71 Comments

  1. Peter Gardner
    May 25, 2023

    For anyone tempted to give up on the audio after the first few minutes, do persevere. The problem is AGC so when they start speaking into the microphones at 3:30 all is well. Alternatively, download it and delete the first 3 minutes 30 seconds.

  2. Mark B
    May 25, 2023

    Good morning.

    Our kind host mentions two things :

    1. You listen to your customers.

    2. You communicate with the work force.

    From those two things many other things flow. Now look at both the UK Government and Local Government. As ‘customers’ do those here feel that either listen to them ? And then there is communication, which is two way. Our kind host mentioned that two of the five governments communicated with their central banks and worked out what was in their national interest and acted accordingly.

    Japan can keep interest rates very low because they have two of the largest Sovereign Wealth Funds in the world. They also have a very efficient manufacturing sector.

    Also a very good explanation of what happened over the BoE and the UK budget. Clearly the Truss administration was shafted.

    1. Ashley
      May 25, 2023

      Indeed Truss and Kwasi got all the blame for the idiotic policies of Sunak as Chancellor and Andrew Bailey at the Bank of currency debasement. They never really had any chance the Tory MPs wanted Socialist (now remainer) tax to death borrow, print and waste and greencrap pusher Sunak.

      1. glen cullen
        May 25, 2023

        Spot on Ashley

      2. Donna
        May 26, 2023

        I doubt if many Tory MPs really wanted them – but they do want to keep their cosy taxpayer-funded ride on the gravy-train.

        But the WEF certainly did and Tory MPs knew what they had to do.

  3. Lifelogic
    May 25, 2023

    Why did you not point out that CO2 is not a serious problem anyway indeed almost certainly a net benefit as it is food for plants, trees, crops and this together with water gives us the O2 with all breath? Also that EV cars are not only far more expensive, shorter lived and heavier but over the lifetime from build to recycling they cause far more CO2 than keeping your old ICU car anyway. Plus we do not have spare low CO2 electricity free for them anyway.

    Green Hydrogen is an absurdly energy efficient and expensive way to store and transmit energy. Far better to find other ways to use the power that wind farms generate when it is not really needed. Heat pumps to heat storage systems for large buildings can work well (heat up things to use the heat later) or for refrigeration (taking the temp lower than needed then switching it off for say 24 hours until cooling is needed again). Or for EV charging Electrical energy is generally worth three+ times what gas energy is. So you are generating electricity than converting it to gas chemical energy worth less than 1/3 of the value, is more expensive to compete and with cost and losses in the system you end up throwing away circa 4/5s of the value. If you convert if back to electricity you perhaps end up with just 20% of what you started with and at vast cost. Bonkers as Boris might put it.

    You could also have pointed out that contrary to the drivel on some government websites walking and cycling (fuelled by human food) do produce both direct and indirect CO2. Indeed a full car is far more efficient in CO2 terms than both of these methods of transport. This a human food is a very inefficient form of energy when production, fertiliser, preparation, storage, cooking, packaging is fully considered. Especially for a typical UK diet.

    1. Lifelogic
      May 25, 2023

      Green Hydrogen is an absurdly energy “inefficient” I meant

    2. Peter VAN LEEUWEN
      May 26, 2023

      @Lifelogic:
      Interesting that after many years you still believe that a full car produces less CO2 than walking or cycling. Is this by only eating beef and by forgetting the CO2 footprint of fossil fuel production?
      Iā€™d be interested in your source because my sources give completely different calculations, in which the bicycle is always the clear winner. To which I migh add: How about annually saving 3% of your GDP solely on health benefits by a real cycling culture, sustained by relatively low investments?

      1. Mark B
        May 26, 2023

        Good morning.

        How about annually saving 3% of your GDP solely on health benefits by a real cycling culture . . .

        The Netherlands is very small and flat whereas the UK is quite a bit larger with hilly and mountainous areas in some regions. Even in London when I rode my bike the other day, there are some very steep hills.

        So please do not compare apples to oranges, PvR. And please do not assume that we in the UK all car dwellers.

        1. Peter+VAN+LEEUWEN
          May 29, 2023

          @Mark B: I must assume that you’ve heard about electric bicycles, which easily help you over overcome a hill.

    3. Ed M
      May 27, 2023

      Yes, but then there are the costs in health. People who drive are tend to be more fat and unhealthy than people who walk and cycle. Which means BILLIONS more of tax payers money being spent on people not taking exercise. Exercise is huge to good healthy and reducing hefty NHS costs.

