The UK like many countries is prone to floods and to water shortages.
When we had a fully nationalised water industry in my youth we faced water rationing in summers with hosepipe bans and in some cases standpipe water. Since then we have had a large increase in population with regulated private monopolies not building additional reservoir capacity. They say they could not charge enough to pay for expansion. The Regulator never told them to expand capacity. Cutting UK CO 2 will have no impact on all the extra  demand a fast growing population creates. The government needs to tell the Regulators to require an expansion of capacity.
Our flooding matters more now than in the past because governments and Councils have allowed and encouraged too much building on flood plains. The Planning regulators have failed to put in sufficient drainage capacity. The Environment Agency has failed  to dredge rivers and expand capacity of ditches and culverts to get water away from buildings. Cutting migration numbers would help. A concerted programme of water diversion is essential Again decarbonising the UK will not stop floods on floodplains.
Sea defences need improving where spending can protect towns and cities. We should be working on a new London barrage further down the estuary.
January 12, 2025
Good morning.
A lot of problems can be traced back to one thing – MASS IMMIGRATION. The other problem is the dishonest way successive governments have handled this issue and their failure to plan for said population increases.
If you plan to increase the size of your business, and the current premises does not meet your projected growth, you look for new and bigger. possibly close by. You do not sit on your backside waiting for someone else to pick up the baton or carry the can. That would be dereliction of duty.
January 12, 2025
A dereliction of duty indeed, but that is what we have had this in spades from John ERM fiasco Major through to Starmer. This on immigration levels, on post office workers, on blood contamination, on the NHS, the Hillsborough disaster, the net zero laws, on passing powers to unaccountable EU and world bodies, Blairâs counterproductive wars, the insanity of climate alarmism, the idiotic energy policies, the lack of housing, the deliberate road blocking, the net harm Covid Lockdowns and duff Covid Vaccines, the water provision, flood management, our no deterrent policing the two tier justice systemâŚ
Absurdly high (and complex taxes) yet almost nothing of quality or value is delivered in return.
January 12, 2025
One can easily save a lot of water at home. Using grey water to reuse water to flush loos (or only flushing when really needed), collect roof water for watering the garden or do no do so and bathing only once a month or so perhaps using shared bath water – whether needed or not.
But in a country with such plentiful rainfall we really should not have to do this. Charges for water should be higher in summer drought periods perhaps in some regions – perhaps to fund any extra reservoirs needed. Not obviously in Wales, Manchester, Scotland the Lakes and the West of England which all have rather too much rain and clouds already.
January 12, 2025
Lifelogic: Home toilets use about 33% of drinking water just to flush waste, and much more for old folk with older cisterns. Gardening may reach 50% but only in short hot peaks.
Architects should have designed roofs and rainwater routes for a more sensible purpose, but each follows the others without further thought. Even keeping the cold water storage tank in the loft, enabling it to flood most of the house when it leaks seems designed to fail.
January 12, 2025
Yes but the 50% used for the garden in summer is at exactly the wrong time for the reservoir system.
January 12, 2025
Building roads enabled smoother, safer movement faster. So why complicate and hamper that by wastefully adding speed humps and bumps instead of something sensible and efficient?
January 12, 2025
Or constructing roads with bus lanes, pointless lights, bike lanes, islands, wider pavementsâŚ
January 13, 2025
You can’t deny though that bikes in Amsterdam good thing .. too much efficiency is boring and destroys the ambience of the place. People want to work and live in London partly because of its beautiful architecture, parks, trees, culture. This is a huge problem Frankfurt faces. It’s boring. So can’t attract the level of talent it would want.
You gotta think creatively not just logically ..
Brand Britain is a place where people live not just an economy.
January 12, 2025
They’re there to drive you mad, Bloke. They serve no other purpose.
January 12, 2025
The population has increased by 25% over the past 30 years as a result of open borders and incomers breeding at a rapid rate
1.5 million houses to be built in 3 years. All to cater for immigration. The culture and tolerance of this tiny island is being deliberately destroyed by the uniparty in some misguided attemp to atone for white privilege.
There is a shrinking tax base to cover all these improvements so we end up paying the highest prices for utilities than anywhere in the world.
Until there is a net outflow of population especially those who don’t contribute things will get worse.
January 12, 2025
Why would those who don’t contribute leave?
Welfare reform is required.
January 12, 2025
Yes problem is immigration but also native people not wanting to work. You can’t just focus on immigration because without immigration our economy and country crashes.
In order to reduce immigration we have to try restore traditional Tory values into the national mindset by working closer with those in the churches, education, arts, media.
To just focus on immigration is largely a waste of effort (although immigration can certainly be fine-tuned and reduced but we still workers in our economy!
January 12, 2025
“You canât just focus on immigration because without immigration our economy and country crashes.”
