Over the last week there has been a big row about the state of some school buildings. More than thirty years ago various local Education Authorities and schools built some facilities using a porous type of cement. Subsequently there has been professional advice made public that this material can fail after a few decades of use. All professionals involved with building construction and maintenance have known that if they are responsible for any such buildings they need to be regularly checked, strengthened if there are signs of deterioration or replaced in serious cases.
A worried Minister and senior officials in the Department for Education were concerned at the lack of actions over these buildings and so sent round a questionnaire, drawing attention to the issue and seeking to find out what was going on. The law provides for local responsibilities under the devolved framework for education.. The Local Education Authorities and the Governors and senior managers of the state schools are responsible for the upkeep and safety of their buildings. Where an LEA school has subsequently become an Academy Trust the responsibility switched to the Trust though the Trust may well expect the LEA to assist where it took over buildings that contained this concrete without a proper disclosure by the LEA.
It is a bizarre row that the Opposition are making, saying it is for the government to reveal its list of schools with problems, when the government’s Information comes from the schools and the schools have to follow up and remedy the issues. Surely the burden of disclosure rests with the LEAs and the schools who must know which schools are at risk and what they are doing about. The big majority of schools can today put on social media a simple statement they have none of this concrete. The ones that do have it should put out a fuller statement saying how they have handled the issue and if there are any consequences for lessons next week. Ministers have not visited most of these schools and do not know the condition of the buildings. They do not control the maintenance budgets and contracts. The whole idea of localism is to get these kind of decisions taken by people on the spot who work or visit the buildings regularly and understand the issues. Ministers can of course as they did in this case highlight possible problems for local Councils and institutions to resolve, but Ministers should be careful not to assume control and with it responsibility. What is the point of all the cost and personnel involved in local government and school government if they do not even mend the roof?
The government is generally in danger of trying to do much and intervening too often, often at great expense. The Energy Bill is another good example. This Bill sets out a course for large scale spending on carbon capture and storage. This will need to be highly subsidised, or if charged to customers will be a further ratchet in the UK’s high energy prices, forcing more UK industry to close and more imports to replace it. The idea behind carbon capture is if money is spent harvesting CO2 and storing it in old gas wells the UK could burn a bit more fossil fuel in the knowledge that the extra CO2 that produced will be taken out of the air by the carbon storage system.
There are several problems with this idea. If other countries do not do the same the UK is left with dearer energy. We will make less and import more. World CO2 volumes will increase by at least all the extra CO2 long haul transport from abroad for the goods may generate, and may increase further because for example the goods come from China still burning a lot of coal in its energy mix. The extra costs will in the first instance attract substantial government subsidies and spending, putting more upwards pressure on interest rates and limiting the scope for tax cuts. If at the same time as putting in carbon storage the government continues to run down UK produced gas and imports more LNG that will also raise CO 2 output worldwide as LNG generates so much more CO 2 than North Sea gas down a pipe.
It is a bad idea that the UK should allocate £20 billion spending to this technology before competitors agree to adopt it and at a time when total public spending is too high. The Energy Bill contains other interventions that will damage UK busines and cost too much. The government is wrong to take heavy handed powers to make people insulate their homes or adopt particular heating and transport technologies. The market is best placed to develop great green products. Like smartphones and on line shopping green products will sell themselevs when they cut our energy bills and give us a better life. Create a good framework for setting up and growing a business, with lower taxes to attract corporate investment. That would progress the green revolution better than hundreds of pages of restrictive regulation, windfall taxes and imposition on individuals.
Governments can try to do too much. When it tries to back winners it often finds losers apply for the money. When it tells people what to do and what to buy it builds up their resentment and is often self defeating. When government seeks to cut carbon dioxide output in the UK it usually boosts it globally by requiring CO 2 heavy imports. When it seeks to help devolved governments and institutions who have not sort out their own problems it just ends up taking the blame for their failings. The government should learn from the bad misjudgment of the Mayor of London to tax older vans and cars, leading to a rush of lawbreaking with many attacks on much hated cameras.
September 7, 2023
An appalling energy bill that only 19 Tory MPs voted against it is a damning inditement on the scientific ignorance and stupidity of our MPs.
Allister Heath correct as usual today:- Labour and Tories have joined forces to condemn Britain to national failure.
The political elite has given up on fixing the UK. The views of the two parties are virtually indistinguishable.
September 7, 2023
Virtually indistinguishable, totally wrong headed and politically hugely unpopular too!
September 7, 2023
+++
What if we just say…
OK I will have NO electric and NO gas?
Take it away! ( Yes I guess that then they’d ban paraffin and wood burners)
This is all VERY BAD INDEED.
You can see why govt.s worked so hard at destroying large powerful families.
And has taken away our means of defence.
Armed police and over-mighty govt. were England’s two terrors.
September 7, 2023
This government isn’t banning vehicles, its banning ICE vehicles so you can only buy EV vehicles, likewise, they’re not banning multi-fuel stoves, however you can only buy an ‘ecodesign’ stove
Another scam, another under-the-counter deal, another step to the left …your socialist tory government
September 7, 2023
+++
So are they actually proposing prison sentences for not buying the right stove?
What if you can’t afford it?
And only 19 voted against this outrage.
September 7, 2023
I foresee a huge market in the repair, refurbishment and resale of internal combustion engined vehicles. Until the government bans that as well.
September 7, 2023
So Norway exploits the North Sea and the dumb Sunak pays for said gas and oil to be exported here!! Come on, JR, he is that thick? Is your cabinet that stupid? Why is your party and govt betraying our nation while wrecking the economy?
September 7, 2023
Today BBC Justin Rolat pushing climate change for all it’s worth.
Only the sixth time in a century thar September temperatures have exceeded 30 degrees. Why wasn’t the previous 5 caused by climate change, in 1930 it was only warm weather.
Let’s have an election and clear out the dross of all parties. Reform is the only solution.
September 7, 2023
A quick glance at gridwatch and the windmills are producing 1.5gw, it’s sy.mer and we’re running a coal fired plants and an open circuit gas turbine. The politicians just voted to increase thus madness. We’re doomed.
September 7, 2023
Correct
September 7, 2023
The man is bonkers, yet another PPE graduate with zero grasp of science or energy economics or engineering just like Sunak, Hunt, Hancock… the usual BBC propaganda!
September 7, 2023
Agreed – and what a power grab by the Government in micro-managing our lives – or did most MPs not realise this at the time?
September 7, 2023
LL,
Only 9 Tories the rest were mainly DUP.
OT:
JR,
Under this building storm Sunak has signed the country up to EU Horizon. Could you tell us at what cost, what ties etc. He has form selling out the nation to the EU, using the building scandal this slipped out.