      1. Ed M
        May 27, 2023

        So the let’s keep driving over walking / cycle is a complete non-starter.

        (Btw, I LOVE cars and tech too. We need them as much as we need people living healthy lives and taking exercise … Question of balance. But the gas-guzzling-driving days are gone. Welcome green tech. And how this can TRANSFORM our British economy. Not ’cause of what you or I think, but ’cause what the consumer has decided. And the customer is always right (and doesn’t matter why the customer thinks as they do. Entrepreneurs don’t care about that but how to make money from this).

    4. dixie
      May 27, 2023

      So your plans for the UK car industry is for them not to sell any cars at all, thereby avoiding generation of more CO2 than EVs, and you propose using surplus energy to heat homes and offices whether they need heating or not. Brilliant.

  4. Lifelogic
    May 25, 2023

    As to the hydrogen village is would make far more sense to transmit the unwanted electricity to the village as electricity use this with heat pumps to make a store of heat and use this store of heat perhaps using heat pumps again to heat the houses and hot water. This way you perhaps get about three or even four times as much heat per KWH from the electricity. Plus are easier to transmit.

    Electricity to green hydrogen to boiler is very expensive and you perhaps get just 40% of the energy as heat rather than 400% not such a great plan?

    Then again fracking and gas boilers might be better still. Indeed something to be said for small gas generators of electricity and heat combined in some buildings and ditch the grid electrical supply.

    1. glen cullen
      May 25, 2023

      Agree – There’s nothing wrong with fossil fuels

    2. Lifelogic
      May 25, 2023

      The reasons for pushing Hydrogen to this government seems to be as simplistic and totally wrong headed as “H2 does not contain any Carbon atoms so must be Good”. So what, generating the H2 especially so called “green” H2 will cost a fortune, waste huge amounts of energy and will produce carbon. Look at all the concrete, steel and diesel ships needed to install and maintains the intermittent and hugely expensive wind turbines.

      Storing electrical energy as “green” hydrogen make no sense in economic terms, environmental term or even in CO2 terms with current tech. – Perhaps is might one day in a tiny few rather specialist areas. Even converting methane to H2 is hugely wasteful in energy terms and H2 is worse in many ways than the methane that you started with.

      1. Bloke
        May 26, 2023

        Hot and Cold act like lovers. They attract each other and work toward a temperature of compromise. Loving homes need both with loyalty for happiness. Too often Hot jumps out of the window to let off steam with a cool partner outside. Keeping Hot well occupied in house would prevent wasting energies.

    3. MFD
      May 25, 2023

      Lifelogic,
      1 U-value, no matter how much you insulate you will always loose heat by transmission. You eventually loose what you are trying to store.
      2 Transfer between energy forms also has losses. Therefor electric to hydrogen also results in less energy, even to use electric to drive heat pumps is not economical. These are the reason the theories our non technical politicians push are failures.

    4. glen cullen
      May 25, 2023

      India’s overall coal production has gone up by 47% to 894 million tonnes over the last nine years ā€¦while the UKā€™s has reduced to zero

    5. glen cullen
      May 25, 2023

      Chinese space start-up launches the worldā€™s first rocket powered by ā€˜coalā€™
      Space Pioneerā€™s Tianlong-2 launch of a rocket powered by coal-based aviation kerosene is being hailed as an aerospace industry breakthrough
      The innovation may provide secure, efficient and sustainable energy for Chinaā€™s aerospace industry

  5. DOM
    May 25, 2023

    ‘sustainable economic growth’?

    Meaningless phrases like this do nothing to expose the collectivist, authoritarian intent behind the ideological cancer of environmentalism and the contrived climate change political project whose only aim is State theft from the private sector

    Like most politicians John and his backbench colleagues are captured by a vicious and brutal narrative that demand adherence with the subtle threat of exclusion, punishment and disgrace should that adherence be not forthcoming.

    I see no point in even expressing a view if that view is not from the heart. Expressing a view after filtering it through a myriad prisms renders it worthless and utterly without merit

    1. Ashley
      May 25, 2023

      Meaningless phrases indeed this stating the obvious or lying is art of politics.

      The first question from the female student as to the difference between Green Tech (government know bests so do I we say) agenda and Digital/IT/Electronic Tech (customer know best agenda) rather showed she was rather missing the basic point of the lecture or just simply not listening or bothering to think.