The economy does not need mass immigration, it could adjust to a static population and still grow on a per capita basis, but the government wants mass immigration to help service the massive public debt that it has built up. Of course that will not work in the long term, like all Ponzi schemes it will eventually fail.
Incidentally I noticed a Private Member’s Bill to prohibit quantitative easing:
https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3916
“Quantitative Easing (Prohibition) Bill”
“A Bill to prohibit quantitative easing; to prohibit the Government from indemnifying any losses that may result from quantitative easing; and for connected purposes.”
From Reform UK and the TUV, Commons second reading Friday January 24.
January 12, 2025
That’s fairly nonsense (I agree though that immigration can certainly be tightened up but not get rid of or even close to).
Millions of native British don’t want to work. Face up to it.
So companies have to hire immigrants.
I’m facing the reality (I want immigration brought down to ZEO and taxation brought right down too) and offering some kind of solution. You’re just digging your head in the sand …
Like Ian Paisley, ‘no, no, never’ (that’s easy to say).
January 12, 2025
In reality we managed for centuries with very little immigration.
January 12, 2025
From 2007, and now it is much worse:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2007-07-17/debates/07071760000001/Immigration
“The serious issue for this House and for our country is the sheer scale of immigration that is now taking place. It is utterly misleading to claim, as some do, that people became used to immigration in the past and will do so again. The present scale of immigration is absolutely without precedent in our history. There have been only two major waves of immigration since the Norman conquest in 1066: the Huguenots in the late 17th century, and the Jewish refugees in the 19th and 20th centuries. Both those migrations were spread over 50 years, and both amounted to less than 1 per cent. of the population of Britain at the time. With foreign immigration currently running at 300,000 a year, we are now receiving an additional 1 per cent. of our population every two years. In other words, annual net foreign immigration is now 25 times higher than it has ever been in the past, even at the two peaks.”
January 12, 2025
When there are no immigrants to do the jobs then it will concentrate minds about the indigenous population who don’t work and welfare reform will become palatable.
While jobs are done that debate won’t take place.
January 12, 2025
Excessive immigration is destroying the country so with immigration our economy and country crashes.
January 12, 2025
Ed M:
Mass immigration of cheap poorly educated labour reduces wages to below or close to benefits and/or stops employers training indigenous workers. Indigenous workers go on benefits instead. The poorly educated immigrants either realise they too can live a life on benefits or are simply a drain on the state and the resulting shortage of suitable workers causes employers to call for more immigration. Keep repeating until the services and institutions collapse from a lack of taxable citizens and the country is poor and ungovernable
January 12, 2025
I agree with you. Immigration is also going to bust our country. But it’s Catch 22. Stop immigration and you bust our economy.
Most people here just state the obvious. Immigration overall is bad (I completely agree). But ignoring that we also need immigrants as we lack the skills, talent and hard work that employers here want (not just in low paid job but in all jobs).
Also, we need to develop the North of England to get more people working there and greatly reduce taxation (cause it causes zillions to pay for all these people doing noting or being underproductive). The North of England is like a separate country to the London area.
I think most people here just see England as the London area ..
January 13, 2025
In early times Ian, UK people were expected to pay their way or risk going to debtorâs prison; somewhat harsh.
Those who are disabled, or unable to care for themselves, need and deserve assistance with costs shared by all of us others.
Prison is too blunt as an instrument for shirkers cheating, and too expensive for shoplifting thieves.
Some tailor-made penalty or disadvantage should apply to them for careless waste of othersâ money and resources.
Such as, being sentenced with any of:
ď§ Forfeiture of car or any use of a mobile phone
ď§ Having to wear a Learner outfit whenever in public
ď§ Collecting litter and removing graffiti
ď§ Being confined to the County boundary
ď§ Working in a government factory to produce items for charity
âŚ. Or whatever a judge deems appropriate, with prison then imposed only for default. Some ÂŁ40k per person can be saved on each person, and the small cost involved can also train, rehabilitate and generate improvement.
January 12, 2025
âThe UK decarbonising will not protect us from floods and droughtsâ of course it will not. Indeed not only that but even worldwide cutting of CO2 will do nothing significant or good to the climate even if that happened. A bit more plant, tree and crop food is a net good. Also the things the government pushes to save CO2 such as EVs, heat pumps, public transport, walking, wind, solar⌠save no or no significant CO2 anyway when properly accounted for. It also destroys both jobs and the economy. Plus damages our living standards and our defence resilience.
January 12, 2025
Yes you are right. Except you just focus on saving gas, oil and nuclear (I agree these need preserving). And so Tories such as you just come across as Red Necks and put voters off voting Tory so we get Rachel from accounts instead. (Reform will only get so far too as lots of Conservative voters see them to a degree as Red Necks too.
