The public sector could save some energy to help us out

Facing a winter of scarce energy the public sector could help us out by cutting its own substantial demands. This would save us money as taxpayers and leave more the available energy available for the homes that most need it and to keep business working without rationing.

Councils could review their street lighting and switch it off at times and in places where few people are out and about to need it.

All government offices could ensure through controls or caretakers that all electrical appliances are switched off early evening to avoid evening and night power waste.

Government officials could keep in touch with overseas governments more by on line meetings, to curb the number of jet flights needed.

Temperature and time controls on heating and cooling systems in buildings should be adjusted down where possible

More insulation should be included in public sector buildings.

Lights should be turned off when people leave offices for the evening.

159 Comments

  1. Wanderer
    August 28, 2022

    Just make Parliament and Whitehall do what they are telling the rest of us to do.

    Turn their heating and lighting down to uncomfortable levels.

    That’s probably enough, but one could add: no limos for Ministers, economy class flights (only where they can’t join meetings by zoom), no UK air travel (economy rail travel only), no meat in the canteens etc.

    At this stage in our decline, other parts of the public sector don’t matter.

    1. Cheshire Girl
      August 28, 2022

      Wanderer:

      Whitehall and Parliament should lead by example.

      1. Hope
        August 28, 2022

        JRM left silly notes on desks asking Whitehall staff to return to work and failed. Reported today he is selling buildings as civil service work from home! Can he make up his mind? Does he want them back at work or not. Suggest he does to improve productivity that JR bangs on about. Same for councils. JRM might also consider wider economic implications to economy of small businesses around where they work.

        JR,
        Is the govt scaring us about energy for another agenda like it lied over covid?

    2. Ian Wragg
      August 28, 2022

      But it needn’t have been like this. If for the past 12 years we had a real government looking out for the British people instead of a bunch of wallys virtue signalling to every international organisation.
      Making us deliberately reliable on hostile forces for energy.
      Offloading CO2 emissions to other countries to be able to proclaim our green credentials.
      Don’t blame Russian aggressive, we sit atop years of coal, gas and oil but you prefer to leave it in the ground because a vocal minority told you to.

      1. miami.mode
        August 28, 2022

        Totally agree Ian, and I truly resent paying so much for energy when the problem is self-inflicted and to say we will get financial assistance is absolute nonsense because we will simply end up paying for it through taxes. The cost is what it is and will not be any cheaper overall.

        Successive Tory governments and MPs have failed us and even now are reluctant to say what should be done partly as evidenced by our host’s tweet today “We do need more reliable and affordable power for when the wind does not blow”. Not blaming him in any way because that is the way the system works and it almost seems a form of sacrilege to mention what actually needs to be done by the tried and trusted methods of using fossil fuels of which we have an abundance.

      2. Hope
        August 28, 2022

        +1
        Tory policy not world events or anyone elseā€™s fault.

        Reform Party has good energy policy. In fact it beats socialist Tory in every regard.

        1. Lifelogic
          August 28, 2022

          +1 but almost any energy policy would do.

          1. Hope
            August 29, 2022

            LL, the leaders ie Johnson, Merkel, Macron, Trudeau mocked Trump when he made it clear do not rely on Russian energy while US foots the bill for NATO with Germany continually failing to pay its fair agreed amount!

            We now read FBI told Facebook not to allow print over Bidenā€™s laptop without checking validity! Again, Trump correct. This is election interference by a state body.

      3. graham1946
        August 28, 2022

        It may as well stay in the ground if the spivs on the world markets are going to set the price. Getting it out will only enrich them further and not benefit us at all.

      4. Ian Wragg
        August 28, 2022

        Fro. Thursday to today, windmills barely managing to reach 1gw. Average for 3 days 0.62gw.
        Why are you blaming Russia for our predicament when it’s entirely home grown.
        I see lord Debden is still proud that he swallowed the Russian propaganda and stopped fracking.
        Idiot.

      5. Mary Kevycky
        August 28, 2022

        We have imported no Russian fuel this and last month. We are going headlong into providing and revving up our production of energy – better late than never but thatā€™s globalisation for you!

        1. Mark
          August 28, 2022

          I did spot a large tanker discharging diesel from Bahrain refinery at Coryton on the Thames a couple of weeks ago.

    3. Shirley M
      August 28, 2022

      The public sector has absolutely nothing to worry about do they? Likewise for the thousands of illegal immigrants who the government cares for better than anyone living here legally. That is a real smack in the face for people who are struggling.

      Businesses are already failing in the private sector due to high energy costs. Please remind your colleagues that private business is the ultimate source of ALL your taxes. No doubt the big boys with influence will be ok, and the people on benefits as the government will be shamed into caring for them. You will run out of other peoples money, even though taxes are at a 70 year high! That’s assuming the very poor will survive low nutrition and hypothermia but they don’t pay taxes anyway and the NHS will be ‘overwhelmed’ as usual so no help from that direction.

      The irony is when we are constantly told to reduce heating/travel/meat etc. to save the world from global warming! I wonder how many Brits will be sacrificed for this religion?

      1. Lifelogic
        August 28, 2022

        +1

      2. miami.mode
        August 28, 2022

        Just about every small business of which I have knowledge indicate their energy prices are going up fivefold.

    4. Narrow Shoulders
      August 28, 2022

      Turn down the heat, wait for the discrimination cases to come rolling in

    5. Iain Gill
      August 28, 2022

      cheaper to fly than get the train quiet often

  2. Cuibono
    August 28, 2022

    Our council can turn off the street lights full stop.
    A few years back Ā£2 million was wasted on new horrible, glaring, light polluting concentration camp beams.
    Get ridā€¦save Ā£Ā£Ā£Ā£Ā£s.
    .

    1. Fedupsoutherner
      August 28, 2022

      We’ve had our street lights turned off for years. We have them but our council deems it too expensive so our road is dark. I don’t mind it but some people don’t feel safe.

      1. glen cullen
        August 28, 2022

        No lights, No road repairs, No police…..but we have new cycle lanes and rainbow crossings

    2. graham1946
      August 28, 2022

      My local market town has been turning off the lights at midnight for years. First of all, reported crime went up. Not sure how things stand now as the police don’t do crime anymore and people don’t seem to want the hassle of reporting it unless they need a number for insurance. Living in the country, my village has never had any lighting at all and that’s fine with us. We don’t want sodium lamps or whatever they are these days blighting our houses or the night sky. On a cold clear winter’s night it is very beautiful.

      1. Lifelogic
        August 28, 2022

        +1

    3. Nottingham Lad Himself
      August 28, 2022

      Some councils are having to pay over Ā£1,000,000 pa per child to house them in private care homes.

      There’s something else which should absolutely not be in the hands of the only-for-profit lads.

      Compulsory Competitive Tendering only works at all – and then probably not that well – where there is an abundance of competing local provision.

      1. Peter2
        August 28, 2022

        These Councils are mugs if they pay Ā£1 million per child as you claim.
        Why don’t these Councils create their own care homes and charge half that amount?

