The continuing unpopularity of Green candidates for Parliament and most Councils is a notable feature of the UK, only surpassed in the US. Their main preoccupation to get us to net zero is now however written into most political party programmes to a lesser extent. The Democrats in the US are very keen and the non Trump Republicans accept much of it. The Lib Dems whose opinion ratings remain low in the UK want an extreme version of net zero policies like the Greens. The UK Conservatives want a more measured and pragmatic approach, with a range of views from enthusiastic to sceptic within the party. Reform has now come out against many net zero policies, as has Mr Trump in the US. In these latest UK by elections when people could vote for their best preference without worrying about who would be in government, the Green and Lib Dem vote was tiny.
The public according to polls agrees there is global warming and thinks something ought to be done about it. However a large majority do not back going over to heat pumps and battery electric vehicles for themselves and object strongly to net zero policies that make them personally worse off or make their lives more difficult. The public shows more sense than green talking politicians. Many see the folly of the UK closing down fossil fuel activities here only to import replacements from abroad with more fossil fuel used as a result. Many see that pricing UK consumers out of using so much fossil fuel will do nothing to abate the fast growth in fossil fuel use in China, India and the world as a whole. Many just want to keep their homes warm with a gas boiler and get to work by van or car because that works.
If Mr Trump wins the US election late this year global net zero strategy suffers a major blow. If the world’s largest economy goes for extracting and using more oil and gas,and sees cheap fossil fuel energy as a competitive business advantage that knocks a big hole in the Paris Treaty targets. The world’s second largest economy, China, says it is committed to net zero. However China is still increasing its output of CO 2 and adding more coal to its energy mix as well as building wind farms. China has not yet started to cut her output. Many emerging economies reserve the right to increase their fossil fuel use as a necessary way to boost living standards.If UK Greens really thought world CO 2 mattered they would be protesting daily outside the Chinese and Indian embassies.
This is why I argue against UK government and Councils lecturing us to make big changes in our lives that many do not want to make. Worse still some of these policies are a nonsense in their own terms. Buy an EV and plug it in to recharge, and we will need to burn more gas in a power station to meet the demand. Change all our homes to heat pumps and create large amounts of CO 2 doing so. Why? How ?
February 18, 2024
Even before you take deliver of your new EV it will have taken about 50,000 miles of CO2 output to build it. These miles will have to be done charged on low carbon electricity just to break even. Many new EVs owners will never even do this mileage before they crash, burst into flames or are not used much. Plus most will not be charged on low CO2 electricity anyway. After about 8-10 years they will need an expensive and energy consuming to make new battery. More emissions but elsewhere cars (the the increased tyre (made of oil) wear circa 30% is still at the road.
“The UK Conservatives want a more measured and pragmatic approach” you say – except the pragmatic approach is to ditch net zero as it is economic, scientific and environmental lunacy.
This as:-
1. A bit more CO2 is a net good.
2. The solutions pushed EVs, heat-pumps, public transport, hydrogen, walking, wind, solar… do not even save sig. or often any CO2 at all. EV cars usually increase it.
3. Even if we go to net zero and 1 & 2 were not true (they are true) we have China, Russia, India so are best we just export CO2 often more CO2 than doing it at home (as will importing liquid gas rather than fracking it at home for example).
February 18, 2024
The head of Shell predicts that demand for gas will increase 5 fold by 2050. That being the case we are going to have to start drilling and fracking to maintain our lifestyle.
Hinckley is delayed yet again until 2031 and EDF have no money to build Sizewell.
No decision has been made about building SMRs so just how are we going to power a 21st century economy. Answer, we can’t.
February 18, 2024
So Fishy once again bypasses Parliament and puts gold plated EU law on the statute book. No announcement, no discussion, looks like Lord Greenhill has his fingerprint all over it.
February 18, 2024
Lord Greensill of Libya, low tax at heart, climate alarmist, EU Sceptic & low tax at heart chap – but never any of these in reality.
“I I will stay on the referendum either outcome and deliver Brexit” but then abandoned ship like a petulant child leaving us we the dire Brexit mean no Brexit Net Zero brained May.
February 18, 2024
Read comments under Guido article on Tobias Ellwood. People have the measure of these extreme left wing pro EU extremists.
February 18, 2024
Our government jumped the gun on Net Zero, believing we would provide leadership.
Our country is no longer a Great Power, we have no influence.
No one is following us.
The time to commence Net Zero is when China threatens us with trade sanctions if we do not adopt it.
February 18, 2024
Tory party gold plate Red Ed’s Marxist net stupid after scaring us about his mad policies!!
The left wing nutters in the Tory party (in the wrong party) promoting green crap still call themselves centrists!! We know this because Ken Clarke and Soubry, both former Tory ministers, openly support Labour!
Cameron who called EU to March to the Urals now making threats to Russia! He ran off like a spoilt child when we were not scared to vote against him to leave the EU.
The gullible people scared into believing climate alarmism need educating to ignore left wing Tory scare campaigns. When in office gold plate Labour policies, like Red Ed’s Marxist energy policy as they called it.
February 18, 2024
+1. So daft they probably, like Sunak, still think Covid Vaccines are safe and effective!
February 18, 2024
From the Graun a couple of days ago “The company said last month the project was now expected to be completed by 2031 and cost up to £35bn. When inflation is factored in, this figure could reach £46bn. It was originally expected to be complete by 2017, and cost £18bn”.
February 18, 2024
miami.mode :
The Graun is correct but there are some further points to note :
– Professor Dieter Helm of Oxford University told the BBC that the cost of HPC would have been halved if the Government (Cameron, Osborne & Davey) had borrowed the money itself instead of using Chinese capital at 9%.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44363366
– A Secretary of State for BEIS wrote to my MP to say there would have been a £30bn saving if HPC had been financed by RAB instead of CfD.
– The recent video from EDF partly blames the increase on the ONR for requesting 7000 design changes to adapt to UK regulations requiring 35% more steel and 25% more concrete. A claim which the ONR has denied :
https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/nuclear-new-build-projects/hinkley-point-c/news-views/january-2024-project-update
https://news.onr.org.uk/2024/01/hinkley-point-c-project-update/
– The same technology, EDF’s EPR at Olkiluoto, Finland, although also very late, is supplying electricity at £53/MWhr, half the price of the next renewable auction (AR6) for fixed offshore wind (over £100/MWhr).
But even with the HPC enormous cost overruns the cost of replacing HPC works out at 40% cheaper than fixed offshore wind (£/supplied power/year).
February 18, 2024
@Ian wragg EDF is a French Nationalized company, they are currently demanding more money from the UK Taxpayer. They intend to open 3 more nuclear power facilities in France before 2030.
The direction of EDF is subject to the whims of the French Government, not forgetting the UK paid the £1.5 billion for electricity through the so-called interconnect last year. So Hinckley and Sizewell are not in the best interest of EDF’s owners
They UK doesn’t get to have its own Nuclear Industry, the Labour Party sold that off stating the UK does not need nuclear power. Although that said the company that was owned by the UK Government – Westinghouse has an agreement to build 4 SMR’s in Teeside and have the operating by 2030. These are all privately funded.
February 19, 2024
theengineer.com is an interesting site to follow to get the latest on SMR developments in the UK. One possibly needs to click on ‘SMRs’ at the bottom of the page to get the relevant news over several months, depending on what the most recent news appears upfront.
February 18, 2024
Well no trains to Kingston or Surbiton yesterday. Buses on diversion. Roadworks everywhere. Twenty MPH speed limits. Half the roads given over to empty cycle lanes. Gridlock.
Nobody takes responsibility. If you write to the council they gives excuses about the time of year and then add that public utilities face fines if works overrun. I imagine the fines are derisory and are factored in to the companies’ work plans.
So you can travel if you want, but it will be unpleasant and more people will give up. All this helps the Net Zero brigades even if they are not directly organising it.
February 18, 2024
Spot on. NetZero is sheer idiocy.
The same green globalist leaders import a million people a year from warm countries to cold countries requiring more energy.
The worlds leaders and billionaires all buy houses on the seashore and fly around in private jets.
The same sheeple who walked around in pointless masks during covid buy EV cars.
Wake up and smell the coffee. You are being conned.
February 18, 2024
NZ is more, much more than sheer idiocy. It is more about generating and maintaining a sort of religious fear in the people and the retention of political power i.e. to subjugate the populace to live in fear and do as they are told, regardless of any loss of liberty and freedom of choice.
We now have a generation of children who will become adults willing to simply do as they told, having been indoctrinated with the climate crisis propaganda from an early age in school.
