The UK has been the most successful larger country at cutting its carbon dioxide output since 1990. Some of this was a gain for our economy and society a well as a win for the world, where new investment substituted more efficient fuel saving ways of making and growing things or generating power. Some of it was not a gain for us or the world where it entailed ceasing doing something at home and importing from somewhere else, often in ways which increased the amount of carbon dioxide produced in making and transporting them.
The world system for counting and managing carbon dioxide output is understandably based around the national production of carbon dioxide. As the policies to cut the output of CO2 are decided and implemented by national governments ( or the EU)and companies acting under national laws, that makes sense as a means of management. It does not, however, make global sense if countries decide to cease making or growing things that produce a lot of CO2 in order to import them and shift the CO2 onto another country’s budget. It is positively harmful both to the country ceasing production and to the wider world if as a result the addition of CO2 from long distance transport and or from more carbon intensive ways of production in the exporting country actually increases the total world output of CO2.
In the UK it appears that many officials and some Ministers regard national decarbonisation as the main or only imperative in thinking through policies. In the energy department there has been a mad dash to close down coal power stations, to block new gas combined cycle stations and greatly increase reliance on imported electricity through interconnectors. If we end up importing power which comes from Russian gas or German coal that is not a win. The same department has been keen to plan the run down of existing gas and oil fields in the North Sea and to prevent new connections to untapped reserves that are discovered. Instead they prefer we rely on increasing volumes of imported oil and gas during the “transition”. The agriculture department seems worried by methane from cows for milk and beef cattle, so it offers grants to wild our land and to make us ever more dependent on imported meat and dairy products. It allows us to mainly import salads, flowers and other items needing greenhouse heating from the Netherlands instead of helping the UK create more jobs and cut the food miles with more home production. The Business Department watches as the UK retreats from aluminium, steel, ceramics and other energy intensive manufactures, only to rely more on imports.
In each case departments need to give greater weightings to the need for more better paid jobs and more successful businesses in the UK, and the need to increase national resilience at a time of disrupted world trade and global shortages. They need to also see that even given their main preoccupation, CO2 output, there is a case for doing more at home to cut the food miles and to improve the fuel efficiency of processes in industry.
November 13, 2021
John. Why? Why? Why?
You have been sucked into the green woke swamp.
Weather changes. Just as the tide goes in and out. King Canute discovered his ignorance. We all care about pollution. But this green woke madness has to end because any political party that enables it is finished.
November 13, 2021
It is a matter of time before this country’s “up the creek without s paddle” energy policy causes needless death and destitution. Most MPs are complicit. Most will have to go.
November 13, 2021
People should read Brendan O’Neill in yesterday’s Spiked.
November 13, 2021
Well no King Canute was demonstrating that he could not control the tides. Boris and Carrie alas seems think the can control the weather using just an atmospheric CO2 thermostat. Not sure what the Sun God thinks of this great plan!
You say âWeather changes. Just as the tide goes in and outâ well indeed it does though rather less predictably than the tides.
On BBCâs Any Answers today a caller pointed out quite correctly that âthe climate has changed since the dawn of timeâ. The childish âBBC thinkâ presenter then accused her of denying âthe scienceâ and cut her off. What a joke propaganda outfit the BBC is – especially on this topic.
November 14, 2021
It’s true that the climate has always changed due to changes in the Earth’s orbit. Right now we’re supposed to be getting colder but we’re not, we’re getting hotter.
Changes in the past have taken millenia, the one we’re experiencing right now is far faster than anything in the past.
November 14, 2021
And the climate models are not managing to model it. They claim it’s going to warm at twice the rate it actually is. Only one of the tens of very expensive models is near reality and that is a Russian effort which has a built in climate sensitivity to CO2 of half the rest.
Do you even know what the _measured_ warming rate is? It’s about 1.4 deg C per century measured by satellites and balloons with thermometers on them.. Measured not modelled. We have a breathing space of decades before the climate panic needs to be taken seriously and by then we’ll have a majority of our energy provided by nuclear power stations.
Guugel TCW “The sensible speech on climate the PM will never make” for how to get there.
JF
November 14, 2021
@harryagain
Did you know that the data is being fiddled to support the predictions?
You won’t hear this from the BBC.
November 13, 2021
It’s not just about the sleaze – it’s that the sleaze has broken the news just at the time that they’re telling us we’re going to have to freeze.
(Yes we are, NLH. Tax and huge costs are going to see that. And the Green Revolution will be by imported turbines and imported expertise – so no economic growth for us from it.)
November 13, 2021
All of SirJs colleagues say the science is settle, the government and the committee for climate change demand adherence to their green revolution, the new religion cannot be questioned
We have been the first to reduce our co2 footprint â no, we were the first to transfer our footprint to other countries
99% âwhite goodsâ imported, 74% âsteelâ imported, 100% âwood pellet biomassâ imported etc etc
November 13, 2021
Indeed. Total madness based on a religion, NOT SCIENCE. Show me the science that CO2 causes climate change? It didn’t increase temperatures so they changed the name. Many websites and real scientists to show no significant change to our climate, yet these fools sit watching video’s of normal weather events like hurricanes and high rain or California having its seasonal burns in their forest etc. All normal events and not scientifically abnormal. They however convince themselves otherwise without data! Total idiots and a special kind of stupid. Leaving us energy dependent on hostile foreign powers. This Government and the legacy parties neither understand national interest or looking after its own. Can I take a dingy in Dover and get free 4* hotel, food, education, health and pocket money. Of course not. I’m just an English tax payer who will never again vote for any of these fools.
November 13, 2021
So who will you vote for?
I agree we need a completely new lot, but I am not seeing any viable UNITED organisation capable of shifting them.
I thank Sir John for giving us the opportunity to make ourselves heard, at least somewhere,but it is in effect an echo chamber and maybe it arms him with some ammunition to question his colleagues in parliament, but how often does it lead to the slightest change of policy.
And we are not talking of wee changes in nuances or “adjustments” to policies, we are NEEDING wholesale reversals of main, if you like, what have become ideological policies
I’m not going to enumerate them all, but just looking through the comments section of this article and similar which Sir John has penned,it is evident that the news is “out” with a wide section of the population that agrees there is global “natural change”, but that man’s effect on it is minimal and that carbon is not the enemy anyway and that the whole crisis and ongoing tragedy has been activated and orchestrated by malign sources and for malign purposes and evidence in some cases has been manufactured.
Ref. Christopher Booker, Sunday Telegraph, year Unknown
“Adjusting climate data, biggest science scandal
“How we are being tricked with flawed data on global warming”
I have no argument with cleaning the seas and waterways of plastics and I have always been an enthusiast for obtaining power by harnessing free natural resources, sun, wind, and daily tidal in comings and outgoings, but it has to be in price competition with fossil fuels, with no subsidies, particularly not charges on users and particularly in the circumstances Sir John outlines, where we outsource industry previously our forte with a resultant additional usage of carbon and also as he calls it the “buying of pardons” (that covers it brilliantly)
November 13, 2021
Another comment if I may
This business of passports to employment
I must say I was devastated and ashamed to be shown pictures of our health secretary standing up in parliament the other day and announcing in cold blood that he would be so mandating employees in the NHS next year.
This was already with the knowledge of the damage and actual dismay and heartache this a date was already causing to the care in the community homes and industry, introduced in a similar callous and take it or leave it manner as that in the paragraph above.
Employers everywhere, whether mandated or not will I am sure, introduce passes to work.