      2. a-tracy
        August 29, 2022

        Councils seem to be able to have set up their own energy companies (many of which went bust taking the investment with them), they also were able to make investments in places like Iceland (which they lost a lot of money on their bad decisions), they can gamble in this way. Are you telling us NLH that they canā€˜t take one of their empty buildings, turn it into a care home and employ their own staff? If not why not if that is a priority for their area? They seem to be able to hire staff in great numbers even though so much has been computerised in the last 30 years and other businesses have shed backroom staff.

      3. Mickey Taking
        August 29, 2022

        I volunteer to have 2 of these children, they can have a bedroom each, and my wife will happily make breakfast and order ‘J**t Eat’ when they are hungry.
        The Ā£2m can be paid into an offshore account in my name ASAP.

  3. Mark B
    August 28, 2022

    Good morning.

    Facing a winter of scarce energy the public sector could help us out by cutting its own substantial demands.

    Finally an admission from our kind host on what people have been warning about here for nearly 10 years.

    Government officials could keep in touch with overseas governments more by on line meetings, to curb the number of jet flights needed.

    Jets do not consume electricity but online meetings do !

    You politicians simply will not face facts will you? It is YOU and YOUR virtue signalling, along with all those silly agreements and laws that you have created bound us up to that have led to this.

    Get rid of the Climate Change Act and Net Zero and leave the Paris Agreement FFS !!!!

    It cannot be simpler.

    1. Mickey Taking
      August 28, 2022

      ‘Jets do not consume electricity ‘.
      How does the food services, luggage etc get loaded? I haven’t seen ground staff carry it all up.

    2. Donna
      August 28, 2022

      The UN and WEF say No.

      The British Government is their creature.

    3. Hope
      August 28, 2022

      Mark,
      +1

      Plus get rid of N.Ireland protocol and to get rid of level playing field to EU. We voted Brexit to gain control of borders, laws and money, to date none have been achieved despite lies from this party and govt.

      UK taxpayers still pay EU vast billions, no border control and still in EU orbit, still in ECJ, ECHR!

      Highest amount of businesses going bust since records began. State aid will become relevant but UK can only follow EU because it is bound by EU rules!

    4. acorn
      August 28, 2022

      You will find that countries that do believe in climate change, will increasingly not buy goods particularly, from countries that don’t believe in climate change; ECHR; honouring Treaties etc etc. The UK becoming the North Korea of the North Atlantic, I don’t find attractive.

      Meanwhile, number crunchers are quoting UK social media (always very dodgy data). Compared to last summers prices for energy, the UK is up 178%; Italy 83%; Germany 38% France 4%. The last three having functioning governments, have intervened to some extent so far.

      1. Peter2
        August 28, 2022

        Are you really suggesting countries will make it illegal for people to buy goods from the supplier of their choice on the grounds these nations are not doing enough greenery ?
        That is a North Korean idea from acorn

      2. a-tracy
        August 29, 2022

        Donā€˜t worry acorn since 2018 apparently we are LEADING the world not bottom of the League of Nations saving the planet. The NHS in England brag about leading the world in taking action on climate change and they are one of the biggest organisations here. 20 Apr 2021 ā€” The UK government will set the world’s most ambitious climate change target into law to reduce emissions by 78% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels! Gov.uk

      3. Mark
        August 29, 2022

        You will find that countries who try to adhere to net zero will not be able to afford any imports.

    5. MFD
      August 28, 2022

      Any body offering those changes are on a winner MarkB. We have now seen through the actions of the Blond Fraudster, hes only a puppet of foreign bullies.
      We must destroy their plans and fight for OUR homeland!

    6. Lifelogic
      August 28, 2022

      “Jets do not consume electricity but online meetings do” – well no but the hydrocarbons they burn could easily produce lots of electricity and emails and online phone calls, emails etc. do not really use very much electricity.

      “Get rid of the Climate Change Act and Net Zero and leave the Paris Agreement FFS !!!!”

      Indeed but Boris is still blaming Putin but the real problem was caused by T May, Ed Miliband, Boris (influenced by his silly green crap pushing Theatre Studies graduate wife) who put themselves at the mercy of Putin. This and Sunak’s vast currency debasement.

      Even Truss still seems to be a net zero religion believer. We can surely assume she understand no science beyond GCSE level as she read PPE Oxon. Probably little real economics either for the same reason – still better than the manifesto ratter and currency debaser Sunak.

      She will have a large job to do to avoid Starmer/Sturgeon in two years time.

    7. John Hatfield
      August 28, 2022

      Boris the reptile would do nothing to upset his globalist chums. Thank God he is (hopefully) leaving. And let’s hope the new prime minister is Liz Truss who shows more signs of consideration for the electorate.

  4. Cuibono
    August 28, 2022

    Let the WOKE Town Clerk pay his own office heating and lighting bills (travel too?) out of his vastly inflated salary.

    1. graham1946
      August 28, 2022

      Town Clerk? Surely you mean Chief Executive Officer these days, who think they are running corporations.

      1. Nottingham Lad Himself
        August 28, 2022

        Yes, the UK was forced to import all those ideas – like the rest of the rubbish from the US.

      2. Cuibono
        August 28, 2022

        +1
        Exactly!

      3. Mickey Taking
        August 29, 2022

        Will Unions appoint CEOs ? They do like to refer to their Executive(s).!

    2. Nottingham Lad Himself
      August 28, 2022

      This cost-of-living crisis is a godsend to the RIght.

      It means that ordinary people will have to liquidate assets simply to keep warm and to eat – to remortgage property in many cases.

      It’s a big step towards their owning nothing to pass on to their heirs, and so in turn their being at the total mercy of the rentiers.

      Reply The right want people to be prosperous and own assets. the left likes more state dependency.

      1. Nottingham Lad Himself
        August 29, 2022

        The Left now want – more than anything – for the ordinary people to be independent of the renter class.

        Yes, the State can pass laws to offer some protection for those who cannot afford their independence, but all agree is that the best way is for residential property not to be concentrated in the hands of those very rentiers.

        There has been a very large shift in the wrong direction in that regard under Tory misrule.

        1. Peter2
          August 29, 2022

          Most renters are housing associations, local councils and other non profit organisations NHL
          Would the State make better landlords in your socialist utopia?

          1. hefner
            August 30, 2022

            The latest English House Survey covering 2020-21 does not agree with you P2, and in fact it has not since 2014. According to statista.com there were 2.8 m private renters in 2007, 4.69 m in 2017, a small decrease to 4.43 m in 2021 (also ons.gov.uk ā€˜UK private rented sectorā€™).
            In comparison the social sector which was higher than the private renting sector in the 2000s (3.95 m in 2000) has remained stable over the years (3.98 m in 2021). Not surprising given that practically no social housing has been built these last twenty years.

            If you want details (I know you love those, donā€™t you) in 2010-11 out of the 17% of the social rented sector, there were 9% for house associations and 8% for local authorities. In 2021 it was still a total of 17% with 10% in house associations and 7% for local authorities. A shift happened between private renters and home owners, explaining the rather steady figure for the social rented sector.

            So your point ā€˜most renters are housing associations, local councils and non profit organisationsā€™ has been wrong for about 8 years.

  5. Stephen Reay
    August 28, 2022

    What you say it correct, but you shouldn’t have wait for an energy crisis to do them,do them anyway.