I am so old that I shan’t see the eventual outcome in the world of compliant believers, which in a strange way I regret. Whatever, the future looks bleak…..
February 18, 2024
increasing subjugation isn’t that difficult to imagine, is it? We’ve been heading that way for years.
February 18, 2024
+1
February 18, 2024
Sir J could, if he wants to make a real difference, go deep into the real cost of Net Zero and present it in the House. I suggest a summer recess project, with science and financial experts to thoroughly investigate the plan as it is now known, open it to scrutiny and have a real debate.
February 18, 2024
Indeed & if not in private jet or helicopters they are usually in first class which produces about 2 to 3 times as much CO2 per person mile. If they actually believe this climate emergency themselves they might at least fly economy! We should have a top 100 climate hypocrite awards. It would include Rishi Suank, King Charles, William, Harry, Megan, Emma Thompson, indeed most famous actors and actresses, Ed Milliband, Theresa May… …
February 18, 2024
+ many. Exactly my thoughts. It is control over the small people. Tory party imported 3.5 million people in two years, 5% of our population. 7,000 vets homeless, illegal criminals come here on boats put in four star hotels, allowed to under cut British workers, allowed to go home for Christmas and never deported! Rycroft extends visas for Ukrainians! Why? Should the men and women not go home to fight?
February 18, 2024
It will be our children who are expected to fight whilst the invaders take our homes and jobs. Why do you think they are introducing military summer camps for school leavers? Soon it will be compulsory. Once kids sign up for these camps, which might sound like harmless fun they will be considered reservists. Read the EU documents which gives them the power to call up any citizen from any member country. This was one of my main reasons for voting to leave, unfortunately, our politicians still think we are members.
February 18, 2024
JR,
You miss out key EU components to your blog today. Is this to deliberately deceive?
EU equality rules would have lapsed by the end of last year. Instead Sunak introduced EU equality law into UK law in December 2023 JR! We voted leave Sunak, once more, betraying the nation to leave the EU! Cash is wrong, this was not bad advice or mistake. It was deliberate lock step alignment not to diverge from EU! Trecherous Basta…
EU environment laws, regs and rules leading UK energy policy and net stupid! Why no mention?
February 20, 2024
What is meant by net Zero and what effect on global warming will it have in 2100? Utter madness.
February 18, 2024
One EV battery requires digging and moving average 226 tonnes of earth per battery …just think about the environment
February 18, 2024
And only last a few years too.
February 18, 2024
Exactly. And it is not the lecturing that does the real damage but the legislation and regulation that denies choice and imposes taxes.
February 18, 2024
You say Conservatives want a more measured pragmatic approach, to I assume Nett Zero outcomes. You are probably right , but there is no reflection of this from the consocialist heirs to Blair sheep who suround you on government benches. The Conservatives who want this are the ones who stayed at home or voted Reform last thursday. Just to emphasise the Nett Zero no sale, the LDs and Greens lost their deposits.
No point in delineating what is required because we have been there Ad Nauseum, for the past two years. Sheep do not listen, only responding to grass and sheepdogs.
February 18, 2024
and they only stand and stare transfixed at more bleating!
February 18, 2024
Yap! (I’m a sheepdog)
February 18, 2024
lie down Lynn! ….that’ll do !
February 18, 2024
Must talk from Sunak, Gov. Ministers, Chairmen etc. about their plan. We have a plan, stick to the plan, they do not have a plan… about five times every time they get near a mike or a newspaper. All very tedious.
If you Google “Sunak’s plan” you get his flip charge economic plan broadcast. In this he says they spent £400 BN on furlough lockdown, “protecting” (shutting down) the NHS and Net Harm (as is now very clear) Covid “Vaccines” and years of lockdowns. This was a huge mistake by the Conservative and total waste of money by the Conservatives (cheered on by the dire Labour MPs too). He then went on to waste a further £100BN on energy subsidies would have been better to reduce taxes, scrap net zero & let people decide how to spent their money.
He make a big point of how when he became PM inflation for 11% and he has halved it. When he became Chancellor it was circa 1% and he took it to 11% with his QE and all the above waste. He is sticking to his Net Zero insanity too.
He claims lower inflation eases the cost of living no mate negative inflation perhaps but if you inflate a balloon by a further 4% it is still getting bigger and thing getting even more expensive Sunak – I thought you liked Maths?
He says only two ways for government to raise money are tax or borrow. Well they can also sell assets, grow the economy, QE currency debase (as Sunak did and should know), cut out waste, get far more efficient, deregulate, stop doing think that are damaging like road blocking, HS2, Net Zero, Net harm Vaccines…
Is this his plan, people keep saying how intelligent Sunak is! He even keeps assuring us the vaccines are safe so clearly not good at stats or is just lying.
Labour’s plan is essentially the same but with a bit the evil politics of envy against good schools and anti-Semitism thrown in to make it even worse still.
February 18, 2024
LL
+1 A consummate summation this morning.
February 18, 2024
LL,
The plan Sunak calls it was the 2019 manifesto he said he would implement but abandoned!
February 18, 2024
Sunak is just treading water and waiting to hand over the globalist baton to Labour before disappearing off to California.
The Conservative Party only have themselves to blame if they don’t replace him and they are wiped out.
February 18, 2024
Nothing to be lost ditching Sunak but given the dire make up of most ConSocialist MP we would get another net zero, green crap, pushing big state socialist like Suank. But cannot be any worse can it?
February 18, 2024
The WEF prodigies Kemi and Penny are just waiting in the wings. When will the Conservative party learn they need a new right wing leader with fresh policies?
February 18, 2024
Javelin,
That is exactly what Sunak is doing. He is also quietly logging every extra day he is in charge so he can boast about his span in power and ignore the failings that accompanied it.
Meanwhile, he can use misdirection to avoid addressing public concerns and limit interviews and public appearances.
However replacing him would not make a great deal of difference now. Most Conservative MPs realise the game is up.
Then we see what happens next. Long term, I expect more public disobedience along the lines of ULEZ and political violence which neither the current police force or the armed forces will be able or willing to control.
February 18, 2024
They need not only to replace him but they need to replace him with an out and out Tory. I an think of only one suitable candidate.
February 18, 2024
not ‘if’ but ‘when’.
February 18, 2024
But he has A PLAN, right!!! It’s just the wrong ones! Nut zero, mass immigration, high taxes, high welfare, refusal to stop the boats, aligning with the EU and on and on. Just go!
February 18, 2024
You are speaking to the converted. If/when the rest of the electorate wakes up, things might change.
I don’t believe anthropogenic climate change is a serious problem, but the forces that want this narrative to dominate are extremely powerful. I can’t see any solution here. Trump as President might help, but I think they will find a way to ensure he never gets back into office.
Perhaps when travel for the masses is curtailed and it becomes obvious to them that their standard of living is impoverished due to Net Zero, they will change their voting habits. I hope this happens, but with internet, speech censorship and other authoritarian measures being implemented in the UK, EU and US, the awakening may not come to pass. A desperately sad situation.
February 18, 2024
Wanderer,
Voting habits might be the least of their worries. Rebellion is different. However some are short term thinkers and others are too clever by half.
Maybe we will meekly go along with it all, maybe not.
There are more of us than them though.
February 18, 2024
If your heat pump is powered by fossil fuel electricity or burning wood at Draz it make little sense in CO2 terms at all and cost far more to run (as electricity cost far more than gas – the CoP factor is usually not enough to balance this) also install and maintain. Noisy too.
Huge grid problems too for heat pumps. They need circa 80% of the power they use in just a few coldest days of winter. So you need a grid that has a huge increase in capacity of circa ten time and this is only used for a few days and wasted for the rest of the year. A massive capital investment is needed for this grid and generation capacity with huge road disruption too.
A home with gas heating, cooking & hot water and petrol cars might only use £500 of electricity PA. One with EV cars, electric cooking and heat pumps for heating and water might need circa 10-20 times this sum and 80% of it in those few winter weeks. Vastly more expensive and far less practical this way.
February 18, 2024
You’ve lost the argument. Large Hedgies, big business, big banks etc all moving to/demanding actions towards net zero, funding for oil/gas/coal becoming difficult etc.
So in transition but past the tipping point with vast amounts of investment going into the tech to get us there.
You are shouting in an empty room. That’s why no one important is taking a blind bit of notice of what you say.
February 18, 2024
I am just pointing the energy, physics and engineering realities. Richard Feynman’s famous conclusion to his report on the shuttle Challenger accident, which arose again in the Columbia accident, is “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.” The physics will win out in the end. MPs despite what the fools seem to think cannot change these laws.