January 12, 2025
Ed M:
Any voter not happy with mass immigration, Net Zero, a woke and rapidly expanding Civil Service, non-crime hate incidents, high wasteful spending justifying high taxation and the giving away of our sovereignty to the EU who then continues to vote Conservative is, using Einstein’s definition, insane.
January 12, 2025
Problem is voters want a (positive) vision. You’re not offering a vision. But just saying ‘NO’ to a list of stuff like a grumpy Ian Paisley.
I agree with the gist of what you say. Except that it’s too depressing. It’s all NO but with no positive, colourful, ‘happy’ vision for the future as well (I think a lot of people have even forgotten what that word ‘happy’ means in political sense – everyone just seems to depressed ..).
January 12, 2025
That climate changes is a fact, get used to something that has happened for millions of years. The sensible response would be to improve drainage, improve storage, improve distribution , and defend against sea ingress and erosion.
Politicians cannot think such thoughts because they largely involve civil engineering and spending wisely. For the cost of the absolute nonesense of HS2 the problems of controlling water could have been solved. No, politicians run around in circles arguing whether the solution is privatisation or nationalisation, neither of which as adjectives solve anything. Knowing what needs to be done, civil engineering, competent financial control, and professional management solve such problems: the antithesis of the way politicians run things.
Privatisation and Nationalisation are not of themselves good or bad. It is the way in which they run themselves, their rules of engagement, financial control, and quality of management that decide whether they work or not. Incompetent politicians running in circles, spouting their mantras, ensure neither work for the public good, in situations where government both political and civil service are involved. It goes well beyond the problems of water. I ask you SJR to stand up and tell us of anything that government has a hand in that is working well for the public good. The universal constipation is politicians of low grade talent, because any motor mouth can become one. I accept that some become politicians following success in life and a desire to repay society, but they are sadly in a minority whether left or right.
January 12, 2025
++ politically i am unable to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
January 12, 2025
“That climate changes is a fact” indeed and it has been far hotter and far colder and we have had far higher (and some a bit lower) CO2 levels over the lifetime of the earth. CO2 is but one of thousands of climate influencers and not every a very large one.
January 12, 2025
Green Energy isn’t just about climate change but also about creating, uber cool noiseless technology for our cities and in general. Whether you like this concept or not. To just focus on preserving tech that uses oil and gas comes across as very Red Neck to soo many young and older Tory Voters.
It is the Red Necks that help to get voters to vote Labour / Lib / Greenies.
So it’s a home goal against Rachel from Accounts and the opposition overall.
January 12, 2025
Ed M :
Green energy and electrification is not only an economic disaster but a national security disaster.
January 12, 2025
That’s not true.
The richest man in the world has made his fortune out of this.
People like him (and lots of right-wing Conservative voters) just see views like yours here as being that of a gas-guzzling Red Neck (sure, like Musk, I don’t want to see oil and gas attacked – we need these and Nuclear – but we also need to tap into want right-wing, Conservative-minded voters and consumers want as well. You’re not.
Sooner and sooner views like yours will be seen as dinosaur. The trick is how we transfer to this non-oil and gas economy and to Green Tech without busting our economy (I agree that too is a real problem as well which is why I want to support our oil and gas industries not undermine them – but ultimately it’s about what millions of right-wing / Conservative voters want and they want to switch to sustainable fuel and the tech that goes with this (without destroying oil and gas in the short to medium term and our economy with it).
January 12, 2025
A âred neckâ (rooinek) is the Afrikaans (derogatory) name for Englishmen – by that I mean the British.
Apparently it will be the rooineks who exclusively do without oil and gas ⌠unless we can get control of the British political class and give it a good shake.
January 12, 2025
The Regulator never told them to expand capacity because it was EU and UK Government policy NOT to expand capacity (ie build new reservoirs), as this article by the late Christopher Booker reported back in 2012.:
“Astonishingly, it now emerges, it has become quite deliberate government policy to keep Britain short of water. And the explanation for this baffling volte-face lies in a âCommunicationâ issued in 2007 by the European Commission (COM (2007) 414 Final) âaddressing the challenge of water scarcity and droughts in the European Unionâ.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9261122/Keeping-the-country-short-of-water-is-now-government-and-EU-policy.html
This, of course, is why we have so many unaccountable Regulators: so that they could enforce EU Regulations and the Government-of-the-day could deny responsibility.
At the same time as increasing the population by approx 10 million people, the Westminster Uni-Party was DELIBERATELY creating water shortages.
January 12, 2025
Well done, we need to remember why it was necessary to leave the EU and we need to have references to hand to prove that we are not making it up when we have to fight back against the growing movement to rejoin. A pity that we still do not have the cross-party non-party organisation needed to campaign against rejoining.