    1. Lifelogic
      August 28, 2022

      Not their money so what do they care about switching the lights off or saving energy? Or indeed about providing a service of any real value to the public.

      Ministers could also save loads of energy by not talking private jets to Australia or Blackpool or helicopters all over the place. Prince Charles likewise.

  6. Bryan Harris
    August 28, 2022

    All good suggestions, but what really needs to happen is for HMG to fix the energy problem without blaming our problems on Russia.
    Lack of affordable energy is self inflicted by the very establishment that is supposed to be keeping us safe.

    There are clearly options to provide cheaper energy, but the irrational political mindset just won’t allow that.

    Just look around the country as living gets more expensive – services being taken away, bus services stripped of cash to run a real service. We are being closed down.

  7. Peter Parsons
    August 28, 2022

    How about having public sector workers, including civil servants, work from home where practical to save on the costs of heating and lighting offices?

    Maybe you could extol the benefits of this to the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg.

    1. Sir Joe Soap
      August 28, 2022

      It’s happening, and Rees-Mogg hopefully selling their offices from under their feet. Don’t turn up for work, pay your own energy bills at home. If you can’t work because your online is down at home, no wages. Life gets interesting soon for them.

    2. Christine
      August 28, 2022

      The office would still be open with all the lights and heating on plus all the people working from home would be claiming their energy costs back from HMRC.

    3. Lifelogic
      August 28, 2022

      Well one could save far more by making about 50% of them redundant as so few do much of any value and many do positive harm. If you ā€œworkā€ from home you still have to heat the home. Quite likely to use more energy. Release them to get a productive job instead.

    4. a-tracy
      August 28, 2022

      Peter, what are you proposing happens quickly with all the empty offices, and the failing business parks theyā€˜ve been stood virtually empty for two years? The tax payers are paying for the public sector buildings and no doubt compensating people for working from home with free furniture, then there are all the Health and Safety audits that should be done. Meanwhile productivity and response rates of these people working from home has dropped considerably while prices have risen over 70% in the case of probate. Late passports so people have to pay double to fast-track or not have a passport for four months so they get paid more.

    5. Wanderer
      August 28, 2022

      PP, the pro is that they’d have to pay for their home heating (no “heating allowance” please!), the con is that they’d probably do less work. Though in some departments that might be a blessing for the rest of us.

    6. Shirley M
      August 28, 2022

      How would that save anything overall? It would transfer the liability to the employee but that would just result in demands for bigger allowances. Surely it’s better to heat one building for hundreds of people than heat the same building for the few that work from the office, and hundreds of homes for one person each? Isn’t that why people are being told to go to libraries to keep warm (if you have one locally)?

    7. Ian Wragg
      August 28, 2022

      But they’ll all be rushing back to the office to reduce domestic energy bills.

    8. Narrow Shoulders
      August 28, 2022

      The entitled public sector would demand payment of their bills.

      It also consumes less gas and electricity to heat one large room than many houses and flats.

      Conservation is a reason to go in the office

    9. IanT
      August 28, 2022

      So I assume that all those public workers working from home won’t have the lights or heating on Peter?

      Whilst we are at it, let’s shut the schools down and save the cost of heating them as well, perhaps folowed by the hospitals? There could be a designated ‘heated’ house in each street where everyone clusters to keep warm. Where does this craziness end?
      Just forget about Net-Zero and focus on fixing our own energy supplies – we will have more than enough if we decide to actually use them. Once you’ve assured supplies by all means think about transtioning to other renewable/storage solutions – but lets build (and fill) the swimming pool before we high dive off the top board.

    10. graham1946
      August 28, 2022

      Is it more beneficial to have heating and lighting on in hundreds of houses all day long instead of one big building? Maybe this year, when it gets cold and if their employers don’t pay their bills for them they may just decide to go back to work. Maybe we’ll get services like passports, driving licences etc. back

      1. Mickey Taking
        August 29, 2022

        I also think OAPs with bus passes will fill them in order to leave their homes unlit and unheated for as long as possible. Queues might form with us grey brigade getting on holding blankets and thermos flasks.

    11. Original Richard
      August 28, 2022

      PP :

      If it’s a cold winter I’m expecting to see many more Civil Servants returning to office working.

      BTW, I expect all public workforce offices are fully heated and lit at all times even when they’re empty.

  8. Old Albion
    August 28, 2022

    Sir John, apologies but I’ve been waiting all week for you to comment on the ongoing and increasing illegal immigration this county is having foisted upon it.
    Please answer this question; How is it possible for over 1000 people to launch sufficient small boats from French beaches to cross the channel and arrive here, all in one day. Yet the French authorities didn’t notice. Aren’t we paying them to patrol their beaches.

    1. Walter
      August 28, 2022

      Old albion.. it’s been going on for centuries since long before the common man ever had a passport. We can pay the French but it’s not going to change anything – if instead in earlier times we had stayed at home and minded our business they probably would not have known we even existed, but we didn’t, we had to go out there into the wider world and tell them how good things are here – so you can see why they want to come

    2. Sir Joe Soap
      August 28, 2022

      They know we’re toothless.

      1. glen cullen
        August 28, 2022

        Our country isnā€™t ā€¦our politicians are

    3. Donna
      August 28, 2022

      If the Government WANTED to stop the slo-mo invasion, it would.

      I suspect under the BRINO+, there was a quiet agreement that we would “take our fair share” of the criminal migrants the EU has allowed to flood into Europe ….. but for political reasons both the British and French Governments would pretend to take action to try and stop it.

      1. Mark B
        August 29, 2022

        I agree. It is like all those ‘child’ refugees we got whilst still under the, T. May regime. Some of those ‘children’ (all males) had beards.

    4. Mike Stallard
      August 28, 2022

      I have family in Queensland (AU). If I rocked up with my wife to live there, I should be sent back on the next plane. Here – the lawyers pile in and many criminals are allowed in, or allowed to stay “for family reasons”.

      1. Mark B
        August 29, 2022

        I have a very long but funny story of a man who overstayed in Australia. Before sending him home, via Japan, they imposed a suspended $10,000 AUS fine on him only to be paid if he ever returned.

        You gotta love those Australians’.

        1. Mickey Taking
          August 29, 2022

          sounds like a ‘Fringe’ joke?

    5. a-tracy
      August 28, 2022

      Who do you believe are selling them the boats to get rid of Franceā€˜s Calais problem? All they have to do is say the selling of these boats has to be a reportable item as cars and houses are what is so difficult? Itā€™s a plan there is no impetuous to do anything about it. Whatever the real reason is behind it weā€˜re not being told, but somewhere at high level we have been instructed to take this share.

    6. Dave Andrews
      August 28, 2022

      On the topic of public spending on energy, a large saving could be made if all those uninvited immigrants put up in hotels would be returned to their own country. No more public payments to keep the hotels warm.