This demand (with up to 80% of the electrical energy heat pump electricity being needed on just a cold few days winter) in the UK is a huge problem. Vast grid and energy production capacity is needed just for a few winter months. This capital investment largely unused the rest of the year. Wind and solar especially and even nuclear not suitable to provide this ramp up and down electricity. Solar largely useless in dark UK winters. So the only suitable on demand supplies of electricity are piles or tanks of coal, gas, oil or wood. Wood is even worse than coal (old wood) in CO2 and environmental terms.
February 18, 2024
LL :
Your science and engineering is correct. But you continually make the mistake of not realising that the intended outcome of the false CAGW scare and the Net Zero “solution” is to destroy the West’s prosperity by denying access to cheap, abundant and reliable energy and to control the population with electrification via smart meters and the rationing of energy, food and transport.
This is why there is no plan for energy storage for renewables and why the vast upgrade in the national and local grids will not need to happen. There simply won’t be the electricity generated in the first place. UK nationals will be expected to be cold in winter to save the planet and be showing the world the way forward and how virtuous are our leaders even as they turn up their privately generated central heating or fly off to warmer climes for the winter….
February 18, 2024
It’s about control. If the Globalists control the three main elements necessary for life – food, energy, water – they can control the population.
They’re steadily building a system of global control and surveillance, which is being imposed in the so-called democratic advanced economies of the west, because they were thought most likely to resist it.
February 18, 2024
++++
And ‘levelling up’ is really all about bringing us down.
February 18, 2024
…and this green tory government is about to spend trillions on energy storage …a battery technology which isn’t proven and the technology to make it work doesn’t as yet exist
February 18, 2024
You say “some of these policies are a nonsense in their own terms”, the reality is most if not all are a nonsense in their own terms – even if you (quite wrongly) accept the CO2 new devil gas religion. A bit more plant, tree & crop food and even slightly warmer is a net good. Even a doubling of CO2 is not a problem we live in a dearth of CO2 in historical terms. CO2 is vital for virtually all life on earth and the 02 we all breath.
February 18, 2024
Blocking the roads, bus and bike lanes to increase congestion and this make people drive further and increase energy use and pollution as a good example.
Note walking and cycling are powered by human food. Steak, chips and a bottle of wine are very inefficient and expensive fuels if you do the maths. So not very CO2 efficient at all. Walking especially unless you live off porridge or similar.
February 18, 2024
LL,
‘Note walking and cycling are powered by human food. Steak, chips and a bottle of wine are very inefficient and expensive fuels if you do the maths. So not very CO2 efficient at all. Walking especially unless you live off porridge or similar.’
Don’t be daft.
You are just as bad as the methane from cows brigade. Catch onto yourself.
By the way, do any of your posts ever get blocked in moderation?
February 18, 2024
Not very often.
Walking, if you eat a normal UK human diet, is certainly not a low carbon system of transport. If it were we could design cars that ran on fish and chips, daube de boeuf, pomme de terre Lyonnaise, Cote de Rhone and tarte Tatin chantilly. Engineers could probably improve on the human digestion and the human muscle system but then Petrol and Diesel are huge improvement already.
February 18, 2024
LL,
Looking at the shape of the current population, a bit of walking or cycling would do them no harm at all. Health might improve and diesel and petrol would be saved. Though I doubt too many are on fancy wine and food anyway.
February 18, 2024
@ Lifelogic – concerning walking and CO2, you tell us further above “Labour’s plan is essentially the same…” so perhaps the next government will mirror Mr. Sunak’s tobacco ban for youths by extending it to “Steak, chips and a bottle of wine”? I offer the campaign slogan “Let them eat porridge” to get the message across.
February 18, 2024
Let them eat only porridge, walk everywhere in their 15 minute prison zones and live in freezing hovels.
February 18, 2024
Too many people generate too many children, with each generation producing more of the same.
A reduction of just one child would avoid a lifetime of consumption in each case.
February 18, 2024
Bloke,
I am more convinced by Cecil Rhodes :-
“I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race”
Not currently popular but it would make sense. Just leave Third World to sort out its own problems. Just have plenty of children and train up our young to fill the roles in our own country.
February 18, 2024
Cecil Rhodes made a good point. However, India seems to have taken the ‘we’ as applying to them. Perhaps China has too. 2.8 billion folk take a large proportion of the world’s resources.
February 18, 2024
Population without the large immigration is in decline in the UK & most of the west.
February 18, 2024
The UK should maintain its own population, with parents supporting their own children, and children supporting parents when needed. Proper management allows the population to tick over smoothly, training doctors, dentists and others to deliver services, and help those in need.
Importing uncontrolled large numbers from the overpopulated rest of the world shocks the system with overdemand, shortages and successive emergencies. Gradual integration would be far better than what careless government causes recklessly without adequate foresight.
February 18, 2024
LL,
Yes it is in decline but that could be reversed. Earlier generations had larger families supported by one income.
It is extremely short term thinking to replace a current population with adults from the third world. Long term they will have families – often big ones. That is without taking into consideration cultural and other factor.
Douglas Murray addressed this in ‘The Strange Death of Europe’ – how citizens concerns were ignored or condemned while the floodgates opened.
February 18, 2024
“Buy an EV and plug it in to recharge, and we will need to burn more gas in a power station to meet the demand. Change all our homes to heat pumps and create large amounts of CO 2 doing so”
Indeed, this is sophistry. The Conservative government has had 14 years to build enough windfarms and solar parks harvesting our abundant supplies of free energy, but has failed to do so. The imposition of Hunt’s retrospective Electricity Generator Levy has killed further investment in N Sea windfarms and onshore solar parks and has made renewable energy projects ridiculously expensive – half built projects have now been abandoned. They have failed to upgrade the national grid. There are insufficient EV charging points because Kwarteng cancelled 40,000 of them.
Reform’s anti-net zero landlords policy, their pro-fossil fuel stance and anti-renewables demands were REJECTED by 87-90% of those who voted at last weeks by-elections.
To take on Labour and actually try and win the January 2025 election, the Conservatives should ignore the siren calls from the fossil fuel lobby influencing policy – and go for the green revolution.
President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is transforming America and is accelerating their green transition to abundant, cheap renewable electricity. We should be doing the same thing; burning fossil fuels for our energy needs is so 20th century. Mr Trump has severe legal problems across the water and is now being BOOED in contempt at his campaign rallies.
February 18, 2024
Sakara
Same old, same old, no sun, no wind, no power zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
February 18, 2024
Not sophistry but simple facts. When the wind does not blow, a wind turbine is useless, when the Sun does not shine, a Solar Farm is useless. So why is building more of them the solution?
The existing essential back-up for power generation is fossil based. What is your green alternative?
February 18, 2024
and when really windy the windmill is stopped!
February 18, 2024
Gosh you really are deluded by this new religion, did you study any science or engineering beyond 16? If not please do so. How will your wind farm provide 80% of their electricity just in the few cold winter months as heat pumps demand? Will you have five times the number largely unused the rest of the year and just hope it is windy on those cold weeks?
Sustainable energy without hot air is a good basic book & introduction for brighter laypeople by a Cambridge Physicist.
https://www.withouthotair.com/
February 18, 2024
Does Biden even know how to wash and dress himself? Biden is away with the fairies.
February 18, 2024
You live in a parallel universe. It’s the only explanation.
February 18, 2024
Booo booo boo, you can keep your green energy in your own world Saka but not in mine! Green is a colour I detest ! Give me a good oily smelling workshop anytime. Things can be repaired there, not throw on the rubbish heap of scams and LIES that push the totally impossible Nut ( do they mean nett) zero. My cast iron oil fired boiler will long out live your reversed refrigerator Goldie!
February 18, 2024
Sakara – You can have one hundred billion wind farms and solar farms in the UK (all will have needed loads of fossil fuels and concrete to manufacture, construct, connect up and maintain) – but on a calm night in winter you will still get virtually zero electricity so a negative saving of CO2.
Perhaps one of those winter freezing nights when everyone needs their heat pumps running at full blast! No such a good plan. The heat pumps will need gas, nuclear, oil or coal to drive them. Nuclear is very inefficient and v. capital intensive too esp. if running at 100% capacity for two months and 20% for the rest of the year. A pile of coal or gas is cheapest and best. Perhaps why China is sensibly building two a week.
February 18, 2024
imagine the incredibly massive Interconnectors in a ‘Neptune ring’ around the world, moving incredible amounts of generated electricity (while in sunshine) ahead to the countries still in darkness?