Where oh where are the unions, is their silence because they are scared or even worse bought off in some way, allowed by these Covid emergency laws and are now apparently permanently being used forever to dictate to and control a hapless population. These laws should be revoked immediately.
Before the Armageddon of complete rule by decree steps in and we lose all democracy.
NB I believe when Smallpox vaccination was first instigated the taking of it was mandatory, there was a near revolution and it became voluntary, I am not aware that anything has legally changed since, shows this government have abandoned customs and principles previously fought bitterly for.
November 14, 2021
Worse still is that the lockdown experiment strongly suggests that atmospheric CO2 is rising inexorably for other reasons than the human contribution. There was no detectable change in the rate of increase despite lowered emissions, which suggests that lowering emissions will prove futile. That means that to the extent that there is any effect from rising CO2 levels we will need to adapt to it rather than attempt to turn the tide.
November 13, 2021
@glen Cullen +1 Oh so true, the result is the UK is now a larger consumer of Carbon than it was before. Patting ones self on the back for, if the science was correct, in creating more World Wide emissions is insulting.
November 13, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
Am I missing something, or has it now come down to us being in effect taxed for what we exhale?
November 13, 2021
James1
Yes the old saying “They would tax the air that we breath if they could” has now come true..
They have found a way.
They already tax the water we drink, some of the food that we eat, and the power we use to keep warm.
November 13, 2021
Poor old King Canute. He was the brightest thing around and was demonstrating to his fawning subjects that he could not stop the tide! He is condemned by the MSM as a fool!
November 13, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
King Canute was not ignorant, only your own at least in this instance.
November 13, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
Javelin, +1, too true, alas, and it’s scarcely believable that such specious nonsense should be given credibility by getting a hearing in the Diary of Sir John Redwood.
When will I wake up to find that it has all been an Alice in Wonderland dream and they’re only a pack of cards?
I watch GB News for airings of common sense and ideas of all kinds given a decent time to stand or fall on their merits rather than hectored into sterility in pointless encounters with ‘celebrity’ interviewers. Nonetheless, I do feel compelled to switch channels when the ‘woke’ and high-minded are on air.
Have I had enough?
The mind seeks reasons, logic, and sense, but sometimes there is an over-riding feeling that prevails, a more visceral feeling with experience and subconscious archives in the mind at work.
We mind struggle with explanations but we know when we are being had, it hurts, and we won’t be had again.
November 13, 2021
might, not mind in last sentence, sorry for confusion.
November 14, 2021
“Delilah”?
November 14, 2021
I agree. Itâs distressing that such a sensible person as John Redwood hasnât taken a look at the climate change science. There is no climate change. Just heard Lord Gummer on BBC. R4 propaganda channel castigating India for wanting to lift some 300o million out of dire poverty with coal fired power stations. Has that idiotic little msn ever been on India? Of course not. Come on John, do some reading round the dubjrvt
November 14, 2021
300 million
November 13, 2021
There is nothing sensible about carbon demonisation, so trying to make sense of it is a waste of time.
Just inform the world that fossil fuels cannot last forever, and pollution is a major problem. Both are true. I would mention overpopulation but it is obvious no government will tackle that thorny issue.
We need viable alternatives before we can stop using fossil fuels, and at the moment there is no viable alternative, except maybe nuclear but that comes with it’s own major pollution problems. Paying to import fossil fuels when we have a national supply is not only idiotic but works AGAINST the national interest, and is dishonest too (if you happen to believe the carbon demons).
November 13, 2021
Regarding viable alternatives, I read there are deep earth aquifers under the UK, where the hot water is kept liquid through the mass of rock above them. This water will readily turn to steam if we just drilled down to them. The metaphor for hell below our feet can supply energy until it freezes over.
November 13, 2021
More ‘Jam’ tomorrow
November 13, 2021
There are three geothermal schemes that spring to mind. One has been supplying hot water and district heating in Southampton for some decades now via wells drilled close to the railway station in what used to be the Toys R Us car park. A busy city centre location for drilling.
The Eden Project also boasts a similar scheme used to heat its greenhouses and provide a modest amount of electricity. It has frequently run into problems requiring costly maintenance.
The third is the new United Downs project that completed its initial drilling and fracking of the rocks earlier this year, and is aimed at electricity and the extraction of lithium from the brine. The overall scale of geothermal resource is limited in the UK. Hot rocks are typically associated with higher levels of NORM, with radioactive decay having provided heating. That requires careful handling.
November 13, 2021
It would be far honest to say the world has reached peak oil and will not last forever so we need to change. Stop the apocalyptic scaremongering. For JR to be promoting nudge unit tactics is quite disgraceful. MPs and govt need to stop.
Just like making people unemployed to scare the wider population by coercion because they exercise their right not to be vaccinated. How about the thousands year in and year out who die from flu. Why not sack everyone who does not have a flu vaccine? The vaccine does not stop transmission or catching it, so why sack people, why MPs keep on about passports. This is not about science or health it is about authoritarian control. Ruling by decree. JR, we live in a democracy try promoting it.
November 14, 2021
There is no sign of having reached peak oil yet, with proven reserves up from under 30 years in 1980 to 50 years now despite a big increase in consumption. There is a danger from failing to invest in exploration and development of course, and from leaving it to others to do all the work, thus creating a powerful OPEC again. Coming on top of China’s dominant position in all the key resources for net zero we are setting ourselves up to be the playthings of unfriendly powers.
November 13, 2021
And regarding overpopulation, there’s no need to address it directly. Better to address the matter of women’s equal rights, which is welcome with the woke media. Women with equality can choose their spouse, or choose a career instead, rather than be forced into an arranged marriage to have as many children as nature gives them.
November 14, 2021
Shirley M, +1, however I do not believe that we should give a toss about the ‘fossil fuels are finite’ mantra, it cedes too much ground, undeservedly, and I have no doubt that the diverse energy sources of the future will evolve and supersede the present ratios but they will do so by developments and by free choice.
Not so very long ago, in this country, surely the most explored and mapped on the face of the earth, and underneath, there have been discoveries of oil, gas and coalfields previously unknown. I feel confident that the earth has many a bounty as yet undiscovered which will easily provide the energy to fuel the rise of prosperity and the wealth which begets and allows higher living standards and, unfortunately, high-mindedness.
Behind it all, I have no doubt that politics is the driver, not care and concern about the planet.
November 13, 2021
The UK policy of exporting CO2 producing industries and jobs and pretending this achieves anything is an insane PR con trick. So too is the importation of wood (young coal) to burn at Drax it produced more CO2 than coal and far more than gas would do.
In my opinion there is no imminent thermal runaway emergency from man made CO2 but even if there were the solutions proposed do little or nothing even to reduce world CO2. Historically we have a relative dearth of CO2 anyway a bit more or balance is probably a positive for greening the planet.
Better nuclear and fusion will come soon, until then we should use natural gas, oil and even coal but as little as we need.. Even if CO2 did become an issue removing CO2 is not the best way to cool the planet. It is not some magic world temperature thermostat. The climate is rather more complex than that as historical records show clearly.
November 13, 2021
Yet another back door tax increase. The government seem to want to lower threshold for student loan pay back which will cost former students roughly an extra ÂŁ475 a year on average.
In about 75%+ of cases this is for a fairly worthless degree that they was often rather mis sold to them. Giving people on just over £22,000 PA marginal deductions of circa 60% (NI employer and employee, income tax, workplace pensions, student loan deductions) then they still have to find travel costs, lunches, child care, work clothes, council tax⊠from what is left. Plus the loan will still be going up each year for many with very high interest rates. Are they expected to life with their parent or in a tent in the garden for ever?
