The UK and EU governments have launched an assault on domestic car manufacture. There need to be urgent changes to save what we have got.
The tax on producing too many petrol and diesel cars – or on producing too few electric ones- must be removed immediately. It is a great way to get people to close car plants here.
The subsidies for electric car and charger roll out should be removed. There needs to be further improvement in the technologies and products before urging people to own these vehicles. It may well be that a cheaper and better way of going to net zero for autos is to work with the aviation industry on carbon free synthetic fuels, or with the haulage and heavy plant people who are favouring hydrogen. Until we are much further advanced with these possibilities it is premature to force people into expensive and unpopular battery cars.
It is strange that green campaigners split transport and recommend syn fuel for planes, hydrogen for trucks and batteries for cars. There could be synergies and cost savings if a common set of answers was worked on to the issue of energy for propulsion. Instead governments rush to adopt answers that do not work well and are unpopular with those who need to buy them.
The UK is in danger of losing out badly in auto manufacture by creating such a hostile environment for petrol and diesel vehicles which remain popular and we have been good at.
July 29, 2024
Good morning.
The 5th November 2024 is going to be a big day and, possibly, a turning point in world history. If President Trump wins the election you can bet your bottom petro-dollar he is going to supercharge the fuel supply industry. This is going to have a dramatic impact on auto manufacturers and where they do business. Why bother to sell in a market that clearly does not want you ? Better to sell in markets that do.
We here have discussed the slow collapse of the UK manufacturing sector thanks to policies by people who no nothing of the subjects they speak. From industry to energy, we are being lectured and bullied by people who clearly fail to understand, or at least seem to fail to understand, basic economic and behavioral actions.
It is almost if they have been hardwired to cause us harm for our own good.
July 29, 2024
The uniparty is happy to see the demise of the auto industry as they were for oil and gas, aluminium, steel, paper and chemicals. Every industry closed is another step to net zero. Destroying technically well paid jobs and exporting them abroad is a peice the government is willing to pay.
The first thing Trump will do is cancel Bidens EV auto mandate and increase oil and gas production. He will leave Europe trailing behind with their clownish antics of destruction. The voters are awakening to what is happening and the whole shooting match is going to come skidding to a halt, except of course for Britain which will continue to become a world leader in self destruction. Roll on Nige for some common sense policies.
July 29, 2024
No need oil, gas and coal it can be imported from Russia as it is now, albeit oil and gas via India. More Inter- connectors from hostile EU averaging 20% of UK electric to force lock step and a vassal state. Sunak and Starmer happy to betray our nation.
You will be permitted to drive when and where the govt says you can and you will have a limited amount of journeys from your 15 minute cities.
Reform Party is the only alternative choice who stands up for Britain.
July 29, 2024
Reuters,23/7:”Indonesia seeks to buy Russian oil for the first time in years”(at least 10 years actually).
Indonesia,the world’s fourth most populous country,hasn’t applied any sanctions to Russia and is among the front runners to join BRICS+ in the next round of enlargement this autumn.Last year it also expressed a desire to de-dollarize.
July 29, 2024
Meanwhile the UK drops out of the top ten manufacturing nations, behind Germany, France and Italy.
I would expect this decline to continue.
July 29, 2024
Remember the old days when governments would impose huge import tariffs to protect UK industry and UK jobs
July 29, 2024
We are being ruled by people who believe in fantasies; most of them will have no practical skills and no grounding in the real world. They’d struggle to wire a plug; Sunak didn’t even know how to fill a petrol tank for goodness sake!
Yet they think they’re qualified to decide on major policy areas like Net Zero which defy the laws of physics, and practical policies which ignore human nature.
They’re either communists, ideologues or over-educated, brainwashed sheep.
July 29, 2024
I rest my case đ ……From today’s Daily Sceptic:
“Labour has appointed six ministers to DESNZ (Dept for Energy and Net Zero). However, analysis of their background and experience (see below) reveals two with PPE degrees, one with a degree in history, another with a degree in political studies and one with a degree in history and politics. Thereâs also one minister gaining a degree in Russian studies before studying law. Not one of them has a background in science, engineering or maths. Almost all of them have worked in the public sector for their whole lives, so between them, there is precious little experience of the commercial world and no experience of the energy sector. Ed Miliband and Miatta Fahnbulleh have qualifications in economics, but the latter describes herself as a âheterodox economistâ and she has advocated âflooding the market with cheaper renewablesâ and introducing âfree basic energyâ. It can only be âheterodox economistsâ who think more expensive, intermittent renewables are cheap and think energy is free.
There are three spads listed for Ed Miliband. Jonty Leibowitz studied history at Cambridge. Tobias Garnett studied law at City and then went to study at the Harvard Kennedy School where his thesis was entitled âA Just Transition to a Fairer Economy: Labourâs plan for a Green Industrial Revolution.â Eleanor Salter is the final spad, shared with DEFRA, and it is unclear what her degree subject was but she writes for the Guardian and apparently she is particularly focused on âintegrating nature into the climate offerâ. No evidence of STEM backgrounds amongst the spads either.”
July 29, 2024
Yeah but Ed Miliband has lots of climate change friends that tell him whats what !
July 29, 2024
I seem to remember the boast of ‘free energy’ when we were building nuclear power stations.
Even then the lying message was ‘free’.
July 29, 2024
Donna,
The Daily Sceptic piece reads like a Lifelogic post. Only a reference to a Daily Telegraph opinion column, Covid and drains is missing.
