiev and brandishing pottery cockerel, and Zelensky announcing they were scrapping the talks in Turkey. Johnson has said repeatedly (until very recently when the penny dropped that NATO is beaten) that ‘we must fight Russia to a standstill, Russia must be seen to be beaten etc etc etc.
There are millions of Moslems in the Russian federation. More Christian churches built under Putin than at any other time.
Did you notice him pondering the US Inflation rate and the incontinent printing of money? (It sopped up by the rest of the world, which is about to change). Would it not be a breakthrough if the BOE considered the same equation – inflation and money supply – known as monetarism.
I did tell JR that Putin, (degree in economics and another in law) was, like he and I, a monetarist. We have more in common with Putin than we have in common with the Conservative Government.
February 9, 2024
Net zero is a trecherous May disaster brought in by a Tory disaster party without a debate in parliament. After labelling it a Marxist energy policy went on to build on it!! This is a Tory disaster policy to bankrupt our country. Own the responsibility JR.
Tata steel anyone? JRs govt is the party of poverty, despair and destitution all because they want to tick a box to virtue signal to the world, while it having no value for our nation or planet.
February 9, 2024
To be fair JR did not vote for the climate change Act, but all but a tiny handful of MPs of all parties did. Showing just how deluded, scientifically & economically ignorant our MPs are.
Either that or they are just on the make with crony capitalism, consultancy fees, jobs…
February 10, 2024
Net Zero is a disaster inflicted by almost all of Parliament at the behest of civil servants and quangos who failed to analyse the consequences correctly, it seems shying away from doing so by virtue of idealism. As more analysis reaches public consciousness demonstrating the infeasibility and ruinous cost and economic decline that any attempt to pursue it would bring politicians of most stripes are slowly waking up. The extent of climate propaganda and its enforcement as a religion is slowing the process. But, as Feynman famously said “Nature cannot be fooled.”
February 9, 2024
Indeed the whole net zero lunacy needs to be ditched Sunak is just as bad a Starmer. We have no spare low CO2 electricity or grid capacity for EV or Heat pumps anyway. Not that CO2 is even a serious problem.
One way to get everyone clapping on say Question Time is to suggest a huge insulation programme. Some insulation make economic sense but much of it on older houses is far too expensive for the energy costs ever saved and would never payback. Best to wear more thermals for the winter months and heat just one room if short of money often.
Starmer’s pathetic and evil use of the murder of that poor couple’s child to attack Sunak was appalling. Shame… Shame… as Starmer might say. Sunak has lots of good reasons to resign (he is following a broken compass), but pointing out the truth about Starmer’s flip-flopping and inability to understand what women are is not one of them. Debates in the house should be independent of who might be observing from the Gallery or indeed listening to it on the radio or TV.
February 9, 2024
You’re debating the pros and cons of an unelected snake versus an indecisive establishment flip-flopper. We really need neither of these two. The whole nation appears to be waiting for a decent leader, from whichever party.
February 9, 2024
Apparently there are rules in place to stop MPs referring to people present in the gallery during debates.
It now appears that the poor child’s mother was not in the gallery at the time.
February 9, 2024
Starmer behaved appallingly. whomsoever is in the gallery or indeed listening to it on TV or Radio should make zero difference to any debate.
February 9, 2024
The rules are quite clear, as the Rt. Hon. Member for the 18th Century, J R-M, pointed out.
But don’t expect the Labour Speaker to demand Starmer apologises in an election year !
February 9, 2024
Big slip up by Stammer! Hes not the brainbox he tries pretend he is.
The mans a puppet!
February 9, 2024
What a load of twaddle John. Liebour are just continuing where you will leave off
Remember it was the treasonous May who rammed Nut Zero through parliament on an SI without debate. It was your government handing out subsidies for EVs heat pumps and wrecking the electricity supply.
Fishy has also kept the quota fines for the motor industry which will open the country to a flood of cheap Chinese government subsidised cars.
It is your government that has deindustrialised the country to a stage where we are reliant on foreign governments to supply steel for armaments.
Get real brother, you’ve squandered your 80 seat majority.
February 9, 2024
They did indeed.
February 9, 2024
@Mark B – “We know how bad they are going to be” but we also have real time proof of how this Conservative Government have shown they are. They set out to punish and trash the UK for their masters elsewhere and are doing quite well at it, it was certainly never mentioned in any Conservative Manifesto – those have just been the lies told to get elected.
The other crowd will be a lot worse, but we will have removed this lefty shower. then fingers crossed a Conservative Party may emerge.
February 9, 2024
Ian B
I do not believe there are other “Masters” at work (perhaps influencing organisations) I just think that this Government, and all of the opposition Party’s, less a few reasonable Mp’s spread around (I include our Host) are just totally and utterly incompetent, the EU took the responsibility, and had run our Country for 40 years or more, Now we have left the EU our Politicians do not have a clue about how to run anything (having not run anything for 40 years) thus they are on a steep learning curve because now they have no one else to blame but themselves, We have a few with some vision of the future, but they are looking through rose tinted glasses, and do not have a clue how to get there.
Those who have had some real life and commercial experience are stuck on the back benches and are often ignored.
The future looks bleak at the moment !
February 9, 2024
There was a Tory supporter on GB News saying that we should vote for them as they will reduce immigration, cut taxes, etc.. Why not do it NOW, you are still in power with a large majority? I am more inclined to believe former Brexit MEP Belinda de Lucy when she says that the Uniparty are gaslighting the British public on immigration and have no intention of cutting numbers.
February 9, 2024
As I suggested yesterday a defeated, post-election Tory party might have the minor satisfaction of watching Labour totally screw up.
That however will not help the ordinary people.
We have all been horribly churned up from TB onwards and many of us looked to a Tory victory to sort out everything.
It is utterly breathtaking the magnitude of the changes we have had to endure.
And OMG a Labour victory will totally sink us.
February 9, 2024
Physician heal thyself. Heat pumps, misleading information, scaled back. EV cars mis information, not Het Zero scaled back.
Nuclear power stations, one late, one maybe, the others promised nowhere.
Lies or incompetence? Probably both. You might like to consider failure in office more important than changing hoped for policies in opposition.
Frankly gloating is pathetic.
February 9, 2024
@Nigl +1
Desperate measure to solve a desperate problem
February 9, 2024
Indeed, but really from the dire Ted Heath onwards when he took us into the “Common Market” on a lie (that it would not affect sovereignty) without even asking voters permission. And certainly from John Major ERM fiasco onwards. Thatcher’s biggest error was appointing the fool John Major (who failed his maths indeed nearly all his O-levels) as Chancellor then even let him joint the ERM against much wise advice. Why on earth did she do this?