      Reading seems to be about 30th in the university tables of circa 130 universities. Perhaps all those below about Reading should go back to teaching practical skills like building all then new houses needed for the 750K PA of migrants arriving due to Sunak’s open door to all migrants policies. See figures released later today. Average entrance for Reading is 124 points so about three Bs at A level (about D or E level in my day as now we have A*s and standards have declined overall very significantly). So 50% are below even this. They have not really even grasped their A levels. What happens at the universities that are below 100 in the tables? Soft loans for worthless degrees are a huge waste of money and lumber student with huge debts and worthless bits of paper too.

      So the government want to limits the rights of family members of UK University Students to live in the UK to only PHD students. Alas in the UK not only are about 75% of undergraduate degrees in the UK almost worthless but it is the same for PHDs. Many are in pointless subjects anyway too.

      Andrew Bailey has a PhD from the Faculty of History, Cambridge with a thesis on “The impact of the Napoleonic Wars on the development of the cotton industry in Lancashire: a study of the structure and behaviour of firms during the Industrial Revolution.”

      Yet the man is so daft he seems to think all personal overdrafts should be at rip off one size for all 40%+ rates and that printing money does not cause huge inflation! Probably he thinks we should go back to windmills and watermills for power too in Carney mode.

    2. formula57
      May 25, 2023

      @ DOM – economic growth that consumes resources that are not replaceable might often be helpfully distinguished from growth that consumes those that can be replaced (and therefore called sustainable).

    3. Richard II
      May 25, 2023

      I didn’t get that impression. The way the talk came across to me was as a challenge to future entrepreneurs that the public are at present not buying their green dream, and what are they going to do about it? Of course, that should be an open question, where the answer can go either way: maybe the public can be persuaded to buy it, but on the other hand if future entrepreneurs still can’t get the public onside with the net zero narrative, they should drop it. It should not be a one-way implication that the public aren’t buying it and therefore you have to make them buy it. I didn’t quite hear Sir John drawing that conclusion, but confronting indoctrination and ideology is perhaps best done in gentle steps, so as not to scare the indoctrinated off. Whether that’s a winning strategy I don’t know, but I wish him well with it.

      Reply – Yes, it needs to be a popular revolution driven by products we want to buy.

      1. glen cullen
        May 25, 2023

        This government needs to stop banning things that the public want to buy ….its called consumer choice and market forces competition, something the Tories did in bygone times

    4. Jim+Whitehead
      May 25, 2023

      DOM, ++++++
      Iā€™m in heartfelt agreement with your comments

    5. 7th attempt
      May 25, 2023

      7th attempt to reply.
      “exclusion , punishment and disgrace”
      Dom is a Doomster.
      I like Charles ( I loved Diana ), I like Camilla , I like JR.
      All may or may not have erred (sp) when younger.
      The public can see who is ok.*****00000000
      If you always tell the truth all will be well.

    6. dixie
      May 27, 2023

      @Dom – So you didn’t listen to the talk at all, merely reacted to some words plucked from the title. What I heard was the suggestion that sustainable economic growth comes from producing goods and services people want to buy, which is quite different from the rant you’ve contrived.

  6. Gabe
    May 25, 2023

    So Graham Stuart read Philosophy and Law at Selwyn College but failed his degree. Yet Sunak thought he was perfect to be the Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (a contradiction in terms anyway). Almost as bad a decision as appointing someone who failed their maths O level as Chancellor as Thatcher did with Major who then gave us the disaster of ERM.

    The minister is it seems responsible for the following:

    carbon budgets
    green finance
    energy efficiency and heat, including fuel poverty
    clean heat
    low carbon generation
    energy retail markets
    oil and gas, including shale gas
    security of supply
    electricity and gas wholesale markets and networks
    international energy
    EU energy and climate
    energy security, including resilience and emergency planning

    Does the man have a physics A level or even an O level, does he understand entropy or even the difference between energy and power or how it is generated and transmitted? Our energy policy is a total disaster and one can certainly see why as it is driven by a deluded group think religion, corruption, vested interests trying to harvesting tax payer grants and almost total ignorance. Also the dire fools at the Committee for Climate Change. Yet almost all MPs want this lunacy.

    1. Lifelogic
      May 25, 2023

      Put someone sensible like Lord Peter Lilley in charge!

      1. Comments
        May 25, 2023

        “I have a little list Peter Lilley ” You Tube
        Still there.