Will your party ever accept we voted to leave the EU and not want EU energy connectors to hold us ransom, we want our fishing waters back to help to be self sufficient in food- not linked to EU energy supply, we do not want level playing field on environment we want to build reservoirs, decide what energy we have and from where ie fracked gas, oil, North Sea gas, coal and other sensible cheap source of energy, and govt to do what we consider best for our country, to the world, EU, US or Africa!
September 7, 2023
We no longer live in a democracy ….our voice is lost, our tory voting voice is ignored …democracy died when the tories along with parliament decided NOT to implement the referendum in full
September 7, 2023
Its now obvious that sunak and possibly the king caved in to the eu over the so called Windsor agreement.
Disgusting, totally against the wishes of a majority in Britain.
September 7, 2023
Rejoining Horizon is a sensible step in undoing the damage done by this government’s previous choices. Not being part of Horizon has been a big impediment to attracting academic talent to the UK. I saw it reported that just 3 people have applied under the UK Global Talent Visa since it was first introduced in 2020. It’s pointless having schemes that nobody wants to use because other government policies have made it completely unattractive.
Perhaps the next step could be to reverse the damage done to the UK music industry (ending the 3 stop cabotage limitation, carnet requirements, customs paperwork etc.) by this government’s previous choices. And then move onto the next step, and the one after that.
September 7, 2023
Research professional news says otherwise Peter: RPN understands that a total of 6,067 applicants applied through the wider Global Talent route in the 12 months prior to March 2023, up from 3,688 in the preceding 12-month period.9 Aug 2023
Global Talent Visa UK success rate is about 50 to 60 percent. In 2022, 2,560 visas were granted in this category.3 Jul 2023
What are those steps Peter, trapped back into the Single Market then the Customs Union then complete and utter capitulation by the Labour lot.
September 7, 2023
Even more depressing, so just 9 sensible Tory MPs.
September 7, 2023
@Lifelogic
The only scientific ignorance shown on this blog is your irrational and delusional belief that fossil fuel derived CO2 is of benefit to the planet.
September 7, 2023
SG
That comment should be applied to you
Several well respected Climate Scientists who I have named have revealed exactly what the UN intentions are
How about quoting the source for your information and not make wild assumptions?
Just saying
September 8, 2023
What is your source for these ‘Respected Climate Scientists’, L_C? What are the UN intentions?
‘How about quoting the source for your information and not make wild assumptions?’
September 7, 2023
Balderdash, SG! the eu are totally untrustworthy.
September 7, 2023
I realise that you care very deeply about this, but the plants in my garden could not care less where their CO2 lifeline is coming from, and they are helping to provide me with Oxygen.
And you.
September 7, 2023
A little more CO2 plant, tree and crop food is indeed a net benefit for the planet. CO2 is vital for life on earth. We actually live in a relative dearth of CO2 in historical terms. Look up the historical facts.
You were also completely wrong on the CO2 emissions of manufacturing EVs have you checked this yet and corrected yourself?
September 7, 2023
Google William Happer,
Professor of Physics, Emeritus, Princeton University
Richard Lindzen,
Professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Patrick Moore
And a dearth of CO2!
September 7, 2023
+++
Saw that vid.
We have very, very low levels of CO2 historically speaking.
Almost at danger point I think he said?
September 8, 2023
Lifelogic, Everhopeful, both completely bonkers with your ‘dearth of CO2’.
How can it be a ‘dearth’’ when present concentration is 410+ ppm while it was about 310 ppm around 1900?
September 7, 2023
don’t forget botanist david bellamy
September 7, 2023
I am no Lifelogic apologist but when he responds to your posts you ignore him.
Put up of be perceived to be wrong.
September 7, 2023
Narrow shoulders = narrow mind?
September 7, 2023
LL
Are the political elite even trying to fix things? Reading around the subject, this point was set in motion some years ago with the specific aim of destroying Britain as it was.
September 7, 2023
Allister Heath is spot on it is all very depressing:-
“The Tories’ Left-wards drift continues to shock. Michael Gove is citing the Marxist economist Thomas Piketty and calling for “extracting what we need for public services from those who operate in a rentier fashion”.
Jeremy Hunt, whose big idea was to lower the threshold at which the 45p tax rate kicks in, has resumed Sunak’s policy to appoint Left-wing, Remainer economists to top positions, including to the Monetary Policy Committee. Sushil Wadhwani, a member of his advisory council, wants a 100 per cent tax on pay rises above 3 per cent.
Regardless of who wins, there will be no radical simplification of our absurdly complex tax system. The Civil Service will continue to be ever more openly Left-wing. The Bank of England will still misunderstand how the economy works, fuelling inflation and bubbles, precipitating busts and campaigning against Brexit and for net zero.”
Sensible people should perhaps leave now a year more on Con-Socialist then perhaps three+ terms of a large Labour majority is very depressing.
September 7, 2023
Even if Sir John’s party inadmissingly and secretly adopts and practices Marxism in full, or that of any other politics dangerous for us, with any level of anti democracy or authoritarianism and our betrayal, as long as it calls itself Conservative Sir John will remain totally loyal. He may be critical but that will be all.
How can he continue in such a party in such a small minority?
Reply Nonsense. I speak and vote against my party when they are badly wrong as again this week.
September 7, 2023
Trouble is. Is it still just a game? Politics is one thing but….
It seems as if everything is getting a bit…errr…dangerous.
I never wanted to live in a totalitarian state.
And I didn’t vote for it ( except through mistaken trust).
September 7, 2023
Agreed. The House of Common should be renamed the House of Chumps. CO2 is beneficial because it is necessary to promote plant growth. The alarms sounded by the BBC daily over global temperatures are based on dodgy data. When the climate “scientists” changed the way global temperatures were measured in 1990 from using c 4200 stations to c 1200 stations they retained only 200 of the old stations (less tha 5%). They eliminated everything at altitude and sought to locate the new stations as close as possible to sea level and at airports. There was also a shift towards the equator. These changes were significant because every 300ft change in altitude results in c 0.65 C change in temperature. Every 200km increase in latitude away from the equator results in 1C cooler temperature. When asked to produce a parallel run of the two measurement systems by the enquiry into climategate the University of East Anglia said they could not do so because they had destroyed all their records. Shamefully the HoC Select Committee failed to press them further on this fundamental issue. Instead it was swept under the carpet. It’s successor in the next Parliament also ignored the issue. It is not surprising that the slope measuring global temperatures increased post 1990. It was designed to do so.
September 7, 2023
What a ridiculous comment:
Over the British Isles, The MetOffice includes about 200 automatic and non-automatic synoptic station measurements in its analyses. (MetOffice.gov.uk ‘Weather stations’).
Considering the land masses of the world about 4000 stations are in the WMO Regional Basic Synoptic Network and about 3000 more in the Regional Basic Climatological Network.
(wmo.int ‘Global Observing System’, see also ‘Observations-Data-Modelling’).