In this particular case people without a subscription may not be able to read the Sunday Telegraph article but they can see the 14 page Communication here:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2007:0414:FIN:en:PDF
That refers even further back to the 2000 Water Framework Directive which can be seen here:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudr/2000/60/contents
AND WHICH IS STILL IN FORCE IN UK LAW.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eu-legislation-and-uk-law
“EU legislation as it applied to the UK on 31 December 2020 became part of UK domestic legislation under the control of the UKâs Parliaments and Assemblies, and is published on legislation.gov.uk”
January 12, 2025
Donna :
Thanks for this information.
January 14, 2025
Indeed. EU Water Directives are responsible for most of our woes with lack of supply and flooding. The Spaniards also have cause to be seriously aggrieved by the floods that resulted from removing key dams that previously regulated water flow after heavy rain. Getting rid of this EU legislation and replacing it with something better suited to the UK was always close to the top of my Brexit priority list.
January 12, 2025
No new reservoirs in Berkshire for several decades, but a massive increase in population here, as you say Sir John. This is a huge issue, as the Westminster politicians are continuing to impose inflated housing targets on local councils, now higher than ever. What could local MPs do about this? If nothing, doesn’t this call into question what MPs are for?
January 12, 2025
Repeated attempts in Oxfordshire to create more reservoirs have also met with obstacles, year after year.
January 12, 2025
The EA is positively anti-dredging in the name of nature diversity as evidence by its policy towards the Somerset Levels. A well maintained ditch or dyke allows water to flow freely. A poorly maintained one merely slows the flow causing water to overspill into the surrounding area.
January 12, 2025
When I was an Independent Borough Councillor my team took on clearing drains which had not been looked at for over 2 years. This service should be way up the list of jobs to be done by councils but seems to have fallen by the wayside because people are not aware of what causes flooding to homes. When I was young roads curved off into the gutter so that rain ran off the road into the drains. Building on flood plains has also been a problem and will be an even greater problem with the Labour Government’s plans for developments. The main cause of problems in this country is, of course, over population and infrastructure to cope ignored by councils and developers. How many times I saw developers promise to put in this and that and then scarper when the houses were up and sold. One way they did this was to reduce numbers of houses being put up in phases which then did not require the GPs surgeries being put in as statutory numbers which required homes were not in that phase. Very clever and no one took this up which gives you worries about brown paper envelopes being handed out. We have a completely corrupted country which will be impossible to put back together, in my opinion.
January 12, 2025
Roadside drains are frequently blocked by leaves and other debris from trees. This is a particular problem in the place where I live which is blessed with a large number of protected trees on private land. Getting permission to pollard a tree is extremely difficult; getting permission to pollard several at the same time (far more cost effective) is virtually impossible.
So every year, the over-tall trees drop their leaves into the street and get swept into the drainage system, blocking it. And then, when it rains the road turns into a river. However, that is of no concern to the Council Jobsworth who is tasked with preventing the sensible management of trees …. he (or in this case, she) is applying “the Regulations.”
January 12, 2025
Well said Linda, I agree with you. I sat in an event the local council run once and was very surprised at the comments made in jocular form about brown envelopes. My parents have lived in the same area for over 50 years, my Dad is convinced a local main road keeps flooding simply because the grid at the bottom of that busy road is no longer sucked out in autumn and winter as the leaves, mud and debris roll into it. I have an underpass nearby on the way to a busy primary school, it floods weekly now and that is because the waste waster flow drain is blocked and backs up, it needs connecting to a main drainage channel too. When they build big new shops and call centres with tarmac car packs with insufficient drains it runs off onto local roads that have been there unflooded for centuries, the local farmers warned it would cause local flooding, no attention was paid to them as now the road isnât passible for weeks on end every winter.
January 12, 2025
Itâs a root and branch operation required. Our Greek friends andsome in Swaziland laughed when I told them our provider wanted to place telegraph poles up our driveway for the new fibre cable. Theirs is installed underground – both poor countries, but fibre installed once (not first to the cabinet, then to homes all overground).
Iâm bracing for the cable to have to be placed underground in conduits shortly. More time and money down the drain.
January 12, 2025
If there were no longer any humans on these islands and the only continuing emissions of carbon dioxide were from non-human natural sources then that change would have had a negligible effect on the world climate and the frequency of extreme weather events. On the one hand we are told that this country is insignificant on the world stage, so much so that we will struggle to survive outside the European empire, but on the other hand the same people will kid us that we can have a globally important beneficial effect by decarbonising our small economy. However to give them proper credit of course our political leaders are sufficiently intelligent to understand that simple truth, and it makes no difference at all to their attitude. This is like a new religious belief and they are still committed to the lunacy of net zero emissions whatever the economic and political and social damage.