    2. Gabe
      May 25, 2023

      Or even a Maths A level?

    3. turboterrier
      May 25, 2023

      Gabe
      Very good post.

    4. Jim+Whitehead
      May 25, 2023

      Gabe, ++++++

    5. Mark B
      May 25, 2023

      The last thing the Establishment wants is someone who knows :

      a) what they are doing.
      b) knows more than them and can expose the SCAM.

  7. Bloke
    May 25, 2023

    Renegade Banks is a fitting title for those with deviant behaviour.

    1. formula57
      May 25, 2023

      @ Bloke – a kind thought but I will stay with “Mr.” if I may.

  8. Sakara Gold
    May 25, 2023

    It was a good speech delivered with panache once I found it, though I prefer the circular economy model powered by the inexaustible supply of renewable energy that is avaiable to us.

    1. Martin in Bristol
      May 26, 2023

      Until the sun doesn’t shine enough or the wind doesn’t blow hard enough SG
      To call it “inexaustable” isn’t correct.

  9. Lifelogic
    May 25, 2023

    Put someone sensible like Lord Peter Lilley in charge!

    1. Mike Wilson
      May 25, 2023

      Put someone sensible like Lord Peter Lilley in charge!

      Youā€™re always on about degrees. Does a degree in economics qualify someone to run energy?

      Greatest PM? Churchill?! Described as ā€˜not academicā€™.

  10. Ashley
    May 25, 2023

    Renegade – a person who deserts and betrays an organization, country, or set of principles.
    “an agent who later turns out to be a renegade” having treacherously changed allegiance.

    So not Renegade Banks but Renegade Bankers (and Renegade Chancellors who hire and (rarely) fire them).

  11. agricola
    May 25, 2023

    I prefer to read a script than sit with my phone clamped to my ear.

  12. formula57
    May 25, 2023

    Inevitably not much new for us Redwoodistas but it was nice to have a clear, concise and persuasive recitation of many main themes. Call me old-fashioned but Henley would have done well to ask more penetrating questions I feel.

    On motor cars, does not the Beetle eclipse the achievements of the Mini and the Golf as well as being the original? And it may be unhelpful to recall the Beetle came about because of government intervention!

    1. formula57
      May 25, 2023

      original if one overlooks Henry Ford’s Model T of course!

      1. Mark B
        May 26, 2023

        +1

        The Model T was more revolutionary as it brought together both new forms of manufacturing (assembly line) and marketing (any colour so long as its black and, affordable transport for the masses)

        1. formula57
          May 26, 2023

          @ Mark B – although Ford’s great contribution was not the assembly line (used prior to Ford at the Springfield Rifle company) but process engineering of course.

  13. glen cullen
    May 25, 2023

    Not the American pie ā€˜the day the music diedā€™ but with the Tory immigration figures out today ā€˜the day the tories diedā€™

    1. Mark B
      May 26, 2023

      “It is but a scratch”, said the Black Knight (aka Rishi Sunak).

      For the lovers of Monty Python.

  14. turboterrier
    May 25, 2023

    The only conclusion you can arrive at there has got to be some very big incentives that prevent all those converts who have committed themselves to the new religion of Saving the World to totally ignore all the counter arguments that are presented by very experienced, qualified scientists engineers and academics on so many blogs and debates on a very regular basis.
    I was always a bit worried when what appeared to be a one sided process was presented for consideration. For it to suceed there has to be a balanced data collected on the pros and cons before trials were initiated.
    With all the money still not made public for the total NZ implementation programme I find it very strange that there has not been fully open debate and investigation into the whole NZ dream by fully qualified by people on both sides of the arguement instead of three or four people’s committees dictating the course for government to take. Maybe the vast majority of MPs find it too much of a bind to actually research the whole subject in depth.
    .

    1. glen cullen
      May 25, 2023

      China, India nor Russia are interested in saving the world

  15. Mickey Taking
    May 25, 2023

    net Migration figure goes up by 20%.

    1. Mickey Taking
      May 25, 2023

      500,000 extra per year gets talked about – now its 600,000 ……silence.

      1. glen cullen
        May 26, 2023

        Stalin famously said, ā€œThe ‘illegal immigrant’ of one man is a tragedy. The ‘illegal immigrant’ of a million is a statistic.ā€

  16. Bryan Harris
    May 25, 2023

    Great speech…. and good to hear a sensible one that doesn’t pull any punches.