    7. beresford
      August 28, 2022

      The French have a long coastline and the migrants make a dash for it as soon as the police are gone. Once they are in the water it is ‘too dangerous’ to intervene. Paying the French to act as some sort of goalkeeper while keeping our own hands squeaky-clean is not a credible strategy. There are a number of better options:
      1. Stop picking them up in the middle of the Channel and let them have a ‘dangerous journey’ with all its consequences. The safer we make it, the more attractive it is.
      2. ‘Turning them back’ is superficially attractive but practically difficult. Instead, let them land and immediately return them, paying the French to take them back. No access to lawyers or courts.
      3. Reduce the pull factors. Why on earth are we giving them mobile phones? Put them in single-sex labour camps in a rugged and unpleasant area until they agree to go home.
      4. Change the onus of proof. Why do WE have to prove how old they are or where they came from after they destroy their documentation?
      5. Streamline the asylum system. How does it take so much money and court time to determine that someone who comes from a safe EU country is not a refugee?
      6. Criminalise the act of deliberately placing yourself in danger to invoke the coastguard. They are placing the lives at risk of rescuers and those elsewhere who have a genuine emergency. Make them liable for the cost of their ‘rescue’.

    8. Mary M.
      August 28, 2022

      And of course, these (mostly) chaps need to be kept warm in their hotel rooms.

      Old Albion, you’ve prompted me to also ask for a comment from Sir John on something that has been concerning a number of fellow UK citizens recently.

      Sir John, is it true that there is a reciprocal arrangement with Rwanda that, should Rwanda take a number of our illegal immigrants, we will accept into the UK the same number of (legal) immigrants from Rwanda?

      We do please need to know, especially before you (hopefully) join future Prime Minister Liz Truss in a key role in her Government, but then become too busy to continue this Diary and to respond to our concerns.

      Thank you in advance for addressing this question, perhaps in a future article.

      Mary M.

    9. IanT
      August 28, 2022

      They are coming in Battalion strength most days, so why not just create new Army Battalions with them and deploy them to Eastern Europe? They are mainly young men of fighting age, so rather than house and feed them to very little other advantage, let’s use them to increase our ranks. This will also help out with the diversity targets our Armed Forces currently seem intent on enforcing… We really have let the lunatics take over the asylum haven’t we?

      1. Mark B
        August 29, 2022

        IanT

        As the RAF will no longer be hiring people of white caucasian decent, perhaps some of these men might be future fighter pilots.

        /sarc

    10. Jasper
      August 28, 2022

      Old Albion – not sure you will get a response to your question, the Government have been completely silent on it for months now. This morning I read RNLI enter French waters to rescue a boat carrying hundreds of people, what did they do ? Bring them to the UK of course instead of taking them to French shore! Why am I angry? My dad aged 82, lives independently loves to keep busy in his garden, has been in agony for over 2 months now with a pain in shoulder and arm, could not get a doctor appointment, when he did was told wait is over 6 months for a referral for an MRI scan which has been requested by the physio I took him to see privately! NHS is broken as is this country!

      1. a-tracy
        August 29, 2022

        Jasper, sorry to read this, I hear a lot of people getting frustrated and reverting to private doctors appointments at Ā£75 per time, or scans and other tests because they donā€˜t want to wait, especially in London where private doctors practices are setting up in offices. Statistics have been produced by Exeter University to show there is discrimination in the NHS between the races on test results and treatments starting. I wondered if this was caused by regional disparities, a lot of people live in Cities is their responses and diagnoses faster or slower? Statistics never offer the full picture to people. Is it every trust creating the same figures are the % drilled down to each hospital region?

    11. The other Christine
      August 28, 2022

      We have to accept there is no will within Government whatsoever to tackle this national emergency situation. The technology is there to stop this invasion within weeks but the Government clearly has an agenda that allows this situation to continue at enormous cost to our country. Illegal immigrants will be housed in hotels with food, heating, NHS treatment, education for the children and weekly income while we, the citizens of this country are abandoned by the NHS, deal with 18% inflation, energy costs that are doubling, and mortgage and food prices increasing every week.
      Welcome to the NWO.

    12. X-Tory
      August 28, 2022

      Seriously, Sir John? My response on this issue have been censored??? How disappointing …

    13. Mickey Taking
      August 29, 2022

      The French will claim the boats are just pleasure craft on a nice sunny day.

  9. Nottingham Lad Himself
    August 28, 2022

    The public, as a matter of inevitability will be saving “us” a great deal, by simply not being able to afford motor fuel, gas and electricity.

    For many, the root of their general financial problem is the surreal cost of living accommodation stemming from the relentlessly-pumped property bubble.

    1. a-tracy
      August 28, 2022

      Yet no-one wants to move to Liverpool, Stoke or the North East or Wales where property is still affordable! You can still buy properties in all of those places and more for less than Ā£100,000. Why do you think that is?

    2. Peter Wood
      August 28, 2022

      Your last para is the second shoe to drop, and I’m talking about interest rate rises that are soon to appear with a vengeance.
      EVEN the ECB are now being more honest that the UK (mis)managers, (and I never thought I’d say that) viz Ms Schnabel, (a German economist presumably more prepared to speak truth than a French lawyer), said:
      ā€œBoth the likelihood and the cost of current high inflation becoming entrenched in expectations are uncomfortably high,ā€ Schnabel said. ā€œIn this environment, central banks need to act forcefully.ā€
      Interest rates are going up all over the world, and anybody with large borrowings better be ready for hard times.

    3. Lifelogic
      August 28, 2022

      Fewer people or more houses are the only solutions to housing. Relax planning and the OTT green crap building regulations.

      The sensible Jonathan Sumption today in the Sunday Times – “Little by little the truth of the lockdown is being admitted: it was a disaster.”

      Looking at the figures if seem that that the (falsely claimed 80-90% effective) “Vaccines” were nothing of the sort and also did serious net harm. This certainly for the young and children. How on earth did the government’s “experts” regulators and the Fauchi types and vaccine committees in the US allow this to happen? Plus they are still even now pushing these at the young.

      On the positive side my point about vaccinating men slightly younger than women in the roll out which would have saved many lives had the vaccines been effective. This did not really apply if the vaccines are largely ineffective as seems to be the case. I had assume the 80-90% claims were honest.

    4. Peter2
      August 28, 2022

      “relentlessly pumped..yes NHL, by the biggest population growth in our history.
      A new town the size of Southampton needed every year.

    5. Mark
      August 28, 2022

      I suspect that in real terms property prices are about to take a big tumble, precisely because they are unaffordable, and rising interest rates will make them more so, tipping heavily mortgaged buyers into repossession. That will also affect landlords with mortgages, also threatened with huge bills to try to make their properties EPC C. The result will be evictions and a housing crisis with properties empty pending sale. If prices stat falling in nominal terms to any significant degree then we will have a banking crisis as well. But in say 4 -5 years time, when we are getting to grips with energy supply and real prices have catered and bottomed out, property would be affordable again.

    6. Mickey Taking
      August 28, 2022

      The pumped property bubble a result of Councils being directed to refuse reasonable planning applications, examples being large house/plot infills which would have released sums to older owners to sell out, retire elsewhere and leave a builder to produce more family homes in that location. Worse, Councils fought developers appealing to the Inspectorate and very often won. Those that lost then used Section 106 monies to do really useful things like paying for bus ‘dropped kerbs’ to be installed on pavements! The other major fuel to house value inflation started with City bonuses being spent on an already deprived market, the natural bounce would be price inflation on a short supply market. Eventually Banks would offer cheap interest rate mortgages to use their cash mountains, and inheritance would add to the feeding frenzy of demand. The ‘cheap’ mortgages developed into Landlord mortgages and the rental cost rose to make a profit.
      Martin I do not see historic energy availability nor cost having anything to do with millions being unable to afford this winter’s misery.