July 30, 2024
+1
July 29, 2024
The money Charles gets should be deducted from the Royal grant. Make Charles pay for his own eco lunacy not at the expense of the public purse. I also note he travelled unnecessarily several times from Scotland to London in his helicopter to meet ambassadors for his causes, hardly leading by example! We are having cars taken away while he still plays about in helicopter rides!
This net zero stupidity is still very much you little people do as you are told we politically stupid and rich people will carry on flying in private jets, like Starmer, Healy and Lammy doing, wherever and whenever we like. Starmer is racking up some private jet miles after promising not to do so and slating Tory party for exactly the same thing! How did William and George travel to France for a football match?
July 29, 2024
@Mark B – Trump will supercharge and energise the World. While in the UK our WEF Socialist Parliament controlled by outside influencers will dig their heals in to impoverish us more. As sense and sensibilities have deserted Parliament even the Tories declared pretend leader are just more of the same, continuity Sunak – the policies the UK electorate rejected.
July 29, 2024
People believe that net-zero is a world pursuit, a shared problem, a shared tax, a shared austerity that we all have to endure âŠ.no, its only happening in the UK
July 29, 2024
Not quite true, in Germany the hotels have turned off aircon as an electricity reduction required to reduce expensive and politically difficult obediance to Russia.
July 29, 2024
‘every little helps’ ….I’m so glad I was forced to give up, plaster bags, plastic straws, cigs, weekly bin collection, paper statements, free movement, domestic gas, the UK automotive industry, modern two-stroke engines and soon modern four stoke enginees etc
July 30, 2024
You forgot to mention free speech and free thought.
Don’t you dare stand near an abortion clinic and THINK; your collar will be felt by the Thought Police.
July 29, 2024
@glen cullen +1
Yes it fails to sink in, that with stepping up of production off-shoring has seen the UK drop to 12 in World rankings, behind France & Mexico etc
July 29, 2024
Not just selling or manufacture of ev’s. Watch the UK oil industry relocate en masse to Houston. No windfall taxes, or Corp taxes then for the free spendind labour government. I despair.
July 30, 2024
It’ll be interesting if Shetland and Orkney decide to secede and become Norwegian territories. I doubt if Charlie-Boy will be too pleased if part of “his Kingdom” decides to up sticks because of the WEF policies HE supports.
July 29, 2024
The Daily Telegraph this morning reports that “Britain has fallen out of the top 10 manufacturing nations for the first time since the industrial revolution.”
It’s at no 12 (behind Taiwan,Italy,France and Russia,etc).
July 29, 2024
Perhaps we will competing with Ireland by the time Starmer has finished?
July 29, 2024
We are in an even worse position now that Labour have reversed the relaxation the Conservatives granted – having recognised their own folly. I seem to recall the current channelling for Stellantis to pull the plug on Ellesmere Port was over this very issue although I’m so punch drunk on it all I can’t remember whether it was pro or anti electric – think the latter. Basket case Britain par excellence..
July 29, 2024
Stellantis also own the factory in Luton that makes most of the vans sold here as Citroën, Peugeot, Fiat, and Vauxhall. They have similar factories on the Continent. They have warned that they could close the UK plants if forced to pay fines for not producing unwanted vehicles. They could take their highly automated robot manufacturing to France and sell the same vehicles and tell the British government to stick it. Toyota and Nissan are in the same position. Unfortunately most ministers and civil servants are too far gone to care.
July 29, 2024
All of which is correct…none of which the Tories did or say they will. Hence the destruction of the Tory party which, judging by the leadership candidates, will continue.
July 29, 2024
They just donât get it do they?
( Or maybe they do??)
Surely after that dreadful election any politician worth his salt would do a screeching U turn ( they ARE good at those) and embrace the Right?
But then they are no doubt frit about black marks from those who pull the strings.
I have seen them called âpuppeticiansâ.
July 29, 2024
@mickc – +1 – yet more of the same, the same that was rejected by a massive majority is promised by all
July 29, 2024
As I recall, you previously stated in discussing Jaguar that there was no reason it could not produce vehicles that people wanted to buy. Well there is now for it is but a year away from offering only EVs (more slab-sided, ugly, SUVs in the main I think).
Reply I ooppose the ban on ICE vehicles that is coming. Jaguar needs to make ICE vehicles to keep customers.
July 29, 2024
Heavy ugly Jaguars/SUVs with high tyre wear, low range, long recharge times that save no CO2 once the manufacturing energy is considered and where the energy is coming from (mainly from fossil fuels or burned wood anyway) compared to keeping you old car. So why?
July 29, 2024
@formula57 – Sunak ‘bunged’ jaguar a massive chunk of UK taxpayer money so they could bring the Chinese in to create an assembly plant for Chinese components. He also bunged the same company many millions to stop UK steel production and the import the very same(the lost steel) from the same companies India facilities.
Off-shoring is not manufacture, off-shoring is not solving what is said but not proven by science to be a World problem, importing is not earning that is exporting wealth. We have a Parliament supporting and defending the removal of the UK’s economy its wealth creation. We have a Parliament that is forcing the removal of the UK’s infrastructure taxpaying heart.
July 29, 2024
The grearest threat to our car industry is politicians. They are the high priests of the heresy called nett zero. The antii christs of science and engineering. It is only stupidity, ignorance and a lack of education among the population that allows them airtime. GBNews in their aim at balancs give space, to the stand fact on its head, views of a very left wing ex meteorologist. An appearance that serves to confirm the thin ice foundation of the whole concept of nett zero.
