The path to net zero threatens many traditional industries that rely on fossil fuels for their manufacture and for their products. The car industry is being asked to close all its petrol and diesel car factories, writing off large amounts of sunk capital in machinery and research and development. The steel industry is being asked to switch from making steel from ore smelted in a blast furnace, to melting old metal in an electric arc furnace. Oil, and gas companies will be asked to stop extracting more fuel from their wells as the electric revolution proceeds, leading Green campaigners to talk of stranded assets. If the UK does this too soon we will end up importing fossil fuel heavy products instead and world CO 2 will go up, not down.
Western governments want to force the pace of these changes, going faster than consumer preferences and normal market forces will deliver. As a result business is demanding large subsidies to set up the new activities, bans and controls on the old activities to prevent people still wanting these products, and even favours the use of taxation to tilt the markets in the direction of net zero products.
Biden’s America has decided to increase spending and borrowing substantially to be able to pay large subsidies to divert green investments to the USA from other places that might have attracted them. The EU with a smaller budget is also planning on spending and borrowing more at EU level to do the same. So far EU strategy has been good for electric vehicle and battery manufacture in Hungary and Poland. This poses a serious issue for the UK. How do we best compete?
Out of the EU gives us a great advantage as we can target our own policies to benefit the UK rather than going along with EU policies which are likely to help other countries in the Union more, as has so far been the case. It seems to me we could best add to the attractions of the UK by strengthening our offer on skilled people, lower business taxes and informed government purchasing. Bidding up the subsidy cost of getting an investment is not a good idea, and may help to undermine the future profitability of these new businesses by concentrating attention on subsidy farming rather than on what the consumer wants to buy. In the end the only guarantee of a strong business and of the tax revenue that can bring is for the business to make things people want to buy at an affordable price. Too many business bought with large subsidies flounder when the subsidy ends.
September 14, 2023
Good morning.
An article I wholly agree with.
Certainly by not racing to the bottom.
We need to make sure the that cheap and reliable energy is available. To this end we must get rid of the Climate Change Act and invest in SMR’s and larger Nuclear Reactors. If this was done 14 years ago we would be reaping the benefits right now. Instead we have invested in a French reactor design that does not work, effectively paying / subsidizing the French governments research and technology which they will sell back to us at great cost.
I find it odd that multi-national billion pound companies need taxpayers cash to build a business here. If we provided the right conditions for business, ie cheap energy, good transport and communications, plus a ‘business friendly’ environment mush like the RoI and Luxembourg offer, plus a solid reliable workforce, there should be no need for such bribes. For bribes is that what they are.
Those that buy friendship with gold, find that it does not last and it yields nothing – NiccolĂČ Machiavelli
September 14, 2023
+1
September 15, 2023
JRs blog is exactly opposite to his govtâs strategy, policy or actions!
September 14, 2023
Industrial activity is counter to net zero. End of discussion.
Biden has the right idea but the two WEF shills at the top of our government are getting instructions from elsewhere.
Traitors
September 14, 2023
Once again an article that makes a lot of sense but, as most of the comments on here indicate, the government are not listening and will carry on regardless.
September 14, 2023
Indeed, but how do we ever get rid of Mayâs net zero and the Climate Change Act? This when all but a tiny handful of our MPs (of all the main parties) are either believers in this deluded devil CO2 gas/fiery hell on earth religion or are on the make from the crony subsidy farming industries? Also very often political party donors or employers of MPs as so called âconsultantsâ. Follow the money, rather like the net harm vaccines and the governments vaccines regulators and their âexpertsâ.
September 14, 2023
You are right. But the House of Chumps will not do what is needed to salvage what remains of the UK`s industrial base. Many of them are anti-business, anti-profit and appear to lack the most elementary understanding of what makes businesses tick, not least positive cash flows from profitable sales. The transition to EVs will fail because any UK production will be undercut by cheaper Chinese EVs; the same is likely to happen over time to the West`s mobile phone industry and its suppliers (which includes several that are UK based). As we saw with steel, China will undercut and undermine these industries with lower priced products. China will do this for both business (employment) and political reasons.
September 14, 2023
+1 MarkB
If they were serious about Britainâs future they would have invested in Nuclear Technology not 12th Century wind power.
September 14, 2023
+1
September 14, 2023
The obvious solution is to stick with on demand fossil fuels for now and put the vast sums we save doing this into more R&D mainly aimed at better nuclear and nuclear fusion. Rolling out duff intermittent tech. using subsidies is pissing money down the drain and just gives you duff tech all over the place that need replacing and vastly high taxes.
R&D roll out âonlyâ when it works and is cost effective without subsidy. There is no climate emergency.
September 14, 2023
I have been reading about Marcel Boiteux, the father of the French nuclear industry, who died a few days ago aged 101. One of his decisive steps was to abandon the early French nuclear technology in favour of PWRs from the USA, and then to benefit from the learning curve effect by building the same design repeatedly. A lesson we should re-learn.