  10. Julian Flood
    August 28, 2022

    Sir John, if you were to cuff a passing Spad and send it to the archives, a piece I wrote for the TCW Defending Freedom blog might be unearthed. It was published just before COP26 and addressed, prophetically, the measures that would shortly be necessary to save our industry, our social fabric and the lives of those vulnerable to high energy prices.

    I think it holds up rather well.

    JF
    Short of money? Tax the wind farms.

  11. BOF
    August 28, 2022

    There are surely dozens of useless quangos that can be scrapped. Those ex employees can then sit at home in one room keeping warm like the rest of us.

    Government can make the greatest contribution of all by repealing the Climate Change Act and Net Zero legislation immediately. This would allow sanity to prevail once again in energy policy. Many of us are tired of being ground down by green fantasy backed up by gullible politicians.

    LL is quite right and CO2 is not the enemy. In fact he is pretty well spot on with energy generally. Can he be found a job in government please?

  12. Walt
    August 28, 2022

    Yes, please do turn off most lights at night, saving electricity and cutting the light pollution that blights us.

  13. Sharon
    August 28, 2022

    One thing is quite clear! The insane behaviour of the British with their total insistence on net zero is a warning to othersā€¦Iā€™ve read two different articles where both the Americans and the Australians are warning themselves to not go down the same path of destruction!

    I was under the impression that it was the US that was supposed to crash first, in the great reset, not the United Kingdom!

  14. Mickey Taking
    August 28, 2022

    Not just the public sector -Sir John will know the Winnersh Triangle. Taking the exit from A329(M) into the Triangle there has been a large open-sided multi-storey carpark for many years that has very few cars any time of day or night. It is lit by rows and rows of lights that appear always on. How to shame them?

    1. a-tracy
      August 29, 2022

      MT you just have shamed them! This is such an easy fix any good electrician can put movement sensor lights in multi-story car parks so the lights only come on when people walk in each area. It is a shame that more new homes arenā€˜t fitted automatically with them in the hall, kitchens and bathrooms.

  15. Mickey Taking
    August 28, 2022

    ‘Lights should be turned off when people leave offices for the evening.’
    In my numerous experiences of offices I’d suggest most are left lit for the cleaners who will work in the evening?

  16. Donna
    August 28, 2022

    I presume the new Government will be abandoning the stupid, out-dated idea of switching back to GMT at the end of October. Far fewer people are up very early to farm the land or commute than when the experiment was abandoned in the ’70s and it will be far better to keep BST so we get the benefit of an extra hour of daylight in the late afternoon during the winter, rather than the morning.

    Or is the Government still terrified of a few Scottish crofters and the SNP’s Fishwife so won’t dare do it?

    Switching off street lighting on motorways and main roads results in more accidents and in an urban area it will make the streets far less safe. Basically it will lead to a self-imposed curfew and those who can’t stay in will be even less safe – as poor Sarah Everard was during the lockdowns because there were fewer people around. Still, the Albanian criminal invaders will be delighted at the additional opportunities darkness gives them …. or at least the ones who aren’t highly qualified surgeons, physicists, and engineers, will be.

    Westminster, Whitehall, the Quangocracy and the Environment Charity-Quangos should be forced to reduce their energy consumption by 30%. They should sit in the dark; sit in the cold and sit in the misery they have created for the rest of us.

  17. Christine
    August 28, 2022

    Although energy-saving ideas will help it is a drop in the ocean.

    The elephant in the room is of the Governmentā€™s own making with their ridiculous Net Zero agenda.
    You managed to introduce draconian laws during the pandemic, do it again to repeal the Climate Change Act. It wonā€™t look good for your party when massive numbers of people die of hypothermia this coming winter.

    Don’t even think of relying on the EU for help. Plan now for our own self-sufficiency. Time is short, winter is coming.

    1. glen cullen
      August 28, 2022

      Agree with every word

  18. Bloke
    August 28, 2022

    There is an efficient way of achieving most of those consumption savings in one go:
    Charge an immense cost for energy.

  19. Mike Stallard
    August 28, 2022

    Some hope!
    In 1940, just at the time of the blitz when people were told to cut back on their coal fires, my Dad went into a government building to find a coal fire in every office. The civil servants were OK thank you, Jack. Now the Church of England is in sharp decline, there are more bishops, Deans and archdeacons than ever before.
    The people who run the place are complacent and believe (Partygate – I am talking about the redacted faces here) that they have privileges which their minions (aka gammon) do not share.
    Twas ever thus.

  20. Donna
    August 28, 2022

    This morning, the windmills are providing 1.4 GW of electricity.
    Solar, 2 GW.

    I wonder where the other 21 GW of power they’re supposed to provide has got to?

    I guess the Government will just have to pray harder that the wind blows this winter ….. not too soft, because the turbines won’t turn. Not too hard, because the turbines will have to be switched off. At just the right level so we can switch the lights on.

    I’m sure all the Goldilocks in Westminster and Whitehall will understand the principle.

    1. Mickey Taking
      August 29, 2022

      Cults might start assembling and praying at the foot of these monsters, hoping for the blades to turn.

  21. turboterrier
    August 28, 2022

    I posted yesterday about slim lining government. Finally, having that bonfire of quangos and those departments in both main and local government not adding value to what they do in efficiency should be cut back. This will impact on the number of offices and other locations that could be mothballed Operating a hot desk method of working localising the areas needing heating and lighting.
    Another hard-hitting article from STT. Chris Kenny warning the Australians to learn from our mistakes

    Transition to Poverty: Britain Being Crushed By Staggering Cost of Wind & Solar Obsession
    August 28, 2022 by stopthesethings

    Want to see Australiaā€™s energy future? Just look at Britainā€™s mess
    The Australian
    Chris Kenny
    Thousands of elderly and poor people will die in Europe this winter because of energy policies driven by a climate action agenda. The virtue-signalling actions of the so-called elites have forced energy costs so high that many on fixed incomes will scrimp on heating so they can afford food.

    1. Donna
      August 28, 2022

      There’s a Leader in the Wall St Journal highlighting the appalling situation the UK is in, thanks to the Eco Zealots in Westminster and Whitehall.
      You’d think the idiots who are responsible for the situation would beg for forgiveness, but Ed Davey, Lib Dem Energy Minister in the Coalition announced that he is proud he banned fracking.

      I’m afraid we’re in an Ancien Regime situation …… and Ed Davey just told us to eat cake.

  22. beresford
    August 28, 2022

    Should the Football League be told now that in January they will not be allowed to have evening kickoffs and will be expected to start other matches earlier to avoid the use of floodlights? It is obviously unacceptable that clubs should have floodlight pylons lit for the benefit of satellite TV coverage while householders are swathed in blankets and huddled round a candle.