At the low end of this grubby ideology we have the mayoral worker bees ripping off the motorist in every form. Just to emphasie their greed and dishonesty, having pushed everyone towards Euro 6 or electic they have woken to the reduced cash stream. So now they invent a congestion charge to compensate themselves, while complicit high end politicians applaud.
I will avoid solutions, because we have offered these to no avail over recent years. I leave it to the perpetrators to vilify themselves as did Guy Fawkes. An opportunity for an image burning bonfire on St Georges Day.
I predict that political incompetence at this level contains all the seeds needed for revolution. I doubt it will take the pavement ripping form the french favour. I think mass disobedience is more suited to the British. The infrastructure of the country has collapsed, let those who orchestrated it and their army of gophers collapse with it.
Reply Which is why I always opposed the net zero policies of taxes, bans and subsidies contrary to your other post which I deleted.,
July 29, 2024
+1
July 29, 2024
Reply to Reply
As you deleted it I have no idea of why you took the hump, I do not make copies. I honestly thought it was taking exception to my tongue in cheek solution to the millipede. I have always been in agreement with you on nett zero , taxes, bans and subsidies so I really don’t know what got you excited. Publish and prove me wrong and the perhaps we can all understand.
Reply Yes I do delete things which make personal attacks
July 29, 2024
It may already be too late. The resources required to design, engineer and manufacture new technologies for vehicle manufacture are huge and the timescales are very long. The UK is now a minnow. It is and has been under the control of hostile governments so deluded that they think they can legislate and regulate technological change to their political timetable, driven by misguided dogma. That is not the way it works. It is unclear which technologies will succeed or when or where or how. Time, cash (lots of it), technical talent, willingness to take risks are all needed to bring new technologies to fruition. Even if, by dint of effort and inspiration, new technologies are invented here, the UK is not the obvious place to manufacture them.
July 29, 2024
David,
Apart from Morgan we do not have a UK owned car industry. However we do have two elements of the japanese car industry. I know that at least one of them, Toyota, is taking a science and engineering route to minimise the negative effects of the ICE by developing the hydrogen approach.
July 29, 2024
Morgan has been majority Italian-owned since 2019.
July 29, 2024
Sorry – no it isn’t.
It is owned by Italian investment group Investindustrial, since 2019.
The Morgan family retain a minority shareholding and continue to act as stewards for the brand.
July 29, 2024
My neighbour has just brought a volvo, he almost had a heart-attack when I told him it was chinese
July 29, 2024
@David Andrews +1
July 29, 2024
Hostile and ignorant government plus hostile and ignorant consumers .. who refuse to accept that there are consequences to supporting imported goods at the expense of local manufacturing. Sooner or later the local manufacturing goes out of business/gets bought, sooner or later the consumer’s employer suffers the same fate and yet the lessons still are never learned.
Unilateral free market behaviour in a protectionist, closed market world is suicide, it only benefits the globalists.
The only people who are not effected are public sector employees .. civil servants.
July 29, 2024
The problem is that the âclimate emergencyâ narrative, which underpins the destruction of the car industry, is passionately believed by those who wield power and who exclusively read The Guardian and mainstream media sites. âWeâve got to do somethingâ as a Labour Party member acquaintance of mine says about carbon emissions, ignoring the effect on traditional manufacturing industries and their workers whose interests were once the raison dâetre of Labour. One is vilified when even gently challenging such people.
There seems to be no opportunity for open debate on this overarching policy framework – not in parliament or the mainstream media. When it all visibly fails we can only hope for a change of tack whilst there is still some manufacturing and some home grown engineering skills left.
July 29, 2024
There is indeed no need at all for a mad war on CO2 plant & tree food. A bit more CO2 from the current dearth of CO2 (in historical terms) is a net good. Even if such CO2 reductions made any sense (they do not) then the policies pushed like EV cars, more public transport, walking, hydrogen, cycling, wind, carbon capture, burning imported wood at Drax, exporting energy intensive industries, jobs and manufacturing overseas, synthetic fuels… do not even save any or any significant CO2 anyway. EV cars nearly always increase CO2 compared to keeping your old car.
Just ditch the whole NET ZERO policy and get fracking, drilling, mining and scrap all the subsidies and market rigging. Better lighters, smaller, faster charging, more energy dense and less inflammable batters would be good but we are far from that position. We, long term, need to sold nuclear fusion. R&D and when it works & is cost effective roll it out. Roll out of duff tech. using subsidies is idiotic and just litters the place with duff tech.
The costs and energy wasted in producing and storing/transporting “green” hydrogen are very high indeed. It makes little sense outside a few specialist areas. Often dangerous too. Stop all the market rigging and subsidies – kill this mad religion it will have Chairman Mao consequences. Labour say they want significant growth – you will not get it with Net Zero and their other mad polices – that is virtually certain.
July 29, 2024
@MPC +1
July 29, 2024
Agree – just look out of the window, there’s no climate emergency
July 29, 2024
Correct, we have weather nearly all the time. Sometimes the wind is excessive, oftentimes it rains so much we get flooding, in the colder months we can get snow but it tends to be more common as you go north. And finally we can have periods of rather hot, for the UK, and sunny weather.
Describing climate for the UK is a challenge as we experience most aspects of weather to some degree, what registers it as an emergency?