February 18, 2024
Dream on! Imagine the costs, losses in transit, potential for terrorist attacks, political instability… possible in theory perhaps but gas is far cheaper and more practical.
February 18, 2024
@ Sakara Gold .. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is transforming America..” – alas, this seems to be true and it is certainly giving inflation a boost.
In ruins now is Joe’s target of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity during the nine years from 2021 since (as Bloomberg reports) the industry has faced “a cascading series of setbacks, from sobering cost revisions to billions in possible impairment charges..”. Ørsted, the largest offshore wind developer in the U.S. market, said this month that it will abandon its Ocean Wind project (one of just five major offshore wind projects approved in the U.S.) with cost estimates perhaps as high as $5 billion.
February 18, 2024
They have had 14 years to dig more coalmines, investigate more possible oil-fields, trial various fracking sites and make sweeping financial contribution to improved home insulation.
We also failed to develop better reservoirs supplied from rivers that create residential damage when flooding.
February 18, 2024
Rubbish. Last night, thousands of people turned out in sub-freezing cold to cheer and hear President Trump speak at Waterford Township in advance of the Michigan GOP primary next week. Btw, he spoke the whole time – 1 hr 23 minutes – without a teleprompter.
February 18, 2024
+1 they love the man! If you are a democrat you crept that – and the massive support from Russians for their President. Whereas the EU and Britain never voted for their leaders, EXPLICITELY.
February 18, 2024
SG : “The Conservative government has had 14 years to build enough windfarms and solar parks harvesting our abundant supplies of free energy, but has failed to do so.”
If renewable energy is “free”, then why are we still subsidising it? The next renewables auction this year (AR6) will see fixed offshore wind at just over £100/MWhr which is twice the price of reliable RR SMR nuclear and twice the price of the reliable energy from EDF’s nuclear EPR plant in Finland using the same technology as Hinkley Point C. According to the Royal Society’s “Large-Scale Electricity Storage” report to produce reliable, dispatchable energy using hydrogen storage the price doubles again to £200/MWhr, 4 times the price of RR SMRs and large nuclear built anywhere in the world but the UK.
February 18, 2024
SJR, you say ‘The public according to polls agrees there is global warming and thinks something ought to be done about it’. But that is the result of Green fear-mongering, supported by the media and Green business corporate profiteers. Project Fear aimed at stopping Brexit was successfully outfought. Now the challenge for you is to convince the public that ideologists are once more trying to con them. Just saying heat pumps are rather too big and EVs depreciate rather fast, etc. won’t be enough.
February 18, 2024
Agree…and being Pro the environment isn’t the same as being Pro net-zero policies
February 18, 2024
Exactly. They deliberately conflate the two issues.
February 18, 2024
+1
February 18, 2024
Well said R Grange! I agree totally with that statement! $$$ the dollars are all that counts with some people!
February 18, 2024
++++
February 18, 2024
R.G., Exactly, for years I have been despairing of Conservatives ‘making the argument’, as was once the way when Margaret Thatcher held sway.
February 18, 2024
CO2 is 0.045% 0f Earths atmosphere. The UK contributes less than 1% of that (< 0.00045%) If we reach net zero, it will make no difference as China will have taken up our proportion within weeks.
February 18, 2024
Indeed and most CO2 is not even manmade but is natural.
February 18, 2024
Yes. 3% is man made. Then do the sums and nut zero is ridiculous.
February 18, 2024
The chase to net-zero is never-ending, its an unreachable target, they’ll find something else to tax and some behaviour that need to be curtailed …brave new world
February 18, 2024
There are vast areas of the economy that need investment. We are importing millions of migrants as governmernt policy – then fail to provide for their needs. Meanwhile, the indigenous Brits are suffering 10-hour waits in A&E and 6 MILLION PEOPLE are living off food banks – many with two or three jobs. Yeah, lets cut their incomes even more and impose even further fiscal dragging
We cannot provide the extra money needed by cutting government spending; it has already been cut to the bone. The way to find the money is to properly tax the non-doms, impose VAT on private schools (the rich can afford to pay it), make sure that the American technology companies pay their fair share of tax on their profits earned here and substantially increase the windfall profits tax on fossil fuels.
Clearly, previously Conservative voters agree with these proposals – that is why the Tories have lost 9 by-elections since 2019. A lurch to the centre ground and away from the right might just give the party a chance in January 2025
February 18, 2024
Sakara
Agree too many people here, the solution is to stop them, and encourage those here to leave.
The Government does not build houses, Local Councils used to ,but since the right to buy is at a lower cost than it costs to build, what is the point, you just waste even more money.
Non Doms choose where in the World they live, other than for safety, they go where there are either fewer taxes, or the opportunity to invest and earn more, tax them more and they may just disappear.
Many conservatives do not agree with present polices, that is why they stayed at home !
Thus the Conservatives lost, Labour stayed static, as did the Greens, with The Lib Dems also losing.
Not a great result for any of the traditional Party’s who have not enthused anyone, as over 60% did not bother to vote, or support anyone. !
February 18, 2024
“We cannot provide the extra money needed by cutting government spending; it has already been cut to the bone.” So why is tax take the highest for 70 years?
We cannot get anymore tax off the private sector without strangling it slowly to death – as we already are doing now with taxes, rip off energy over regulation… Hence no growth even now!
February 18, 2024
Do you understand the cost of the billions wasted on wind farms? It’s ‘6 million people living on food banks’. No matter how much the Government chucks at wind farms (it’s not their money so they are the only ones who don’t care enough to keep doing it) when there is no wind there is no energy.
Do you know how much VAT on private schooling will bring in? Zilch, Nada, Nothing, because while some parents will pay most cannot and the schools will close. All those children will need state school places. The Government will have to tax EVs 100% to raise the money to expand state education. 😂🤣 EVs are the only thing not yet taxed to death – but they will be….
You are so wrong I just don’t understand why you are not on the front branch – how did you avoid this seat?
February 18, 2024
The local comprehensive schools are concentrating on accommodating greatly increasing numbers of students so they are less able to give specialised attention to those with special needs. After looking at alternative places for someone in our family we decided that, in spite of the considerable cost, a private school offered the best option. We sacrificed a big chunk of our savings and the school concerned repaid our confidence in every respect and exam results enabled easy university entrance. (A science course). Even after leaving, the school remains on hand for advice and encouragement. So not all attendees are from wealthy families so please don’t generalise. And how sad that people seek to impair or even destroy education facilities that work well when those precise schools should be the model of education for all children.
February 18, 2024
So the way to fund all the infrastructure investment we need is to put VAT on school fees and tax non doms ? Even assuming the non doms stay in Uk (they won’t) that would raise about £6bn a year, the same as putting up income tax by 1p. A drop in the ocean.
February 18, 2024
Also, don’t forget the extra money state schools will need to cover those that drop out of the private sector back to their already paid for by taxation state sector.
February 18, 2024
Indeed it will cost more than it raises. More socialist economic insanity supported by that idiot Gove!
February 18, 2024
Away from the right !!!!! This is the most left-wing Conservative government in my lifetime.
February 18, 2024
Oh no! It’s PURE Right Wing. The opposite of Thatcherism which fought for individuals and families. This ‘Conservative Party’ protected the Corporations and the State.
They say things like ‘tax cuts are unaffordable (for themselves chucking £36 BILLION at illegal immigrants and alien university students in the last 4 years; chucking billions on wind farms; billions on hopeless, helpless poor bloody Ukraine; etc etc.)
They NEVER say ‘tax rises are unaffordable for our population’.
Like the Green Baerbock, they don’t care ‘what the voters say’…..
Sunak and Hunt need to understand that this pending loss will destroy their reputations for evermore. Now everyone knows they are unemployable.
February 18, 2024
Taxing nondoms and vat on private schools will raise the square root of jack shit. Bit like importing millions of third world minimum wage workers benefits English taxpayers. Socialist ideas always hit the reality rocks! This Government is about to find out with their repeated betrayals.
February 18, 2024
+1
February 18, 2024
I sent my kids to private school and I’m not rich I just worked very hard and barely afforded it. If an extra 20% VAT had been added they would have gone to a state school. As you say the rich can afford it but the aspirational will be excluded. It won’t save any money in the long run, just put an extra burden on the state.
As for the non-doms, I agree their tax situation is unfair but like most of the super-rich, they will always find a way to avoid paying tax.
February 18, 2024
You are correct regarding mass immigration and the lies perpetually spewed out to excuse it carry on.