February 9, 2024
She did it because Major had a gun to her head.
February 9, 2024
+++
Yes agree 100%
I said TB because he seemed to change so much so rapidly and permanently ( changing age old laws) and so much for the worse.
Heath yes was pretty awful but we had Mike Yarwood then and SO much more freedom to express our dismays.
And I do remember the scam and carnage of decimalisation under Heath ( though Callaghan was responsible I think) prices doubled overnight and our lovely coinage gone!
As to Major. Did Mrs T see him as a protégé? Possibly a useful one in the pro EU (or whatever it was then) camp. Although I think he did stand up to her and for no logical reason strong people often admire that! Was she too weakened by division by then ( very near end of office) to combat ERM. Major I think was regarded as mild and “healing” of rifts. Mrs T was allegedly pretty cross about the ERM and told him so …but by then it was too late …he was PM.
Someone should write one of those alternative history novels in which JR would become leader and then PM.
February 10, 2024
Start with Powell becoming leader and then PM.
February 9, 2024
Labour screwing up might afford the defeated tories a little satisfaction.
But it won’t help us!
February 9, 2024
Labour may well be in for three plus terms (as with Major’s wipe out), they may well rig the voting system with votes for children, postal voting rules and other measures as Blair tried to do with the disaster of his botched devolution.
February 9, 2024
Lifelogic
Agree with you that if Labour do get in next time, then the voting system will be changed in the manner you suggest, the Country will then have a real problem.
February 9, 2024
The Conservatives have just given all those people who moved to Europe over a decade ago a vote; these Europhiles have been franchised on purpose.
February 9, 2024
And every illegal too maybe?
February 9, 2024
Come on Sir John, you know very well the majority of the conservative parliamentary party are wedded to the net zero madness too. They think they know best but the vast majority of the population can see through it.
February 9, 2024
Very true, but let’s give our host a little credit for stating the obvious on this issue, since the majority in his party are happily pretending to be sheeple and following the false prophets.
Here’s a suggestion Sir J, why don’t you do to Net Zero what Andrew Bridgen is doing to the Covid party. Take it on as ‘Your Cause’ to correct and tell the truth. You’d stand out as a real conservative and, if successful, save the nation. The madness needs to be called out, start with asking what temperature is ‘pre-industrial levels’. See the pundits squirm when they can’t answer.
February 9, 2024
+1
February 9, 2024
@Peter Wood +1 – I have to agree. As it has been said many times elsewhere the voter hasn’t left the Conservative Party, it is this Conservative Government along with a flaky CCHQ that has left the Conservative Party. Although as each day passes the Conservative Party itself by its silence has now made itself culpable
February 9, 2024
‘Estimating changes in global temperature since the pre-industrial period’, 01/09/2017, E.Hawkins et al., doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0007.1, Bull.Amer.Meteorol.Soc., 1841-1856.
February 9, 2024
Thanks for that…
‘There is no perfect period……We then estimate the change in global average temperature since preindustrial using a range of approaches based on observations, radiative forcings, global climate model simulations, and proxy evidence’
Words that stand out: estimate, range of approaches, model simulations, proxy evidence.
but no actual number in Deg. C.
Probably not a bad stab at finding a change, but from what?
February 9, 2024
Tell us the percentage that mankind is responsible for the increase hefner.
Is it 100% or 25% or something in between?
You must have some consensus view of peer reviewed experts research.
February 9, 2024
To be fair I think, Sir John already does that here.
February 9, 2024
P.W., +++++
February 9, 2024
I always remember a lefty saying rather nastily that he felt sorry for “the older people” re the changes that were coming.
He maybe had advance knowledge of Net Stupid, mass immigration and such like and cruelly realised how distressing it would all be for many..
Remember that dreadful predictive Olympic horror?
A Labour government ushered in by the “conservatives” will give free rein to people like that.
And goodness know what further chaos will ensue as it tries to get money from somewhere.
Future. What future?
February 9, 2024
John is, on this issue, absolutely correct in his argument but Labour will find a way, should they get into power, to finance and pursue its Marxist green agenda. Marxists always find a way to implement their agenda across this issue and indeed other issues as well
We need clear blue water between Marxist Labour and the Tories and we’re not getting that.
The Tory party and its leader still back Net Zero and its disastrous consequences. They must reject this Socialist capture irrespective of treaty obligations entered into by previous Tory PMs and progressive civil servants who sneakily promote their race, gender, transgender and climate obsessed realignment agenda
Labour and its authoritarian agenda must be exposed or else we will all suffer. The voter must be informed of the dangers of a Labour govt and their poisonous allies but the Tory party must reject the progressive, Socialist agenda and declare a full throated, from the heart agenda of smashing all that’s been introduced since 1997
February 9, 2024
DOM
The trouble is we have had thirteen years of Tory socialist agenda as they built on the dangerous Blair policies.
February 9, 2024
JR’s party built on “Red Ed’s” “Marxist” policy. They did not have to, they could have scrapped it derided and binned it not to be an issue today.
February 9, 2024
@DOM – how can one Blair-ite Socialist WEF Government, be any different from the other. This Conservative Government abandoned conservatism in pursuit of moving to the left of Labour. Both are uncontrolled prolific spenders.
There is an outside, an extreme outside chance that Labour in the pockets of the Unions, might just have a different boss to Sunak/Hunts WEF masters.
Just feel sorry for the Conservatives of the Country they have been deserted left high and dry as this Government has chosen to kick them in the teeth as being irrelevant to their ego and self-esteme
February 9, 2024
+1
February 9, 2024
I am appalled for I was confidently expecting a Chancellor Reeves would have to bid up generously to attract offers on £28 bn of new securities and I was intending to be a heavy buyer. I expected to be dismayed by the antics of a Starmer-led government but not before it is actually in office.
February 9, 2024
The next Labour government will be a disaster but is this Conservative government much better? It still pursues Net Zero sense policies, has failed to make the most of Brexit and presides over record levels of state debt and the highest taxes on record. Those in charge continue to ignore, if not openly reject, your many sensible proposals to inject some realism into government policies and actions. The political class as a whole is out of touch with the realities of the UK’s predicament and is clueless about how to resolve the consequential problems the country faces.
February 9, 2024
@David Andrews – tax borrow spend, spend but what ever you do don’t manage, don’t stamp out waste. Just throw hard earned taxpayer at any foreign entity that is a bit short, investing it within the UK on companies that are homed and contribute here is a big no, no..