And that do not include the buoys in the oceans, nor the retrievals of temperature (usually profiles of) from satellite measurements in the infrared and microwave parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, with a horizontal resolution roughly of 30×30 km^2, twice a day from the polar orbiting satellites, every 30 minutes from the geostationary ones.
All these data enter the (twice-)daily analyses run by the meteorological services.
Do you guys ever check before writing comments?
Reply A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. You still need to check where these data points are and if there are distortions in the data.
September 7, 2023
Hef
Typically impertinent comment from you
Indeed a little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing as you have just convincingly proven
If you can’t stand the heat keep out of the kitchen …/ Harry S Truman
September 8, 2023
Lester
Another point about global temperature recording is the recent change in the mix of satellites versus Earth recording stations.
Less satellite more Earth.
Result of the change?
I bet you can guess
September 10, 2023
Absolutely wrong MiB. The volume of satellite data used in creating the initial conditions for weather forecasts has been multiplied by at least a factor 10 between the 1980s and the 2020s.
See ‘Assimilation of satellite data in numerical weather prediction. Part I: The early years’, J.R.Eyre et al., 2020, Quart.J.Roy.Met.Soc., 146, 49-68, doi.org/10.1002/qj.3654.
idem. Part II: Recent years’, 2022, J.R.Eyre et al., Quart.J.Roy.Met.Soc., 148, 521-546, doi.org/10.1002/qj.4228.
and/or ‘Progress achieved on assimilation of satellite data in numerical weather prediction’, John Eyre, 2008, ecmwf.int, 28 pp.
September 7, 2023
It is not ridiculous but factual. Over time there have been many changes in the composition of the stations used to measure global temperatures. It is elementary to want to know what these changes to the measurement system mean. The failure to so so is a stain on the integrity of the system.
September 7, 2023
That’s relative John.There are those who lean on traditional organisations names and back them up with vigour thinking it will improve their own status,but it doesn’t.True knowledge isn’t owned.
September 7, 2023
We’re those 4000 stations in the same place 20 years ago?
10?
5?
Yesterday?
September 8, 2023
And where is my reply to to your reply?
September 8, 2023
Check onMet office Gov stations! Omg.
September 7, 2023
But at the time of any transfer to academy status the information of faulty, time dependent durability was not disclosed.Obviously this is because it wasn’t known, yet if one party passes on to another an undisclosed problem then the responsibility is with the original owner.
September 7, 2023
“It is a bad idea that the UK should allocate £20 billion spending… (to Carbon Capture and Storage).
It is a moronic waste of money (£700 per household) plus it will push up energy prices even further with zero benefit). We have no climate emergency caused by CO2 plant, tree and crop food, many other countries will (very sensibly) not follow anyway and a bit more CO2 is a net benefit on balance. The push to scrap perfectly working old ICE cars to replace them with new inferior EVs also costs a fortune and actually increases CO2. We are governed by scientifically and economically ignorant halfwits (and or people on the make). The climate change act, this energy bill, the climate change committee chaired by Lord Gummer/Debden and May’s moronic net zero all need to be repealed and/or abolished. Yet just 19 MPs, how depressing we have such damn fools as MPs, Lawyers, Politics, PPE, Sociology graduate types..
.
September 7, 2023
LL :
Correct, we are ruled by an idiocracy.
It is useful to note that those with a higher intellect (aka the “chattering classes”) as evidenced by their degrees in the non-stem subjects such as the arts, politics, history (ancient and modern), languages (ancient, English and foreign), social geography and the law etc., and consequently now head up and control all our major institutions – Parliament, the Civil Service, the NHS, quangos, educational and research establishments, judiciary, the police, the MSM/BBC etc. are those who are the most susceptible to false memes and cults.
September 7, 2023
Margaret
I’m sorry to have to disagree with you
It was known, in the 1980s, I worked for a company in Salisbury which manufactured equipment for processing concrete, one of the products we produced was a vibrating poker which made the concrete more dense and therefore stronger, particularly in load bearing structures, presumably making the concrete less dense by introducing air bubbles would have meant using less concrete, it stands to reason that something that resembles an Aero bar will be less strong than a Mars bar
It was known well before the 1980s, reinforced concrete with rebars has been used in construction projects since I don’t know when
Sorry
September 7, 2023
“It stands to reason that something that resembles an Aero bar will be less strong than a Mars bar”. Well not always quite so simple, for a given weight of material it is quite possible that putting holes or bubbles in the structure (in the right places) and reinforcing it in other places can give rather better structural qualities. An RSJ “I” beam (wrapped perhaps in thin foil to make my point better) is nearly all air in cross section but far, far stronger than a simple steel Rod of the same weight. Expended polystyrene can be stronger than the same weight of polystyrene in a simple sheet. Or think of corrugated cardboard structures.
September 7, 2023
No need to be sorry.It just makes.my viewpoint stronger.If it was known then it shouldn’t have been passed on to others in the knowledge that it could be a danger.Thanks for the information.
September 7, 2023
Margaret
Your post doesn’t make sense. Why does it make your viewpoint stronger?
Aerated concrete was weaker as anyone with any sense would know, it’s not top secret information and obviously isn’t a revelation to anyone
Sorry
September 7, 2023
++
I’m not sure that not knowing comes into it.
Here in the last 20 years they have built a school ON STILTS because the area very often floods ( in huge jets and fountains).
Could JUST POSSIBLY be because the school is built over a buried river! But I bet the councillors who know that aren’t letting on and the ones who don’t know would never try to find out why said school is on stilts. Oh..the old Victorian school is now converted to housing..so no hot air there then!
Then there’s the virtually bottomless old industrial pit that years ago was filled to the brim with toxic everything and grassed over. Now earmarked for housing because no one is letting on.
It makes you wonder what else they’d keep quiet about.
Roman Temples? Depleted uranium? Goodness knows….
September 7, 2023
Everhopeful
+++++
Thank you
September 7, 2023
+++
September 7, 2023
I disagree. I wouldn’t buy a product knowing that I would have to fork out huge amounts of money due to dangerous conditions in years to come.
September 7, 2023
Margaret
They did buy a product knowing that they would have to fork out huge amounts of money due to dangerous conditions in years to come
It wasn’t a surprise to them but they kicked the can down the road knowing that someone else would have to sort it out
That was the point that I tried unsuccessfully to make
Sorry
September 7, 2023
Only for a certain period of time i.e. Given the timeline of how long to sell a house, you might think you wouldn’t be liable for too long after the sale, but that’s just not true. After selling a house, you are legally liable for some problems for up to six years!
All those builders cladding high rise flats with inflammable material they don’t seem to be held responsible even with NHBC warranty that all builders are meant to spend a % of each home sale to give that protection.
September 7, 2023
Addressing the problem in the schools is the main priority. Then ensuring it never happens again.
Blame should be well down the list.