November 13, 2021
This is also immorally moving the goal posts of the deal students signed up to.
November 13, 2021
Just like the Northern Ireland Protocol the UK government signed up to.
November 13, 2021
Signed up to foolishly assuming the EU would act in good faith!
November 13, 2021
Not sure it applies to past students but if it does it’s an object lesson in the folly of borrowing unless there’s a clear risk-benefit analysis carried out. Personally I would rather have slept in a tent on Front Quad than borrow as students do now. Just work hard in vacations, take a gap year but don’t strap yourself up to the government.
November 13, 2021
Lifelogic, are they changing plan 2 arrangements or is this just applicable for plan 3 applicants?
November 13, 2021
Sorry not sure is a proposal only.
November 13, 2021
+1 on moving goal posts.
November 13, 2021
Quite difficult to get precise figures for Drax but there is a subsidy of around ÂŁ800 million for 2020 plus nearly ÂŁ250 million for carbon tax breaks and it was once estimated that to fuel Drax solely with wood (which is the intention for some time in 2022) would necessitate a forest the size of Yorkshire annually.
Currently the National Trust has a campaign for donations to plant trees at ÂŁ5 a pop!
November 13, 2021
Itâs the climate crusaders gravy train which keeps these idiotic policies alive
November 13, 2021
Unfortunately they are all in the Government or its Civil Serpents who actually believe in the CO2 madness. They also believe in Unicorns and magic trees. Money ones usually, at our expense.
November 13, 2021
@Lifelogic +1 It now appears Sir John has fallen into the trap of promoting bad logic and science.
Reply I am describing how governments and COP see it! They call the shots.
November 13, 2021
Led by Alok Sharma whom it seems read Applied Physics at Salford University before becoming an accountant – this after a good private school so I think we can assume he rather struggled with his A levels.
November 13, 2021
and cries at the very mention of climate change….weak I tell you weak
November 14, 2021
@Reply – my apologies, I initially missread your blog
November 13, 2021
Wood is not “young coal”. The vast majority of coal was formed around 300 million years ago when the conditions on earth were very different. It is, like all fossil fuels, a finite resource.
November 13, 2021
Insane indeed LL unless one were to consider it a deliberate attempt at war against us.
November 13, 2021
Good morning.
Climate Change and the mythical belief that a gas that makes up 0.03% of the air we breath has been very successfully used as a conduit for all manner of things. From moving production from the UK to foreign countries, to governments introducing an array of taxes based on the spurious claims that they are doing so to save the planet, to various pressure groups trying to change the way we live and what we eat and what products we buy. This gas, which we all exhale has, been proven to be most useful.
But how long can this SCAM last ? Well, when you are conning people (the mark) it is usually a good idea to start small and wrap the lies if a body of truth. Usually this takes the form of ‘science’ and ‘experts’ and a trusting general public and compliant media. Overtime though, the desire to push the boundaries, and therefore the claims and measures to combat it, become wilder and wilder. That is when you start to lose some people as they begin to see through the SCAM. This was evident during the recent, so called, pandemic when, the moment the government (the Grifter) moved the goal posts of the intended aim (ie save the NHS), I knew we were, and still are, being SCAMMED.
I hope that, as time goes on and people are slowly realising what is being done to them, that there will be a backlash and normality, or as close to it, will be resumed. One thing that I do hope will come out of it, is that we will have a general public no longer trusting of government and its institutions. This, I hope, will lead to much need reform.
Government and democracy only works when it is there to enact the will of the majority, not hidden and obscure minority interests and various external international bodies.
November 13, 2021
I’d go along with much of what you say, Mark. But you rely on people admitting to themselves they’ve been conned. That’s not so easy. No-one wants to admit they’ve been fooled. Especially when it’s been done through the media, which have long been notorious for telling whoppers. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of people who are well aware that e.g. Saddam’s WMD was a media scam, but who have nevertheless believed the media’s Covid coverage unquestioningly. I did at first. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit that I thought a cold virus was going to kill me if I went on public transport. I don’t suppose I’m the only one.
Fortunately not so many have fallen for the climate con, according to opinion polls, at least. The Covid con worked by spreading fear of death, which the scam artists can’t really manage, in the case of climate. One thing that should make a lot of people see through a scam is when they have to pay for it. Maybe that is when they will wake up to the climate con.
November 13, 2021
WMD was a CIA scam to allow a declaration of war by USA, with our PM falling for the ‘you are with us or against us’ threat. All the while on knees praying for guidance on what had already been agreed.
November 13, 2021
Ray McGovern has said that the Pentagon war mongers knew before the Iraq war started that there were no WMDs. As Blair was expecting and hoping they would be found at the end of the war, was he stitched up good and proper and if so what does that say about our ‘special relationship’ which seems we remain suckers to the US – well that is obvious anyway.
November 13, 2021
Will Johnson have the balls to say to Biden ‘on NI, are you with us or against us, remember Saddam?’
November 13, 2021
Mark B
A brilliant summation!
November 13, 2021
Well said. Unfortunately most MPs are up to their eyeballs in promoting the scam.
November 13, 2021
MPs are too scared to openly question the climate crusadersâŠ.they know the news media would be tented at their front door shouting ââwhy do you want to kill the planetââ….theyre a bunch of cowards
November 13, 2021
And most media outlets are up to their eyeballs in promoting the scam. Most of all of course our beloved BBC.
November 13, 2021
Well said Mark. The Government is quite rightly dropping in the polls. What I don’t understand is why voters are saying they will switch to Labour who will be even worse. What is wrong with the electorate in the UK?
November 13, 2021
+1 FPTP can be an enemy to democracy as it works against new parties. I have a couple of theories for the transfer to Labour, ie. maybe people are thinking we have a Labour government anyway, so may as well give the real ones a chance, or maybe it is pure punishment, ie. anything but the Tories? I doubt I will vote for LibLabCon, but I am willing to be persuaded if any of them should start to give priority to the interests of the UK …. but I haven’t seen any so far.
November 13, 2021
Look at the boat people and zero deportations to see who’s interests the Government priorities. Record numbers again this week. Get the Border farce out of the channel. They make the problem worse as does the RNLI taxi service.
November 13, 2021
Shirley M : âFPTP can be an enemy to democracy as it works against new parties.â
True.
We should have voted for AV when we had the chance in 2011. It combines the advantages of FPTP with a directly elected constituency MP and proportional representation in that to be elected the MP must collect 50%+ of the votes which comes from the first and, if necessary, second preference votes.
It also has the big advantage that a constituency cannot suffer from a split vote and end up with the MP who least represents their views.
November 13, 2021
It wasn’t AV, it was AV+ and intended to give an illusion of choice. In practice, except in very rare circumstances, all the smaller parties would have been knocked out in the early rounds and their votes transferred to the Big Two (3 if you count the LibDems, and with the SNP replacing Labour in Scotland) because of the need to get 50%+ of the vote.
It would have had the same effect of forcing you to choose the least worst party, just as FPTP does.
November 13, 2021
We need a new right wing opposition party, Shirley. Vote Remain.
November 13, 2021
our choice is which is the least offensive!
November 13, 2021
I’ve concluded long ago, that most of the UK electorate are insane/stupid. They can’t see anything other than Tory or Labour.