July 29, 2024
The real problem is that a country such as the UK that is GREAT at engineering and design (Spitfire, Mini, London Black Cab, London Red Double-decker Bus, Rolls-Royce, JCB etc) should be competing with the Germans over British-made versions of the Audi, Golf, BMW, Mercedes etc. HUGE market with huge revenues and that brings huge work satisfaction to the workers involved, the communities and country. But our governments of last few decades have been PASSIVE towards this industry – and related High Tech in general), focusing more on financial services (leading to banks being bailed out) and consumer market in general (leading to boom and bust economy)
Strong Car Industry and High Tech industry adds real wealth and balast to the economy (and would have helped pay for / make Brexit a success. Such are the dangers of neglecting the Car Industry and related High Tech Industry)
July 29, 2024
@Ed M – what is called the service industry, banking etc. is ever increasingly easily replace by AI. Meaning anyone and everyone has the facility to operate for their own needs. Tangible, technoolgey advancements, industrial or otherwise have to be by our Parliaments unique among our competitor nations UK NetZero Laws be off-shored. Then re-imported at greater cost to the UK and to World so-called emissions.
How much of Ed Milibands ÂŁ8.3 billion taxpayer money he has been awarded with to splash about with, been earmarked to spend in the UK, spend with UK taxpaying companies that will cause it to trickle down and back into the system?
July 29, 2024
Ed Miliband is going to spent ÂŁ8.5billion of taxpayers money to save the 24.8million households ÂŁ300 âŠbut his plan will cost ÂŁ343 per household âŠ.madness
July 30, 2024
Hi, I’m not sure what you’re point is? Except that High Tech is even more important than ever because Finance and Services more dependant on it?
Also, regarding Services, I’d emphasise there are 2 x kinds. There’s lawyers, barbers etc and then Services based on High Tech which is huge / potentially so with high revenues and skills. IBM are famous for their mainframe hardware but they make much more money kn their Hgh Tech services (more than just IT).
July 29, 2024
Matthew Lynn, writing in the DT, has eviscerated the European Leaders for the electric vehicle fiasco. They have spent ÂŁ/E billions of taxpayers’ money chasing an EV unicorn and have wrecked the car industry. As he says, it’s about time the people who promoted the lunacy should be made to pay it back.
What they didn’t factor into their lunatic policy is that ordinary people are not as daft as their rulers think they are. EVs are expensive to buy; impractical for most; expensive to insure; prohibitively expensive to repair when damaged, so they’re usually scrapped …. and they’re dangerous. Private sales have collapsed.
If people continue refusing to switch to EVs, the policy will collapse. Not because the ideologues have learnt any lessons from their arrogant stupidity, but because they can’t afford to let the economy completely collapse.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/07/27/heads-should-roll-over-the-electric-car-fiasco/
July 29, 2024
Indeed but even Lynn understates the case a bit. The whole ÂŁ trillion net zero agenda is insanity in economic terms and environmental terms.
July 29, 2024
Sun Tzu argues that war shouldn’t be taken lightly, that the highest form of warfare is defeating the enemy without fighting
July 29, 2024
It was a bad policy error of Boris’s government not to allow hypbrid cars. Clearly the aim was to force the issue regardless of consequences. Carey’s fault? Boris’s fault for allowing her decisive influence? Mrs May’s for legislating Net Zero?
It reminds me of the Labour Government some years ago not merely cancelling the supersonic bomber TSR2 but destroying all the jigs and plans to ensure it could not be resurrected.
How many times does the same mistake of governments picking winners have to be repeated before politicians and bureacrats accept that they are often wrong?
It is not only the Left. The Right is adamant that Lockdowns, aka non-pharmaceutical interventions, must never be allowed again under any circumstances. They are also wrong and even more dangerously than Net-Zero maniacs because that will certainly kill people unnecessarily. For the Right quarantine is something you put foreign visitors into, not British citizens.
July 29, 2024
@Peter Gardner – self charging Hybrid would have been they sane answer from anyone thinking it trough. They don’t need a massive costly re-charging infrastructure. They don’t place demands on the electricity supplies that we don’t have and are not expected to get. They also capable of running on synthetic or hydrogen from the get go. If using capacitors they can bypass the domination of Chinese battery and lithium supplies. These cars would be lighter, so less wear and tear on the roads, less actual tyre and brake wear. 78% of Ocean plastic has been found to come from tyre and brake wear alone.
If you follow motor sport in most of its flavours F1, Indycar, BTTC etc you will see capacitors for the EV part pushed to the limit. With Indycar you get an ICengine using synthetic fuels, having its battery power embedded in the bell housing and used either for extra power or to drive at low speed. Loss of power, nil, in perspective a car would be unlikely to qualify for the 500 if it cant average over 230mph for 4 laps – so the same 2,2ltr engine would cope with UK demands. There is no US Law to compel this, nothing was compulsory exported, it evolved internally. The US citizen was not subjected to punitive laws and loss of jobs
July 29, 2024
So long as politicians continue to believe in the quasi region of ACC, NZ and that CO2 is somehow a threat they will continue their destructive path and the UK will continue its downward spiral.
Just as they continue the mass importation of young men of military age which will result in the complete destruction of the UK as we knew it.
ONLY Reform speaks out against these destructive policies.
July 29, 2024
Every now and then I take a step back and look at the topics JR produced for the week.
It is truly amazing that we are discussing any of them, that Government has any locus in any of them.
What happened?