January 12, 2025
They are delivering an Agenda: it’s called UN 2030 – which is why they claim so many of their policies will be delivered by 2030, despite the practical FACT that it is impossible.
The people laughed: “There’s no use trying,” they said; “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Establishment. “When we were younger, we always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes we’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” (With apologies to Lewis Carroll).
January 12, 2025
Echo chamber.
This will not get Tories back into power.
January 12, 2025
If you look at the 2012 Christopher Booker article cited by Donna you will find:
“… the last government [Labour] was gung-ho about … plans to build five major new reservoirs in the south of England alone … So what happened to all those plans? … they have all been shelved or turned down altogether by the Government [Tory] … it has become quite deliberate government policy to keep Britain short of water … the explanation … lies in a âCommunicationâ issued in 2007 by the European Commission … ”
For this and many other purposes it didn’t matter which party was notionally in power in London while we were in the EU and everybody in the UK was obliged to follow instructions from the superior EU federal institutions, and it still won’t matter now unless the relevant EU law is actively amended or removed from the UK law book.
January 12, 2025
Ed M:
I take it then that you are happy with mass immigration, Net Zero, a woke and rapidly expanding Civil Service, non-crime hate incidents, high wasteful spending justifying high taxation and the giving away of our sovereignty to the EU?
January 13, 2025
Straw man! Like me asking you’re happy with all these?
January 12, 2025
âWill not protect us from Floods and droughtâ. Indeed nor will the net zero deluded religiom protect us from the Gordon Brown through to Rachel Reeves financial disaster.
The Government’s 30-year borrowing costs hit their highest level since 1998. British debt costs are now 1.4 percentage points higher than those of Greece!
The East Coast flood of 1953 caused by a combination of wind, high spring tide, and low pressure caused the sea to flood land up to 5.6 metres (18 ft 4 in) above mean sea level. Nothing to do with CO2 at all and this rare combination of events will almost certainly happen again at some point. It killed over 2500 in the UK and Holland. When it does doubtless the BBC will go into overdrive on the need for net zero – which will of course do nothing to prevent such combinations of sun, moon, storm, wind direction and low atmospheric pressure.
January 12, 2025
The Environment Agency has actively discouraged dredging of water courses as it sees its role more as protecting the ‘natural’ environment rather than the ‘lived’ environment. For example, the Somerset Levels were subject to increased flooding because the man-made drainage system was not dredged. A farmer was prosecuted because he took it upon himself to clean up a river bank and improve the flow.
The National Trust is experimenting with blocking rivers and streams flooding fields.
January 12, 2025
+1. About 20yrs ago I was for a time the single, unpaid “community rep” member of the Regional Flood & Coast Committee for England’s southern region. One job was to approve the allocation of the Environment Agency’s (EA) ÂŁ66m flood and coastal defence expenditure for Southern England (it sounded a big sum back then). There was a “points system” to prioritise schemes of work but as the budget was never enough we had to decide which went ahead and which were parked. Hundreds of potential schemes never even made it to the list.
The influence of Natural England, nature NGOs, and gold plating of EU and UK conservation Regs was much in evidence in the points system but also in the EA’s work (there was an internal tension between engineers and bureaucrats/conservationists, the latter were more powerful)
The cost of schemes was hugely bloated by “environmental considerations”, and reluctance to keep watercourses cleared was evident in operational budgets. The Committee did what it could, but it had no power to change the underlying points system. It was frustrating: we did tweak a few things but largely we rubber-stamped the programme.
Conservation regulation and influence of conservationists was far too great then. Goodness knows what it’s like now.
January 12, 2025
Slightly on topic: JCB has secured type approval from 11 European countries (including the UK) for its hydrogen powered combustion engine. It can now be deployed in its construction equipment. The follows a ÂŁ200m R and D programme pushed forward by Lord Bamford and is, I think, a notable achievement. It is the first such engine to receive type approval for sale. Followers of Harry’s Garage on YouTube will be familiar with it as he has featured it a couple of times. Essentially it is a development based on JCB’s existing 4 cylinder diesel. In parallel JCB have developed system to provide on site refuelling.
Reply Yes, a much better answer than attempts at battery vehicles.m
January 12, 2025
DA :
It would have simpler, quicker and MUCH cheaper to use existing ice engines converted to running on CNG (natural gas) and to decarbonise the CNG (biogas). In fact lorry fleets and cars running on CNG already exist as does biogas.
Running on hydrogen will not work except for where many vehicles can use a single depot to fill up with hydroegn (such as a bus or van depot) becxause of the immense costs and dofficulties of transporting hydrogen.
BTW, a little kown fact is that the cost of distributing electricity is 5 to 10 times more than distributing hydrocarbon fuels and hydrogen is even more expensive to distribute than electricity.
January 12, 2025
All fair points Sir JR.