February 9, 2024
John, I still struggle to understand how difficult it is to get through to the politicians and those in the bubble of grads how harmfall ALL net zero / anti-emissions targets are to farming, industry, small-businesses and existance on Earth and therefore to families and the economy in general. We have a situation where those influenced via the media or other institutions whose regulatory frameworks, corporate financing, brand reputation and internal woke culture means that nothing but a kamakazi run into the ground is all they will contemplate for the sake of Gaia.
For those that propose science using the scientific method, engineering based on simplicity and eloquance, economics based on sound data and policies based on well rounded information considering the benefits and downside elements holistically and putting citizen wellbeing first would never contemplate any action against energy dense fuels,that use materials efficiently and on which our entire food, energy, manufacturing, transportation, heat and ultimately economy are based.
I work and have worked since 1998 in the heart of the energy industry on core systems, processes, markets and policies set on keeping our energy systems working, and electricity in your socket at home. Yet the shutdown of traditional large thermal generation located near coal fields and urban populations for difuse, unreliable, variable wind and solar along with ambitions to make all heating and transport dependant on it is making a critical national infrasture much more complex, much more costly to build and operate. On the march towards the folly of Net Zero and Great Reset plans, we will sacrifice everything on the alter including ourselves.
Before entering industry I studies the physics of the atmosphere and ocean. I still read and participate in online discussions with many people including other dissenting scientists and geologists and paleoclimatoligists who are frustrated at the institutions obsession to ignore data and fact and ratheer follow the money. Now we have the online safety bill which allows powerful and dark forces to imprison people giving a narrative they don’t want to hear labelling it as harmful misinformation.
We need to rescue our institutions, government, media and corporate governance from a form of modern technocratic fascism that won’t allow disenting voices or narratives to disrupt the power structures and flow of cash.
End Net Zero and pursue ecomomic prosperity, market capitalism and democracy. Not this aweful structure of government and governance we have built in common with the EU, UN and bodies like the WEF.
February 10, 2024
D.B. ++++ well presented and soundly based detailed comment, thank you
February 11, 2024
DB
Indeed, but whilst our Politicians who make these huge decisions the affect us all, refuse to listen to any alternative argument which was supported by real and recorded facts, we are all in real trouble.
John, how do we get the politicians who hold the key to our future, to listen to many alternative views. ?
How and why did 650 Politicians vote by a majority, to implement the 2050 net Zero Law proposed by Mrs May, without any form of sensible discussion. !
Mp’s seem happy to talk for hours and hours about minor polices, but just seem to vote through major polices at request !
Reply That is the problem. The absence of proper debate about timetables, costs and feasibility was most worrying.
February 9, 2024
‘They now admit there was no £28 bn and they cannot find it.’
Labour surely realised that there was no money. It has all been spent in Ukraine, bribing France to stop the boats, on sustaining the country while forcing people to stay at home, on coercing people to have poorly tested harmful gene therapy jabs and paying criminal migrants hotel keep. Then comes the vast waste of money on the the religion of green.
February 9, 2024
Easy to find £28 billion – indeed even ten times this sum – just stop some of the vast levels of government waste, HS2, the soft student loans for worthless degrees, a bonfire of red tape, halve the size of the state, relax planning, the road blocking, quality only and limited immigration, ditch net zero… not that Labours mad green crap agenda is a good the way to spend it. So many people doing pointless or even actively damaging jobs just get rid of these jobs and release them for productive activity.
February 9, 2024
But haven’t things improved since they announced the spending, inflation down by 10% to 4% with people thinking it will go down to 2% (not sure how with a big pay rise due in April). Borrowing costs lower than they were last year. OBR and ONS figures revised to show better results than those anticipated. Honestly, I can’t keep up.
February 9, 2024
3.t million people brought into paying tax, umpteen swept into higher bracket by freezing allowances, Welfare costing 100 billion, service we get for our tax,declining.
Who cares if the Opposition change a green policy. Your manifesto was total BS, why shouldn’t their’s be?
February 9, 2024
@Nigl – There is nothing good they can say they have done in the last 14years its all one disaster of their own making after another. So trying to get us to fear any alternative is a bit lame, incoherent and a sign of weak leadership.
February 9, 2024
Nigl, which part of the 2019 manifesto was “total BS”? Do you disagree that Covid lockdowns, furlough and loss of GDP 2020/21, the Ukraine War, the asylum seekers movement, and worldwide inflation as a result of these things had any impact on spending?
February 10, 2024
AT,
All pathetic decisions made by a Tory govt. as for Ukraine war, what an act of stupidity. No politician will confirm whether the UK has given Ukraine two of our Mike sweeper war ships! How do we afford
that?
February 9, 2024
@Nigl –
From Guido – the problem with Conservative Promises, how can we believe anything Sunak utters?
https://order-order.com/2024/02/09/millions-more-paying-income-tax-since-tories-took-over/
“Cameron grandiosely claimed lifting millions of people out of income tax” – “The freeze on thresholds in 2021/22 added insult to injury, roping in an extra 1.1 million to the basic rate and another million to the higher rate”
February 9, 2024
Nigl
More people paying tax for the first time, yes and most of them will not be paying a lot, so a huge number of tax returns not filled in at all or filled in incorrectly, lots of phone call traffic to HMRC for clarification when there was reported 10,000,000 calls not answered by them last year, the small amount of tax collected from these millions of extra people will cost more to collect in overheads than it will bring in to the Treasury.
The Government are good at reaping the law of unintended consequences.!
Clueless, absolutely clueless.
February 9, 2024
Regardless of all the points that you make – the veracity of which many green conservatives would dispute – Labour are going to win the next election.
The public want a green future for the country, not one dominated by the fossil fuel cartel which has the power to quadruple the price of their energy and get £billions in taxpayer subsidy paid directly to the energy firms, as last winter.
February 9, 2024
Your last paragraph is one of confusion. The public do not increasingly buy into the green future on offer though they might were it market led rather than imposed by zealots.
The cost of fuel in th UK is in government hands as it was designed to appease the EU and deliberately make our energy costs way too high. Who do you think pays the subsidies to so called green fuel. You the tax payer if you are one. Who do you think is against us using our own abundant fuel in the ground beneath our feet and seas, green zealots . The business plan is the problem not a lack of fuel.
February 9, 2024
SG, the same old question. Earlier this week only 3% of power generation was coming from our wind farms. Thanks to the hated fossil fuels the lights were kept on.