    1. Mickey Taking
      August 29, 2022

      correct and a return to Saturday and Sunday matches to start at 2pm not 3pm or later.

  23. glen cullen
    August 28, 2022

    Cutting back on energy use isn’t the problem
    Energy supply isn’t the problem
    Even our own government has said the lights wont go out
    ITS THE COST OF ENERGY THATS THE PROBLEM
    ITS THE CONFODENCE IN THE WHOLESALE FOSSIL FUELS ENERGY MARKETS THAT THE PROBLEM

    1. Mickey Taking
      August 29, 2022

      The lights will go out in homes because the owners will not afford to use them, and washing machines and dryers. Non-iron shirts will get used more and all those items on ‘standby’ will get switched off. Those people using pumped electric showers will wish they could use gravity fed hot water tanks instead.

      1. glen cullen
        August 29, 2022

        Oh no youā€™re describing a world with people wearing more cheesecloth shirts

  24. glen cullen
    August 28, 2022

    The data below is for the 24-hour period 00:00 to 23:59 27 August 2022.
    Number of migrants detected in small boats: 915
    Number of boats detected: 19

    Thats the size of two British Army infantry regiments

  25. Des
    August 28, 2022

    A more obvious and far better solution would be a lot less public sector. Sack the staff, sell off the buildings and cut taxes.

    1. Mickey Taking
      August 29, 2022

      …but increase tax on redundancies, and payments on benefits (unemployed).

  26. Narrow Shoulders
    August 28, 2022

    I am surprised that the “something must be done” brigade have not singled out women and ethnic minorities for extra helping payments for their gas and electricity bills. This is a demographic that seems to need extra heating.

  27. Pat
    August 28, 2022

    An office by office set of polls to determine who favours net zero should be followed by the supply of zero power to those in favour. Include both the Lords and the Commons. Wait six months and re-poll. I’ll bet that the climate change act gets repealed.

  28. Robert Pay
    August 28, 2022

    We desperately need an energy policy that you would endorse! The Tories kow-tow to green energy interests, the ER mob, the BBC has been a PR fail and a policy disaster. No one seems to know that only the UK and US have drastically shrunk their carbon footprint.

    The party is in the last chance saloon. The leadership contest has been a disaster and so many members are so disillusioned with the lack of pro-market policies, the bloating of the state, the attack on the country’s past (led by Johnson apologizing for the Industrial Revolution and not standing up to the vandalization of monuments). Our police is now the paramilitary wing of the LGBT+ movement and focused on thought crime. Our universities ape US institutions in their espousal of Critical Theory and other Marxist drivel. (I just struck Oxford out of my will.)

    A strong narrative and policy from Truss is critical. There will be civil unrest, cheered on by our state media.

  29. William Long
    August 28, 2022

    As so often, I agree with all you say in this post, but, will it happen? I very much doubt it because it implies common sense, which is in very short supply, if not absent, in the corridors of power.

  30. […] The public sector could save some energy to help us out ā€“ John Redwood […]

  31. acorn
    August 28, 2022

    According to Centrica, the public sector spent Ā£3.4 billion on energy in 2019. About Ā£1.2 billion in the NHS alone. Hopefully, the public sector has some long term supply contracts in place with no supplier get out clauses. The NHS has a 3% per year cost reduction plan as part of its 2015 government austerity continuing settlement, which has since been shredded by Covid.

    BTW. Because the US LNG producers are liquifying tanker loads of gas to sell in Europe at bandit prices. The US domestic spot price, I am told, has gone up from the equivalent of 22 GB pence/therm to 79. I said in the UK it has gone from 42 GB pence/therm to 640 this week; but please keep sending those LNG tankers; particularly to the UK next winter, because we have no storage capacity to hedge against other gas selling bandits.

    1. Mark
      August 28, 2022

      You may have seen that US Energy Secretary Granholm has recently chided US refiners for exporting too much oil products rather than building stocks in the US against possible hurricane season disruption. Of course Biden has sold off a large chunk of the SPR, much of it refined in the US.

      Although her remarks were confined to oil, I note that stocks of natural gas are way behind where they should be for the time of year. That is a combination of the harsh winter that drew down stocks more than normal and increased LNG exports, combined with insufficient new drilling to increase supply. If winter is again harsh in the US such that exports are cut there will be a rapid convergence between domestic and international prices, from $9 to $90/MMBtu, and I suspect riots that will make BLM seem like a tea party. Shutting off the export supply in the depths of winter would create utter panic on world markets. I do hope our Embassy are making representations: Biden must promote more drilling immediately.

  32. Denis Cooper
    August 28, 2022

    Off topic, a little letter that I have just sent to our local newspaper and also some in Ireland:

    “It is now five years since Leo Varadkar took over from Enda Kenny as Prime Minister of the Irish Republic, and ordered Irish customs officials to cease the discussions they had been having with UK customs officials about how to manage the small flow of goods over the open land border from Northern Ireland into the Republic and thus the EU Single Market.

    He, and his UK counterpart Theresa May, were both keen to see a mountain built out of this small molehill, preferably to prevent the UK from leaving the EU, but at least to keep us under the economic thumb of the EU in its Single Market and Customs Union, as stridently urged by business pressure groups such as the CBI, then headed up by Carolyn Fairbairn.

    Yet as repeatedly pointed out any significant threat to the integrity of the EU Single Market could easily have been countered by UK export controls over the goods flowing north to south, and indeed there was already an established system for licensing exports of sensitive goods such as arms, which could have readily been adapted for this additional purpose.

    It is only necessary to google for “SPIRE export licences” to bring up information about this system, which is run by the Department for International Trade; hopefully if Liz Truss becomes the next Prime Minister she will know about this from her days in charge of that department, and will bring in a sensible alternative to the ghastly Northern Ireland protocol.”

  33. Cuibono
    August 28, 2022

    So is Jacob RM revealing that the govt. is fully behind The Great Reset?
    Rather than forcing Civil Servants back to work he is planning to sell off their offices!
    Or are the jobs going kaput?
    Working from home is NOT working.

    1. a-tracy
      August 29, 2022

      Iā€˜ve been told that even with the energy increase, they will only have to heat one room and one computer, the savings they make from commuting in their time and vehicle fuel/public transport, out of school childcare – no longer required, and being able to do some chores whilst working totally outweighs the losses in energy costs.

  34. Mark
    August 28, 2022

    It seems the trawl for potential replacements to Deben at the CCC has not been throwing up suitable candidates, or perhaps the extension to the recruitment reflects the change in PM.

    https://publicappointments.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/appointment/urn503-climate-change-committee-chair/

    The specification makes clear they want a yes person. It would be much better simply to shut down the whole CCC. The savings would be an incalculable large multiple of the direct cost, particularly through freeing us of net zero carbon budgets that are designed to make energy scarce and expensive.

    I hope that when the BEIS Select Committee get to hold their suitability hearing they question the responsibility of the CCC for our predicament and ask how the candidate would resolve it.

  35. SecretPeople
    August 28, 2022

    Which uses most energy: everyone being back at the office, or most working from home while the offices remain open and heated?