If we go back in time, rivers were allowed to run their natural course. Now so many barriers are installed that controlling the flow is a full time job.
Flood plains were there to flood when rainfall was high. Governments and local authorities thought it sensible to build in them !!!
Dredging was banned by the EU (on enviromental grounds ludicrously) leading to low flow in drainage channels. We’re out of the EU now, so get dredging.
Population explosion is of course the root cause of building in inappropriate areas and insufficient water when demand is high.
Succesive governments have failed to see the obvious problems. One wonders why or how !!
January 12, 2025
We technically are out of the EU, but EU Environment Policy still applies in the UK thanks to the “Deal” and the Windsor Treachery.
Why? So we can’t compete with “our friends” in the EU.
January 12, 2025
On a day when it has become common knowledge that Elon Musk is paying British MP’s to write posts on his Twitter (X) site, one is drawn to the parallel situation where public figures are paid by newspapers to write articles supporting their anti-net zero, anti-renewables and pro-fossil fuel stance.
The latest attempt to frighten the public over this issue has been to bang on about that old chestnut, “blackouts”. So where are these mythical “blackouts” during the current spell of typically seasonal British weather? Even the most ardent supporter of burning more hydrocarbons must have noticed that they haven’t happened. However, judging by the replies to Sir John’s post of yesterday, many folk believed it – and were terrified.
Last Wednesday, two stand-by gas fired generating plants, operated by Vitol and Uniper, were paid a humungous ÂŁ17m to turn on for eight hours and provide a safety buffer to the grid, during peak hours of consumption on Wednesday afternoon. Both refused so do so until they had been paid. Thank goodness the CEGB was privatised.
January 12, 2025
Do you want to get into who pays the dozens of Green NGOs to pressurise governments and the public, SG, and who pays performers like Just Stop Oil for their antics? No, I thought not.
Can I also point out what you and the left-wing rags don’t want to mention. Since last summer there has been a programme on X allowing anyone, not just Reform MPs, to get revenue from adverts that appear with their tweets. It’s called the Ad Revenue Sharing Program. To benefit, you must meet three criteria. I quote: Be subscribed to Twitter Blue or Verified Organizations, accumulate at least 5 million impressions on cumulative posts within the last three months, and have a minimum of 500 followers.
You see – nothing to get excited about.
January 12, 2025
SG:
An electricity margin notice was issued by the nationalised National Energy System Operator (NESO) to encourage market actions to increase System Margins for the period from 16:00 hrs to 19:00 hrs on Wednesday 08/01/2025 because there was a system margin shortfall of 1700 MW when the current contingency requirement is for 1000 MW.
You say, âtwo stand-by gas fired generating plants, operated by Vitol and Uniper, were paid a humungous ÂŁ17m to turn on for eight hours and provide a safety buffer to the grid, during peak hours of consumption on Wednesday afternoonâ
So why did NESO do this if it was not necessary? And why did the gas generators refuse to co-operate until paid? What are you implying? Would you rather NESO had not acted? Or called up more wind and solar generation instead?
January 12, 2025
The UK decarbonising will not even save the world from the problems of pollution. All it does is move pollution from the UK to China & India, and pushes up net world pollution. It is completely counter productive, even in its stated aims.
January 12, 2025
China is desperately focusing on Green Energy. India will begin to too as its Middle Classes begin to say no to the cloud of permanent toxic gas over India.
January 12, 2025
Table 12 in Chapter 12 of the IPCC Working Group 1 (âThe Scienceâ) report shows there to be no signal for climate change for precipitation, droughts or storms. There is only some mild warming of 0.14 degrees per decade according to UAH satellite data.
Not only is climate change not man-made but the greenhouse gases, water vapour (the largest by far) and CO2, exhibit no greenhouse gas effect at all at the planetâs surface, as shown by Shula and Ott in their Tom Nelson YT âMissiing Linkâ video, both theoretically and experimentally, because of a phenomenon known as thermalisation.
The unilateral decarbonisation of the UK will consequently not protect us from floods and droughts and in fact that is not its purpose.
January 12, 2025
Water was not nationalised until 1973 before which water supply had been a local government undertaking with the very moderate charges being added to the rates. With nationalisation and privatisation, massive overheads have been added for jobsworths and private profits although at the same time there has also been a massive increase in population as a result of uncontrolled immigration.
January 12, 2025
Exactly!
We get more bad floods because those in responsible positions have not been doing their job.
Still we follow EU guidelines on NOT dredging of rivers.
They tell us to expect water shortages – another excuse for government and those running the water industry to slope their shoulders and take no responsibility.
There is no shortage of water in this country – just look around! What we have is a failure to manage water effectively, and that buck stops with the useless rogue governments we had and still have, who are vehemently screwing up everything they touch.