September 14, 2023
Indeed when the subsidies stop the businesses will just leave or go bust, this as without subsidy the business and activity will make little or no sense. The subsidies also divert investment, businesses, engineers, scientists and other workers from sensible activities to pointless and parasitic activity. They also further increases tax levels giving these other businesses and workers far less to invest in the sensible activities or to live on.
Even more economic and environmental lunacy from this appalling & deluded government yet just 18 voted against this evil energy bill. So who were the 18 sensible MPs who actually voted against this appalling energy bill. Clearly no MP who failed to vote against this bill (or waved through net zero) is remotely worthy of being an MP. They surely must be crooks on the make or damn fools. What other explanation?
September 14, 2023
19 actually, they are:
Tories:
Phillip Davies
Richard Drax
Sir Ian Duncan Smith
Karl McCartney
Craig McKinley
Sir John Redwood
Jacob Rees Mogg
Henry Smith
Sir Desmond Swain
And the whole DUP, namely
Gregory Campbell
Sir Geoffrey Donaldson
Paul Girvan
Carla Lockhart
Ian Paisley
Gavin Robinson
Jim Shannon
Sammy Wilson
And the Independent: Andrew Bridgen
You do know that the Labour Party some time ago, last year, proposed to remove VAT from Energy? The Government voted the amendment down.
September 14, 2023
VAT on domestic energy was introduced by the Conservatives in April 1994. It was also the Conservatives who increased VAT from 8% to 15%, then from 15% to 17.5%, then from 17.5% to 20%
September 14, 2023
An early consequence of Maastricht, I believe.
September 15, 2023
No, a political choice taken by a Conservative government.
September 15, 2023
If it were so simple why are the VAT rates in the different EU countries different?
europa.eu âVAT rules and ratesâ, 07/07/2022
taxfoundation.org â2023 VAT rates in Europeâ, 31/01/2023
In particular, check the super-reduced, reduced and standard rates, and the range of products in each country that can keep a zero rate (considering the exemptions without (public interest supplies) or with the right (exports and intra-EU supplies) to deduct)
taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu
September 15, 2023
The EU made VAT on energy compulsory, and set minimum rates. It was an early example of grabbing competency from governments.
September 16, 2023
Even so, the energy prices in the various EU27 countries, whether wholesale-, retail household-, or retail industry prices can be quite different.
For wholesale electricity, a factor 1.8 between max and min prices in different countries, for retail household a factor 3, for retail industry a factor 3.
That also applies to the prices (wholesale, retail household, retail industry) for natural gas, or for petroleum products (petrol, diesel, heating oil, crude oil). (All that pre-Russia/Ukraine).
TMALSS, the prices paid within the UK were/are defined by the UK Government(s), and/or UK energy companies.
Some UK politicians have for years peddled the story that everything bad in this country was because of the EU, whereas most of the time a EU âdirectiveâ was defining a framework inside/around which the individual EU members were adjusting, in this case the energy prices, according to their internal situations.
Why did Macron get the gilets jaunes revolt if everything had been a EU diktat?
September 14, 2023
Thanks, sad there are so few sensible & reputable MPs
September 14, 2023
Apart from our esteemed host, those Conservatives who voted against were Philip Davies, Richard Drax, IDS, Craig Mackinlay, Karl McCartney, JRM, Henry Smith and Desmond Swayne, accompanied by 8 DUP MPs and Andrew Bridgen. There were others such as Esther McVey (Mrs Philip Davies) who did not vote and were presumably paired. The tellers for the Noes were Philip Hollobone and Scott Benton.
I am often reminded in the context of concerted defiance that the SDP, who recruited numerous allegiance switching MPs in 1981, were so far ahead in the polls at one point that they were on course for a landslide. Then came Galtieri. It would perhaps be circumspect to refrain from further comment.
September 14, 2023
No other party voted, so I don’t think pairing applies. Esther McVey actually voted against some of the amendments, so she was in the House: I think hers was a principled abstention, even if she didn’t bring herself to follow her husband into the No lobby.
September 14, 2023
Your right Lifelogic! In northern Ireland Grundig had a factory in Dunmurry for several years. As soon as the grants stopped the whole business upped and transferred back to Germany.
Its a big con and poor use of tax payers money
September 15, 2023
Also the site of grant driven DeLorean.
September 14, 2023
This fascist, totalitarian imposition will accelerate under filth Labour coupled with re-entry back into the EU and a massive increase in immigration, Britain is once more looking at a political class across all parties to impose irreversible demographic and economic change. Less freedom, more State equals a world in which at some point the people will say enough is enough and no more.