  36. Iain Gill
    August 28, 2022

    Re “review their street lighting and switch it off at times and in places where few people are out and about to need it” and the opposite. at the moment we have street lighting switched off outside train stations where trains are still running, and passengers are still coming and going. its not nice to arrive into a place which is pitch black as soon as you leave the station itself. they should keep the lighting on in the surrounding streets when trains are stopping there.

  37. turboterrier
    August 28, 2022

    Is it not the case that a large number of public sector projects receive subsidies because they supposedly support the government off the wall plans for Net Zero are in most cases just smoke and mirrors and does the taxpayer and energy bill customers actually get real value for money?
    Paul Homewood of the Not a Lot of People Know That website has prepared a thought-provoking article on the construction of the SSE proposed Ā£1Bn Pumped Hydro Plant in the Great Glen of Scotland. When one breaks through all the hype and glitz like a lot of the Net Zero projects is it a really good value for money?
    The government has got to call a halt to all such projects until they can be independently vetted and proven to be in all areas a viable proposition for all concerned, especially those who if past project failures are anything to go by taking the greatest hit.

    1. Mark
      August 28, 2022

      Coire Glas has been in gestation for many years. The 30GWh of storage was originally only granted planning permission to have 600MW of generation churning into Loch Lochy. At 50 hours duration, SSE could never make the economics work. They now have permission for 1.5GW, which makes it a 20 hour store, and allows them to take larger bites when market prices are high or low. I presume they have done their sums which would likely consider 8 hours of pumping overnight to provide 6 hours of peak supply during the day (the round trip efficiency will be about 75%) as being the main way they will earn money, along with additional earnings from grid stabilisation services. Opportunities to use the full storage capacity will be rather rarer, since a period of high winds doesn’t allow discharge until the wind drops, and vice versa. Some will be kept as a blackstart reserve, as at Dinorwig.

  38. X-Tory
    August 28, 2022

    Sir John, the speculation is that you will be offered a job by Liz Truss, either as policy adviser or in the Treasury. I must warn you that you will achieve NOTHING unless you change the rules / law so that ministers can FIRE (and hire) civil servants AT WILL, in order to ensure that they properly implement the government’s policies. You know full well how obstructive the civil service is, so unless you get rid of the enemy within you will FAIL – and, frankly, deserve to fail. Politicians should not be afraid of wielding POWER. That is the only way you can get the job done and serve the public that elected you to do so.

    1. Lifelogic
      August 28, 2022

      +1

  39. Original Richard
    August 28, 2022

    Our current lack of energy has been deliberately caused by the communist fifth column and their desire to ruin our economy by limiting our access to cheap and plentiful fossil fuels using the climate change scam and the insane plan, the Net Zero Strategy, to run our electricity on expensive, low energy density, intermittent renewables (as I write wind is producing 1.08GW out of an installed capacity of 27GW) without the existence of any economical non-fossil fuel system for backup and grid stability when the wind doesnā€™t blow and the sun isnā€™t shining.

    To make the lack of electrical energy even worse they are forcing through evs and heat pumps even though their plans for total electrical capacity do not even cover either evs or heat pumps let alone both.

    As for energy security, how can it be secure when 95% of wind turbine parts and 100% of solar panels are supplied by China and China controls the raw materials for motors and generators?

    Nuclear is the only affordable, reliable and independent low carbon source of energy and the fifth column will have reduced our nuclear capacity to almost zero, if not actually zero if the technical issues with the one plant being built, Hinkley Point C, are not resolved, by the electricity decarbonisation date of 2035.

  40. turboterrier
    August 28, 2022

    At last the people who have got us into this mess are being identified. For Ed Davey to say he is proud on what he did to stop fracking just about says it all about him and his party. His mates in higher places think differently.
    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-and-emissions-projections-net-zero-strategy-baseline-partial-interim-update-december-2021

  41. X-Tory
    August 28, 2022

    Some suggetsions are emerging in the press about what Liz Truss might do in terms of taxation. The suggestion of cutting VAT by 5% (anything less than this is just p:ss:ng in the wind) is a good one as it cuts inflation, which in turn reduces wage demands and the strikes that follow, and the damage they do to the economy. The other policy that MUST be inplemented is a raising of the threshold for paying tax. This is so much better than cutting the rate of tax. It takes lower paid people out of tax altogether, which reduces the cost of collecting their tax in the first place. Also, by leaving more money in their pockets it reduces their need for benefits, which is another saving to the government.

    It has always struck me as MADNESS – politically, economically and philosophically – to tax people with one hand and then pay them benefits with the other. IMMEDIATELY raising the tax threshold for the basic rate of tax to AT LEAST Ā£20,000 (and better still, Ā£25K) will benefit those who are doing the right thing by working, but who are nevertheless struggling. It also SAVES the government money, both administratively and in terms of benefits. Everyone knows that ‘first impressions count’ – how people perceive Liz Truss in the first few weeks of her premiership will affect how they vote in two years’ time. A BIG, BIG change to the threshold RIGHT NOW, affecting millions of people – largely blue-collar Conservatives – will wow all Conservative-inclined voters and ensure her long-term success. It is the ONLY sensible policy. Do you agree?

    1. anon
      August 29, 2022

      Agree.
      Fancy that, not taxing someone on Ā£25k to pay someone “claiming” the equivalent of Ā£30k or more before tax. Gross up all benefits to market rate like benefit-in-kind rules for the serfs on paye. This includes housing, fuel, grants, gifts etc.

      You might find your taxing the wrong people in a lot of cases.

      1. a-tracy
        August 29, 2022

        Agree. These claimants do not even value the gross amount of net benefits they claim. We are the mugs expecting nothing back in return from them.

  42. Rhoddas
    August 28, 2022

    Frack baby frack. Drill, mine, store, SMRs.
    Loads of on demand energy under our feet.
    Get on with it.

    Automate Council processes and standardise national ways of working, they all do the same jobs, reduce the staff accordingly. Then shut down old poorly insulated council offices or sell them off.

    1. glen cullen
      August 28, 2022

      +1

    2. Lifelogic
      August 29, 2022

      Boris:- ā€œDonā€™t give up on green energy
      Johnson insists UK can still pursue net zero while taking the sting out of heating bills.ā€

      Drivel Boris net zero and your governmentā€™s idiotic energy policies are by far the main cause of the current rip off energy prices. No need to give up on renewables though just let them compete without subsidy or market rigging.

      Boris used to be a sensible climate realist, free market, sound money libertarian so what on earth happened to him? What turned him? Covid, Carrie, the Civil Service, mental breakdownā€¦ A hugely wasted 80 seat majority and poor Liz Truss has just two years to save us from a Starmer/Sturgeon disaster. I still think she can just about do it. The country is crying out for a sensible Tory party that delivers real Tory Polices for one – but one hell of a job for her.

      The Boris epitaph will surely be he got all the big things very wrong indeed – the economy, the extended lock down, school shutdowns, energy policy, net zero, project fear, masks (initially right later wrong), the currency debasement & inflation, housing, education, policing, law and order, free speechā€¦ even the (relatively ineffective and often dangerous) vaccination programme seems to have done more harm than good for many & certainly for younger people.