November 13, 2021
Habit. Loyalty (eg Richard1). A way of punishing the other party (the Tories in this case). Other parties not being as prominent in the media and promoting alternative policies.
November 13, 2021
Spoil the paper. If you don’t want any of the candidates don’t legitimise any by voting for them or by staying away. Spoil the paper and have it counted.
If we can get a large percentage of spoiled papers we will either get better new parties or better current parties. Just continuing to vote for the least worst doesn’t work
November 13, 2021
There is little awareness of alternatives to the mainstream parties, and little confidence that they could step up to become serious contenders to run government. That is the result of a system that largely denies them a platform in the media and in electoral campaigning. At the moment I see the SDP as a centre left alternative, and Reform as centre right, but still not making a clear case against net zero.
November 14, 2021
What is wrong? they have no viable choices.
November 13, 2021
Mark,
The fact the fake Tories hide looney green subsidies in every household energy bill rather than be open and transparent says it all. This govt. knows people would revolt if their bills clearly showed how much is being taken for green rot.
Same for petroleum and diesel at the pumps labelled the fuel duct and tax the govt takes per litre they would never be in power. Hence why they stopped putting VAT separately for each item, in the US state tax labelled very clearly. Why has the govt. not forced the reduction in pricing at the pumps? Was the leak a contrived way for the govt. to hike prices through panic buying to stop people using their cars? Govt. Marxist price capping for energy not transport, why? Minimum wage another Communist/Marxist intervention.
November 13, 2021
I remember the days when one could get 4 gallons of petrol for around ÂŁ1. Back then, raising the price of petrol by 1-2d a Gallon (remember pennies, anyone?) provoked motorists outrage. Then some bright spark in government realised that if petrol was sold in litres, not many people would realise that an increase of 2d/litre hid the fact that government would have actually raised the price of a gallon by circa 9d.
As we know, it happened and most people didn’t really notice what was going on – a real win for government and HMRC which continues to this day – even more so because of government greed in high levels of fuel tax, on top of which VAT is applied. I first came across VAT decades ago in Singapore, where it was entitled ‘Ad Valorem’ tax; I didn’t quite understand it back then but now see it for what it is – a scam which adds no value to anyone apart from government.
November 13, 2021
VAT = Robinhood Tax
November 13, 2021
+1
And by calculating tax as a percentage of the cost to the motorist AFTER it has been added hides the fact that tax on fuel stands at well over 100% of the original price.
November 14, 2021
This is why we have the insane system of filling up our tanks in litres and driving along in miles per hour, to hide the reality of excessive fuel taxation. No other advanced country has made such a mess of metrication, probably because people were quite happy with imperial anyway which they well understood. It cannot be beyond the wit of man to show digital readouts on fuel pumps in both litres and gallons, but imagine the outrage when arithmetically challenged people finally realise how much a gallon costs and how they are being ripped off – yet again – by the parasitic beast called incompetent government.
November 14, 2021
I do find one convenience from the present pricing. My car does almost exactly 10 miles per litre, so it is easy to calculate fuel cost per mile.
November 13, 2021
@Mark B +1
November 13, 2021
Sir John, these State actions are so obviously insane that they defy explanation – but do the appropriate Ministers and Ministries ever attempt to clarify to you and your colleagues what may be sarcastically called their ‘thought processes’?
November 13, 2021
Insane describes much of government thinking today. From the mass closures of heavy industries to the actions with the boat people.
The politicians are now the enemies of the electorate and short of a mass rebellion they will surely destroy us.
The great reset is overdue but not as Boris and co. think.
November 13, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
+100.
Anyone who votes or has voted for this shower needs their head examined. Donât blame me I voted UKIP or tactically. Stop listening to their scaremongering ie Red Ed, Corbyn etc. This lot implement their policies and as May said build on them!
November 13, 2021
So we’re sending troops to secure the Polish border whilst encouraging thousands to cross the channel
The online poll for net zero shows 94% against.
That’s why the polks are down.
November 13, 2021
Johnson doesn’t want the rubber boat people stopped. He likes immigration, and has said that he wants an amnesty for all illegal immigrants in England.
November 13, 2021
But why? How does flooding the country with illegals benefit Johnson? Or is it that it benefits Tory donors?
November 13, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
Good words Ian
November 13, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
Yes. To save the planet we have to chop down trees. Transport them thousand of miles. Only to burn them. Then lecture other nations about deforestation and the impact it will have on the environment. A bit like a dignitary jetting into COP26 to tell people not to eat meat, then going onto a large banquet.
As they say. You couldn’t make it up.
November 13, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
…all the while proclaiming to be saving the planet.
November 13, 2021
Same for importing coal and gas. It would be better for the planet and better for national security, industry, critical technologies and skills, economy and jobs to produce it near! The Johnson govt. is truly mad.
November 13, 2021
Hope +1
November 13, 2021
Private jet for Johnston on return from COPout 99. Bet he doesn’t eat meat either………….NOT.
November 13, 2021
If our politician really though CO2 was this massive problem they would ban all private jets, helicopters (other than rescue ones) ban all first class and non cattle class flights on planes that were always nearly full.
Until then we can surely just assume do not really think CO2 is a problem at all.
November 13, 2021
+1
I keep thinking of that poem âGod’s Judgment on a Wicked Bishopâ by Southey.
A brilliant poem, well worth reading.
The last verseâŠ.
âThey have whetted their teeth against the stones,
And now they pick the Bishop’s bones:
They gnaw’d the flesh from every limb,
For they were sent to do judgment on him!â
November 13, 2021
Do a little bit of research and you’ll realise that burning ‘wood pellet biomass’ produced more co2 than UK ‘clean coal’
But our government liked the headline that we’ve closed all our coal fired power stations…thats all this government is about ‘headlines’ and ‘virtue signalling’
November 14, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
Net Zero is nothing less than totalitarian terror. This vile narrative provides a continual and open ended justification for extremist policies that no previous UK government has ever imposed upon the suffering people of this nation
I couldn’t give a toss about CO2 emissions. Green politics is about Marxist domination over the private sphere. FACT.
Stop promoting this Marxist barbarity and condemn it or stand down as a Tory MP and let the Tory party select a real Marxist to do their filthy bidding
November 13, 2021
Can you make any more sentences like your first, Dom?
E.g. “Village Green preservation is the moral equivalent of the siege of Mafeking” or “The Ramblers Association are absolutely the peers of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge” or “Keep Britain Tidy was worse than The Terror after the French Revolution”.
Keep ’em coming – they’re a hoot.
November 13, 2021
NLH – It’s a big BIG mistake to think that those sorts of horrors can’t happen in leafy England. (Though not so leafy because of mass housing development.)
Being an intelligent chap you well know this.
Net Zero is clearly a way of sending us back to Downton Abbey whilst telling us it’s for our own good. And by pure coincidence we have political correction, historical rewriting and cancel culture running riot in our universities going on at the same time to the point that it seems coordinated, and all instigated during lock-down… something we’d never thought the British people would submit to.
Only yesterday you virtually told us that Net Zero was about the disparity between the CO2 emissions per capita of UK proles and Chinese proles.
If this is about a levelling down then please admit it.
November 13, 2021
NLH
All under the cover of lockdown by triangulation:
– Attack on the family unit (gender)
– Attack on history and culture (race)
– Attack on capitalism (Greenism)
So
Meat free, fashion free, no cars…. political correction… starting to sound very rice, boiler suits, bicycles and Thought Police to me. I dread to think what this generation of graduates will produce.