Watch the Tories and see if they highlight Labour’s plan to increase immigration coupled with re-entry back into the EU. If they do not reference Labour’s EU re-entry plan then they themselves have no issue with overturning Brexit and therefore democracy
Labour, Tory, SNP, LD. The four horsemen of the apocalypse masquerading as our concerned, responsible parents. Liars
September 14, 2023
Correct
September 14, 2023
+++
Starmer has already said he will reinstate EU farming regulations.
Tories should be screaming this into the media at full volume.
But thenâŠtheir idea is to rewild everywhere.
The true meaning of liblabconkipetc.
September 14, 2023
+1
September 14, 2023
Calm down. There will be no EU to ârejoinâ.
Ireland has refused asylum to Ukrainians and is extraditing them to the killing fields. Makes refugees from France look like they donât have a case in Britain. France canât close its borders to these people and we need to repatriate them. If France can close its borders then of course, so can we.
September 14, 2023
The Uni-Party are implementing Macron’s proposed two-tier structure for the EU (which Cameron had previously suggested).
The latest proposal (Starmer) is that we agree a deal with the EU to take a set number of criminal migrants who force their way into Europe – could be as many as 100,000 criminal migrants every year. This is, of course, the deal which the EU is trying to impose, without success, on Hungary, Poland and other member states.
Sunak is already effectively implementing this policy.
September 14, 2023
+1 Dom. But unfortunately it took the Soviet Union for example 70 (?) years before it collapsed, and even then it didn’t become a democracy (of the sort that we used to have).
September 14, 2023
BMW is to spend ÂŁ600m to upgrade its factories in Oxford and Swindon to manufacture electric versions of the Mini, in a U-turn that will provide a further boost to the UK car industry.
The plant will start production of the electric Mini Cooper and the new electric Mini Aceman crossover SUV from 2026, lifting a threat to the future of the model after the UK government agreed to invest about ÂŁ75m in subsidies.
Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan and now BMW join over 50 other British vehicle manufacturers who are already building EVs, E-Vans and E-bikes here
September 14, 2023
EVs increase CO2 this compared to keeping your old conventional car and they cost far more per mile over their life too, plus we do not have spare low carbon electricity to charge them with anyway. The batteries do not last very long either and as they are heavier they wear out tyres (made from oil) and roads circa 30% more quickly giving more tyre pollution.
So can you remind me why are we subsidising them form taxes exactly?
September 14, 2023
I have a great business idea too.
Iâm going to start manufacturing chocolate fireguards.
September 14, 2023
Anyone like to invest?
September 14, 2023
Sorry! I forgot.
Better scrub thst!
September 14, 2023
At least you could eat those or burn them!
September 14, 2023
Never take a Government bribe whether you are an individual or a corporation. It means you are doing something you would otherwise not do and that is the road to ruin. Why should people with no cars, who canât feed their families, subsidise somebody elseâs expensive EV?
BMW is in the U.K. because there is no energy in Germany so no matter what subsidy they offer, itâs irrelevant. Anyway Baerbok yesterday asserted that Germany had funded Ukraine for 560 days last year, (honest – look it up) so there is probably no money for BMW – unless they make a 360 degree turn (another Baerbok classic – this woman makes Truss look competent!)
PS the EU imported more Russian LNG via India this year than it got from the USA.
September 14, 2023
Really? Iâm in the market for an E-bike. Iâd like to buy British. Every bike Iâve found so far is made in China.
September 14, 2023
Let’s see who’ll buy these EVs.
September 14, 2023
BMW batteries manufactured in China.
Eventually all EVs from China heavily subsidised to kill off European manufactured goods.
September 14, 2023
What assumptions have they made about voluntary demand for their products?
September 14, 2023
Why is it that so-called Net Zero/renewable products ALWAYS require massive taxpayer subsidies?
If they were any good, they would sell themselves.
September 14, 2023
Donna, absolutely!!!
Which says a lot doesn’t it? – the fact that they have to be forced onto people also shows the heat pumps, EV cars have been deemed by the public, to be no good!
September 14, 2023
They aren’t British…
September 14, 2023
But the vast majority of people donât want electric vehicles because they are fundamentally old tech and unfit for purpose! Government policy will inevitably result in far fewer new vehicles, decimation of the car industry and the future of most of those who work within it and its supply chains, some 800k people.
September 14, 2023
There is going to be a big demand for the repair and refurbishing of second hand petrol and diesel vehicles.
September 14, 2023
@Sakara Gold – It is not to ‘manufacture’ it is to assemble components manufactured by the Worlds largest polluter China. As such it will exasperate and increase World pollution.
These are the same companies that complain about the EU insistence that 45% of the vehicle should be made in the EU or UK. This is soon to go to 65%.
i.e. roughly speaking at 45% it means 55% of the content is from the Worlds largest polluter who are opening more coal mines and coal powered generation each year than already exists on the rest of the Planet. That is not in the religious jargon âgreening the worldâ and heading to NetZero its the complete opposite.