My first primary school, in Little Venice and with a playground on the roof, is still standing and seems to be in good order. Whereas my grammar school, built in the 1960s, has been pulled down and rebuilt. The same has happened to many of the indoor swimming pools I used in my younger days – if the structure did not fail they became too expensive to run. The lesson from all this is that it is better to build a structure that will last rather than cut corners and pay more in the long run.
As for the Energy Bill nobody in parliament is listening. They will just plough on regardless.
September 7, 2023
++
Oh maybe that is why the indoor swimming pools have mostly disappeared?
I think you said the other day that the outdoor ones were too cold.
But they were lovely on a nice sunny day.
All gone too though I expect?
September 7, 2023
Ever
Schools’ swimming pools went because the schools were not allowed to hold back any surplus money for major repairs.
September 7, 2023
+++
Ah thanks!
Mystery solved.
September 7, 2023
Meanwhile in The Daily Express, Sir John Redwood makes a case for all BBC licence payers to be granted a share in the BBC. This would enable them to have a vote on how it is run.
I would just abolish the licence fee. I have not paid a licence fee in years and I don’t miss the BBC output.
That said, Sir John’s idea would be a useful alternative to the plan to pay for the BBC out of general tax. If it came out of general tax I would be paying for something I don’t want or value and the BBC would craftily sidestep their problem with dwindling numbers of licence fee payers.
September 8, 2023
Peter,
Just to remind you, the television licence is to receive ANY live broadcast or stream, not just BBC broadcasts…
So, are you saying that you don’t watch any live television or streams?
September 7, 2023
The system is such that the decision makers will, nearly always, take short term decisions to help them politically/financially giving them more money to waste here & now. What do politicians and civil servants care about the cost of rebuilding in 30+ years time. They will not be around. Witness Nick Clegg’s abject failure to invest in new nuclear as it would take several years. They are interest in nothing more distant than the next election!
September 7, 2023
It is more about lessons than blame for me, too, Peter, but building inspectors, architects, local authorities ordering systems, the people that say objects are safe to use for purposes they’re not safe for, just how is that happening so we don’t continually do the same stupid things?
September 7, 2023
The reasons for pulling building down is often to cram more building space on to the site or build higher and often lower too, not always due to problems with the old building stuctures. Demolition and a new build often makes more economic sense than adaptation. VAT advantages too often due to daft tax rules.
September 7, 2023
Peter,
Reform Party is our only hope. People must start to realise that is our only way to stop being poor, cold and hungry while the Uni party ignores Brexit and ties us in lock step with the EU.
September 7, 2023
Hope,
Reform are invisible. They may have better policies but without media coverage they will never get anywhere.
September 7, 2023
Reform party policies yes! but the Reform Party will be lucky to get a single seat!
September 7, 2023
LL
Thanks to our voting system
September 7, 2023
At the bottom of Mr. Redwood’s article today are 3 buttons. Reply, Reply All and Forward. Anyone would think it was an email.
Will this be a day that posts get accepted and the page remembers your name and email – having ticked that box?
September 7, 2023
No, it won’t accept the post or save details. Pointless posting.
September 7, 2023
The problem you are experiencing is due to your bowser not remembering the cookies. Good old EU intervention, sledge hammer to crack a nut.
Delete the cookies from this site in your browser settings and make sure that cookies can be stored for this site.
The posts disappear until they are moderated if your details are not remembered they do not disappear unless the site tells you the post can not be made.
September 7, 2023
Thank you. It seems odd that, using Firefox on an iPhone, some days it remembers me (the cookies work) and other days it doesn’t. I can’t be bothered to keep resetting cookie permissions.
That said, you don’t need cookies to remember information submitted. Without getting too technical, the data submitted on a web page is available to the server in the Request object and, when the page has been processed and is returned to the browser, the information from the Request object is available to the Response object. This is how information you submit on a form is still there if it needs to be displayed back to you. This is all basic stuff.
That said, cookies are needed to store information between site visits on sites that, like this one, do not ask you to log in with already saved credentials.
The question is – why does this site sometimes set cookies and read them and, at other times, doesn’t. I am not in the habit of changing my cookie settings.
September 7, 2023
It does seem prevalent on mobile platforms Mike although the presentation of the post is already a discouragement to use a mobile interface.
Much better on a legacy desktop or laptop.
Plus ca change
September 7, 2023
This appalling Government has destroyed so much:
1. Our Civil Rights – destroyed by the Covid Tyranny
2. The economy – wrecked by the Covid Tyranny
3. The education of an entire generation of children
4. What passed for border controls have effectively been dismantled
5. A reasonably fair tax and benefits system. Those who have paid in NOTHING and have no right to even be here are given “free everything” and those who are forced to pay in more and more have to pick up the cost of the freeloaders.
6. Energy Security – destroyed on the altar of Net Zero, a programme intended to destroy the living standards of the industrialised economies in the west
7. Free Speech – destroyed to appease the “woke” and any minority group who shouts the loudly
8. Our history, culture and social cohesion – destroyed by mass immigration
9. Parliamentary Democracy – when there is no Opposition (which is the case when CONsensus politics operates on a range of important policy areas, there IS no democracy)
10. And now, the concept that “an Englishman’s home is his castle” with the Government DICTATING how you must heat your home with threats of prison if you can’t or don’t want to comply with their increasingly tyrannical laws.
I loathe the people who are deliberately destroying this country with a passion.
September 7, 2023
100% correct
September 7, 2023
Well said, Donna! Sadly, all your points are true!
September 7, 2023
Donna +1
September 7, 2023
@Donna +1 as always you are right
September 7, 2023
Donna, ++++++. Excellent comment, thank you
September 7, 2023
11 – A near total breakdown in law and order and even a chance that you could be literally eaten alive in the street by an XXXL Bully dog.
“Keep Starmer out” really isn’t going to work. People are sick of it. Even big name Tories are going to get fired.
September 7, 2023
I do as well Dona, thats the reason I have joined Reform Uk and will be voting for them. Voting for the best of a bad choice for me is over as that does not work either!
September 7, 2023
Over two hundred years of philanthropy and forced contribution to fund education.
And for what? This dreadful world that has been thrown together?
Crow scaring was always the better option!
September 7, 2023
Another example of naivety.
Did the govt. REALLY think that local councillors had their eyes on the ball?
Any ball other than “woke”?
Govt. has obviously never met a local then…or if it has, it believed all the lies.
September 7, 2023
**
Local COUNCILLOR.
September 7, 2023
It is quite wrong to pander to the delusion of climate change, net zero and a pointless war on CO2. It must be called out and sensitivities be damned.
The intention is to destroy UK industry, jobs and the economy. The CON party has joined the socialists and communists to carry out the instructions hatched in Davos, the training ground of a number of our leaders, and we all know who they are.
September 7, 2023
Picking up on the point of carbon capture… my understanding of CO2 is that naturally it is absorbed into the seas during cold periods and rises again as the air warms, and then the increase in CO2 in the air cools the planet again. The time cycle varies, but it seems to be nature’s thermostat.