I won’t even go there with the insults such as need for diversity and cultural enrichment!!!
Problem with the ‘tax the rich’ is that many of those right on socialists calling for such are indeed very wealthy themselves. They also have the means to pack their bags, full of their money, and leave.
Lots of ‘right on’ ‘tax the rich’ socialists in the entertainment world did just that in the 1970’s.
The same sort that dictate to us about mass immigration and cultural diversity being a good thing, and then hop it to less culturally diverse areas while there are still some left.
February 18, 2024
Most voters don’t know their arses from their elbows. If they did they wouldn’t vote for the morons who’ve dragged the nation to this point of woke, ‘progressive’ insanity. When the shit hits the fan it will be the British people, rightly so for they’ve democratically endorsed this, who will pick up the cost of the destructive, authoritarian policies of Tory, Labour and SNP snakes.
I see a Canadian politician wants jail time for those who criticise NZ and endorse fossil fuels. Potentially Mr Redwood could spend time in jail for this article if he lived in Canada. That’s how poisonous and dangerous this ideology is.
NZ seeks total and absolute human control. NZ does not seek to protect our environment
February 18, 2024
+++
“Oh NO,” bleated the sheeple.
“Not in THIS country. It couldn’t happen HERE!”
Not blinking much it couldn’t.
February 18, 2024
Thanks! Amazing how we British voters always chose the best option in those circumstances. We are NEVER wrong whereas the ‘elitists’ seem NEVER to be right.
February 18, 2024
The only thing necessary for the triumph of net-zero is for good men to do nothing
February 18, 2024
I do wonder why our politicians want to impose this nightmare on their children and grandchildren. Do they actually believe that anything they have introduced in the last few decades has benefitted this country? Crime is at an all-time high, people can’t afford to buy a home, taxes are at an all-time high, our culture and way of life have been destroyed, mental illness and suicide are rampant, and immigration is out of control. To come up with an election strategy by saying the opposition will implement net zero faster is ludicrous. If people find out sooner what the implications of net zero are then they are more likely to oppose it rather than the Tories boiled frog approach.
February 18, 2024
We’ve had green policies and net-zero for over a decade now ….has anything changed …who’s measuring the success factor, what is the success factor ? When can we say ”job done”
February 18, 2024
+++++
Yet those would imprison people for disagreeing with net zero/mass immigration etc. are the same sort who arrogantly take to the world stage wagging their fingers at other nations’ leaders regarding their undemocratic and bullying tactics toward their own people.
February 18, 2024
No bossing about, no reason to go into politics. Sad ego driven, self important busy bodies, there are exceptions, without much of a life nor in many cases talent, enjoying telling other people what to do.
February 18, 2024
Also those with no talent who could never get earnings approaching 100 grand in the real world.
February 18, 2024
That’s why we are government by aliens. Because the British are too lazy and mean to work at governing as apart-time job – which it is! It’s a Labour of live!
Like Meghan Markel they all want to be paid!
February 18, 2024
Of course China is committed to Green Energy. That is because a) it helps weaken the West without harming China, b) China dominates the supply of Green Energy materials and it is moving up the value adding chain to vehicles, thus earning foreign currency and increasing its stranglehold over the West which it can use for political purposes such as reducing opposition to its takeover of Pacific Islands, strengthening its positions in the South China Sea to take over disputed territories and building artificial islands and ultimately taking over (not necessarily by invasion, Taiwan. the Soiuth China Sea sits on one of the largest natural gas fields in the world. China is busy occupying it and when the time comes it can supply gas to a still fracking and nuclear resistant West or replace coal in its own consumoption an this strengthen its pretence of support of CAGW to encourage the West to weaken itslef further.
In the early days China’s green policies were intended to clean up the air people breathe, which the gullible Greens in the West mistook for support of their scaremongering over anthropogenic atmospheric warming. Observing the gullibility and self-blinding fanaticism of policy makers in the West, China quickly made deception central to its policies.
February 18, 2024
Peter Gardner :
Correct.
February 18, 2024
China has won the economic war against the west without even declaring war ….they just needed to fund and control the UN, with the help of the greens, the media loving greens
February 18, 2024
Indeed and encourage the mythical nut zero religion for our gullible Uni Party members. We need Reform. JR you need to support a real conservative Party. The Tory’s are toast.
February 18, 2024
Yes China is committed to Green Energy for its competitors.
February 18, 2024
Exactly, Peter Gardner – China is playing the long game to its advantage!
February 18, 2024
They acquired all the minerals for the West’s nut zero EV’s, whilst building more coal powered power to produce them. Vote Uni Party to ban your ice and gas boilers. No chance. Our villages are missing their idiots in Westminster. Reform!!!
February 18, 2024
Good morning.
Never trust opinion polls. Too narrower questions and far too small a sample, coupled with both regional bias and social status. ie Those that can afford an BEV and / heat pump will support it as opposed to those that cannot.
I wonder if political parties tend to follow opinion polls as a way to support their policies, if they care to ask the English if they would like their own parliament ? I am sure many would, but we would not get one. Instead we will be given Mayors’. Something that the Establishment can control from afar in the form of subsidies, much like the councils, and yet remain distant from the effects. eg ULEZ.
February 18, 2024
@Mark B +1 – any poll can contrive the answer its sponsor needs. The bit missing in all submissions this is possible but it will cost you personally ‘X’.
I am reminded here of the TV add for pre-paid cremations, those that have paid upfront for their own and received the service have manager to place on ‘Trust Pilot’ posative reviews and awarded 4.9 stars out of 6,400 respondent. So it looks like it is possible using the internet to communicate with the afterlife
February 18, 2024
You must know that this climate change/net zero nonsense is a scam designed to impoverish and control the majority for the benefit of a globalist cabal aided and abetted by useful idiots in government and parliament. We are treated as fools and serfs to be dictated to by these megalomaniacs. Our councils and government have become fiefdoms for the exercise of power on their behalf over the people of this country. It must stop.
February 18, 2024
The public has been subjected to non-stop propaganda and fear-mongering about climate change and the devil gas CO2 for over a decade now. They’ve effectively been brainwashed. But now that the consequences of the lunacy are becoming clear, in particular the direct costs on them, they are digging in their heels. When asked how much they’ll pay to “save the planet” it’s a piddling amount – the equivalent of the £1 they put in a charity collection tin.
It’s not British Governmental policy – it’s Globalist policy being imposed in advanced western economies to deliberately reduce living standards as a means of “levelling them down” with the 2nd and 3rd world. Voting for the Not-a-Conservative-Party won’t change the policy, but there’ll be a lot of noisy claims about being more pragmatic about its imposition which in practice will mean absolutely nothing.
I am not voting to have our already wrecked economy and deliberately lowered living standards reduced still further. I will vote for Reform and hope that Trump is re-elected and the deliberate destruction will be stopped.
Meanwhile, according to the DT:
“Rishi Sunak has been accused of squandering Brexit freedoms after quietly introducing sweeping EU equality rules into British law. New regulations, driven through Parliament without fanfare, “gold-plate” judgements by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and create a “carte blanche” for companies to be sued for “unlimited damages”, Conservative MPs have warned. The changes amount to a significant expansion of New Labour’s Equality Act, which Mr Sunak once claimed had “allowed every kind of woke nonsense to permeate public life” and “must stop”.
Why would anyone vote for this Globalist puppet?
February 18, 2024
With the amount of propaganda spewed out on this myth, this is not surprising.
Just like the total and utterly mind retching blitz on wearing masks, HMG and the media have left no stone unturned to convince us to believe in a fairy tale.
There has been little honesty on this subject from HMG.
Yes indeed, there are many irrationalities around the inane polices associated with saving the planet – Once a seed is planted it grows until enough people have worked out that it is really a weed, an infestation of the worst kind.
Who will rid us of this?
February 18, 2024
When we decided to abandon our 200 year old manufacturing economy in favour of a service one we entered into an irreversible cycle of de-industrialisation. Emerging countries were always going to make stuff cheaper whatever. It’s dog eat dog.
No amount of QE or low interest rates could save the West.
( It has occurred to me that the only way to start up again would be total deregulation. Small unhampered manufacture at local level. They want to take us back to the 1750s anyway don’t they?)
So I reckon that governments in a state of panic listened to the unicorn talk of a Green Economy and Climate Change and actually believed it could bring back prosperity.
Such was the desperation that the beliefs became quasi religious and unchallengeable and required authoritarian application.
Trouble is we no longer have the strong, courageous men of the 1750s who had an unbroken million years of innovation and toil under their belts. We just have economists.