      1. Mickey Taking
        August 29, 2022

        His Epitaph should read ‘Made bullshit an artform’.

  43. turboterrier
    August 28, 2022

    My suggestion is to get rid of all the quango organisations and where considered they are actually not producing real hard value to GB plc reduce their budgets by 50%. We are in a nigh war situation and what may seem draconian measures must be put into place. If any sector, department, and committee in both civil and public areas have got to be judged solely on what is their real value. If their role can be taken back into the mainstream and absorbed within the existing organisation then millions will be saved in wages building, staffing, IT support etc costs. From next month the ball has to be changed to a very hard one. As a Prime Minister once said we are all in this together.

  44. […] The public sector may avoid wasting vitality to assist us out ā€“ John Redwood […]

  45. No Longer Anonymous
    August 28, 2022

    We could help Ukraine sue for peace with Russia and normalise trade in so far as we can. All very well Johnson’s “fight them on the beaches” jingoism.

    The energy crisis and looming food crisis is self inflicted and the sanctions are hurting us a lot more than Russia.

  46. Labels
    August 28, 2022

    What’s the betting that the lower minions who work for Spi B, The Nudge Unit, Nerve Tag, Sage etc
    aren’t so thrilled about their excitingly named outfits now.
    Ditto Spartans, various Research Groups and “influential” numbered committees.

  47. outsider
    August 28, 2022

    Dear Sir John, “Every little helps”. But:
    1.Even vaguely modern office block lighting systems should have motion sensors so that they automatically turn off if there is no-one about, especially outside standard hours. Are there still government offices without this facility?
    2.Councils like switching off street lights as an economy because it does not impinge on favoured services or cost any jobs. Good news for criminals and predators too. Bad for road safety, for both drivers and pedestrians. As someone whose home is a mile from the nearest street light, I would not recommend walking far on any but a clear moonlit night, even with a torch. And the time when fewest people are about tends to be the time when power demand is lowest.
    3. Another unfortunate economy in some rural areas has been to remove and not replace cats eyes (which use no power) when roads are resurfaced.

    1. a-tracy
      August 29, 2022

      Outsider, not replacing cats eyes is a serious mistake.

  48. Rhoddas
    August 28, 2022

    Sir J, just reading in the DT “Jacob Rees-Mogg to sell off Civil Service offices as staff refuse to stop working from home. Taxpayers should not have to ā€˜fork out for half-empty buildingsā€™, says minister for Brexit opportunities and government efficiency. If it’s good enough for JRM it’s good enough for me! Council offices, likewise!
    I posit this is a good way forward to reduce energy bills and also the cost of goverment to us the taxpayers!

    1. Narrow Shoulders
      August 28, 2022

      The unions will now say, our staff have no office to come to so you must pay for their home offices so they can work.

    2. Mickey Taking
      August 29, 2022

      We could lay rows of student type mattresses on the floors of these offices, and move the hotel illegal immigrants to live there. But no heating, no lights, no lifts, no canteens.

  49. X-Tory
    August 28, 2022

    Sir John, now that the merits of the lockdowns are finally a topic that can be discussed, can you PLEASE ask the minister what the QALY (Quality-Adjusted Life Years) cost was of the response to Covid – ie. lockdowns +vaccines + test and trace, etc? I have been asking this from the start but have never received a response. Do you think I ever will? The NICE threshold is about Ā£30,000. This was obviously exceeded – possibly a hundred-fold – by the government during Covid. I would like to see the PM, as well as the decision-making ‘Quad’ of Sunak, Gove, Hancock and Raab all prosecuted and personally sued for wilfully squandering public monies.

    1. No Longer Anonymous
      August 28, 2022

      The point is that Mr Sunak now wants us to believe that he was against lockdowns. Whether he really thought that at the time is immaterial. He thinks against the lockdowns now.

      1. Mickey Taking
        August 29, 2022

        He has become against due to his belief the public, ie the voters, feel that way.

    2. Philip P.
      August 29, 2022

      Prosecutions would help to prevent the country from experiencing malfeasance on this scale ever again. When the lockdown started, Neil Ferguson had given the Quad a get-out-of-jail card with his ‘reasonable worst case’ scenario figure of over half a million deaths. The cost would then have been around Ā£15 thousand million, X-Tory, using your NICE figure. So the initial ‘two-week’ lockdown could perhaps have been justified on that basis, if the calculation had been made. I think the malfeasance came later when it was clear that Ferguson’s reasonable worst case scenario was wildly unrealistic, yet ministers failed to consider the costs of lockdown against the much lower Infection Fatality Rate (similar to a bad flu outbreak) which became apparent by April 2020. It’s true that they still had the cover of claiming they were following expert advice, but that was only on the epidemiology side. They could surely be prosecuted for not seeking expert advice on the social and economic costs of what they were doing.

  50. Adams
    August 28, 2022

    Stop our war on Russia . Look after the UK first not Ukraine . Axe the Russia sanctions and buy their gas . Power costs must return to something approaching normality . NATO started this war and poor people in Britain will die of cold this winter. Who cares? Not Parliament that’s for sure .

    1. R.Grange
      August 29, 2022

      Unfortunately, Adams, it’s the EU that has to come its senses and stop its ludicrous energy war against Russia that is now threatening its own industries. Britain didn’t buy much gas from Russia anyway. How long will it take the EU to wake up to economic reality? Don’t hold your breath.

    2. Mickey Taking
      August 29, 2022

      Individual countries look east and see a threatening Russia led by a generally thought to be madman. Nato might offer some sort of protection, but in the meantime Russia invades and murders thousands of innocent citizens of Ukraine. So who started this war?

  51. Geoffrey Berg
    August 28, 2022

    The speculation now is Liz Truss is ruling out mitigating fuel charges for better off domestic payers.
    What she and her team don’t seem to realise is she is looking to run a democratic country, not a Company.
    If I was running Britain as a Company I would also be looking to escape with the least possible financial cost and so would not be that adverse to squeezing the most one can from better off people. However not only do better off people have votes but they also disproportionately influence how other people vote. So it is far better not to really annoy them personally as huge fuel prices would (whereas for instance HS2 won’t, so a proper economic decision can be taken about HS2).
    The energy companies’ proposal is a possible and less politically embarrassing alternative to following Starmer. Obviously if I had a company balance sheet mentality I would not be so keen. It does not take a genius to see it entails financial risks. Fuel companies may go bust and so not repay. Fuel prices may rocket further or not come down to present levels, so shattering the economics and anyhow it could give fuel companies too much economic power over the government. However their proposal to borrow the money from government to keep fuel prices down and repay over 15 years when fuel prices fall is politically very attractive.

  52. […] The public sector could save some energy to help us out ā€“ John Redwood […]

  53. a-tracy
    August 29, 2022

    There is much talk of Truss claiming back Ā£5000 for her energy costs. Must be on her second home, not clear if it is even true. Shouldnā€˜t MPs only be able to claim back the average cost of heating a two bed second home as a fixed allowance, if they blow too much energy heating homes that arenā€˜t occupied all the time, or on rather large work homes, why should the rest of us pay? Start budgeting hard at home and maybe you all wouldnā€˜t be so quick to raise the caps too high.

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