January 12, 2025
Prevention is key. Protection is more effective when simple steps are taken early, rather than after risks have heavily increased. Instead of Regulators encouraging expansion, the govt should have moderated the population size, but have been lax, causing demands beyond capability even to supply clean water.
Overpopulation removes too much land space for freedom to roam, and places to move, away from clusters of added buildings consuming resources and spreading waste output towards and over each other.
Fighting against Nature with multi-layers of fences is beyond sensible defence. A smaller population would have more places to choose from and move to away from the wet.
Occasionally plagues have reduced populations rapidly, but increased values of employment by the fewer people surviving being in more demand; and created vacancies for accommodation. Drastic âcorrectionsâ like plagues need prevention too, not plague-doctor-masked figures after the event wandering around like toucans.
January 12, 2025
You have recently published a piece on public sector performance. This problem started with the privatisation of the industry. Governments over decades had failed to invest in updating what was a lot of Victorian architecture. Under the guise of this privatisation huge liabilities were at a stroke transferred to the private sector cleverly spun as to achieve efficiencies.
No problem in that however it needed an efficient regulator with teeth from day one and what we got and still have to a certain extent is a toothless bureaucracy in hoc to private capital which in turn behaved irresponsibly treating the companies as cash cows.
Much of the industry is over geared/effectively bankrupt with new capital either egregiously costly or non existent with HMG as with failed railway privatisation desperately scrabbling to avoid having to take a large company back into public ownership.
The Regulator meant to protect the public to alleviate this problem, has crumbled yet again, and guess who pays? We do. Above inflation prices whilst yet again those responsible, Directors, Civil Servants etc go unpunished.
This regulatory failure is replicated across them. Ofcom had relegated us to 35th? In world fibre speeds, The Serious Farce Office is a costly international joke.
All of these led by government appointees with Ministers abrogating all responsibility. Wherever you look there us a stench of decay with the politicians (with a few notable exceptions) responsible, over decades enjoying honours, in self denial blaming everyone else.
Now where is that tumbril?
January 12, 2025
Years ago a scheme was raised to form a national grid for water by joining canals rivers up via pumped conection points it never got implemented. The idea was to move water to where we had shortage. It occurs to me the same could be used to balance the system
January 12, 2025
Since then we have had a large increase in population with regulated private monopolies not building additional reservoir capacity.
Our flooding matters more now than in the past because governments and Councils have allowed and encouraged too much building on flood plains.
8 billion people in the world all breathing out carbon.
Population growth should be mentioned more by the net zero zealots if carbon is really a problem and if man is really contributing to the changing weather.
Maybe it’s the sun. The sun’s seasonal changes move our temperatures by 50C from Summer to Winter.
January 12, 2025
Excellent, as always!
January 12, 2025
A new study published in the well respected scientific journal “Advances in Atmospheric Sciences” has found that ocean warming in 2024 has led to new, record high temperatures. The ocean is the hottest it has ever been recorded by humans, not only at the surface but also for the upper 2000 meters. This is bad news for our lovely planet.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-025-4541-3
The ocean surrounding the Antarctic continent is experiencing one of the fastest warming rates. This ocean is a critical part of the Earth’s climate â most of the excess heat from global warming is stored in the ocean (90%) – and the ocean covers 70% of the Earth’s surface. Because of this, the ocean dictates our weather patterns by transferring heat and moisture into the atmosphere. The ocean also controls how fast climate change happens.
Results from the three international teams who collaborated on this project were consistent â the ocean is heating up and 2024 was a record. Over the past 12 months, a staggering 104 countries have recorded their hottest temperatures ever. Droughts, heat waves, floods, and wildfires have impacted Africa, Southern Asia, the Philippines, Brazil, Europe, America, Chile, and the Great Barrier Reef.
Since 1980 climate disasters in the past ten years alone have cost the U.S. nearly $3 trillion.
We either sort this problem PDQ, or our energy-dependent technological civilisation ends. Rapidly.
Reply What an extreme conclusion.
January 12, 2025
SG ;
Our temperature records do not go back very far and even now the validity of most land- based thermometers is suspect especially when taking into account the Urban Heat Island effects. If we have ârecord high temperaturesâ how is it possible that retreating glaciers in BC/Canada and Iceland are revealing tree stumps that are 7000 and 3000 years old respectively? How come vines could be grown in Roman times up by Hadrianâs wall? How was it possible for Icelandic Norsemen to colonise Greenland for several centuries during the Middle Ages prior to The Little Ice which required temperatures to be 5 degrees C higher than today? The climate has always been warming and cooling. The larger Eastern portion of Antarctica has not warmed in 75 years and the sea ice volume is now higher than in the 1980s. The smaller Western side of Antarctica has warmed slightly but this is because it contains many active volcanos as part of the Pacific Ring of Fire.