Storage of CO2 could really mess up the weather system.
September 7, 2023
There is no point in carbon capture. The thermostat that you refer to relates to water vapour from Oceanic evaporation forming clouds which reflect 80% of the incident light back into space and cover 50% of the Earth’s surface.
This effect has been described by Dr John Clauser of Climate Intelligence, a Nobel laureate in Quantum Physics (harder than getting a PPE degree).
September 7, 2023
Sharon
For a much clearer understanding of the CO2 cycle I recommend ‘Green Murder’ by Ian Plimer.
September 7, 2023
I’m wondering if the government is doing enough to reduce the shockingly-high number of people claiming some form of unemployment benefits. Would you please consider writing on this issue.
September 7, 2023
The government is going to spend £20bn on carbon capture. What is the maximum possible economic benefit of that spending ? Zero ? Sounds like a bad investment to me.
September 7, 2023
They’re going to spend over £20bn+ without the subject being in there manifesto ….we need a general election asap to confirm these ‘new’ policies
September 7, 2023
The schools concrete farce is politically timed by pro-Labour LEAs, DOE and no doubt the filth NEU to create the impression of chaos under this cretinous government but Tory Minister haven’t the balls or nous to expose the Left’s coordination on now many issues to create an aura of collapse and mismanagement. Of course it cannot be denied that the party in government is without reservation, repugnant, destructive and barbaric in its contempt for our basic freedoms
I note Sunak’s intending to embrace Stonewall’s war against children. This is the Tory party of the C21st. This is the party you represent John
September 7, 2023
Carry on the good work DOM, you have many that agree with your views and comments
September 7, 2023
OMG!!
What on earth will they require of the govt.?
As I said earlier. This is getting very dangerous.
I did wonder about who was pushing the collapsing school stuff.
Thanks Dom!
JR did a fantastic interview with Tice.
If only……
September 7, 2023
DOM, +++++++++
September 7, 2023
Stellantis, who own the Vauxhall brand, have now commenced production of electric vans such as the Vauxhall Combo Electric, Opel Combo Electric, Citroen e-Berlingo and Fiat E-Doblo at their Ellesmore Port facility. Both left and right hand drive versions will be made.
Built for city deliveries, the vans weigh up to 2500kg and have a payload capacity of around 800kg. They’ are powered by a 136bhp electric motor and have a 50kWh battery giving a range of 175 miles, while a 0-80% charge can be completed in less than 30 minutes from a 100kW rapid charger.
Plant director Diane Miller said: “The start of electric vehicle production at Ellesmere Port signals a bright future for the plant, ensuring it will continue to manufacture vehicles for many years to come. The welcome addition of the Fiat E-Doblò to the plant is a positive reflection of increasing electric vehicle demand across Europe”
In the longer term, the plant is planned to run on solar and wind power as well as being connected to the HyNet North West Hydrogen Pipeline.
September 7, 2023
SG
You post confidently about subjects of which you have no knowledge
May I respectfully suggest that you limit your posts to something of which you have specialist knowledge of?
IE nothing!
September 7, 2023
Nice to read something positive. What I can’t understand is why Stellantis are investing in this country. As people (obsessives) endlessly claim – leaving the EU condemns the UK to pariah status. Stellantis presumably have taken leave of their senses investing here. What funny chaps they are. They obviously haven’t read the Remainers bible.
September 7, 2023
Good to hear sakara.
September 7, 2023
Governments can try to do too much. When it tries to back winners it often finds losers apply for the money.
As with much that attracts Government spending – follow the money. It’s only taxpayers funds after all.
Government should try to do far less, like a good football referee the best performers are the ones who aren’t noticed.
September 7, 2023
@Narrow Shoulders, did anyone tell this Conservative Government, the money they give away cames from the hardworking UK taxpayer, not the BoE’ magic monet tree?
September 7, 2023
Most of the your post is common sense and logical stuff JR, but clearly the system we have in place is not working for any one, people are not accepting responsibility for their actions or non actions, thus the solution is to find people who will, or alter the system.
The government is not alone in having this problem, commercial businesses and people in their personal lives are now used to blaming someone else, indeed anyone else for very often their own failings and actions or non actions.
Afraid it is the mindset of the ever growing nanny state, and it will get worse the more the politicians attempt to rule our lives. More and more people are finding out, if you try and help yourself, you very often find out you end up worse off than those who do not bother.
September 7, 2023
“Create a good framework for setting up and growing a business, with lower taxes to attract corporate investment. That would progress the green revolution better than hundreds of pages of restrictive regulation, windfall taxes and imposition on individuals”
Unfortunately the dimwits that we have in parliament at present don’t understand this simple statement
September 7, 2023
In a pivotal moment for British science, we have today rejoined the EU’s flagship Horizon programe as an associate member. Something akin to a feeding frenzy is being expressed by many Professors in the university R&D science community
The delay was caused due to the fall-out concerning the long drawn out negotiations over the NI issue, as part of the hard Brexit negotiated when Johnson was “Getting Brexit done”
September 7, 2023
We voted to LEAVE the EU. Not become an Associate Member – although that is precisely what the anti-Democratic Establishment is stitching us up with.
Along with Ukraine when the war ends, Turkey, probably the remaining EFTA members and in due course, north Africa.
It’s why the Treacherous Tories have done NOTHING to release us from EU Regulations and have handed NI over as a hostage.
September 7, 2023
@Donna +1
Yes traitors all of them. they can steal £2.5 billion from the UK taxpayer to give the EU with no responsibility or accountability attached. But they can’t fund UK science…
September 7, 2023
Donna
Well said
+++++ hundreds
September 7, 2023
So the conservative party plan was always to rejoin all the EU institutions ….when do you thing they where going to tell their voters
September 7, 2023
Good to hear sakara.
September 7, 2023
Sir John correct me if wrong but Government (tax payer) provides money to local Authorities in addition to any Council tax funding which may apply to support Education. If this funding is reduced or not enough then the local authorities are not able to fund what they have the responsibility to do.
So everyone can pass the buck in a big circle of blame.
Reply Yes LEAs get large sums for schools. they can choose how to spend it. spending at record levels in cash and real terms today
September 7, 2023
Quite agree on your comments regarding RAAC in schools. Stop blaming the government when their responsibility for this is very partial. For the Labour Party to crow about it given that some of this stuff would have expired its lifespan during their time in power is just hypocrisy. Let them explain why they didn’t have a programme to replace it.
Let’s blame government for what they are responsible for – borrow and waste.
September 7, 2023
The inversion of the yield curve has incredible predictive powers and it is now telling investors that a global financial crisis will hit the world economy early in 2024
The U.S. 10-year Treasury is now yielding 4.2% and the U.S. 2-year Treasury is yielding 4.9%. We have never had a recession without an inversion of the curve.