September 14, 2023
For cars many of us can’t afford using energy nobody is sure will be available. Very smart.
September 14, 2023
How far will these electric Minis be able to travel, before they need to stop for the best part of an hour to re-charge themselves ? A couple of hundred miles ?
Oh no, I see that it’s only about 145 miles, and maybe 100 miles in practice in the real world.
Pointless is the word that springs to mind.
September 14, 2023
What would they Guarantee the mileage will be when the car is five years old on a below zero day that degrades the battery and you need the heater, lights and wipers running on full blast? 50-70 miles perhaps?
September 14, 2023
100 mile range would do me for 99% of my journeys. Happy to keep an old ICE car for the occasional longer journey.
September 14, 2023
A son-in-law finally took delivery of one a year ago. He was warned to consider 100 miles tops, so plan on hooking up to mains well before you get to last 20, or drive slow with nothing else using any ‘lecky.
September 14, 2023
It seems Sunak and his Con-Socialist party are now back tracking yet again on the triple lock (for what is already an extremely mean state pension – relative to other comparable countries). In effect yet another back door tax rise as you paid all that tax & NI for it but are now being cheated out of the benefits you bought. They have already moved the qualification date back by up to 8 years to 68 (so far). Plus Covid (and the hundreds of thousands of lives have been shortened by the coerced net harm Covid vaccines and the many NHS failures) which will save them ÂŁ billions by decreasing life expectancy over the past three years.
Men in Blackpool, for example, have a life expectancy of just 74 years (women 79) so might typically get only 7 years of pension – circa 30% get none. The state pension rules are also of course extremely sexist as men pay far more in and get far less out due to dying earlier. But then we only have a Minister for Women, no one in government is remotely interested in equality for men.
Plus the state pension is taxed (at up to 45%) and you then have to use it pay your council tax and expensive (rigged market) energy and water bills too. Then they steal 40% of your assets off your children, grand children or other beneficiaries on death – just for good measure.
Unless you are King Charles that is, this as an agreement made by John Major means that any inheritance passed from âSovereign to Sovereignâ is now free of Inheritance Tax. He said the queens assets were in danger of being salami sliced away over generations. Clearly John Major thought this salami slicing was just fine for the plebs though.
September 14, 2023
Correct but all the troughers donât care.
Iâm alright Jack!
September 14, 2023
Net Zero is a fraud. The raw data has been adjusted. You are being gas lighted. Industry is being destroyed as part of a psyops by China. We are willingly handing our industry over to China.
Just take one look at an 8 minute YT video called âHiding the decline in hot daysâ. You will never believe a single NetZero claim again.
September 14, 2023
+1
September 14, 2023
There’s masses of information ‘out there’ that proves it’s all a scam!
Glad you’re on board with the enlightened, Javelin!
September 14, 2023
Cheers. Will do, Javelin.
September 14, 2023
Great that you think the UK can offer âskilled peopleâ in the very month we have found out the roof is literally falling in on our schools.
September 14, 2023
UK destroying it’s own industry to save 1% of 0.045% of the atmosphere, while China pumps out ever increasing volumes of co2.
Politics of the madhouse…………………….
September 14, 2023
and foreigners pay fortunes to get an education here, yet Westminster hasn’t a clue.
September 14, 2023
Theresa May, not content with her disastrous & vastly expensive legacy of Net Zero, now seems to be obsessed with the Primodos medical scandal. Amazingly it took 19 years in the UK before this totally unnecessary and dangerous pregnancy test was finally withdrawn in the UK. The then âexpertsâ failing just a the current ones have.
I would have rather more respect for the women had she extended her concerns to the many coerced Covid vaccine excess deaths and injuries and the net harm lockdown. This is current problem & thousands of times larger too yet she seems to studiously avoid this issue.
Perhaps, having seen the fate of Andrew Bridgen for telling the truth, she rather lacks the courage.
September 14, 2023
This death by green fever extends to leisure industries, too! For some time the Heritage Railways have been concerned at the inability to source British coal (of a quality needed) for steam engines. Mining licences have run out and not been extended. Import once again is the only way to keep these near essential businesses afloat.
Paying other countries for coal, and the shipping required pushes UK users into almost business closure.
September 14, 2023
Do you mean MORE IMMIGRATION? Has your governmentâs implementation of education been so appalling since 1979 (youâve been in power for 31 of the last 44 years – you really have nowhere to hide), that we need to import skilled people?! Why havenât we got our own skilled people?
And, voila!, just like magic, this site has decided to remember me.
September 14, 2023
There is only one rational course of action for a UK government – call the bluff of the Net Zero nutters and repeal the Climate Change Act and all subsequent acts/statutory instruments etc, and basically get out of everyone’s lives. There is no emergency, there is only naturally occurring climate change, and the rise in CO2 levels has been a major boost to world agriculture.