Why do Politicians think they must run business, prescribe the Market, remove and junk the infrastructure that has taken hundreds of years to produce?
I think we should fund a trip for the Members of Parliament to visit Detroit. I mean, they obviously cannot anticipate or foresee the results of their actions, but they donât have to, we can show them.
How would they like to be the government of a big Detroit? Because thatâs what they are working towards.
July 29, 2024
Agree!
Remember Red Riding Hood?
Her âgrannyââŠmost appropriately a wolf ( sheepâs clothing discarded)
âAll the better to EAT you withâŠmy dear!â
Theyâve chewed us up and are sucking on our bones for the marrow.
July 29, 2024
Lynn Atkinson – The thinking of the Napoleonic Laws handed down from the EU. Everything is rules based, if permission isnât granted it is âillegalâ. All decided by an unelected unaccountable committee. Hence such things as ECHR grants rights and to do that under the Napoleonic Laws they have to be first taken away, so as to be given back.
Under what is called English Law (Not practiced in England) used by most free democratic sovereign Nations, Laws are only imposed to ban thing if the democratically elected representatives choose to do so. Even then they have the option to amend and repeal. No right was ever removed, other than by democracy. i.e. Nothing is âillegalâ unless your elected accountable representatives has chosen to make it that way. You are always âfreeâ and equal
Freedoms are the point of having an elected Legislators, something our Parliament, our HoC, our MPs are refusing the people of the UK
July 29, 2024
Yes agreed.
July 29, 2024
+1 Lynn Atkinson
Thatâs a very good idea. It would be money well spent.
July 29, 2024
And the expense could be slashed by half if we did not bring them back. Just saying.
July 29, 2024
The Motor City declined as a result of competition from other manufacturers and their inability to survive it.
Our decline is mostly due to government pressures, often inaction, preference to permit advantages to importers, taxing the success, and penalising the citizens for wanting a car, or replacing it with EV, in the face of hopeless public transport.
July 29, 2024
+1
July 29, 2024
All subsidies to electric vehicles should be stopped. Free tax has already been given to electric car drivers which I believe will be phased out in 2025. Why should they have preferential treatment to petrol/diesel cars? We do not know how the batteries will be disposed of safely so until safety and health issues are dealt with we should tread very carefully before turning this country into an electric one. Fire is also a big issue with this technology which has not been sorted out safely yet.
July 29, 2024
Why too should the NHS have preferential treatment to private healthcare, why should state schools have preferential tax and funding to private schools, why should trains get vast subsidies and almost no tax on them then cars are taxed to death?
Stop all these rigged markets in energy, banking, education, transport, social housing, healthcare…
July 29, 2024
+1
July 29, 2024
@Linda Brown – All subsidies everywhere should be stopped, we all pay more than needed because we are funding someone else’s free-bee. The tax ned without funding subsidies would become a negligible amount for all
July 29, 2024
A new electric car is likely to have circa zero value after 8 as it will not be worth replacing the battery . Some might well cost ÂŁ2 a mile in depreciation and finance cost alone.
Plus they save no CO2 compared to keeping an old car due to a amount large energy needed to produce them.
July 29, 2024
Certainly the punitive Fines/taxes on the manufacture and sales of new ICE vehicles has to be removed, otherwise workers will find they are being sent home once the sales limits look like they are being reached.
The motor industry is a very complex and efficient volume manufacturing unit, which has to closely balance manufacture to supply and demand, continued interference by government will eventually make it less efficient, will raise its costs, and destroy it.
The golden goose that employs hundreds of thousands of workers and its supply chain companies, will wither and die rapidly if the Government does not change course.
If the car manufacturing industry shrinks or dies, so does the Government tax take.
The current policy is madness.
July 29, 2024
Totally agree!
Expect great celebrations in certain other areas of the globe though!
My dad once sold a strip of garden land to a neighbour.
Thought himself quite the entrepreneur rubbing his hands over the then-worth-having few thousands ÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁ
Didnât stop to think about inflation and the hugely reduced (as it turned out) selling price of the house.
As near a parable as dammit?
July 29, 2024
It amazes me that people donât wake up to the hypocrisy of politicians, royalty and billionaires with their do as I say but not as I do attitude. Starmer and his cronies seem to take more private jet flights than any previous government. Taking cars away from ordinary people will be a revolutionary act. Forget the Poll Tax at your peril. The British are slow to get riled but once they do they are a force to be reckoned with.
I donât think electric vehicles are the answer and I wonât be buying one. I believe Net Zero is a scam. I can live without a car but food is another matter. Everything the EU and UK are doing to reduce food production worries me. Also their warmongering worries me.
July 29, 2024
No doubt about it, people are tribal.
In one particular country the hungry people used to say quite seriously that their leader deserved the largest share of the wealth because he had his ten wives to look after.
Similar toâŠ..âThey canât turn up at a world summit in a rowing boat can they?â
They can take a blinking rusty bike for all I care!
Oh actually, considering NZ, they should walk barefooted.
July 29, 2024
⊠over glass.
July 29, 2024
Human food is of course also energy and the amount of energy needed to grow, process, butcher, cook… 1KWH or KCal of food can often be 2 to 50 times the energy in the food. Much coming from fossil fuels for fertilisers, tractors, drying, packaging, transport…
July 29, 2024
Do as I say not as I do you plebs King Charles tells us while he hops on his private jet or helicopters. His hypocritical two policies of Net Zero and Organic foods would both have Chairman Mao like consequences with destruction of the economy and starvation.