This yield curve inversion is the key sign that a “black swan” event is coming – because it points to what financial insiders are doing behind the scenes. These financial insiders control $billions, if not $trillions, having access to financial details that us mere mortals do not have.
I suggest that the coming financial crisis will be soverign debt related and will involve hyperinflation, as governments try to pay the interest on their debts by printing money. Those who hold hard assets such as silver and gold bullion will preserve their wealth. Those holding debt…….
Reply The yield curve has been inverted for many months as it us often when Central Banks are hiking rates aggressively. It shows markets think inflation and rates will come down again next year
September 7, 2023
SG
I remember someone complaining about LL having far too many posts every day
At least his are interesting
September 7, 2023
You explain the responsibilities in the school concrete saga clearly, bare in mind it may go way beyond school buildings and into many other civic structures. The blatant hypochrocy of Labour trying to make political capital out of it is typical of low life politicians. If there is any political responsibility, and you explain not, then who was in power in the 90s when the concrete was laid. Then when Labour departed in came the Lib Dems with your lot. Conclusion, if there is political responsibility you are all in it, if not it is those with technial responsibility fod trying to reinvent a cheaper wheel since the Romans perfected it over 2000 years ago, witness the Pantheon.
That any consocialist should have nodded through that heinous energy bill is an affront to democracy and the electorate. You and your 18 other Conservatives are in the wrong place politically. Do something about it, the electorate and country is now reduced to 19 people who speak for it. Do so from a recognisably different Reform platform and strike a blow for democracy.
September 7, 2023
Agricola, ++++++. If only !
September 7, 2023
The Energy Bill will cause harm to so many people, especially working people, their families and those on low incomes. As with Khan’s disgraceful ULEZ tax grab, both Conservative and Labour have totally abandoned these people. This legislation satisfies Green, Lib/Lab and a majority of Conservative’s, Net Zero aspirations in Parliament. They just don’t care. Parliament even fails to debate and scrutinise legislation properly, they deny consultation with constituents. This is hardly democratic? We are effectively excluded just as we were excluded from debate with the 2008 Climate Change Act. They’ve signed off £20 billion to pursue yet another losing aspiration in carbon capture, as indeed they want more onshore wind and solar! It’s one losing strategy after another. Their obsession for Net Zero blinds them to the facts and the truth; these are failed technologies. As Alistair Heath has sagely written today, Parliament is a unified body, we have left leaning policies, Labour’s job is done, it just needs rubber stamping next year! What a disgraceful indictment against the Conservative Party to allow all this to happen.
September 7, 2023
It is clear that HMG has no intention of learning any lessons – they completely agree with what Kahn is doing in London to create a motorists hell on Earth, otherwise they would have stopped it. The opposition as usual just cherry pick how they want to attack the Tories to drawer the most blood, and are supporters of democracy only when it suits them – they should be seen as worthless.
Never mind that HMG has committed £billions to fight a fantasy, when the economy is already in ruins – Still they will find ways to make us pay for their wasteful ways by implementing ever more laws to steal what little money we have left.
The Energy Bill should open a few eyes that the intention is nothing to do with saving the planet and everything to do with controlling, reducing and stealing from the masses.
September 7, 2023
BH
Another deftly swung hammer blow hitting the nail squarely on the head
Well said Sir!
September 7, 2023
“The government is generally in danger of trying to do much and intervening too often” The perversion of the Woke agenda, all about being seen to be in control ‘calling the shots’, being seen doing things not actually doing things.
These things would never happen if we had a Conservative Government, the people would be released to take responsibility and charge of their lives. Those that get paid to run and direct the day to day activities of any entity would have to step up do their job or be fired.
This left wing shower, have yet to realise they just cant do the job of those at the front end. All Governments are rubbish at ordering people around, they all fail in their desire to accomplish something that is best left to those that ‘do’
September 7, 2023
Something of a similar nature to the Energy Bill – Look what the EU have done – Another notch against freedom of expression. It will affect the UK because media platforms are world wide.
EU’s Digital Services Act no longer conceals mission to kill free speech worldwide.
This yet one more twisting of the screw to make sure there is no freedom of real information, and that we all sing from the same deceitful official hymn sheet….
September 7, 2023
“many attacks on much hated cameras” not so much the cameras that are hated (they are just to tools used by the lying politicians and Mayor. It is they who are hated for trying to tax even more money out of working people (using the blatant lie that it is about clean air) even trying to buy bogus science from Imperial College to justify this huge further tax grab on top of the highest taxes for 70+ years.
We also have the appalling socialist Sunak, who could very easily stop this evil ULEZ tax grab, but he chooses not to and then lies & pretends he cannot do so.
September 7, 2023
The other thing, but contradictory and also demonstrates a Government fail, all entities, bodies call them what you like, in receipt of hard-earned taxpayer money should be accountable and responsible for that privileged.
The taxpayer shouldn’t be funding political opinions in our health service or our educational systems, or elsewhere come to that. As with other taxpayer funded outlets they have a specific service to provide, they are not there to indoctrinate, manipulate or have a political opinion coming from their positions(private opinion great, taxpayer funded – get out of there in you are in the wrong place).
We have our Parliament for politics, there the taxpayer gets to vote elsewhere they don’t.
The Government fail is they want to be seen to do things, when clearly they cant. Government fail is they don’t hold anyone to account, or responsible for the things they get ‘given’ our money for.
Health service, education, railways and so on – pay? Government responsibility or is it those that get to manage within budgets.
September 7, 2023
Once we’ve signed this damned thing, people need to think and suggest ways of having the minimum impact on us because our politicians are clearly incapable of big project delivery on budget and on time.
The businesses that use the most energy, how much green energy do they have nearby to access, i.e. is that where we have the on-land windmills and solar panels? Big steel works, do they have solar panels on their southern roofs, what are they doing to help themselves? Do they offer local homes free solar panels that they could use the power from in the day time when the homeowner has low need for that power and give the home owner cheaper tariffs? I don’t know, I just know if we expect politicians to sort this out they’ll just throw money at everything and restrict use and freedoms to think for ourselves.
Labour even want to take over feeding kids, why? So they can give them beetles and vegetarian food. Be careful what you wish for people it just might happen. School dinners cost around £530 per year per child but that cost should come down with big numbers partaking, less waste and less meat!
September 7, 2023
So we have now rejoined the Horizon program, why! We have ministers who always do really badly when associating with the EU, the Windsor agreement for instance.
We true Brits want to see the eu destroyed not bolster it!
September 7, 2023
….and they’re been planning and negotiating the ‘rejoin’ deal since Sunak became PM, and probably since Boris ….behind the Tory voters back
September 7, 2023
@glen cullen – The never did want the responsibility of managing the UK, taking orders for the unelected unaccountable was always the aim of this Socialist Government. The Conservative Party for the most part just lied to get into office. This Government never at any stage intended to do what they were empowered and paid for.