September 14, 2023
+1. CO2 is just one of millions of factors that affect the climate many are no even know or predictable like volcanos, solar sun spot activity⊠there is no reason to think there is any climate emergency. Even if there were then adaptation (if and when needed) would be a far better and cheaper strategy and the idiotic war on vital plant food. The next climate emergency might well be too cold rather than too hot.
September 14, 2023
Put a punitive tariff on all goods manufactured by cheap energy. We might as well realise the full cost implication of this lunacy sooner rather than later.
Compete on equal terms
September 14, 2023
You have to ask why is the Government not also supporting in a similar way hydrogen use, development, and production for use in transport, heating and a way of storing electricity?
I guess we can thank Gorden Brown to start with and the Conservative Government there after.
Seems with a slight mod you can run your existing gas boiler on it. A bit easier than digging up the garden for a heat pump plus great expense for the pump.
But what do you expect from Government that promoted diesel cars to cut down on CO2. They always get it wrong, why?
September 14, 2023
Sir John – I do believe you are sincere in trying to get the Government to see sense and I admire you for continuing to push back against the Net Zero lunacy, but I see absolutely no sign that they are paying any attention to you whatsoever.
“Western governments want to force the pace of these changes, going faster than consumer preferences and normal market forces will deliver. ”
These Western governments, including ours, claim to be democracies. In a democracy, the wishes of the people should take priority but when it comes to Net Zero, they are being denied any choice in the matter and are being forced to accept the agenda of Globalist Organisations and Big Corporations (UN/WEF).
“Government of the people, by the people, for the people” (Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address) is perishing – and instead we are getting governance of the people, by the Globalist self-appointed elite, for the Globalist self-appointed elite …. a dictatorship, which bears more resemblance to the Chinese governmental structure than a Parliamentary Representative Democracy.
September 14, 2023
I find it rich the EU complains about China subsidising their EV manufacturers, when the EU does its own market rigging as in CAP subsidies.
Do we really want to compete with China in low cost EVs? Why not just buy them cheap and save the subsidy?
Oh yes, it’s not about an industrial plan, just headlines for the government.
September 14, 2023
Governments are forcing disastrous change to society based on false premises and outright lies. The IPCC admitted that there has been no rise in global temperatures for 15 years which was promptly covered up. CO2 is essential to all life yet is treated as a poison. Large scale green energy is a total failure. The economic poliies being enacted will destroy most businesses and cause mass starvation on a global basis. All this for the benefit of the elite who wish to thin the herd of it’s useless eaters and keep all resources for themselves.
September 14, 2023
Sir John
I notice within the EU they have recognised their NetZero zeal is damaging their economy. Their answer is that those areas of the World that are not advancing at the same speed as them yet expect to export to the EU will be handed NetZero taxes on all imports.
Sounds logical, if you punish your own people with a punitive religion, to then destroy your own industry, wealth and future by importing from the Worlds polluters â you are on a hiding to nothing.
This UK Conservative Government on this? Punish, ban, cancel, destroy the UKâs economy and hand foreign entities UK taxpayer money. Do anything that first destroys the UK, its democracy and its freedoms. Avoid at all cost, getting your own house in order and working for those that pay and elected you.
September 14, 2023
The car industry is NOT being asked to close its existing car factories, it is being asked to convert those factories to the production of electric vehicles instead, as we saw earlier this week with the BMW (i.e. British Leyland, Austin and Morris) Mini at Cowley. However, the announcement was greatly marred by the revelation that the new electric car would be DESIGNED in CHINA – for goodness sake! We should be concerned for both Geo-political AND Industrial reasons. The Mini was invented in Oxford ! When will the Government learn to prevent the UKâs premium industrial assets from being sold abroad ?
Reply It is being asked to close petrol and diesel capacity. That means writing off all the plant and R and D. You start again with a new line to make a battery car.
September 14, 2023
The so-called Conservative Party has generated too many subsidies and is prone to subside itself.
September 14, 2023
Daily Express reported yesterday that the Channel migrants have wised up and are saving a lot of money by clubbing together to buy dinghies. What does this do to the politicians’ narrative that ‘It’s all the fault of wicked criminal gangs’?
September 14, 2023
Why donât we return the dinghies that arrive and sell them to the migrants. Might offset the first 30 minutes of the cost TO US when they rock up here.
September 14, 2023
Expect ebay adverts ‘large dinghy – used once’. Buyer collects from the beach near Dover.
September 14, 2023
Sir John
All good points as always. But this Conservative Government, is anti UK, anti a UK economy, is anti UK prosperity.
âBidenâs America has decided to increase spending and borrowing substantially to be able to pay large subsidies to divert green investments to the USA from other places that might have attracted them.â To gain from this a Company has to reside in the US, contribute and pay taxes in the US.