King Charles’s silly gimmicks of his cheese and wine waste fuelled cars and King Charles and converting two Bentley state cars to run on biofuels, with further plans to roll out electric vehicles. How often are these car even used & what is their annual mileage hardly worth converting are they? And biofuels are just the same as normal petrol often worse in fact.
King Charles also has vast vested interest in Wind Energy. Too late anyway according to deluded King Charles Just 96 months to save world, says Prince Charles The price of capitalism and consumerism is just too high, he tells industrialists in July 2009!
July 29, 2024
Look on the brighter side. At least he didn’t become the Monarch at the same age as his mother did.
Unfortunately William seems to be almost as deluded, but Katherine is fairly normal, so there’s hope.
July 29, 2024
Strange you should say âpicking a winnerâ.
A few moments ago I was thinking about the unseemly rush to NZ and quite unbidden, the words â nobbling a horseâ sprang to mind.
July 29, 2024
That was meant as a reply to Peter Gardner
July 29, 2024
+1. I hope to God Trump is elected. If he isn’t, the West’s decline may be terminal.
July 29, 2024
Sir John
Thank you for that summation I agree with every part of it.
Syn fuels and hydrogen means that you are destroying for the sake of it 50 + years of production that has outputted most of its hydrocarbons in manufacture many years ago. How lame is it to consume more hydrocarbons, many more, to produce an EV when the existing stock runs on the carbon neutral alternatives?
Any society that uses subsidies to bend peopleâs minds has to be questioned, seriously questioned. They end product is always the same, those that can afford something gets rewarded by stealing form those that canât.
July 29, 2024
Dear John,
once again, more words of wisdom falling on deaf ears. Your time in Government must have been so frustrating for you.
We still have not, in any serious way, given the go-ahead for the SMR’s. Along with providing local electricity production where it is needed (in support of Industry), it could be used to provide clean energy in support of Hydrogen as well.
Lions led by Donkeys.
July 29, 2024
Lions eat donkeysâŠ.. just saying.
July 29, 2024
Sir John
Successive governments have fallen in to the trap of taking on board political agendas from those out side this Country that stand to profit immensely from manipulating peoples minds to suit their own income flow â we used to call these people âsnake-oilâ salesmen. The real science doesnât support any of these theories.
How does off-shoring UK Industrial Production then import the same end products improve the Worldâs carbon emissions? After-all as the ideology goes it 100% a World problem. The UK Parliament – that the UK on its own gets to solve? How dumb to buy into that
How does importing our energy needs and having higher cost for it to the consumer, and at greater emissions when we have our own resources sitting around idle. Improve the Worldâs carbon emissions?
How does the UK being alone in its sphere of competitive Nations comply with trumped up unfounded NetZero Laws, change Worldâs carbon emissions? Must emphasis here these Laws are unusual and donât exist in the Nations we compete with that are the same Nations we are being forced to be customers of and buy from.
For every theory successive governments have promoted, their only answer has been to diminish the UK economy. By using Laws to export the UKâs wealth its infrastructure taxpaying heart, they are by Law remove the UK’s future. The diminishing returns of not being able, by Law to replace what we are throwing away while the rest of our competitive World gets to grow â in part at our expense. Is high order treachery
All MPs, Governments must wake up and realize they are virtually all alone at being the only problem that the UK people have to cope with. They are Listening to outsiders that get to profit from this madness, it says a lot about the intelligence of those that have found there way to our seat of power.
July 29, 2024
This government(s) and parliamentary (that body of democracy, experience and learning) has yet to prove comprehensively that there is a climate change emergency that can only be fixed by stopping oil and the use of fossil fuel
The chinese automotive manufacturing (ie the chinese national committee) are today rubbing their hands with glee âŠ.thereâs no ânet-zeroâ in china
July 29, 2024
When will we get honesty from those who force us to believe that fossils fuels are extremely dangerous and will end the world. They add the word ‘extreme’ everywhere to natural events.
And about their destruction forced by them on our small nation with pylons and panels everywhere. Who will they blame for the serious adverse consequences of their actions when it is understood and visible?
There would be nothing wrong in simply continuing to require better cleanliness and even more efficiency in what we do, and let the market invest in competing alternatives.
July 29, 2024
âIt is a great way to get people to close car plants here.â
Make no mistake, this is its goal. The purpose of the completely false assertion that increasing CO2 will destroy the planet is to provide a reason to commence Net Zero a project designed to destroy the West through de-industrialisation and impoverishment.
July 29, 2024
PS :
CAGW caused by burning hydrocarbon fuels is a hoax/scam because there is already sufficient CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb all the IR radiation emitted by the planet as defined by its IR bands and the Earthâs IR Planck radiation curve. So adding more CO2 adds a negligible increase it the GHG effect, a phenomenon known as saturation, which The Royal Society admit exists. The IPCC WG1 (âThe Scienceâ) only attributes a mere 1.2 degrees C to a doubling of CO2 (P95) and Table 12 in Chapter 12 shows no signals for climate change other than some mild warming. There is no anthropogenic CO2 emissions explanation for the warming of the planet out of the last ice age which ended 11,000 years ago or for many other historical facts such as CO2 following temperature for the last 400,000 years when both have been at historically low levels as shown by the Antarctic Vostok ice core data. Or the Icelandic Norsemen colonising Greenland for several hundred years prior to the Little Ice Age which required temperatures to be 5 degrees higher than today. Or how retreating glaciers in BC Canada are revealing tree stumps which are 7000 years old etc..