September 7, 2023
MFD, How far down the years does my family have to register to be given ‘a true Brit’ label?
Before the arrivals of the Ukrainians and Afghans?
Before the Windrush arrivals?
Before the 1880s-1914 arrivals of Russians?
Before the arrivals of Great Famine Irish?
Before the Flemings and Huguenots in the 16th century?
Before the Normans in 1066?
Before the 8th century arrival of the ‘Vikings’?
Before the arrival of the Germanic speakers that became the Anglo-Saxons?
Before the Roman invasion in the first century BC?
In the Palaeolithic era?
We should be given details of what ‘a true Brit’ is and how to recognise them.
September 7, 2023
If you investigate the history of those migrations I think the evidence suggests they were small even compared with the much smaller populations of those times. Nevertheless, some were quite dislocating acts of invasion, while others were absorbed more easily (e.g. Hugenots). Modern migration is on a totally different scale, with recent migrants dominating several major city populations – including London.
September 8, 2023
MFD, the public are bad at not wanting to know what we get out of all this money our Country is spending on projects like this, we should get to know exactly what we’re getting out of it and what leaps we are making in science by being involved to assess if it is worth it and not just a money move around to keep people in work with no value.
September 7, 2023
At any time the government can take the shortest path to better. This one is daft, unable to realise what better is. Its focus seems to be on assisting other nations and populations to exploit the UK at our expense.
September 7, 2023
Sir John
This also highlights the UK’s woes
“Give licence fee payers power to vote on BBC’s future, urges Redwood”
You call it a licence fee, but as a compulsory payment it is a tax, paid by users and non-users in equal terms – it is a tax. A legally binding tax. Receiving tax without being held accountable or responsible to the payee. Having a policy that goes towards mass indoctrination and a specific political view while forcing payment, with fear of penalty, as actually anti freedom of the individual.
Sure you can turn off, turn over, but you still get robbed to pay for indoctrination and political views of a handful of individuals.
Its the same anomaly, the anti Conservative anomaly that you have pointed out here today and on previous days. How much of our money does this Government have to keep taking from us?
September 7, 2023
My, my!
Crumbling schools AND terrorist threat!
They’ll be announcing a new variant soon!
Must keep us on our toes.
September 7, 2023
…stand by your face-mask
September 7, 2023
Aye aye Sir!😷
September 7, 2023
The UK contributes around 1-2% of global Co2.
Without the highest polluting countries doing their share, it is an utter waste of time. It will not make an ounce of difference to rising global Co2 levels.
I’m sick and tired of UK citizens being taxed to the hilt for every Government initiative and bailing out failure.
If the Government wishes to pursue ‘green’ initiatives, it should come at zero cost to taxpayers. If the Government wishes to have finances available for such initiatives, then I suggest they start looking at culling wasteful expenditure. The bloated Civil Service, Quangos, Foreign Aid and illegal migration would be a good areas to look at, to begin with.
I really believe the UK Government (of any political colour) will not be content until they’ve hoovered up 100% of our personal income and finances, through various taxes, fines, duties, levies, etc.
September 7, 2023
CO2 is not “pollution” it is vital for trees, crops, plants, seaweed and life on earth.
September 7, 2023
Seven years ago we had a referendum to leave the EU and all its institutions
From fisheries, to the windsor agreement, to the repeal of retained EU laws and ECHRs & immigration; we’ve been let down ….today it has been announced that our conservative government have agreed to pay the EU (UK contribution cost unknown but budget is £85bn) to rejoin the horizon project
This fake conservative party has blamed everyone else for not implementing in full that referendum
I can no longer contribute to a site, which I believed was the last hope of true conservatives ….I’ll continue to read with interest but with the energy bill yesterday and horizon deal today; (not in manifesto) enough is enough
I’ve waited seven years for the conservative party to reappear ….it isn’t going to happen
September 7, 2023
Correct
September 7, 2023
The bringing up of the Energy Bill vote so early after the holidays was clearly intentional IMO and yet another display of in effect forcing things through under shortage of time for proper scrutiny. How many of the hundreds, relaxed & carefree, have read the darned thing & considered what they are collectively actually doing to us. I’ve said it before but it’s another attempt to beat us into fearful submission. Besides all that, some people, the UK always being good for a scam, worry about the likely cowboy teams of experts who may end up helping many of us along with our forced transition.
September 7, 2023
The Bill shouldn’t even have been put forward for debate until the results of the AR5 CFD auction were revealed and debated. News outlets have been drip fed a warning that the auction is a failure, with the news being buried while attention is elsewhere. The formal announcement will come tomorrow. The “rumours” are between zero and two bids for offshore wind, with a high probability of zero. Coutinho needs to get a grip of her department, and tell them to stop burying their heads in the sand, pretending that offshore wind is cheap and can solve our power needs. She also needs to put in place a complete rewrite of the Energy Bill, which should be withdrawn and not submitted for Royal Assent.
September 7, 2023
The three main parties would serve us best by going into a formal coalition; it is clear that they agree on pretty well everything. Then there would be some real chance of an alternative emerging at the next general election.
Meanwhile, my attempts to access your post today have been greatly impeded by internet interruptions caused by a new much vaunted broadband provider, that so far has caused nothing but problems.
September 7, 2023
Agree
September 7, 2023
Off topic, if I may please, Sir John :
There was general puzzlement for the reason for the Foreign Secretary’s recent trip to Beijing.
But the reason has now become clear with the announcement today that the UK is to re-join the EU’s Horizon science programme.
Clearly we were told that the 120,000 Chinese “students” in our universities needed to have continued access to European research.
September 7, 2023
Ah no OR entry to the Horizon was agreed by EU at the time we agreed to the windsor framework that’s what has the DUP so annoyed. As for Cleverly he was out there in China scratching around but I don’t think they took him very seriously with his whinging about everything HK and human rights etc – I hear he made a bit of a nuisance of himself. These foreign secretary’s they,’re all at it now with their trips abroad
September 7, 2023
I only watch the BBC for its weather forecasting . I hate news presenters who do not wear a tie and dress properly – one chap – with a name I can hardly pronounce , looks as if he reads the news in his pyjamas !. Sky news is much better ; it also includes a continuous update of the Stock Market . I regret having to pay the licence fee now in my mid 90s .
September 7, 2023
Sir John, You know and most of the people commenting know that Climate Change and Global Warming are nonsense. We all know CO2 is not a problem either. Our MPs are making decisions that damage the UK now and in the future. It is great you voted against the bill, but I think you need to go further and show the utter nonsense about CC/GW and CO2. I know you pay lip service to it so as not to alienate colleagues and in the hope of being listened too, but the situation is now so serious it needs the blunt truth spelt out again and again.
It would be good if one of your readers were wealthy enough to send the book, ‘Unsettled’ to every MP. They are staggeringly ignorant of the basic facts about CC/GW and CO2.