In your ‘green future’ how do you propose to keep the lights on?
Clearly our politicians do not have the answer.
February 9, 2024
Yes … they want it so much they’re declining so-called Smart Meters; refusing to buy EVs and declining a massive bribe to install a heat pump.
In London the blade runners are wrecking the ULEZ track, trace and tax scam and the coerced change to a plant-based diet is failing whilst farmers all over Europe are in revolt.
People do want the environment cared for – so do I – but not the Net Zero lunacy.
February 9, 2024
SG
Many would support green policies if they were sensible, affordable, and proven to work. Unfortunately that is not the case yet, so this headlong dash to jump over a cliff edge to meet an emissions target that few other Countries are even bothered about, and which will impoverish us all at the same time, is just simply stupid, and perhaps people are at last realising this.
There never was £28billion available, so the intention was to raise it with more taxes on the so called very rich who came here voluntarily, (and can leave just as quickly) and by increasing private school fees with 20% VAT. Whilst I and my family and children all went to State schools, I see absolutely no point in making it even more difficult for some families who struggle out of choice, to send their children to a fee paying school, if that is there wish. Good grief those people are already paying for school places for others that they are not using themselves through standard taxation. Restrict people who are going to private schools, and you have to build more State ones, so the so called extra revenue does not really exist.
February 9, 2024
Unfortunately SG, I only see my energy bills going up (and up and up) in your brave new Green world
February 9, 2024
What cloud do you live in Goldie? The public want a green future! NOT! We want a pre WEF future for our offspring that is free of the the trash pushing an unworkable future like we had!
February 9, 2024
2% of the public vote for a ‘Green future’ – the rest get it however they vote.
If Rowan Atkinson did in fact cause the collapse of the EV market then I am very proud of him. Certainly the best thing he has ever done, because the EV scam is NOT FUNNY and will cause considerable losses to well meaning ordinary people.
February 9, 2024
Speak for yourself. The public see very clearly what it is that has increased heating and energy costs – and it is not the price of oil.
February 10, 2024
It certainly isn’t. I’ve just ordered a tank of heating oil for delivery next week and the price has gone down since I last bought in October. My electricity bill on the other hand, with ‘renewables’ keeps going up. If I had to rely on electricity for heat I’d be bankrupt. Th friends I know with a heat pump installed last summer have now installed a wood burner. Go figure.
February 9, 2024
I don’t think “green” is what they will get…whatever “green” is.
Judging by some of the Labour council meetings I have seen on vids recently it will be something of a more austere nature. And will come as a shock to the sheeple idiots who vote Labour.
“ But I like showing off my bare midriff”.
On a positive note …we might see an end to all the random incredibly loud music.
February 9, 2024
Personally I would expose their commitment to selling out to the EU but privately from Sunak down most of your party agrees with them.
February 9, 2024
The Labour Party’s ‘plans’ are incoherent and mendacious nonsense. It’s difficult to accept that they even believe in them themselves, since these are reasonably intelligent people were talking about. Because they only expose themselves to leftist media such as the BBC they are of course never subject to any proper scrutiny in the media.
They’re going to win anyway, no matter how dumb / incoherent / non-existent their policies are, perhaps with a large majority, thanks to the Truss disaster.
February 9, 2024
Look at history, Labour have always failed, leaving the country in a worse state when they left power than when they enterred it. They rule for a narrow vested interest, never for the good of the UK as a whole.
The Tories have wasted 13 years in power persuing irrelevance, talking the talk, but achieving very little. They expect us to vote for them in fear of a worse outcome by voting Labour. Hardly the basis for putting the UK back on the road again.
Following the Post Office scandal the Lib/Dems have proved themselves totally unfit to govern.
Reform from a UKIP and Brexit gestation have proved they are what it says on the tin. UKIP got us the defining referendum. Brexit got us out, even though the process was prolonged and incomplete thanks to the treachory of May and a less than enthusiastic Tory party. The country/electorate should look at the proposals of Reform and realise that they are the only manifestation of true Conservatism on offer at the next election. Conservatives at large are increasingly joining them, those minority of Conservatives in the Commons should join them over the next six months if they believe in the tenets of Conservatism. The party as it exists is beyond recovery, a cadaver so diverse as to be meaningless. The fear of facilitating Labour by voting Reform is no excuse. The UK was not built by people in fear , it was built by people of conviction. Reform is conviction and belief in the potential of a reborn United Kingdom.
February 9, 2024
These proposing to vote for Reform should understand that they will with certainly cause a number of winnable Conservative seats to be lost to Labour, yet realistically, Reform will be extremely lucky if they win one or two seats, but in reality, they will probably win none at all.
I suspect the polls will close right up as Starmer’s policies, at last face proper scrutiny through the campaign, and in a close contest for a majority, that could hand the keys to No 10 to Starmer, probably aided by an unholy coalition with the SNP and Lib-Dims, and the one new Green MP in Brighton.
The only hope for the future is for the Conservatives to scrape home and we then conspire to reform the party from the bottom up. That will need a momentum-style campaign by constituence parties to rid the party of the contemptable “One Nation” Tory MPs who are nothing more than Lib Dims and Labourites masquerading as Conservatives.
February 10, 2024
It was Lib Dem energy ministers in the Coalition that did so much to damage our energy infrastructure. Drax, coal closure, failure to invest in proper nuclear, suppression of oil and gas development, extravagant subsidies for renewables were all their invention.
February 9, 2024
So disingenuous.
If your party had shown the slightest iota of common sense since 2019 you might have a leg to stand on. Try representing a party which means what they say. Clue: neither of the 3 main parties need apply.
February 9, 2024
And now the ZEV mandate means that the Tory government will force UK manufacturers to subsidise Chinese EV manufacturers by £15000 a car.
You couldn’t make it up. Oh wait, the Tories did…
February 9, 2024
Re smart meter would not install too many problems. We are being blackmailed i cannot switch to E-On pledge tarrif without installing. This should not be allowed
February 9, 2024
RN
Indeed the latest wheeze from my supplier is to say your existing meter is now time expired, and so unreliable and unsafe, that it must be replaced with a new Smart meter.
So I am changing my supplier.
Can a supplier force a change of meter that has to be a smart meter, are there no ordinary meter replacements ?
February 10, 2024
I have had a smart meter installed in one of my commercial units – there was no option. To add insult to injury, they can’t read it! They email me every month and ask for a reading! They connect via a ‘mobile phone link’ and of course, that system is rubbish too. I can’t hear anybody calling on a mobile phone and refuse to own one myself. Now I refuse to speak to anybody on one – well I can’t.