February 18, 2024
**emerging economies
February 18, 2024
The simplest way of controlling the environmental effect of people is fewer people. Yet the UN and our political elites follow a policy of ramping up the population via mass immigration of high birth-rate aliens, demanding more houses and roads to meet the demand they have created.
February 18, 2024
Good morning, Sir John.
With the latest Hinkley C delay we must be approaching the point where cancelling the project is as cost-efficient as going ahead. Sizewell C is well past that point, and cancelling that will take away one of the levers being used by EDF to keep the UK trapped into building these poorly designed reactors. Sizewell in particular is more a make-work scheme for French nuclear engineers than anything worthwhile in the UK energy mix — each iteration of the design is effectively a new prototype and EDF’s customers are on the hook for the cost.
Take a step back. Why do we need these low carbon generators?
While not convinced that UK Net Zero is needed, possible or relevant in a world there the CO2 generated by China alone dwarfs any cuts the UK could make, even by closing the country down and going back to living in caves, it is a simple calculation of what it would take for us to ‘lead the world in decarbonisation. First frack as an emergency measure, using our own natural gas to replace all other uses of fossil fuel. particularly space heating and road transport. Use the prosperity thus achieved to design and build a fleet of small fission reactors, phasing out gas use as they take up the energy load.
Net Zero is achievable using methane as stepping stone. Using French nuclear technology? Pfft! C’est dingue!
JF
February 18, 2024
Good morning Sir John
In one way or another, yet another poll might or might not its self have credibility but the sentiments of the finding ring so very true
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/17/rishi-sunak-tories-traditional-values-win-election-poll/
We the electorate now are being forced by the Conservative Party’s refusal to be Conservative to do the removing, go through 5 years of purgatory just to get the UK, back on track and release its full potential.
Every observation you ‘Dairy’ has presented us has the same solution until the shower are removed we will continue the march to a very costly version of WEF Socialism – not a representative sovereign democracy.
All the appearance is that all the powers that be are fighting the ‘People’ not representing or serving them
February 18, 2024
Would Labour be better? but that will be what will have to endure to re-focus and move forward. Such a waste 14 years down the pan, an 80 seat majority down the pan
February 18, 2024
and the worst thing? The belief that we had a Conservative government – yes, down the pan.
February 18, 2024
The removing in itself is beneficial. Less openings for careerist chancer types who would just as easily fit on a LibDem or Labour platform.
That said, failure is no hindrance to some of them. David Gauke now holds forth in ‘ The New Statesman’ on the perils of appealing to right wing conservatives :-
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2024/02/reform-uk-tories-labour-election
He already gets big coverage in ‘Conservative Home’. Establishment ideas still get him coverage. The same crowd will continue with their policies until removed.
February 18, 2024
Heat pumps are dreadfully noisy and most of our housing is not suitable anyway.
February 18, 2024
Just wait until that very same public get it in the neck from sections 74-77 Environment Act 2021, which address “provision to require the recall of motor vehicles on environmental grounds”. Cars deemed not to meet relevant standards by reference to noise, heat, vibrations “or any other kind of release of energy or emissions” are at risk of forfeiture.
Did those who enacted this profoundly un-conservative measure foresee that a future government might arbitrarily order e.g. that all 4x4s manufactured before 2016 with an engine size of 3000cc or more, or all pre-2015 diesels, or all ICE cars that have done over 100,000 miles, are to be confiscated and destroyed?
Think about this in the context of Labour hinting at restoring Grant Shapps’ 2030 ban on the sale of new ICE vehicles. Shocking and sinister.
February 18, 2024
Social engineering is un-democratic, the people haven’t had the opportunity to debate and vote for net-zero, a policy which is estimated to be the UK biggest spend (tax) ever ….they had every opportunity to vote green at the by-elections and they didn’t
February 18, 2024
When did the Tory fundamental policy change happen, the change from letting the market decide to the politburo will decide
February 18, 2024
The arguments about the science of climate change is irrelevant against the loss of freedom, democracy, consumer choice, capitalism and market competition and risk
February 18, 2024
+++
Of course it is.
100% agree.
When were people ever before forced to live their lives dominated by an ( obviously) unprovable future?
Never except in science fiction or fairy tales.
One day the moon will cause the stars to fall from the sky so you must all, by law, have an umbrella permanently fixed to your head.
February 18, 2024
GC, +++++ exactly !!
February 18, 2024
Sir John
You have to ask out of the Worlds 195 Countries why have only just 6 passed Laws to achieve NZ. That means some 95% of the World is perusing improving their lives, their economies, while here in the UK our Conservative Government seeks to utterly destroy the UK. They have shown no reasoning, they are just perusing Socialite center control and command of a Nation, at any and at all costs.
Some one needs to think about it if 189 Countries in the World have stayed focused are looking after their people and their Country and at sometime the paranoia generated in the UK about the unproven NZ has an element of truth to it – what then?. With this UK Conservative Government with the contrivance of the HoC they have trashed the UK, its economy, its existence – so where would the UK find the money and resources to cope with the changes inflicted on it by the other 189 Countries?
February 18, 2024
……The public according to polls agrees there is global warming…..
That’s because it’s rammed down their throats every day.
February 18, 2024
Until the USA and China toe the line there is absolutely no point in us trying to control the enviroment . I have never believed that EV propelled vehicles is the way forward anyway ; hydrogen offers a better solution when the time is right . Adopting the so-called ” green ” approach as a major feature in the Government’s programme is a waste of time and a massive loser of votes and support .
February 18, 2024
Every time you pickup your torch when the lights go out and realise that the batteries are flat .. that’s our future
February 18, 2024
“The public according to polls agrees there is global warming and thinks something ought to be done about it.”
This is because Parliament and Ofcom have allowed the public to be gas lighted by our state broadcaster whose news reaches at least 73% of the UK population. The fact that the BBC are allowed to unilaterally ban all non CAGW views from all its broadcasting, as if it was the official news broadcaster for a communist country like Russia or China, is contravening our democracy and freedom of speech and is consequently a national disgrace.
February 18, 2024
PS :
Parliament and Ofcom allow the BBC to broadcast misinformation on climate issues.
There are many examples (go to the ‘Not A Lot Of People Know That’ website and click on “BBC”) such as :
BBC 2009 : “There will be no Arctic summer ice by 2013”. Well, it still there.
BBC 2021 : “Australia’s Great barrier Reef is dying”. Well it’s in the best health since records began 35 years ago.
BBC : “The hottest UK temperature of 40.3 degrees C at Coningsby 19/07/2022”. But no mention that this was for 1 minute only (which could not have been recorded by a mercury thermometer in the past) and the location was beside an RAF runway where 3 jets were operating/landing.
February 18, 2024
+1
February 18, 2024
On the same day as the Coningsby temperature Heathrow recorded 40.2 degrees C but I guess this was because passenger jets do not use afterburners.
February 18, 2024
If they were serious about climate change and net-zero, they’d have sea-level monitoring every mile around our coast and temperature monitoring in every government building, school and university, and pollution monitoring at evey road junction ….they say its an emergency, so monitor it
February 18, 2024
but there isn’t any real monitoring of any significant, as the results would show the lie
February 18, 2024
Your Michael Tomlinson talked a load of scripted Horlicks on Tominey this morning. He blamed the advent of Reform for allowing Labour to win. Add the Reform votes to the Conservative votes and Labour still win. Conservative voters stayed at home and that is why Labour won.
The thing I find most objectionable in the likes of MT is that they take us for idiots. He will discover just how wise we are when he awakes to the coming GE results. His sheer arrogance in what he said suggests he believes the disperate rabble he represents have a divine right to rule.
February 18, 2024
Was this the Tory illegal immigration Minister who refused to answer why only 1.3% of the boat people have been deported by the Tory’s? Unbelievably incompetence or policy? Answers on a post card.
Pensions cuts, sackings and wage cuts would be required in any other walk of life. Reform.
February 18, 2024
Just unbelieveable
February 18, 2024
When people ignore or act to oppose those who think they are the boss, that demoted ‘boss’ is stuck under the orders of the people.
February 18, 2024
“The public according to polls agrees there is global warming and thinks something ought to be done about it.”
The public haven’t yet woken up to what is happening to them because of the hold the BBC has on the news in the UK.
The public are still believing the myth that it is the war in Ukraine which is causing our high energy prices and not because of the attempt to transition from cheap, abundant, reliable and secure hydrocarbon energy to expensive, unreliable, chaotically intermittent renewables. Reliable, weather independent nuclear (fission) energy is half the price of renewables and according the Royal Society’s “Large-Scale Electricity Storage” report the price doubles again to achieve reliable, dispatchable electricity using hydrogen storage.