July 29, 2024
Doesn’t it all come down to energy, once again!
If the UK energy availability sinks to what oil we can afford to import alongside the paltry amount of energy we get from windmills then those car factories will have to close anyway.
By then we will only have the ability to recycle steel, so we will also run out of steel and other raw materials to build cars.
Yes, the policies on cars is totally irrational when you look at it from the perspective of commerce, but this is the era of netzero, so it all makes sense.
Check out again the official document that tells us what will happen and when: ABSOLUTE ZERO
July 29, 2024
âThe subsidies for electric car and charger roll out should be removed.â
Correct. Subsidies for expensive âgreenâ toys for the wealthy, such as evs, are Sherriff of Nottingham taxation, as they are paid by the poor to subsidise the wealthy who will only be purchasing an ev as a second car as they are so impractical as a main vehicle.
July 29, 2024
âIt is strange that green campaigners split transport and recommend syn fuel for planes, hydrogen for trucks and batteries for cars.â
Itâs not strange at all. The whole purpose of Net Zero is to destroy the Westâs economies and military capability. If CO2 was an issue, which it most definitely is not, then green methane (natural gas) would be proposed for both transport and heating with nuclear for electricity. Methane (CNG) is already used for vehicles worldwide including the UK and all existing ices can be converted to CNG with relative ease. Existing methane is already better for emissions and the environment than petrol and particularly diesel and the amount of green methane could be built up slowly in time to provide an easy transition. Green methane can be produced by anaerobic digestion and via green hydrogen (via electrolysis) using the Sabatier process. The extra expense of producing green methane far outweighs the costs and upheaval of upgrading either the existing electricity grids for evs and heat pumps or the conversion of the gas grid to hydrogen for hydrogen boilers. . In addition, since CO2 is withdrawn from the atmosphere during production there is no need to store CO2 underground to achieve net zero emissions, a ridiculous and potentially dangerous idea anyway.
July 29, 2024
I have to say I am very much in favour of net zero. But it is not practical and no politician has a viable route to achieve it. Their current approach is simply stupid.
July 29, 2024
I too am a committed environmentalist âŠ.but not at the expense of a whole industry, a industry that is then imported
July 29, 2024
Just to make clear I am an environmentalist and not a climate changeâist
July 29, 2024
MW :
Net Zero will not only destroy our economy and lead to impoverishment and an authoritarian state to achieve it, it is also very bad for life on our planet. CO2, the gas of life has been slowly decreasing for the last 150 million years from a figure many times todayâs value and 9 times for the last 800,00 years dropped to 180 ppm just 30 ppm above the minimum necessary for plants and hence all life on Earth to survive. Dr. Patrick Moore believes that this decline is because shelled marine animals have used CO2 to build their shells. There is 100 million billion tons of CO2 locked up in carbonaceous rocks and if we do not return CO2 back to the atmosphere then eventually shelled marine animals will use up all the CO2 necessary for life to continue.
July 29, 2024
âThe tax on producing too many petrol and diesel cars â or on producing too few electric ones- must be removed immediately. It is a great way to get people to close car plants here.â
I agree, it is clearly the intention to de-industrialise our country and the motor industry will be one of the casualties. If it comes to a straight choice between an electric car or no car then I will choose no car.
Itâs ironic that the same people who were complaining that BREXIT would damage the motor industry are now using the carbon scam to destroy it.
July 29, 2024
Same here. I won’t be buying an EV – ever. I’m planning to replace my small petrol driven car with another one in 2026, but I’m watching what the Lunatics in Government do in the first couple of years of their Nation-Wrecking Government.
July 29, 2024
One of the serious problems this country has is the inexperience and qualifications. (certain Knights of the realm abviously excluded). For example, David Turver of Eigen Values (Thanks) has pointed out in his blog that ALL of the Department of Energy and Net Zero do not have any STEM or business qualifications or experience from the Minister (Mad ED) , through all the other ministers and advisors and within the Civil Service department and the CCC. The CCC have STEM advisors only. Yet these people are driving us to penury on the back of a cult. I despair.
July 29, 2024
Global Warming/ Climate Change has happened for thousands of years. CO2 is not a problem now and never will be because of the Earth’s self-correcting mechanisms.
The willful ignorance of our MPs and refusal to research and get the facts is a disgrace.
Labour and Conservatives are deluded and have pursued this damaging policy of Net Zero, which is unnecessary and will never be achieved.
When will sanity break out?
July 29, 2024
As the late James Lovelock said in a number of his Gaia-themed books, the Earth has indeed a number of self-correcting mechanisms a number of which do not consider humans an entity worth conserving or at least in its present number.
Search for an interview he gave at 101 to BBC HardTalk âJames Lovelock: The future of life on Earthâ.
July 30, 2024
Hefner
Lovelock failed to consider the huge determination and abilty of humans to survive by continually altering their way of life.
It also is at odds with the Darwin theory.
But I am unsurprised you are a follower of Lovelock and his widely criticised environmental theories.
July 29, 2024
@hefner – as they are self-employed it is the same Doctors/Surgeons etc mixing and matching work between private and the NHS
July 29, 2024
The position of the EU is typically bizarre. They want everyone to switch to EVs to save the world but they have slapped massive tariffs on cheap EV imports from China thus ensuring people wonât buy massively expensive EVs. Obviously thereâs not much of a climate âcrisisâ. Thank goodness weâre out of the Customs Union so we donât have to follow that nonsense.