So take heart – nothing works as the political class assume it will.
February 10, 2024
Better keep an eye on electricity prices: they will over-invoice you while the price remains high absent a meter reading, and your correction will come at a much lower price, leaving you overcharged by probably hundreds of pounds with no recourse. Try to get a meter reading in to prevent that.
February 9, 2024
They might no longer plan to “invest” (aka spend, subsidise, squander) to the same extent as previously heralded, but there is every danger of a Labour programme of green bans and green regulation that would truly serve to accelerate the Great Leap Backward and continue the targeting of quality of life with the demolition ball. If the ludicrous Grant Shapps can introduce a ban on the sale of new ICE vehicles by 2030, there must be a clear and present danger that Labour’s Transport Secretary in waiting – someone called Louise Haigh, evidently – would bring that forward.
If only there was a clear alternative to all of this, with support from (inter alia) some sound grey eminences with many years of Commons experience.
February 9, 2024
Does the Conservative party reach good, merely by being slightly better than a party that is even worse?
Neither Conservative nor Labour is anywhere near worth voters’ support.
The UK needs REFORM.
February 9, 2024
Sir JR, you’re entitled to gloat over Starmers latest U-turn. Another in a long line of U-turns. All of which give an indication of just how useless a Labour Government will be.
Unfortunately you’ll need more than gloating to save your party from the thrashing that’s coming your way.
You could start by electing a better PM and then by introducing policies that fulfill the public requirement.
Try actually stopping the boats/removing all the cheating immigrants from the hotels and sending them home (forget Rwanda It will never work) Cut legal immigration to virtually zero.
Stop forcing idiotic policies on the public to chase ‘net zero’ when our CO2 output is less than 1% of the Earths total and any expensive savings we make are taken up by China/India/US in weeks or even days.
Stop following the screeching minority of Trans activists who demand we all accept their nonsense ideas.
Introduce proper sentencing for criminals, instead of allowing them to roam the streets.
And that’s just for starters ……………..
February 9, 2024
“Labour’s net zero disaster”
“with the Conservatives was going to be a big programme of net zero state investment and subsidy”
Both big disasters seeking to destroy the UK
A whole 95% of the World, all the UKs competitors have ‘not’ signed up to this nonsense we are getting from all the gangs of Parliament. They, the World are not participating in this May, Boris Johnson inspired ‘race’. The Conservative Government more than any other in the World has lost the plot
How much of a cut in the UKs 1% of the Worlds emissions would it take to make a difference to the World when none of the major players are engaged in BoJo’s race?
Then the new race “deindustrialise at a faster pace” faster than what has already been destroyed?
If there was a once of credibility and honesty in the HoC, if they say the UK’s emissions are a problem, they also mean the Worlds emissions are a problem. If that was an honest belief, they would be enforcing the same penalties impositions and tariffs on all the imported goods from the large emitters. But they don’t, so it is the destruction of the UK that Parliament seeks or is it their masters in the EU won’t let them?
No one can stop basically the air around us moving. If China, India Germany pollutes on our behalf that is still the UK Polluting.
February 9, 2024
China was single-handedly responsible for 96% of global coal power capacity construction last year, cementing its position as the biggest coal builder in the world.
While the West hampers itself with Net Zero targets, China is putting energy security above anything else
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/China-Was-Responsible-for-96-of-Coal-Plants-Constructed-in-2023.html?fbclid=IwAR0wR07-k1F5Vcs2HyPhq1kgzzCgDP01Hgu2PjDDwFjHxNmHJhz79CvoY5A
February 9, 2024
It’s not Labour’s Net Zero disaster. It’s the UN’s; the WEF’s; the EU’s; the British Establishment’s and the Westminster Uni-Party’s.
The Not-a-Conservative-Party is only marginally less mad than Labour. I clearly remember most CON MPs dutifully trooping through the lobbies and voting for the Climate Change Act – having done no independent research whatsoever.
I recall Alok Sharma gleefully blowing up our coal-fired power stations, and therefore our energy security/reliability, whilst Johnson cheered from the sidelines.
I remember Sunak cancelling plans to frack for gas, in favour of paying a fortune to the USA for LPG and wood pellets and our continental “friends” for expensive energy when the windmills aren’t working. And I remember him graciously ALLOWING us to buy a petrol-driven car until 2035 – only because the EU had delayed the ban – but still intending to penalise car sales groups if they dare sell what he deems to be too many.
Net Zero is intended to reduce the living standard of “ordinary” people in advanced western nations. It’s about CONTROL and RESTRICTIONS on how we live our lives.
The consequences are being played out in Port Talbot.
I’m not interested in “marginally less lunatic” policies.
February 9, 2024
Well said Donna, why have the majority of the population twigged this Green Fraud
February 9, 2024
A straw poll of today’s entries so far signifies good sense and much agreement. Thanks to: Mark B, Cynic, Lifelogic, Everhopeful, Nigl, Nan T, Peter Wood, DOM, formula57 and David Andrews. Voters’ opinions count, especially those in majority.
February 9, 2024
It is a measure of how hated is Rishi and the current Conservative bunch of politicians, that large number of devoted conservative voters are prepared to accept Labour win.
February 9, 2024
Who cares the country is bunched – the sunny uplands indeed
February 9, 2024
Your government never tells people how much of our taxes are being spent on greener homes, £3.8 billion in Aug 21, ECO 3.1 million measures installed in 2.2 million homes by the end of Feb 2021. Which homes, where? No one I know has had these home measures, and if they’re going to housing associations, why are they? Why aren’t the HAs paying their own improvements from all the rents they charge? 22 Mar 2023 £1.4 billion to local authorities to upgrade homes.
We are paying over and over again, in housing benefits to companies that collect rents then spend on themselves and their pensions rather than their housing stock.
Cities are making out you’re doing nothing, yet £2.45 billion capital grants here and there.
February 9, 2024
Sadly, while your article is correct and Labour doesn’t have a clue, it could equally apply to the Government. All the nonsense will continue until someone wakes up and properly researches Net Zero. It is staggering that MPs voting on hugely expensive decisions don’t seem to make the slightest attempt to research Net Zero when they would find CO2 is not a problem.
Ignorance is bliss, and it seems most of our MPs choose to be ignorant! There is no problem with fossil fuel and cheap, reliable energy is the basis of a prosperous modern economy. Why are China and India building coal-fired power stations as fast as possible? Because they know it is the key to prosperity for their people.