January 12, 2025
The last two lines might be extreme, what is detailed before is correct.
And it goes against what Paul Homewood
(NALOPKT, CW, GWPF) has been recently trying to âsellâ (ie, costs linked to weather events decreasing, Antarctica sea-ice increasing):
Costs of the LA fires are likely to be in the O($50bn) to add to the $200bn (Hurricanes Milton and Helen, typhoon Yagi, storm Boris, âŚ) and ( â2024 Antarctic sea-ice winter maximum second lowest on recordâ National Snow and Ice Data Center, 03/10/2024).
The extensive fires in Los Angeles are going to improve the GDP of the USA and (unfortunately) for some âeconomically mindedâ people it is the only important measure of âsuccessâ, isnât it?
An increased GDP needs more floodings, storms, and ⌠drought (/sarcasm)
January 12, 2025
One degree more in a 100 years measured globally as an average is within statistical variability.
Alter some of the the measuring points positions and take measurements at different times and you could get different results.
It could be one degree less just as easily.
Don’t believe everything you read from climate pressure groups SG
“Civilisation ends”…hilarious
January 12, 2025
Sam, How do you know that the measurements are not daily averages, which would kill your argument about ´measurements at different timesâ? How do you know that the measurements at least since the 1980s are not representative of areas hundreds of km^2 wide (as taken by satellites) and prior to that results of reanalyses combining temperature, humidity, pressure on a grid hundreds of km^2 wide grounded with point measurements, which would kill your argument about ´measuring pointsâ?
Your comment looks to me rather flimsy, certainly not grounded in âstatisticsâ.
January 13, 2025
Do you really think that a small rise in average global sea temperature over a century as measured, is a crisis or will lead to the end of civilisation as SG and other climate zealots tell us hefner ?
Because I don’t.
January 13, 2025
Well, there are people who from physical arguments have been wondering whether increased sea surface temperature (SST) and concomitant increased atmospheric humidity are not linked to increased precipitation, maybe not more frequent but stronger. Similarly the global increase in SST displays very market regional variations, and again the change (reduction) in temperature gradient between equatorial and polar regions from fluid dynamics on a rotating sphere arguments has been linked to more sinuous jet strenuous jet stream at mid-latitudes and more frequent blockings leading to extended periods of droughts in some places and heavy precipitation in others.
To answer your specific question I donât think it will lead to ´the end of civilisationâ but possibly to more constraints to where people can live and potentially to problems linked to migration.
January 13, 2025
So potentially more humidity, rain, winds and tides then hefner.
Or maybe not…
Always in the future.
January 13, 2025
Maybe use paragraphs hefner.
Always useful
January 14, 2025
Sam, World Weather Attribution? Ever heard of it?
Isnât it funny that Paul Homewoodâs latest opera (plural of opus) (âThe UK weather in 202*â) only concern the UK? The poor man is reduced to comment on these isles as anything outside them would contradict his âthesisâ.
January 14, 2025
You have a thing about Paul Homewood hefner.
And I’m unsurprised you have been taken in by WWA.
It fits you to a tee.
January 12, 2025
So NASA, Berkeley Earth, Copernicus, NOAA, DCENT (Dynamically Consistent ENsemble of Temperature) are all climate pressure groups, but obviously Heritage Foundation, Heartland Institute, GWPF et al. are not.
January 15, 2025
WWA uses present-day weather forecast models running twice, over the usual range of such models (5, 7, 10 or 15 forecast days) once for present conditions of greenhouses gases, the other with 1950s conditions of them, all other initial conditions of pressure, temperature, humidity, wind being the same. And then comparing their results. Those models usually have much better horizontal and vertical resolutions than climate models.
So none of the usual criticisms usually made on climate models about future volcanic eruptions, solar influence, changes in AMOC, vegetation, ice cover, etc ⌠applies.
So why should I not like that? Please give a proper argument why according to you WWA is not correct. Thanks in advance. I am looking forward to your argument.
January 12, 2025
The EPA has not just failed to improve drainage in rivers , drains and ditches it has actively opposed improved drainage so as to create more wetlands .
January 13, 2025
Two final comments:
1. It is depressing that we discussed this topic nine years ago:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2015/12/29/a-flooding-policy/#comment-795044
before the EU referendum, and it has only got worse since then.
2. There is a Private Member’s Bill
https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/bills/2024-26/naturebasedsolutionswaterandflooding
“Nature-based Solutions (Water and Flooding) Bill 2024-26”
“A Bill to require water companies and relevant public bodies to use nature-based solutions as a means to improve water and flood risk management services; and for connected purposes.”
January 13, 2025
I agree we need to protect cities and towns with more flood barriers ,and stop building on flood plains. One example is the local Hall Farm site. I was walking with the ramblers there last Thursday and the fields were under water , the stream fast flowing.