The UK version âOh you are foreignâ you pay taxes and contribute to others â so how much of our taxpayers money can we give you? UK enterprise is virtually excluded, especially when it doesnât export UK wealth.
September 14, 2023
It should be clear to anyone who is awake that the cure for alleged manmade climate change, IE Netzero, is far more deadly to us all than the extrapolated suggested outcomes of MMCC predictions could ever be.
If those pushing this alleged emergency down our throats bothered to look at the facts they would be forced to change their minds.
Co2 levels have been much higher than this in the past, and the Earth didn’t boil – In fact life flourished because Co2 is a food to the Earth – the more Co2, the more plants, the better animals survived.
Isn’t it time we rammed the truth down some throats!
September 14, 2023
I see this morning that the EU is launching an enquiry into subsidies provided to the Chinese car industry to enable them to dominate the supply of EVs and the batteries that power them. The ultimate aim must be to introduce tariffs to level the playing field for EU manufacturers who, frankly, are not going to be able to compete.
Every European manufacturer including Jaguar, is chasing after the top end of the market because they cannot make a profit on affordable EVs. Yet the market for ÂŁ80,000-plus EVS is far too small to support all the jobs that depend on the industry.
The easiest way to counter this Chinese domination would be to come up with a better and more practical alternative long term strategy to the battery EV, like Hydrogen fuel cell or pure hydrogen-powered cars.
Much work has been done on this by the industry in Europe, but the politicians have undermined these efforts by forcing the industry to go down the battery EV route, in their haste to get IC engined cars of the market.
This has been done in the full knowledge that the production of precious metals and other minerals needed to produce EV batteries are dominated by Chinese interests.
Why has VdL picked on the Chinese alone when Biden is pouring awarding billions in subsidies into any business prepared to manufacture in the US ? These are numbers that the rest of the Western World cannot match, and probably the US economy cannot afford.
September 14, 2023
Sir John
All subsidies are bad were ever they go. All imports that have been subsidised elsewhere is that other Country weaponising trade. All duties and taxes on imports should equal they handouts received.
Taxpayer money heading to businesses and enterprise in general should include both a shareholding in that company and political over-site. The object at all times is to provide the taxpayer with control and a reinvestable return, otherwise it is just another Government great big ponzi scheme.
September 14, 2023
I donât think there is any intention to âsave our industryâ, quite the reverse.
When a very senior Government politician, who seemed to have sensible policies until their attendance at the last WEF conference, now says that we need China to achieve our net zero (CO2 emissions) goal, you know that the CAGW/Net Zero religion is now so deeply entrenched in our political class that it even drives our foreign and security policies as well as our economic policies.
Whilst I have always thought that Net Zero will destroy our economy and hence standard of living I had not realised until now that this policy is also intended to work in reverse and the impoverishment of the UK is actually seen as necessary to achieve the net zero goal and hence even non net zero policies are designed to reduce our standard of living and thus reduce CO2 emissions.
The giveaway was when our PM, then Chancellor, said at COP26:
âSo our third action is to rewire the entire global financial system for Net Zero.â
I will not be voting for any party that supports Net Zero, It is time we had a Net Zero referendum.
September 14, 2023
Absolutely agree with your article. But what can we do when the majority of MPs vote like lemmings for all this Net Zero nonsense? Why do they fail to educate themselves about Climate Change / Global Warming and CO2 when making decisions costing millions? Cheap, reliable energy is the basic need of a successful modern economy.
Why, when people who comment on this site can see it, are MPs so wilfully ignorant? Why do they want to make life more difficult for ordinary people? However painful it may be, Sunak & Hunt have to go, but do we have an MP with conservative values, leadership skills and the toughness to do the job properly?
September 14, 2023
Keith, the MPs are told what to do by the whips, the whips are told what to do by the government, and the government are told what to do by those who set the Net Zero agenda.
September 15, 2023
R. Grange _ The Globalist WEF UK Establishment run the show regardless. The people are irrelevant but change is coming and PANIC will ensue.
September 14, 2023
E- nonsense – the population is being pushed into destruction.
If we are to survive the push back must start now!
Stop acting like sheep, most of the politicians are totally untrustworthy, as today we hear Starmer is in the eu negotiating a return of eu rule in Britain.
September 15, 2023
He will be able to promise we’re not going back in. But we will be as good as in paying up, restricting new trade agreements, annoying new partners with added clauses. Badenoch best get more of a move on. Although she’s the only Conservative MP I ever hear anything positive from.
September 14, 2023
SJR, your penultimate sentence is the key. Change must be market led. Customers would respond positively to ICEs that had been developed beyond Euro 4 5 and 6. These levels of emmission were not the end of the story , at least not until the whole question was handed to climate change fanatics and idiot politicians. It has the added advantages of not driving the consumer into a highly expensive situation with totally inadequate infrastructure and performance that is less than they are used to.