It would be interesting to know how many MPs have EVs and heat pumps.
February 9, 2024
A smart move by Labour to ditch their £28bn/year Mission #4 pledge to decarbonise our electricity by 2030 by quadrupling offshore wind, doubling onshore wind and trebling solar. I sent them my analysis that the increased renewables would cost at least £37bn/year and a further £500bn to £1tn to provide the further increase in renewable capacity and the hydrogen storage to prevent chaotic blackouts. Perhaps they even took notice.
Not that the Net Zero Conservative party is any better led by a PM who as Chancellor, said at COP26:
“So our third action is to rewire the entire global financial system for Net Zero.”
All the Parliamentary parties have been infiltrated by fifth column communists who know that the way to cripple the West is to destroy our access to cheap, reliable, abundant and secure energy. Hence the transition to renewables whilst nuclear is demonised and delayed. Electrification through smart meters brings the necessary population control for the inevitable rationing of energy, food and transport.
The reason why the UN/WEF/activists (BBC XR JSO etc) are unconcerned about China emitting vast quantities of CO2 is because China is already an authoritarian/communist state
February 9, 2024
When the writer of Bulldog Drummond got his hero into an insoluble corner he had a get out trick which his readers accepted every time: ‘with one bound he was free,’ We are in one of those insoluble corners and we need a one bound solution.
All the difficulties we face are caused by the acceptance that the AGW hypothesis is totally correct and explains all the global warming, If there were another explanation for some of warming then AGW then the urgency (the huckster’s usual trick to rush punters to sign up for a dubious deal) drops away. Here is a plausible explanation for some at least of the post WWII warming.
A polluted sea surface will smooth, which lowers albedo, Evaporation is reduced. Wave breaking is suppressed and thus fewer salt aerosol particles are wafted up into the atmosphere, reducing cloud cover. That’s three warming mechanisms that have not been researched.
The extent to which the ocean/atmosphere interface is polluted with oily run-off is no longer being measured , but the SeaWiFs satellite data (the satellite is no longer working but records are at wiki) gives a good idea of how polluted our oceans were, and it’s now no doubt worse.
I’ve seen an oil smooth covering tens of thousands of square miles of the South Atlantic*. It must obviously be warming the sea surface. How much? No-one knows because no-one has even looked. The Sea of Marmora and Lake Tanganyika are both warming at anomalous rates. Why? No-one knows because no-one has looked.
If APW** is real then all bets are off. With one bound we are free.
JF
*image available.
** Anthropogenic Pollution Warming
February 9, 2024
The timetable might differ, but both Labour and Tory answer to the Climate Change Committee which in itself answers to the UN IPCC ….there’s no difference in net-zero policy
February 9, 2024
Is that ‘satire’ or do you have any reference showing that the UK CCC answers to the UN IPCC? If you have you really should tell us.
February 10, 2024
The interim Chair of the Climate Change Committee is Prof Piers Forster, who has a very prominent role at the IPCC as a coordinating lead author of the Sixth Assessment Report. The IPCC itself is now chaired by Prof Jim Skea who was a founding member of the UK’s Committee on Climate Change and currently chairs Scotland’s Just Transition Commission. They just swap hats.
February 10, 2024
Thanks for that.
February 9, 2024
2019 Manifesto (Tory & Labour)
(Tory) Reaching Net Zero by 2050 with investment in clean energy solutions and green infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions and pollution
(Labour) We will kick-start a Green Industrial Revolution to tackle the climate emergency by shifting to renewable energy, investing in rail and electric cars, and making housing energy efficient to reduce fuel poverty and excess winter deaths
(Tory) We placed a moratorium on fracking
(Labour) We will permanently ban fracking
The Conservatives aim to end new sales of internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035 (revised). Labour manifesto will aim for 2030
The cost of the Tory & Labour policies is in the £trillions …I see no difference
February 9, 2024
Yes. It’s Dum and Dummer.
February 9, 2024
When will the nightmare of Zero Carbon end!. We now have the two main Parties trying to score political points over the topic.
Labour has made the right decision to row back on their green strategy but they are too stupid to realise what they have done.
Unfortunately and dangerously, The Conservatives are still careering ahead with their own Zero Carbon strategy. This will have a catastrophic effect on our economy and our Country. The closure of Port Talbot is a perfect example. Why is it that many of the current MPs lack the intelligence and importantly common sense of the MPs of yesteryear.
February 9, 2024
AJ
Why.?
For the most part, so called Party Loyalty, and Group think, with sheer laziness and lack seeking any real subject knowledge.
February 9, 2024
Labour’s mess resembles the Conservatives ; I have never known such a shambles . It all comes down to the skills and experience of those who represent us . There has to be a dynamic in leadership with a sound view of a path to follow ; it is sadly lacking in the House . There are significant changes in the world today and we must regain the sort of respect we once had .
February 9, 2024
Correct. Just shows we need Reform, not another term of Tories following WEF dictates. They are globalists and do not have much care for this country or its people, just its money. Not much chance of getting any seats though, just like UKIP with the bent election system we have to perpetuate the two main parties. It’s why things are never any different, just words and broken promises.
February 9, 2024
Agreed Sir John.
It is a pity that most Conservative MPs are taken in by the Net Zero group-think.
February 9, 2024
The accusations from the left are that selling gas and oil licences to your ‘mates’ while Labour and the Greens are going to create ‘good green jobs’, cut bills, deliver energy security, unlock investment, green property, national wealth fund, warm homes plans, plans to rewire Britain.
February 9, 2024
The likelihood that Labour will be worse than the Tories is our only teal hope that at the election after the coming one, a true alternative party gets enough support to win power, and untangle the awful mess 18 years of LabCom government will have done.
I hope it’s not too late by then.
February 9, 2024
Last night, the disgraced American TV presenter Tucker Carlson released, at 18:00 hrs EST, a prime-time syndicated interview with the war criminal Putin. This interview gave Putin an opportunity to blame the West for his naked aggression and invasions of Ukraine territory in 2014 and 2020, to allege that Russia in unbeatable in Ukraine and that WW3 would be the result should American troops be sent in
Putin repeatedly demanded that America stop sending military support to Ukraine. Just in time for the latest Senate/House vote, where the MAGA wing of the Republican Party – which is controlled by Trump – has already announced that the Bill is “dead in the water”
Putin also stated that he has no intention of invading Poland or the Baltic states – just as he denied that he was going to invade Ukraine. So now we know what his plans actually are
As the Representatives and Senators prepare to cast their votes, the following undisputed facts may help their decision:
US aid to Ukraine does not lack oversight, nor has corruption in Ukraine diverted it.