July 29, 2024
RG :
Forget owning a car.
The aim is for a massive reduction in car ownership and use. Only to be allowed for the “Zil” comrades. Hence ices are to be banned and evs to be made expensive.
The then (Conservative) transport minister in 2021, Trudy Harrison, MP said :
âOwning a car is outdated â20th-century thinkingâ and we must move to âshared mobilityâ to cut carbon emissionsâ.
July 29, 2024
I am increasingly alarmed by the overwhelming number of MPs or both main parties who are fully supporting the ruinous policy of Net Zero, and the way the Conservative Leadership campaign is starting to develop. It is obvious that a One-Nation type will win, and that one of the two more right of centre candidate will only get on the ballot paper to members if they pledge to support Net Zero and staying within the ECHR.
I cannot see those who have already transferred their support returning to the party, nor, can I see any of the current candidates being prepared to reach an essential accommodation with Nigel Farage and Reform. That is clearly the conclusion that Suella has reached and why she elected not to run. I hope she moves across to Reform together with the likes of JR-M and other influential voices on the right.
I am afraid that the time is rapidly approaching where those like me, previously-loyal Conservative supporters who have continued to supporting the party after the election, will move across to Reform.
It is beginning to look to me like the Conservative Party, as presently formed, will only survive the next election as little more than a rump party rivalling a reduced number of Lib Dim MPs, while a majority of Right of Centre voters will vote for Reform. Reform might not win the next election, but will most likely have more MPs than what will remain of the Conservative Party.
July 30, 2024
Probably taken you too long. The writing has been on the wall a very long time. It genuinely surprises me why JR has taken so long to realise that he and his likes were totally ignored.
Reply It was worth trying with 3 different PMs to get the changes we need.
July 30, 2024
+1
July 29, 2024
Listening to Rachel Reeves in the House the words “unfunded and undisclosed” come across very strong – i am thinking economic treason and white collar crime it’s maybe time to get the fraud squad in.
July 29, 2024
Rachel Reeves is preparing to announce a series of tax rises in a Budget on October 30
Aa a result of a report by Treasury officials, which revealed the allegedly dire state of the public finances, she said: âThey spent like there was no tomorrow because they knew that someone else would pick up the bill.â
She was aware of the finances before she made promises of no tax rises under her watch â public finances are an open book with added OBR over-watch (sarc)
Rachel Reeves, gives Ed Miliband ÂŁ8.3 billion of uncosted money without her sainted OBR review. Sadiq Khan Labour is demanding Rachel Reeves gives him ÂŁ25 billion of taxpayer money to fund the uncosted promises he made to get elected. Labours promised saving on energy bills to get elected are now with Sunakâs promises of only after the next election in 5 Years time. You needed to vote both setups in twice for them to make good on what they say.
Kettle calling the pot⊠you know the rest. It is the whole of the HoC that needs removing the UniParty is trashing the UK.
July 29, 2024
I forgot the uncosted over inflation rise for those paid by the State. yet the 22% pay rise over two years for junior doctors, Guido says is now scrapped
July 29, 2024
Guido is wrong, itâs still on.
July 29, 2024
Rachel Reeves today ”if we haven’t got the money, we aren’t going to do it”
Shouldn’t have that be the Tory line ? The world has gone all topsy turvy
July 29, 2024
How much was it sent to Zelensky? Based on the replacement costs of all the weapons?
ÂŁ20 billion – a drop in the ocean.
July 30, 2024
LA _ and if anyone thinks that money was sent to HELP the people of Ukraine, think again!!!!
Money laundering and corruption of the highest order.
(And if this comment is published I shall be truly amazed)
July 29, 2024
Why save the car industry? What is so sacred about the car industry?
Why weren’t the other industries saved?
Why didn’t the UK car industry itself respond to the opportunity to become a market leading manufacturer of EVs as the opportunity developed?
Why aren’t the captains of industry who comment here taking advantage of these new opportunities?
July 29, 2024
Basic opportunities and threats âŠ.the opportunities are derived from the customer (who want ICE vehicles) and threats are interventions from government (who want to enforce EVs)
July 30, 2024
There is no single customer profile, no single market segment. Jaguar, as are other manufacturers, are now targeting a market segment that doesn’t want ICE.
But you have not explained why our money should be used to save an unresponsive industry over other industries that might be more beneficial to our economy.
July 30, 2024
Because nobody is buying. Not even at slashed second hand prices.
July 31, 2024
34,000+ BEVs sold in the UK in June 2024, up from 31,000 in June 2023.
July 29, 2024
The 22% pay rise over two years for Junior Doctors has not been scrapped, and Guido did not say that at least after 17:00.
July 30, 2024
You are in need of a new public name.
For a long time I have used the name Sam
Perhaps Sam2 ?
July 30, 2024
Sorry.
July 29, 2024
Reeves ‘overspending’ narrative is pure lies, propaganda, OBR fabrication and total bull. Labour have been telling the nation we’ve been living under Tory austerity for the last fourteen years. So which is it Reeves, austerity ie too little spending or too much spending?
And Starmer’s Spanish immigration love-in is a shameless baby-step towards a wider EU relationship for total free movement. It defies belief that we have come full circle. He’s gonna take us back into the sclerotic, bureaucratic nightmare that is the EU, through the backdoor