I would look upon the above as a holding position until such time as the developement work at Porsche, Toyota and Mitsubishi comes up with hydrogen driven products which would not have the limitations in performance and demand vast infrastructure change that do EVs. It is the scientific and engineering approach as opposed to the emmotion and ignorant politician solutions favoured by those in Westminster. Look around , do they ever get anything right apart from creating a third world UK. Westminster succeeds at failure.
It is long overdue that you all faced up to the facts about wind power. It only appears cheap to the less inquisitive who ignore the fact that it is subsidised with a tax on every users bill. Additionally if you turn transport and existing users to electricity, the grid infrastructure cost becomes enormous. Further wind power is halted because investors in it want even bigger subsidies to tempt them into it. Finally you make an all electric UK strategically very vulnerable. You could only dream it up in Westminster.
Despite our woes, business beneath the radar is doing quite well, better in fact than those in the EU. Belgium once survived minus a goverment, just think what we could do if Westminster along with their scribes all worked from home or better, just retired.
September 14, 2023
Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are in discussions about scrapping the second stage of the HS2 rail project as costs spiral amid severe delays. A cost estimate, seen by The Independent, reveals that the government has already spent ÂŁ2.3bn on stage two of the high-speed railway from Birmingham to Manchester but shelving the northern phase would save up to ÂŁ34bn.
Documents, discussed at a meeting at No 10 on Tuesday headlined âchancellor and prime minister bilatâ, suggest the ÂŁ2.3bn is now not recoverable even if it is cancelled. The Independent understands talks are ongoing.
It comes as the chancellor tries to find more economic headroom as he faces growing pressure from Tory MPs to offer tax cuts before the next election.
The project is currently set to be completed in stages from 2029 onwards, although it has faced continued delays. The first phase was originally due to open in 2026.
Labour, which is currently leading in the polls ahead of a general election due next year, has said it will complete the project in full.
September 15, 2023
Will they link up HS1 to HS2, though, against their union’s wishes as good Europeans would?
September 14, 2023
All the toil and sacrifice given by our ancestors to make this country great and politicians manage to destroy it in one generation. Shame on them.
September 14, 2023
đđ»đđ»đđ»đđ»đđ» agreed Christine
September 14, 2023
Completely off topic
Iâve just watched an excellent video from Danny Haiphong who has just addressed the UN Security Council members about the situation in Ukraine interviewing Major Scott Ritter, ex-Marine and UN weapons inspector on the subject
Major Scott Ritter revealed that the Ukrainians are days from defeat in the clearest explanation that Iâve so far heard
Sir John, presumably this is all well known to our government and they are preparing to make the announcement or they certainly should be
I havenât seen anything on this subject in your diary, a serious error in my judgement, or indeed in our media?
Despite ÂŁ4.6 Billion of expenditure
Reply No evidence Ukraine will be defeated â in daysâ. I am giving people an opportunity today to discuss the war, but try to stick to the reality.
September 14, 2023
I do not believe that the future of cars is electric ; hydrogen offers the best solution and our investment approach should follow this science . Free of the EU does give us the opportunity to follow our own priorities and needs and boosting industry is essential . It is stupid to put ” Green Energy ” high on our agenda when the likes of China put us on the map as a small pin-prick ; we cannot bring China to heel and we should keep our investments oriented to the UK .
September 14, 2023
…yes Sir John, but you know that you cannot go against the new State Religion of Net Zero…
September 14, 2023
The strongest economic argument against Brexit was that no U.K. government would actually take advantage of the potential freedoms of Brexit and move to make the U.K. a really globally competitive, dynamic economy. That being the case, the undoubted disruption and societal trauma of leaving wouldnât be worth it. It began to look like that view might actually be wrong when Boris won his 80-seat majority. But for all Borisâs talk he turned out to govern like a European social democrat. Then we had Liz Truss – who did say some sensible things on growth and competitiveness – but who was obviously unsuited to being PM. And so it proved when she U-turned and then resigned in a panic in a few weeks having rushed into ill-thought out and badly presented policies. ERM 2.0 she was as she took the Conservatives from -5% to -30% in the polls.
The best argument now for voting Conservative is that Labour would be even worse, there would be more useless government interventionism, even more waste, more fatuous green laws regulations and subsidies, more wokery, and most likely even more tax and borrowing. Itâs 3/10 versus 1/10. Will that enthuse enough Conservative voters? I doubt it.