America’s NATO and Asian allies and other European states have committed more money to support Ukraine than the United States. Nearly 30% more
Ukraine is not a “forever war” for the United States because Americans are not fighting this war.
Sending military aid to Ukraine increases America’s military readiness and reduces the risk that the United States will have to fight Russia itself.
The United States is not sending Ukraine a “blank check.”
Of course, Mr Trump – who is known as a Putin admirer – is “calling the shots” over the politics involved in the Bill. What a shame if the Americans, once again, abandon one of their allies when the going gets tough.
February 9, 2024
Some years ago,Julian Assange (who should know-he’s got all the files) said in an interview:”nearly every war that has started in the past fifty years has been as a result of media lies”.
You,Sakara,seem to have fallen for every one of them.
February 10, 2024
@mitchel
What a ridiculous comment. Putin invaded Crimea in 2014, taking control of Ukrainian territory, not the media. The naked agression, seizure of territory and war crimes undertaken by Putin in 2020 were Russian, not UKraine. FACTS
If you admire Putin so much, go and live in Russia as one of his “useful idiots”
February 10, 2024
I found the interview was very revealing about the mindset of Putin. He came across as in better health than previously, lucid, able to put together a detailed rationale, and a keen observer of geopolitics, with insights from his personal experience both at summits and otherwise that inform him. He has a consummate skill to bend the truth while coating it in apparent and even actual veracity and to gloss over the unpleasant side of his actions and to rationalise them away: his answer on whether there was any moral clash between his claimed Orthodox Christianity and pursuing violent war was revealing. Perhaps the same question should be asked of some Western leaders over the past couple of decades or so.
It was of course also a public negotiating pitch, much of it couched in very reasonable terms, albeit with a clear intimation that he expects Russia to benefit. On the whole I am now less concerned that he might push to expand the war. The noises for war are coming more from Western sources perhaps looking for an alternative distraction as net zero starts to fall apart and becomes deeply unpopular. Biden is now frightening in his dementia, with the prospect of Kamala to replace him no better, and the threat of a highly contentious election to follow. Governments across Europe are increasingly out of favour with their electorates.
As a long time Russia watcher who witnessed the demonstrations outside the American Embassy in Moscow during the Cuban missile crisis I think there is a more sensible way forward with the right Western leadership: Biden is no JFK and Cleverly is no Sir Alec Douglas Home and Sunak/Starmer are no Thatcher.
The Carlson interview will be pored over by serious analysts who will be grateful of the opportunity. Let’s hope they do a better job than those writing net zero policy.
February 9, 2024
“Labour’s big difference with the Conservatives was going to be a big programme of net zero state investment and subsidy.”
The only differences between the various sections of the Parliamentary Uni-Party is the speed of our unilateral decent into a Net Zero world of fuel poverty with the inevitable consequence of the necessity for the rationing of food, fuel and transport controlled by smart meters through electrification.
Since no politician is prepared to admit a mistake as big as Net Zero any voter who doesn’t want Net Zero, or massive immigration, will need to avoid voting for any candidate from the existing Parliamentary Parties.
As Einstein is reported to have said :
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result”
“Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity and I’m not sure about the universe”
February 9, 2024
Why all the fuss about insulating homes?
I thought we were heading for Global Boiling?
Surely the money should be spent on free air conditioning units and supplies of Pina Colada
February 9, 2024
ED
Insulation works both ways, it stops heat or cold transfer, so you need insulation if you want a cool house to protect the inside from the suns heat !.
The trick is to use COST EFFECTIVE methods, something many Greens do not understand.l
February 9, 2024
Well the BBC keeps telling us that we’ve hit the 1.5 degree temp rise target for world armageddon …..as we’re not dead, I suppose they’ll move the goal posts
February 9, 2024
Vote for the slightly less worse party for a slightly less worse future. We have brought in one million unassimilable aliens in two years but the other lot will bring in even more even less assimilable aliens every year to rub the rights nose in untreated sewerage of which privatisation has produced an abundance.
February 9, 2024
Sir John – you are a person I would vote for with enthusiasm. You unfailingly identify what needs to be righted. Sadly there are too few like you in the “Conservative In Name Only” party so we drift along achieving little progress on all the big issues.
And you are not even in the Cabinet, all of whom you easily outshine. Please find a solution – and quick.
February 9, 2024
” Labour’s £28 billion U-turn a mess,” that’s the new Conservative Party spin. Arguably there is no need for our comments because everyone ‘gets it’ but the Conservative Government. CCHQ and the Conservative Party are accepting their Socialist policies have all ended in failure and will consign the party as a has-been for generations – so why should they even bother to put things right, better to fail than do the job they are paid for.
https://order-order.com/2024/02/09/treasurys-trott-tumbles-on-tricky-round/ – interview with Evan Davis
Betrayal of pledge to not raise National Insurance.
Health and social care levy scrapped.
Social care reform scrapped.
HS2 scrapped.
Electric car mandate shifted back by five years.
Immigration reform was reformed. “A U-turn on a U-turn”…
Railway station ticket halls now staying.
Fines for missing GP appointments
A bonfire of EU laws and regulations. Still with us today…
February 9, 2024
…..and we’re still in the EU ….well we still have there laws and we still pay £billions to them
February 9, 2024
Sir John, I suggest you inform your own government and MPs of the irrelevance of the insane, leftwing net zero policies with which Johnson and Sunak have frittered away their 2019-gifted 80-seat majority.
February 9, 2024
Those seats were ‘red-wall’ seats that just wanted to see brexit through ….now lost
February 9, 2024
Sir John, Labour’s proposed spend on Net Zero was always going to be flawed, but don’t be too excited about them winding back from £28 billion/yr.
The current Net Zero policy introduced onto the statute book by Theresa May (a quasi Tory remember) will, if left in place, be costing the UK more than the Labour lot were looking to borrow to chase down that particular rainbow.
You do know that don’t you?
February 9, 2024
So Sir John is concerned that Labour, which has announced a £28 bn pot of money for the environment, has now decreased it to a mare £4 bn. As far as I know Labour are not in power, so might they not be allowed to revise their plans?