(Both Brexit and Trump were a symptom of discontent from the early stages of this Gramscian revolution and they have doubled-down against both during the pandemic.)
November 13, 2021
Your extremist, alarmist nonsense knows no bounds. At least most readers will laugh at your bizarre criticism.
November 13, 2021
Micky Taking
I submit that the extremist, alarmist nonsense is spouted by the angry, pinch-faced zealot that has been anointed as the figurehead of the entire Green movement.
Dom is correct. We are close to tyranny.
November 13, 2021
I feel it in my bones, tyranny isn’t just knocking at the door, he’s kicking it in
November 13, 2021
Spot on. Giving jobs to our enemies so they hold us to ransom is not a good strategy for a free nation. I am truly shocked by JRs blog today. His position today allows our enemies and the govt to suppress the people and this nation into submission allowing the poor to suffer from energy poverty. Not global markets as spouted by his dishonest ministers. It was a choice exercised by those ministers and their former colleagues to stop producing gas and coal.
If the same ministers wanted to really help they would stop mass immigration and allow those countries to flourish so their people wanted to stay their. No, instead this govt makes it attractive to have a free life hear while crushing our standards of living and way of life, economically, socially and culturally. Why canât France stop the selling of dinghys?
Reply Try reading it again. I am seeking to instate jobs, security of supply and home production more firmly as key policy objectives!
November 13, 2021
Why would France want to stop the sale of dinghies to (people traffickers) those who wish to leave?
I doubt if the migrant camps near Calais or the Tent City in Paris have many supporters among ordinary French people, who will probably be expecting many more migrants fleeing from the increasing unrest between Morocco and Algeria.
November 13, 2021
Right to Reply
I believe that SirJ does seek to instate jobs, gain security og supply etc…..its just that your government and your party actions portray the opposite
November 13, 2021
I’m afraid our host has little influence on the fools in charge of the things he mentions.
November 14, 2021
I said this a while ago. but at least things are being said.
November 13, 2021
No, JR writes here and previously as though it is a lost cause and we will have to accept green rot. When he knows his party and govt. has deliberately hidden the true cost while taxing us. Calling out âRed Edâ to scare people and his policies as âMarxistâ then implements them and builds on them! Pure dishonesty from his govt. over 11 years.
May announced her rot without any mention of cost benefit analysis. Johnson the same. Tell everyone the costs now and what cost it will be to our taxes, jobs and industry now and in the future. Reality. Based on national interest. Not rash decisions to please his latest squeeze. By the time he is on his next family we will all be suffering just so he could get his leg over!
We even saw it with covid. Johnson did not stop to think how much this would cost financially, industry, jobs, other deaths etc etc. Where was the cost benefit analysis? Utter stupidity with sound bounds- squash the sombrero, save the NHS! It is supposed to save us! A year before he was jetting off to the Caribbean for another dodgy holiday not giving a stuff for those lying in corridors waiting to be treated! Then we read he was dealing with his divorce rather than attend Cobra meetings for the virus plaguing the planet! unprepared, no plan, no strategy trolley Johnson.
November 14, 2021
The man cannot even look after his own cash, much less the nations.
November 13, 2021
+many.
It is barbarity.
What does it take to do all this to oneâs country?
November 13, 2021
What does it take? To paraphrase Elizabeth Austin Fitts: money, threats, or a bit of both.
November 13, 2021
Well said Dom.
November 13, 2021
Agree Dom – the conservative party needs period of inner self reflection
November 13, 2021
The Tory’s are a former conservative Party. That fixed it for you.
November 13, 2021
Yep
November 14, 2021
DOM, +1, you’re right once more.
November 13, 2021
Instead of how many tractors have been produced, it is how many have been scrapped as we have wilded the land.
November 13, 2021
Don’t scrap, export cheap to NK where the people starve.
November 13, 2021
Seems to me thereâs a whole community of mad people who need to sit down and take a deep breath! And then be replaced with calmer, more rational thinkers!
November 13, 2021
where do we find them?
November 13, 2021
The nominally conservative party is disappearing ever further and ever faster down the socialist rabbit hole.
November 13, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
Me thinks the Government are abdicating their responsibilities and common sense to so called “experts” rather too much, and in doing so have lost track of the wider implications of many of their policies, and of the unintended consequences of such.
Far too many complicated, costly and lengthy so called solutions are put forward, to counter what should be in many cases, relatively simple problems to resolve, with simple and less costly measures.
In short, they have lost the plot !
November 13, 2021
Sir
You are asking Civil Servants and Ministers to innovate, an impossible task as all they can do is regulate usually at the behest of the EU.
November 13, 2021
I think that itâs about time that you ceased to bother with your diary because itâs becoming increasingly obvious that you support the Marxist take over of our country and that there are no decent conservative MPs who are working for the benefit of electorate
Youâre a disgrace and I bet that you donât moderate this
November 13, 2021
wrong. The concern is the continuing loyalty for a Party and PM who don’t deserve it.
November 13, 2021
This is the problem that today’s Conservatives have.
They have harvested the votes of the teeth-grinding pitchfork wavers, who continue to expect their lunatic demands to be met on all matters, not just on brexit.
If they don’t get those things, then they turn on whoever might deny those to them just as ferociously as they do on anyone else. They have no sense of proportion nor of balance.
It’s a mistake made repeatedly throughout history, and it always ends badly.
November 13, 2021
I do love your creative writing expressions — keep ’em coming, they often make me laugh.
November 13, 2021
I just want what Boris promised at the general election nothing more nothing less, Brexit, full return of Fisheries, no border down Irish Sea, control of immigration, no tax rise etc
As Boris, his government & party are in breach of the conditions of that election; I demand a new election
November 13, 2021
Seen a Greta speech lately then ?
And no matter what Boris does she still gets angrier with him.
November 13, 2021
Well said Mark. The Government is quite rightly dropping in the polls. What I don’t understand is why voters are saying they will switch to Labour who will be even worse. What is wrong with the electorate in the UK?
November 13, 2021
Absolutely. Labour is now even more evil than this party in government. I believe the stupidity of both Labour and Tory voters will destroy our nation. They have swapped their liberties and freedoms for a free lunch politics dished out by a 2 party State intent on State dependency to a whole new level of capture based on race, gender, green and medical weaponisation
I believe we are teetering on the brink of a terrible abyss. I have been following politics since MT became PM. I voted for MT and her small State, big civil world philosophy. All of that is now dead, slaughtered by a new class of politicians and progressive bureaucrats intent of ramming us into a political world of Marxist evil
I believe democracy will be dismantled. I also believe the jury system and presumption of innocence will be abolished replaced by a judicial system that is politically directed
Some Tory MPs simply refuse to confront all of this. They are as captured as the majority population are now.
November 14, 2021
DOM, +1
November 13, 2021
Its the difference between being stabbed in the front (labour) or the back (tory)
November 13, 2021
+1 GC.
THAT’s the difference.
November 13, 2021
Christine. I agree. What is wrong with the electorate? There is no way I’m voting for either the Con party or Liebor. For me the alternate is Reform. Yes, I’m just waiting for the pathetic, sarcasm from the usual posters here but I don’t care what they think.
November 13, 2021
Reform for me
November 13, 2021
It contains people like you, Christine.
November 13, 2021
No problem with that NLH. My worry is the percentage of folks who think like you!
November 13, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
NLH. Funny that, but yours was the first name on my list with Andy.
November 13, 2021
Papers and broadcast media pretending the poor polls are down to âsleazeââŠâŠplease tell us the government doesnât believe this is the real reason Sir John.