But when the public does wake up, as we have seen over the ULEZ expansion into greater London, and all over the EU, there is considerable resistance to the completely false scare story that anthropogenic CO2 emissions will destroy the planet.
February 18, 2024
PS :
CAGW does not exist, as shown by Happer & Wijngaarden whose calculations on the real atmosphere, including water vapour, unlike the IPCC models, show a negligible increase in GHG when atmospheric CO2 is doubled. Solving the equation of transfer, originally developed by astrophysicists to calculate the radiation loss from a star such as the sun, their results, the ultimate test of any scientific work or theory, match the observed data so impressively well they can even show, correctly, that atmospheric CO2 actually cools rather than warms above Antarctica. Go to the CO2 Coalition website or YouTube ‘CO2, The Gas of Life, William Happer’ for the details.
February 18, 2024
Who is doing the Bossing?
From the MsM ‘Sunak is ‘squandering Brexit freedoms’ by approving more EU rules’
A remain PM with his remain Cabinet, in a remain HoC still fighting the people. Refusing to manage and refusing to be the primary legislators of the UK.
We know what the wont do, but what have they done other than destroy? Even NetZero is an un-elected unaccountable opinion from some one outside the UK thrust on an unthinking legislator that has no outcome other than the destruction of the UK.
February 18, 2024
“Worse still some of these policies are a nonsense in their own terms.”
Of course, because “saving the planet” from anthropogenic emissions of CO2 caused by the burning of hydrocarbon fuels is unnecessary as evidenced by the fact that the climate activists have no issue with China and others emitting large quantities of CO2 and their wish to prevent the development and building of nuclear.
There is only one reason for these policies and that is to destroy the economies of the West by curbing their access to cheap, abundant and reliable energy, the necessary and critical component of any civilisation.
February 18, 2024
‘The UK Conservatives want a more measured and pragmatic approach, with a range of views from enthusiastic to sceptic within the party.’
And that’s just the party leader.
‘Asked during a Tory leadership debate with Ms Truss in July whether he would support fracking, [Sunak] replied: “Yes, if local communities support it.”‘ — Rishi Sunak brings back fracking ban in first PMQs, 2022-10-26, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63402777
Another reason Sunak must fall despite being well-meaning, hard-working, and doing his best. Starmer also clears that low hurdle.
February 18, 2024
The majority of the respondents to this blog seem to be either climate sceptics or climate deniers. Apparently there is a difference.
Personally, I am trying to keep an open mind:
a) On the science.
b) On what the UK should do (if anything)
The MSM seems to have sided with “man made climate change” and much of the News seems to be opinion, propaganda or censorship. For example, on 12 December 2023, the Guardian published an article which seemed to suggest that there should have been an element of censorship when invitations to the UN climate talks in Dubai were handed out.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/11/climate-deniers-attend-cop28-talks
The article seems to be high on opinion and low on science which I suppose is to be expected.
Wikipedia get in on the act with an entry on “climate denial”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial
The so called “climate sceptics” are not a bunch of nobodies. Below are three well known and well qualified sceptics.
Are these experts and the other experts completely wrong ?
Ian Plimer (Australian geologist and Professor Emeritus at Melbourne University)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Plimer
John Clauser (Nobel Prize winner)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clauser
Patrick Moore (former president of Greenpeace Canada)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Moore_(consultant)
If the science does support the need for the people of the UK (and indeed on the people of the World) to take “climate change” action, then perhaps the bigger debate is then what obligations, costs and pain should be inflicted on the people of the UK by their political masters, and when.
February 18, 2024
Climate has changed for 4.2 billion years and will continue to do so. Land and sea transformations have taken place causing further climate change. Whether man has adversely effected climate to the alarmist claims is totally another issue. Thos who pay the piper gets their tune. Wake up.
February 18, 2024
Sensible honest and independent scientists many of them know and point out it is an obvious & total scam. A ruse for ever more taxes and red tape.
February 18, 2024
“Worse still some of these policies are a nonsense in their own terms.”
UK voters need to wake up and learn that CAGW is a scare story, let alone the fact that our emissions are only around 1% of the global total, and realise that our unilateral Net Zero Strategy is designed to impoverish us by destroying our access to cheap, abundant and reliable energy and to control us via electrification with the use of smart meters.
February 18, 2024
“The public according to polls agrees there is global warming and thinks something ought to be done about it.”
Just wait to see what happens when the inevitable rolling blackouts start to occur on a regular basis. There is no plan for any grid-scale storage as the NAO identified in their report “Decarbonising the Power Sector” in March last year and none in the 2023 NGESO FES’s energy flow diagrams for 2035 or 2050.
It doesn’t matter how many wind turbines and solar panels the green energy grifters want us to subsidise there are long periods when renewables produce no energy at all.
February 18, 2024
Sir John
As you have so many times before, the UK being forced to feed the prosperity of the World before being able to live and feed itself, it is ludicrous. It is hard to believe that our Political Class doesn’t comprehend that yet as they diligently keep perusing the malicious destruction of the UK you then quite rightly get to ask who are the working for and who are their masters? It is obviously not any one that elected them in the UK, it is obviously not the Taxpayer that is paying them.
February 18, 2024
The real headline today – support ‘Sunak’ get ‘Starmer’.
Who do you want to lead the Country and the Labour Party?
Labour brings you high uncontrolled spending, high taxes, high borrowing and dept. Labour prioritises tax payer spending on WOKE issues, Labour believes in high illegal and legal immigration. labour want the UK to be first to NetZero and the first Country without an economy and so on and on.
But stop, isn’t that the same dream, aspiration, ‘proven’ direction of Sunak and his running mate Hunt reinforced by the collective of this Cabinet?
February 18, 2024
Vote Tory and get a Government most don’t want.
Vote Labour and get a Government most don’t want.
Vote LibDems and get a Government almost nobody want.
Vote Green and get a Government almost nobody want.
Vote Reform and get a Government you might want.
February 18, 2024
So how come 99% of tory MPs vote ‘green’
February 18, 2024
The time horizon for net zero is twenty five years hence. Nobody’s promising that all EVs will be charged up with fossil free electric by the next general election; which is what your rable rousing is implying. Who’s going to invest for the long term when denialists are killing the nation’s future.
February 18, 2024
The green cultists have been dancing round their teepees for decades yet there is no sign of any problems. Deaths from the environment have kept falling. The leaders are still importing millions of immigrants from warm to cold countries.
The green cult has been exposed as nothing more than a religious cult with no basis.
February 18, 2024
So we are a rabble and denialists just for having a contrary opinion to you acorn.
I think we can now understand that your views are blindly set in stone.
February 18, 2024
Hold on! There is the question of Balance, the so call “Settled Science”!
Let me put this to you, what I see as a real question (No, that I see it as an open question, just to show how imbalanced, Climate Changed is presented).
Some points;
1) The Climate always has, and always will, Change!
2) Measuring that change has a Complexity that is “Undecidable”, meaning it cannot be accurately measured; what we do have is just an estimate!
3) I believe most Climate Scientists accept there is a cyclical nature to the effect, or force, that Climate has; its effect on this plant? They talk about the activity rate of Global Weather? Please Note; I’m happy to just this, but, I do not accept Weather can have a Global nature, being made up of Local Weather systems! But, I do accept there is a Cyclical nature to it effect, but not Weather! Why? But, the Climate’s effect on this planet is approximately largest every ~11.23 .. ~11.28 years! Depending on who you ask (which scientist), which model they use, how many variable they use, etc,… But, an aggregate of all models is in between the above range ?
The Point;
The largest/greatest force effecting planet Earth, not including Black-holes (we just don’t know what effect they have, if any), is the Gravitational Forces coming from the changing (aspect) relationship between the Sun, and Jupiter, the largest Planets (Body’s) in our Universe! This effect can be measured, quite accurately, as having a having a cyclical nature! Meaning it’s effect is largest when the Aspect, of that relationship, is at it’s largest, and has effect every 11.28 years! (Not estimated, as it is quite straight forward to measure, The force can be measured, and is the most concrete/objective effect we have) ?
Too not even discuss this, not even include it as part of the Climate models is a falsification of all the Theory, as it that important, even the central factor!
But, for me, this disputes the Human Induced Climate Change theory, enough to conclued!
– There is no evidence that a change in C02 levels, change in Temperature, and let alone, Fossil Fuel usage, is causing Human Induced Climate Change, it has no grounding!