The 2019 Conservative Manifesto ‘Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain’s Potential’ (conservatives.com, 59 pp) had among its 13 key policies 50,000 more nurses, no income taxes, VAT or NI increases, no one obliged to sell their home to pay for care, some £6.3 bn to help 2.2 m poorly insulated homes, a net annual 100,000 migration, the creation of 250,000 extra childcare places, a new ‘Democracy Commission’ to look into the constitutional power balance.
So after a bit longer than four years, could we have a tally of what the last Conservative Government for which there was a proper manifesto and a proper GE has actually achieved? Thanks a lot in advance.
February 9, 2024
oops ‘a mere’ sorry.
February 9, 2024
Net Zero difference?:
The voice used to translate Vladimir Putin’s response to Tucker Carlson sounds similar to that technology which Stephen Hawkins used to speak, but with a slight Canadian accent. Strange.
February 10, 2024
As a rusty Russian speaker, I thought he did a highly skilled job. That level of simultaneous expertise is not yet in the purview of AI translation. Just try watching captions on a Youtube video.
February 10, 2024
The Putin translation may have been performed by a skilled linguist. However, AI is more capable than your reply tends to suggest. It has been used commercially for years to cold call and sell products by telephone. The capability not only translates what the respondent says, but selects from a giant database of answers to formulate the best replies. Much of its performance responds as quickly and smoothly as a brilliant salesman would in conversation, with many people completely unaware that they are discussing with a robot. Even those trying to pose trick questions to catch it out often fail to do so, leaving them to believe the caller is human; and the robots’ trained capability improves with every day that passes.
February 9, 2024
Off topic.
I watched the whole of the Carlson / Putin interview this afternoon. Whilst I have no idea if Putin’s lengthy monologue on the history of Russia from the 8th century is accurate (but obviously from a Russian perspective) it was very refreshing to see the Leader of a major power answering questions in a mature, detailed and respectful manner.
He explained the history (from his perspective); why he had taken the actions he had and what (in his opinion) provoked them. He gave considered answers to what he thought was behind the USA/NATOs strategy and objectives. He treated the watching audience like adults.
Compare and contrast with Biden, who can barely string a sentence together. Or our own PM, Ministers and the Leader of the Opposition ….. who refuse to answer questions; patronise us at every opportunity; deal in 10 second soundbites (presumably because they think we’re either too stupid to concentrate on what they’re saying for any longer) and are completely incapable of making, justifying and explaining a detailed and principled case for their actions.
We’re going to get a wonderful example of it all when Sunak does his “I’m pretending to listen to the voters and give a 4X about what they want” on GB News in the next few days.
February 9, 2024
John, it’s a shame that you block my comments now. Your team invited me to present my views here rather than writing to you about national issues and now my posts are deleted and not published. David
Reply Try shorter posts without links
February 13, 2024
Reply to reply
John do you realise how unfair you are being.You give LL so much space with the same convoluted comments. Talk about bias and written injustice.I read your blog for your comments.
February 9, 2024
O/T thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025 ‘Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise’ 920pp. It comes from The Heritage Foundation and is likely to be DJT’s Presidential Transition Project.
Perfect reading for the week-end.
February 9, 2024
please, keep on saying this, but LOUDER
February 9, 2024
It’s not Labour that makes the net-zero crusade a disaster. Ditto Conservative and Liberal Democrats, et al.
The fundamental fact is that our Nation lies way down at 17th on the list of the world’s CO2 emitters. We’re lower than the not only the likes of the big baddies, China, USA, Russia and India but also the surprising Japan, Indonesia, Germany, Saudi, Canada, Mexico even Brazil and Turkey plus others. So why are we doing so much more to cut our measly output than any of these baddies? In 2022 China’s output represented 32.8% of the Global total, which is more than those baddies listed combined. Our contribution was 0.88%. Surely it’s common sense to see that our net-zero ambition will be ineffective against those numbers? So why are the politicos pressing on with it? Egos?
We MUST stop net-zero here before we are surely bankrupted by it. Meanwhile, the RoTW looks on in amazement and laughs at our stupidity.
February 9, 2024
Conscription was reintroduced to the baltic state Latvia, at the beginning of January and will apply to all men aged between 18 and 27 …..I bet not one of these men or women are thinking about ‘net-zero’
Net-zero is a construct of the woke elite to lord over the plebs
February 9, 2024
UK net-zero increases costs to farmers, which leads to trade deals to import cheaper food, cheaper than our farmers can produce ….no wonder the farmers are on a go slow in Dover, I’m just surprised more of our industry aren’t with them
February 10, 2024
Interesting, some people appear to think that low prices enforced by UK supermarkets, the imbalanced UK-EU agricultural trade tariffs and checks, and the NZ and Australia trade treaties have had the strongest impact on the farmers income.
But thanks to the inextinguishable wisdom of our own Glen we now know that it is all he fault of net-zero.
February 9, 2024
Do we have a political interviewer left who will tear Starmer or Reeves to pieces over this debacle ?
Most are closet Labour supporters anyway, and none of them have the forensic analysis skills or the killer instinct of a Paxman or the late David Frost or Brian Walden. Even GB News’ chief political correspondent supports the Left.
We are faced with the same problem as the US where the broadcast media are overwhelmingly staffed by Democrats, and Republican reporters are almost an extinct breed. The few remaining Republicans are branded as being of the “Far Right”.
February 9, 2024
As our host points out, Starmer’s supposed “clean energy by 2030” is completely unachievable.
We cannot build enough wind and solar farms by then, or expand the grid to distribute the power in time. All renewables need back up for the winter, which can only be from existing and new oil and gas plants, because no government could get enough SMRs through the planning system by 2030, let alone build and get them into operation. At present, it’s also untried technology.
Even the most optimistic prediction for delivering 100% clean energy would be no sooner than 2040. To also allow for the huge increase in electrical energy for EVs and electrical home heating and industry over the same time scale would cost hugely more than Starmer’s £28bn a year.
Even that amount comes to £448bn over 16 years! Where is this vast amount of money going to come from or the vast army of highly-qualified engineers??? It’s pure fantasy.
February 10, 2024
Let us to honest here. With the Conservatives we’ve had 13 years of disaster. This country is in a terrible state, just remember the Covid fraud , the help out to eat out fraud, PPE fraud and gods knows what other fraud the conservatives have presided over, all that lost money could have been put to better use.
We just can’t have more of the same, this country is on its knees , the suggestion to cut tax’s as a pre election give away is wrong and to put tax’s up at this present moment is also wrong.
When it comes to dentists the Conservatives haven’t even managed to provide basic dental treatment to many people in this country and yet find billions to give to Ukraine which ironically has a better dental service than us even in time of war.