November 13, 2021
I’m afraid the box-ticking, target-driven and to achieve it, outsource the problem, appears to be endemic throughout the Civil Service and Quangocracy. The real consequence of their agenda isn’t relevant – as long as it’s not their problem and they look virtuous.
It is the reliance on obsessed “experts” with an axe to grind and the complete absence of people with some basic common-sense creating policy that is the root of the problem. Nothing will change unless the Government seriously applies itself to a mass clear-out of the left-wing virtue-signallers who infest the Civil Service and Quangocracy ….. and there is no sign whatsoever of them ever doing it.
I very much doubt that Conservative MPs are getting much correspondence in favour of the COP26 Boondoggle (unless it’s to complain about the hypocrisy and expense). I expect they ARE getting a lot of correspondence about the disgraceful failure to secure our borders from the 24,000 freeloaders who have arrived/been ferried in so far this year, with none whatsoever deported. So I’m interested to know why Sir John isn’t writing about an issue which matters a great deal to the English people, when the title of his blog is “speaking for England.”
Reply I tweeted on illegals yesterday and talked about the need to control illegal; migration on Nov 5 here in the piece on housing.
November 13, 2021
Reply to reply
I told you last week that various policies and behaviours had been received badly in this vicinity. It seems I’m ahead of the polls again, 6 points behind Labour. As I was on the Brexit vote – which was actually lower than it should have been going on the strength of feeling I witnessed, Project Fear was a lot more successful than given credit; the Remain Campaign didn’t realise it was fighting damage limitation and had already lost.
Outsourcing factories to the wider EU whilst importing labour to compete for the jobs left and (believe it or not) soft welfare policies plays worse in working class areas than anywhere else.
November 13, 2021
NLA the Labour Party doesnât represent the working classes, it represents the unionised workforce, the public sector mainly and the ex-public sector unionised workers and the likes of the TFL train drivers and bus drivers and they will also stand up for the none working class the claimants, the ones who live off social security (40% working a token 16 hour week and the other 60% not doing a stitch) in order to look for their votes to top up their union votes.
Many of the working class âworkersâ are small c conservatives and just feel there is no one in politics looking out for their interests and no manner of ÂŁ10 or ÂŁ15 NMW bribes doesnât impress them because they know their prices will rise to meet it and theyâll be the ones that end up worse off. Just as they are from next April when Sunak put up their national insurance contribution even after Boris promised no tax rises. Many will end up having their hours reduced and more part-timers hired to get around the hike in employerâs NI or theyâll lose out work to subbies.
Just as hours reduced when the NMW was first introduced, overtime was lost with the WTD and then more women had to go out to work their husband/partners missing overtime hours or increase their hours from part-time to full-time crippling them with childcare fees when labour did away with home child-minders with all their regulation and restrictions and hikes in prices to pay for the inspections and increased costs.
November 14, 2021
+100
November 13, 2021
Right to Reply
The invasion of illegal immigrants is now so serious that the whole government and our military should be mobilised and put on a âwar footingâ. SirJ you should be calling for cobra, the 1922 and other groups to gather to protect our culture, our history, our system of law, our Christian nation and our economy
November 13, 2021
Thank you Sir John for tweeting about the slo-mo invasion of our country.
That’ll certainly make a huge impact on Johnson, Patel and a “Conservative” Government which has betrayed the people who voted for it and failed/refused to carry out what the Home Office says is the first duty of the Government:
From the Home Office website “The first duty of the government is to keep citizens safe and the country secure.”
November 13, 2021
According to the BBC you’d never believe there where any immigrants crossing the channel….we must consider the BBC nor just rogue but fifth column
November 13, 2021
It’s not just government departments that regard decarbonisation as the only real worthwhile goal, excluding everything else save for covid.
We are being inundated daily by adverts and every other TV program, telling us what we can do to save the planet. Then it gets worse as stores and mass producers jump in on the act, adding their two pennies worth to make us guilty while telling us they are making massive changes for the sake of planet Earth.
It has become an epidemic…. and most of it is far from honest or worthwhile.
This all amounts to brainwashing of the worst kind, and I suspect it has been coordinated by the government psychologists – The hype is beyond reason, for something that is not a problem, considering that other countries will far exceed what we are saving as regards Co2 emissions.
The whole thing borders on insanity.
November 13, 2021
“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,” Romans 1:22
November 13, 2021
If they have to use children in adverts you have a weak argument
November 13, 2021
It’s all co-ordinated by the Psy-Ops Unit. They call it the Nudge Unit because it makes it sound benign. It isn’t; it is psychological manipulation of the population using coercive techniques.
This Government is behaving like an abusive, controlling spouse.
November 13, 2021
+99
November 14, 2021
No! It is behaving like the former East Germany (DDR)
November 13, 2021
You support an authoritarian government intent on imposing state control over everything we, the people, do. Like all tyrannical regimes, none of the restrictions on liberty and freedom they will demand of us will apply to them. We have been betrayed by those who were elected to uphold our democracy and their paid lackeys in the media.
November 13, 2021
+1
It is all inversion.
Healthy people treated as sick. Sick denied care
Agriculture, as you say, turned on its head.
Freely available energy rejected.
Satanic actually.
The Feast of Fools.
November 13, 2021
+1
And a certain church guilty of 300,000 child molestations in one country alone, globally surely to be millions. And where the very idea of indulgences came from.
November 13, 2021
Confess your sins, then free to go do them all again. Sounds a great idea, it might catch on.
November 13, 2021
Our Governing class has been captured by extremists and religious fanatics, it is a toxic mixture of Marxism and environmental extremism that is pursued with a religious zeal, both frightening and sickening. When religion comes into an issue all rational thought is banished as a heresy . We can all see the contradictions, the inconsistencies, the hypocrisy, and down right stupidity of what they are pursuing, but the zealotry has reached such a fever pitch just saying.. ‘excuse me this doesn’t make sense’… is to invite a Maoist cultural revolution pile on, cries of ‘denier’, and when the logic is too difficult for them to ignore, we get them trying to dismiss facts as racist and White supremacist. We are entering a truly mad world and out establishment are away with the fairies.
November 13, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
I note that climate is now the official state religion to be taught in all classes. Just as pervasive as the teaching of Marxism in the Soviet Union and China, or missionary and madrassah teaching of traditional religions.
November 13, 2021
Iain Moore :
Agreed.
November 13, 2021
Teslas powered by Russian gas, German coal and bits of tree cut down and shipped across the Atlantic.
Does Andy get to choose which electricity (wind) his car drives on ? If so then why ?
Nottingham Lad Himself defended unilateralist green policies yesterday by saying “*Per capita* carbon emissions are lower in China.” So this is about levelling down the proles then. Fine. But at least be honest about it.
Mr Billionaire’s carbon offset only fools Mr Billionaire’s daughter. Generally out of sight.
Andy’s Tesla fools no-one. Highly visible.
November 13, 2021
I donât have a Tesla. Itâll be my next car when my existing one – a hybrid – has reached the end of its useful life.
November 13, 2021
oh dear. Either we have another Andy – not the elderly hating one, or all those lies about you having a Tesla!, or perhaps the battery is buggered already?
November 13, 2021
Does anyone else here remember Andy saying he has a Tesla ?
November 13, 2021
NLA. Oh yes indĂšed. He was always bragging about it and his second home in France. Snigger.
November 14, 2021
dozens…
November 13, 2021
A bit too commonsense for many.