Although, fossil Fuel use needs to be replaced, but with Technology that we just don’t have yet!
Bottom line, for me; GB has made all the changes (Coal Mining, Power stations, expensive, Subsidised Renewable) it can, without destroying it’s People Livelihoods! And, that there is no question of pursing Net Zero, or any other policy that has a negative effect on People lives!
We are desperate for a Cheap Energy Strategy, Structural, Supply-side reforms, etc,…
Given how open the science really is, or seems, I don’t believe China, India, etc,… going to move off Fossil Fuels not until they have the Technology!
I have set out my current position, so I can’t accept Politicians have a balanced understanding, let alone have a strong basis for their Net Zero Policy’s!
Hope you don’t mind!
I would appreciate your response to the questions set out above, or you’re Policy Position, given what you have set out above (Reading between the lines, it seems you are open or undecided)?
Regards,
RDM.
February 18, 2024
Dear Mr. Redwood,
I felt I had to write in today as a follow-up to yesterday’s blog in which you said this was a chance, for those who so criticised the party, to have a say and to explain what changes they want.
Today’s Daily Telegraph editorial page is entitled ‘Tories must start governing as conservatives’. I have copied just two paragraphs from it below.
Anyone who wants to understand why, after 14 years of Conservative rule, so many of the party’s natural supporters are frustrated and disillusioned, should look no further than the recent, quiet expansion of the Equality Act. This change represents a significant growth of a key piece of New Labour legislation which the Prime Minister himself has in the past criticised for allowing “every kind of woke nonsense to permeate public life”. Conservative voters might reasonably have expected Mr Sunak’s government to stand in the way of expanding the act even further, or at least of ensuring these new, sweeping changes received proper scrutiny.
Instead, as we reveal today, important amendments have been waved through on the quiet, without any fanfare and with parliamentary debate limited to two committee hearings and less than an hour’s discussion in total.
I’m afraid your party is no longer conservative and, moreover, led by a Prime Minister who is completely untrustworthy. It is not worth voting for any longer.
February 18, 2024
AJ,
Well said. I think it was an act of pure dishonesty to act in lock step with EU ensuring no divergence. Sunak and party elected to get Brexit done. Sunak stood on the manifesto to be elected as chancellor, said he would implement the manifesto if he became leader, he said he would serve with integrity! This is implementing ECJ outcomes into UK law! That is against everything he and his dishonest party promised to get an 85 seat majority.
February 18, 2024
AJ, H,
That’s what Sunak will continue to do. Sneak changes in and hope not too many notice or complain.
He is not working on behalf of voters.
February 18, 2024
They cannot ”Stop the bossing about” though for the course has been set, likely reliant upon inchoate reasoning meaning confessing to modification is problematic.
The root change that is needed (per your question of yesterday) is for the government to switch from relentless attack to being on the side of the people. It does not know how and its Net Zero course is a prime reason why.
February 18, 2024
Net Zero is the method being used, on the back of the harms done to economies from lockdowns, to usher in the global one world government! Aka global socialism!
That’s why Trump is still being targeted to now bankrupt him- because it’s known that the great reset/one global government will definitely fail with Trump at the helm of USA.
This is why the net zero fanatics are intensifying their ‘bossy’ orders. They know it’s all failing, but unfortunately for them, the ‘stupid people’ aren’t actually stupid at all, and many see through it all!! More, every day, are waking up.
However, that doesn’t make it any the less infuriating!
February 18, 2024
All our net zero policies and targets, every single one, were introduced by the Conservatives. Not sure why you’re moaning about the policies of the other parties on this.
Reply Other parties which to accelerate intermediate targets and want to ban more things
February 18, 2024
To reply yes the Tories are dreadful but the others even worse. Only Reform has sensible net zero policies but they cannot deliver as powerless.
February 18, 2024
I understand other parties want to do it faster but Roy’s complaint is the absolute policies the Conservative Party have implemented.
February 18, 2024
Off Topic.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s mother and his lawyer were told on Saturday that he had been struck down by “sudden death syndrome”, dodgy translation for ‘murdered’?
February 18, 2024
Of course there’s Global warming as we are still coming out of the last ice age. The problem with the world is that there are far too many people using finite resources and destroying the environment. I currently live in a beautiful rural area that depends on its income from tourism but it is being ruined on the altar of net zero because BP wants to build a huge substation and connector to a proposed offshore wind farm. Our politicians are total hypocrites because they set unrealistic targets whilst allowing mass immigration that adds to our environmental problems.
February 18, 2024
“If Mr Trump wins the US election late this year global net zero strategy suffers a major blow. ”
You are wrong on this. Having just spent two months in Florida, USA I saw no evidence of any move towards Net Zero. No wind farms, few solar panels, gas-guzzling cars, and little recycling. The US is extracting massive amounts of gas and oil and making a fortune exporting it to Europe. Only our stupid politicians are abiding by the Paris Accord and bankrupting our economy. If the general public can see the folly of net zero then you have to think that our politicians are somehow making financial gain from the whole scam.
Reply Trump would take the US out of the Paris targets at federal level. Florida is a Republican state. NY and California are very into net zero.
February 18, 2024
Reply to Reply: NY and California are Woke Central, not the norm at all, and people with money are leaving in droves to live in other states where taxes are lower and there is no net zero. It’s a pity we don’t have this option.
February 18, 2024
The biggest change in our lives that you wanted us to do was to vote for brexit – so after that I don’t ‘t think you have anything more credible to say .. not to me anyway
February 18, 2024
John.
Everybody is singing the same song. But nobody has ever met each other.
Everybody cannot be stupid in exactly the same way.
February 18, 2024
As always, the situation concisely and well explained, Sir John. Not one person knows the true reasons for ‘climate change. It’s been happening over the ages before ‘Industry’. Some experts (oo) believe they do know. (Others know it’s ‘much more complicated than that’..as Al Murray say). Until the likes of China+India play ball, whatever we do in the UK will not be worth tuppence. (less than 1% of ‘harmful’ emissions just now, one reads). There is also – as you point out – hypocrisy + lot of self-defeating/self-delusional things going on (powering electric cars is only one of them). If the ‘experts’ are at odds with each other on these matters, we’re guessing our way forward. Getting all nations acting by the same rules of engagement is probably the best aim to have just now..until new ‘harmless’ modes of energy get invented and used by most of us. Which they shall be…
February 18, 2024
Greenism (adopted by the Conservatives) is about taking freedoms and stuff away whilst telling us it’s for our own good.
It’s also good cover for having trashed the economy.
February 18, 2024
I have now read so many articles, which have been written by eminent climatologists, to fully understand that climate change has nothing to do with our use of fossil fuels. This climate change hysteria has almost become a religion. There is no doubt that we will destroy our economy. If we continue along this path.
I stumbled upon an excellent video entitled, The Great Renewable Energy Con. It features Dr Benny Peizer, who founded the Global Warming Policy Foundation with Lord Lawson in 2009. He has been investing all his time on the topic. I would recommend that people watch the video.
February 18, 2024
Well…a little fight back from the tories.
They are offering a book called “The Starmer Sutra”
How to hold multiple positions at the same time.
February 18, 2024
“The public according to polls agrees there is global warming and thinks something ought to be done about it.” What a useless poll that is.
The public have no way of knowing whether that is true nor have we the first idea about what, if anything, needs to be done! The public are told what to think by the BBC and other propagandists.
Net Zero is based on a con. A “Techno con” defined as “the application of scientific disinformation for opportunistic purposes” by Nobel Physicist John F Clauser and supported by many others – but where is the open debate between those who claim to understand climate? We the public deserve better than this. Look up the “hockey stick” case in the USA in Mann v Steyn.
Massive societal change based on something that cannot be debated as THE Science is settled so shut up people and do as you are told. Enough of this fakery.
February 18, 2024
Part of the lecturing and authoritarian behaviour we are forced to listen to includes Antartica. Thousands of people down there on the ice tell us how vital their work is to protect the planet.
They do if course pollute the area their presence. Why are they not honest, and leave the whole continent alone to be clean. It will be better if left alone, but it is poisoned by hypocrites and green politics and now also by holiday cruise liners.
February 19, 2024
Why do YOU keep mentioning Net Zero? it is TOTAL BS and you know it but there again you are a politician. You say IF Donald J Trump wins the election. DJT will win in a landslide but the Dems and globalists will do all they can to stop him. They know when he wins they are ALL DOOMED.
PANIC EVERYWHERE.
Bring it on