September 14, 2023
How amusing
Even a completely factual statement about the war in Ukraine from 2 highly respected commentators
One who is welcomed at the UN cannot get past the censorship
Youâre a total disgrace
September 14, 2023
It will take years of turmoil before a UK Government drops Net Zero.âSimilar to the â16-â19 post referendum period.âAny Prime Minister so minded who happens to make it to Number 10, like Truss, will be similarly brought down to preserve Net Zero.âOnly after much further Net Zero harm to the country has been done, causing governments to fall along the way, will a party with abolishing Net Zero as one of its prime aims be elected and be strong enough to see off the blob.âThere’s a chance it might be a Tory party rejuvenated by being in opposition and fresh blood but one of the young upstart parties could grab the public’s desire for real commonsense change.
September 14, 2023
Why doesn’t Steve Ovett have a knighthood?
He was the gold medalist in the 800 metres at the 1980 Olympic Games. Set 5 world records for 1500 metres and the mile run, and a world record at two miles. He won 45 consecutive 1500 and mile races from 1977 to 1980.
He trained hard, ran hard / showed real competitive spirit, excited the nation, and was a winner. Why no knighthood?
September 14, 2023
I suppose by skilled people, JR is referring to aliens who have been educated using e.g. the International GCE Cambridge exams which have not been degraded like the ones offered by the for profit exam pass manufacturers. Here’s an idea: introduce the International GCE and the IB here for entry to academic universities and stop trying to pretend that one examination system can cover the whole range of abilities. Then perhaps we would get people in government and elsewhere who have functional cognitive processes not the ignorant bunch of politically correct wreckers as we have now.
September 14, 2023
Bentley’s in Crewe have nine football-sized pitches full of solar panels, they supply on average 75% of the factories’ energy requirements, 100% on peak days. The same number of panels and that size of land would provide energy for 2,370 homes.
We are told Rolls Royce has made small nuclear reactors SMR, are they powering their factories with their own inventions? In Germany, they use solar panels according to a press release.
Then there is Dyson, ground source heat pumps keep their IT server centres cool. Solar panels power their r&d building, it makes me wonder why he hasn’t found a way to redirect the heat energy from his servers into his heating system. Anaerobic digesters power Dyson farms. 100% of Dyson owned manufacturing and 65% of the electricity consumed by Dyson spaces globally was renewable or covered by renewable energy guarantee origin certificates by the end of 2022.
Like Lynn said, people who make shouldn’t need subsidies. They should be coming up with solutions the rest can buy into willingly.
September 14, 2023
We have our own gas resource but ignore it and buy Norwegian gas that comes from the same North Sea as our own. The Norwegians must wonder what has happened to this once “Great” Britain. I certainly do.
Is it so important to boost the PM’s ego that we tax payers must continually fund the net zero cum Green climate change crusade so that HE can be seen as a “World Leader” in it? It is laughable if it were not so costly to us.
Wake up Rishi! The RoTW sees you as someone, at best, naive, but thank you for cutting out the UK as a viable competitor for so many of our exported products. And all because of the lack of serious funding and policies promoting British manufacturing plus the ultra high energy costs levied upon our OEMs. Our industrial electtricity prices (30p/kWh) are more than double those enjoyed in the USA and five times that of China (ÂŁ0.6/kWh). Tell me, just how you expect this country to GROW when all you do is cost us more money (Debt servicing currently ÂŁ95B per year) and put a straight jacket on our manufacturers and all others who are not connected with the crazy green crusade? We are fighting for our economic survival but you, with your millions, appear to be blinded to that fact.
Open your eyes and see the truth, for the truth shall set you free. And help GB plc enormously.
September 14, 2023
It’s interesting to read David Frost in the Daily Telegraph this evening on Brexit. He believes that it might be reversed or diluted, and calls on readers to act in response somehow (although he lacks specific recommendations on how to do so).
September 15, 2023
I note that the Prince and Princess of Wales visited a primary school class held in woodland, where the children were being taught how to make a shelter from branches and how to toast marshmallows. Doubtless essential learning for the modern net zero world. But maybe not so much fun when the weather turns cold or wet and windy.
September 15, 2023
I would like to know more about CBDC. IanDS knows about UBI and China so I’d be interested in his views.
For me it would probably double /triple my income and I could easily spend it on approved goods in the time allowed.
Perhaps he could do an article in one of the papers which require no subscription .
September 15, 2023
The most important first step in making Britain a competitive place for industry is to get the cost of power competitive. At the moment the cost of electrical power in Britain is far higher than in Europe.
Why is this ? A higher and higher proportion of green energy seems to keep pushing the price up.
September 16, 2023
Why are we so down on gas, oil, petrol and diesel, whilst doing nothing about coal burning? Coal burning accounts for 37% of the World’s gross green house gas emissions. The leading culprits are known – China, USA, EU and India. We also know that coal and LNG have double the carbon footprint per unit of energy produced than gas, so not all fossil fuels are equal. We also know that a growing world population leads to more energy being consumed.
So why does the UK body politic continue to penalise their own country, as opposed to making proposals via WTO to penalise the worst culprits?