November 13, 2021
As I pointed out Andy is wrong about per capita emissions, which are 6.9tonnes per head in China and just 4.7 tonnes per head in the UK
November 13, 2021
JR. Please could you ask the Minister, why at the time of writing the UK System Price for electricity is circa ÂŁ200 /MWh; while the interconnector import price is circa ÂŁ157 /MWh average for today; and, the price at the Norway end of the interconnector is ÂŁ80 /MWh average for today.
It appears that the lack of interconnector capacity, is allowing UK generators to collectively game the market and bid up the UK price and keep it there. The Grid isnât exactly in a position to tell the generators to stick their prices for the Balancing Market.
To quote S&P Global Platts: âSystem sell prices in the balancing market hit a record GBP 4,037.80 /MWh on Sept. 9 as several plants priced themselves at GBP 4,000/ MWh amid low wind, outages and reduced interconnector availability.â
November 13, 2021
Your costings forget about profit. And what a profit there is !
November 13, 2021
Patience is required on the direction of the U.K. from the EU. We were trapped for 40 years. Our civil service and our politicians being brain washed into taking orders.
Letâs review our progress say in 5,10,15,20 years when the civil service and our politicians have plucked up courage to think and implement senseable policies.
November 14, 2021
This is true. Even before the Great Referendum of 2016 it was widely known that we would have to endure at least a decade of problems. This both due to past loyalties to the EU and the need to relearn skills.
November 13, 2021
Get the vaccine or lose your job (and the care home carers will be replaced by those less concerned or not concerned at all with the wellbeing and happiness of the residents). What proof of the absolute contempt Javid, Johnson and the rest have for the people of this country.
10.13 am
November 13, 2021
Some care home residents cannot be vaccinated due to health reasons, and are therefore very vulnerable. It is the care homes responsibility to keep their residents (and employees) as safe as possible. They could be sued out of existence if they did NOT take all precautions. Ensuring staff is vaccinated helps protect them all, residents and staff.
November 13, 2021
But how can it Shirley? As vaccinated people can still get it and obviously spread it. It doesn’t make sense.
November 13, 2021
Shirley, care homes are going to be sued anyway for constructive dismissal, and thousands of times over.
If residents’ health were really what this is about, flu vaccination would have been made mandatory for care home staff years ago, rather than just being ‘guidance’.
November 13, 2021
So why were care homes not sued when all care workers didn’t have the flu vaccine?
November 14, 2021
Iago, +1, I’m sure that you are right
November 13, 2021
Off topic, this chap reckons that the UK government has blinked over Northern Ireland, and asks why:
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2021/11/the-uk-government-has-blinked-over-brexit-the-question-is-why
He moots three possible explanations: first, that the UK government has achieved all that it really wanted to achieve, namely adequate solutions to the practical problems created by the protocol; second, that getting an agreement on climate change is still a much higher priority, and the protocol can wait; and, third, that pushing further on the protocol is not worth the trade war that the EU is threatening.
I would go for the first and the third; I don’t think Boris Johnson cares two hoots about Northern Ireland, any more than he cares about the reality of his “fantastic” trade deal with the EU:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/11/09/global-government-elite-restrictions/#comment-1274877
“I increasingly doubt that Boris Johnson wants to sort out the Northern Ireland problem.
Lord Frost, maybe he does want to get it properly sorted out, but Boris Johnson was content to sacrifice Northern Ireland as part of the price for his âfantasticâ âCanada styleâ free trade deal with the EU and I donât see why he should change his attitude on that … ”
It’s down to the “Conservative and Unionist” MPs to keep the pressure on him.
November 13, 2021
The Civil Service is doing precisely what the Climate Change Act 2008 prescribes so why not demand its immediate repeal? A modern economy cannot operate without producing CO2 and attempting to force change which can only sensibly be brought about by engineers making incremental improvements in efficiency is idiotic.
JR needs to write an article to explain why politicians and the Civil Service are constrained by laws which have been designed by politicians and the Civil Service and which his party’s leadership presumably supports. Other examples include the Human Rights Act, The Global Compact on Migration, and the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 all of which ensure that our borders are porous and we are not able to remove those who complete the obstacle course to get here with or without documentation. Etc.
Why do politicians who know better continue to belong to the parties which enact such damaging laws and not demand a reform of the electoral system so that people do not feel driven to vote for the least worst option du jour and so be able to clear the statute book of all the anti-English garbage that has accumulated over the years before it is too late?
November 13, 2021
Sir John, you recently expressed the hope and the belief, both here and on Twitter, that the government was “getting ready to trigger Article 16 to start to sort out GB/NI trade”. The latest reports suggest that you were deliberately mislead, and that no such action is likely. If it turns out that the government is NOT willing to take action, and allows the betrayal of part of our country to continue, at what point will you stop supporting the government and express your lack of confidence in the prime minister?
I have read the latest post from Dominic Cummings on his website. Of course his claims need to be treated with some caution as he is not exactly an impartial witness, but his statements do frequently chime with all the other evidence that we have to paint a genuinely credible picture. His statements that Boris Johnson “constantly shifted positions, sometimes urging maximum aggression then suddenly collapsing” and “only does things for himself. Arguments about âthis is good for the countryâ fall flat” and “A âdecisionâ is just how heâs feeling now. His appetites and fears can change in seconds â so can âdecisionsâ.” are all eminently believable. This is why all we ever get in our dealings with the EU is Boris bluster followed by capitulation. As Cummings says: “Remember, in December 2020 Frost/Lewis suddenly had to make concessions (including fish) because the PM collapsed at the final moment after all his tough talk.” When will you (and indeed the rest of the ERG) say ‘enough is enough’ and decide to defenestrate this stupid, cowardly and treacherous PM?
November 13, 2021
Well said X.
November 13, 2021
Meat, Sir John, a subject very close to my heart.
I wonder how all the animals will be dealt with. Will they be shot and burned in pits as they were during the F&M? Think of all the Carbon that would release so obviously that is out of the question. If they are all released into the newly wilded environment, they too will become wild animals once more.
Now it gets complicated. Many wild herds of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, deer added to the already growing numbers of wild boar, all breeding indiscriminately without a predator in sight and needing grass or other greenery to survive so will inevitably raid the crops grown for humans. Perhaps people like me will take to hunting them for the pot for a healthy diet. I relish the thought!
Do these green zealots or the Ministers of state have a brain cell between them? It seems not, but that is typical of Marxists for whom the end justifies the means (Marx) regardless of the destruction to peoples lives.
November 17, 2021
BOF, More likely âThe end justifies the meansâ is much older (Sophocles, 4thc.BC, or Philip Van Den Clyte (de Commines) 15thc. , or Machiavelli, 16thc.)
November 13, 2021
The UKâs unilateral drive for net zero carbon by 2050 when the technology does not yet exist is a fifth column Marxist scam to cripple our economy through intermittent/rationed energy and the export of jobs, to weaken our defences by making us dependent upon our enemies for energy and food and, together with open borders, to eventually cause social unrest.
This is evidenced by the activists apparently happy for China to continue to build coal-fired power stations (despite saying that wind power is now the cheapest form of energy!) on a massive scale whilst continuing with their own CO2 emitting lifestyles.
I cannot understand how a Conservative Government can be so deluded as to follow this path, other than because they believe that this net zero drive could be a great way to increase their tax take through new taxes and fines.
This unilateral dash to net zero is so damaging to our economy and social cohesion that we need to have a peopleâs vote on whether or not to proceed now that the Government has issued its strategy.