    Keep up the good work, please JR

  17. Narrow Shoulders
    May 25, 2023

    Is 1.2 million people arriving in the country in one year sustainable and has it achieved growth?

    1. Narrow Shoulders
      May 26, 2023
  18. Cuibono
    May 25, 2023

    Begging permissionā€¦

    A petition from Migration Watch.
    Very few signatures so far. Yes I knowā€¦petitions donā€™t workā€¦ but we donā€™t have much else!

    https://cutimmigration.co.uk/petition/share/

  19. Keith from Leeds
    May 25, 2023

    Should you be giving this lecture at Reading University? Surely this lecture should be given to Conservative MPs, including the PM & Chancellor. For example, they will destroy the UK car industry & 800,000 jobs if they don’t start listening to people who are not brainwashed by net zero. How incredible that with a war going on in Europe involving a major energy & food supplier, Russia, & a major food supplier, Ukraine, our government is not going flat out to secure energy security using all our resources & getting food security as close to 100% as possible? Do they even believe in the UK & its people?

    1. glen cullen
      May 25, 2023

      We might lose 80,000 jobs in the automotive sector but the Tories are creating 4,000 jobs building green batteries for Chinese imported EVs ā€¦.madness

  20. Original Richard
    May 25, 2023

    Gabe :

    I agree completely except I think it was the Civil service who selected him because he knows nothing about energy. As has been the case for all his predecessors.

    The Departmentā€™s name is a deliberate oxymoron and akin to the Ministry of Truth.

    So confident are the Civil Servants of their position they can take the mickey even with the naming of the Department.

  21. agricola
    May 25, 2023

    The subject today is Nett Migration of supposedly 606000. What we are deliberately not told is how many UK citizens elected to migrate to other parts of the World. They would of necessity be financially secure. Lets assume if was 300000 which means that the real figure for immigrants entering the UK was 906000. Add to that about 45000 illegals and we have a gross figure of 951000. This is the figure that is most important because to varying degrees the UK taxpayer has to in part fund them.
    Some immigrants are students. Fine, but are they compelled to leave after a 3 year degree. If they bring dependent relatives with them, are these relatives compelled to leave once the degree has been obtained or is it as I suspect, once in they are in permanently. Why relatives at all, part of the purpose of university is to learn to stand on ones own two feet.
    Excessive immigration, and todays figures are mega, was one of the reasons people voted Brexit. My observation is that one by one the reasons for Brexit are being ignored in our governments desire to placate and stay closer to the EU. The current direction of this government is of no consequence to its members, but rest assured it is very different for the man in the street who pays and suffers for it. So prepare for opposition or obscurity.

    Reply They did give us gross and net numbers. Well over 1 million inbound

    1. beresford
      May 25, 2023

      Add to that all those who have entered the country undetected. I understand that estimates from supermarket food sales and volumes of sewage suggest that the population is substantially higher than the official figures.

  22. glen cullen
    May 25, 2023

    Home Office ā€“ 24 May 2023
    Illegal Immigrants ā€“ 98
    Boats ā€“ 2
    ā€¦.wasnā€™t Sunak going to stop the boats ?

    1. Mickey Taking
      May 25, 2023

      Our gunboats were retired years ago!

  23. blackbird singing
    May 25, 2023

    How do I keep on an even keel ?
    Read a lot.
    Watch old DVDs ( from ebay)
    Scroll through Bitchute daily ( headlines only)
    Have faith in myself.
    Get yourself on an even keel .
    Mundane life is wonderful.

  24. Mickey Taking
    May 25, 2023

    a lesson to be learned?

  25. Mike Wilson
    May 25, 2023

    Where are all these new people living? There was empty accommodation for 600,000 people?

    Where are all the people leaving going? Are they still moving to France, Spain etc?

    1. Mark B
      May 26, 2023

      Australia, Canada and the USA I reckon. Lower taxes and a better way of life.

    2. dixie
      May 27, 2023

      Where are they moving? Ask Ashley aka LifeLogic who left some time ago but appears to regret it every day considering how much he moans about our government. Not a peep of complaint about his government though, interesting.

  26. dixie
    May 27, 2023

    An interesting talk, thanks for posting it. I would argue though that an element of government funding and direction is common to both the green and digital revolutions, to a degree. Market growth of digital products and services certainly developed bottom up but the original, enabling investments in electronics, computing and communications came from government defence spending.

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