September 7, 2023
K from L, +++++++
September 7, 2023
Carbon capture and storage is a farce. The volumes required are enormous and unattainable. Much is made of the long term storage of nuclear waste and it is used as a stick to beat nuclear development. Long term storage of concentrated carbon dioxide is a potential time bomb for future generations and could lead to mass asphyxiation and serious dead zones in the oceans if it were to advance on any scale. It seems that the Precautionary Principle goes out of the window when matters like this are involved, just as environmental protection is ignored when wind and solar “farms” are imposed.
This is another financial black hole just to box tick that we are “doing something” to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. The daily climate porn from the media is designed to re-inforce this as desirable in the public consciousness.
September 7, 2023
Guido sheds light on the reason only 19 Tory MPs have the brain cells to vote against this nonsense:
https://order-order.com/2023/09/07/local-tories-furious-as-cchq-excludes-favourite-candidate-in-delayed-safe-seat-selection/
Partachuting Lib Dems in as “Conservative” candidates is the norm these days – and leads to the parliamentary party being wholly unrepresentative of the membership’s beliefs.
Until you and the other ERG types find a way to win that war, you’ll be on the losing side of every issue.
N.B. The other relevant Guido article showed that. sadly, if the COnservative Party were down to 100 MPs after the next GE, the vast majority would be Sunak-types. So an electoral wipe-out doesn’t even seem to fix this issue. What is your solution, Mr Redwood? Do you even acknowledge the existence of the problem?
September 7, 2023
The conservative party is lost, it no longer has the guiding hand of the ERG and the men in grey suits ….the left won
September 7, 2023
Over 400 pages long, how many MP’s read it before voting for it?
I wonder if it includes the compulsory installation of approved smart meters?
September 7, 2023
Yes it gave the Minister for Energy/Environment the right to instruct any manufacturer and any supplier to do as instructed by him/her.
They will be empowered under the Statutory Instrument provision, to do what ever they like, no matter if Tory or Labour or whoever.
September 7, 2023
…and each and every Tory MP allowed it to happen
September 7, 2023
By implication YES
September 7, 2023
The Government are misleading the MSM and public concerning energy and power from renewables. Such as their press release “Energy security boost with multi-million backing for renewables” issued 03/08/2023 where they claim that the AR4 auction for “11 GW of low carbon capacity will generate sufficient electricity to POWER 12 million British homes……”.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/energy-security-boost-with-multi-million-backing-for-renewables
This is simply untrue.
11GW may, in a year generate sufficient ENERGY for 12 million homes, although my calculations show this to be insufficient by some 20% but far more importantly the 11 GW of renewables are totally incapable of providing the dispatchable (always on demand) POWER required for 12 million homes because of intermittency.
Looking at the wind and solar data for 2022 you can find instances where the 42 GW of installed renewable power generated just 0.5 GW. As I write the 28 GW of installed wind power is generating just 1.3 GW of power.
No-one in the UK expects their power to be intermittent.
The MSM and public need to be told this information to realise that renewables cannot operate without a parallel fossil fuel backup system in place. There is no plan, even by 2050, for non-fossil fuel grid scale storage because it is so hideously expensive.
I simply cannot vote for any party that supports the unilateral, economy destroying CAGW/Net Zero Strategy, a policy causing us live in a country where energy is expensive and intermittent and hence rationed and which together with forced restrictions on food, heating and transport, is all designed to “save the planet”.
A policy which is pointless, unnecessary and unaffordable. We are governed by an idiocracy.
September 7, 2023
Many respondents on this site have disagreed with the science about Covid and Covid vaccines, probably excessively so, though I think the scientists were guilty of quite some exaggeration.
However I do challenge the ‘science’ and ‘professional advice’ about RAAC ‘concrete’. Much RAAC has been around for 60 or even 70 years with only one or two instances of collapse though we are told it all has a lifespan of just 30 years! Isn’t that extremely anomalous? Moreover as it is connected to (if not interlaced with) steel supports it would only be the odd part of a ceiling and not the whole ceiling that suddenly collapsed. So I don’t agree with the ‘professionals’ because in comparison with the risk remedial action (especially new ceilings) is disproportionately expensive both in money and in human time.
Moreover the Conservative Party are getting ‘mugged’ by the Opposition over this. If there had not been cuts to unaffordable public expenditure which included cuts to school maintenance and school building programs from 2010, Councils and politicians would not be looking to rebuild schools that were only 30 or 40 or 50 years old (those affected by this) but those that were at least 80 years and sometimes more than 100 years old!
Let alone ‘speaking truth to power’ what we could do with is ‘power’ first recognising truth and then ‘speaking rational truth to the people’.
September 7, 2023
@Geoffrey Berg – at a rough guess if you forget to maintain the external surfaces, you do eventually get an ingress of water, then Bob’s your Uncle cold, frost and heat you get damage. It happens in normal concrete structures were neglect overrides common sense – motorway bridges comes to mind.
Real cuts or bad management of those given the job? At sometime those paid to do a job have to step up and do it.
September 7, 2023
Many years ago, I ran a business that was the largest electricity user in the region. We were the largest profit generator in the group and employed the largest number of local workers.
Then the madness of ‘climate change’ policies came in and closed virtually all of the UK’s heavy industry and with it thousands of support and service industries of those now closed high energy users.
The plant I ran is now a flat field, unused a beacon of lost manufacturing. The plan is to make it a housing development….that is the local authorities answer to all manufacturing activities in the UK.
We have a huge not talked about problem. We also have a talked about problem that is neither huge or an actual problem, i.e. climate change.
September 7, 2023
When I worked for Les Leston in 1966 I received a staff discount and I’ve just found the receipt
£9 18 6 one Graham Hill rally jacket small navy. 40% £9. 18. 6
£3. 19. 5
£5. 19. 1
P/tax. £0. 11. 6
10% surcharge. £0. 1. 2
Total. £6. 11. 9
I’m constantly astounded by my discoveries
I
September 7, 2023
‘’ I believe that our nation will be freer, fairer and more prosperous outside the EU. Outside the EU, we can decide our own immigration policy, ensure our own laws and courts are sovereign, and enhance our position as a dynamic, outward-looking trading economy.’’ Sunak from his own website
https://www.rishisunak.com/news/why-i-will-vote-britain-leave-eu-0
WE DON’T BELIEVE YOU
September 7, 2023
Tooting Bec Lido is still going and indeed is undergoing restoration and repairs. Used it once as a youngster but it was so cold that everything seemed to shrink so never went again. Good luck to those who use it.
September 8, 2023
Of course it makes sense.If buildings are to be passed from one owner to another as in the case of academies, then the original owner must take the responsibility for the original purchasing of poor material and furthermore if the poor quality was known when the schools changed hands and that children might be in danger then there must also be a legal angle .