November 13, 2021
At world level, the use of raw coal at power stations must be discouraged. CO2 emissions from coal fired power stations are approximately double those from gas fired power stations per unit generated. The time has come to stop using the carrot and get out the stick, starting with China, which is a pariah state in so many ways: the treament of its labour force, the treatment of its Moslems, its rejection of intellectual property rights, its cancellation after 22 years of Hong Kong’s negotiated 50 years of liberty, its toxic energy policy, its subsidy of exports. I’ve done the maths. The cost to China of converting all of its coal fired power stations to clean (decarbonised) coal would be 30% more than the current cost (that’s running costs only and ignores the capital cost of conversion), equivalent in monetary terms to imposing a 3% tariff on all Chinese exports. But ‘decarbonised coal’ is not fully decarbonised; the residual CO2 emissions are 40% of
those for raw coal, so that 3% should be upped to 5%. Also, China I believe continues to produce CFCs and HCFCs in things like furniture production, thus slowing down the rate at which the hole in the ozone layer at the poles is closing. Finally, China deserves to be punished for its other sins, not least its treatment of Hong Hong. To my mind, the UK would be fully justified in slapping an extra 10% tariff on all Chinese exports to this country and should encourage other countries to do the same.
India, America, Geermany and Poland, who are also coal burning countries, would do well to take the measure against China as a warning shot across their bows. The UK on its own has limited influence but there are many nations that would support us and perhaps replicate our actions. We might also apply pressure on the WTO to penalise the burning of raw coal and the production of CFCs. Remember, the distance is nothing, it’s the first step that counts. That idiotic, grand standing jamboree in Glasgow produced nothing of note, unless you count Barack Obama polishing his public image.
November 13, 2021
Truly this green and net zero nonsense is losing the Tories voters faster than the South Coast invasion, stop both NOW or you are done for, and yes I know Labour is worse but the media isnât highlighting that.
November 13, 2021
When we rid ourselves of focus groups and cannon fodder MPs, lacking in any form of technical understanding, we might as a nation start making intelligent practical decisions on the environment without bankrupting the nation or the majority of its people.
November 13, 2021
+1
November 14, 2021
+1
November 13, 2021
Sir John – it is simply about a ‘grandstanding headline’ a ‘Virtue Signal’ to be on message with the ‘millennials’ that wish to cancel the World when it is not in their image.
In the end you/we cant get away from the farce that for the last generation we have had the worst PM’s this country has ever had to endure. Now cumulating in one that is living up to his TV persona of a bumbling buffoon.
Endless Governments have destroyed the UK economy and have reached for their ability to tax and tax hard to bail themselves out their stupidity. Its simple no economy, no wealth creation, no future. The only side benefit is that wee wont have the wealth to even re-import all the requirements for our daily well being as we have no money.
Then to hasten the demise the UK doesn’t invest in UK sourced enterprise, in fact it doesn’t invest any where. If you are domiciled outside of the UK the UK Government will ‘give’ you UK taxpayer money to re-import the innovation they are supressing, then to gold plate it all the profits made can be removed from the UK to be taxed in your home country.
November 13, 2021
Sir John
A little left field. Relating to the methane output of cattle.
The average dead weight beef carcass provides enough nutrition to supply around 5,000 average human meals. That’s equates to approx. 14 average people being fed each day for a year from each cow. The UK Government created scientific experiment (they isolated test subjects and changed their diet to see what would happen) to show the effect of turning a meat eater to vegan. The findings show the vegan produces between 2-2.5 times more methane than they did as meat eaters.
So the loss of one cows methane how does that equate against an up to 250% increase in a human producing more methane by going vegan? In part logic would suggest cows are ruminants that are efficient in what they do. Humans are created carnivores so less so.
To put it another way is one cows methane production over a years more or less than 14 human vegans? Or is it about the same as 28-35 meat eating humans?
The ‘headline’ these religious evangelist create for themselves, appears to have the same logic as, if we export our economy our territorial contribution to global warming declines while boosting it by another magnitude elsewhere.
November 17, 2021
Nota# Could you please give more details (e.g., a proper reference to a gov.uk site) about the Governmentâs scientific experiment turning meat eaters into vegans. Thanks a lot in advance.
November 13, 2021
Anybody who thinks that plant food is the main driver of climate change needs to have their head examined.
November 13, 2021
Sir John,
Totally agree. The government’s first priority should be to make us self sufficient in energy and as many products as it makes sense for us to produce given our limited natural resources. THEN worry about “carbon footprint”. We will only impoverish ourselves if we don’t earn more than we spend.
Personally (having myself worked in mathematical modelling) I don’t doubt the honesty and good intentions of climate modellers. However sometimes models can give wildly wrong results. For example the numbers now in hospital with COVID are lower than the most optimistic models from as recently as early September!
November 13, 2021
Over 200 countries turned up at COP26. 10% were there to grandstand and virtue signal that they had the best interests of the World’s populations at heart. The other 90% were there to see how much they could grab of the largesse being offered to mitigate the effects of so-called climate change, while sorting out into which Swiss numbered account they could move the funds.
Anyone with half a brain knows that until there is a source of energy that is cheap, portable and reliable, fossil fuels are the only way to fairly distribute power across the world. It may be alright for those of us on the continents of Europe and North America where access to a national power grid is possible, but this doesn’t hold true for the poorest parts of Africa, India and elsewhere. It doesn’t matter how much money the governments of the west throw at third world nations, it won’t improve the life chances of the majority of the world’s populations, as it won’t trickle down that far.
Off shoring manufacturing and energy supply to other countries and burning wood pellets sourced from millions of felled trees in order to claim that the UK has reduced its carbon footprint is hypocritical and immoral. Especially, since we the people are having to pay extortionate sums in taxes and imported energy to make up the shortfall when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
This insanity has to stop.
November 13, 2021
Yes ! Yes ! YES !
Everything you are saying in this piece is plain old fashioned common sense. If we can see it, why can’t the government. They are just not listening ! It can’t just be Boris or rather Mrs Boris, otherwise ministers would be insisting on a change of policy.
This obsession with reducing our own industry and damaging our balance of payments even more by importing what they choose to stop producing here is complete madness ! I despair.
November 13, 2021
Cutting carbon dioxide output = less plant food! Why does our government not apply some common sense and take advice from real climatologists and statisticians who have dismissed the global warming myth?
November 13, 2021
They are not listening. Let us pray for climate emergency, but hang on I just need to put on our heating as it’s November….. and cold. Tony Heller, Patrick Moore, Richard Lindzen and many many more. As usual its hidden agenda’s and policy by our dishonest politicos. 4* Hotel for illegals, no problem, lock us all up for Covid, no problem, woke/PC, no problem. Properly researched science, not a chance, but knew jerk for trillions in costs. Exporting our manufacturing and expertise to satisfy the eco loonies.
November 13, 2021
At COP26 Sharma pumps out the tears for public consumption. Sickening to see this public display of outright emotional gamesmanship. Get this politician off our screens. In fact get every woke politician of our screens before they send us all insane. We’re sick of their faux concern for our welfare when their real game is total control
Oh Margaret, were is thy successor?
Truth, reason and freedom will always prevail
November 13, 2021
Listening to the final session of Cop26, who knew just how bureaucratic, committee originated and politburo the UN IPCC wasâŠ.we should all be running for the hills
November 14, 2021
DOM and GC, +1 , We are many who share your outrage and apoplexy