The Green revolution is a top down revolution. It is invented and enforced by governments and big companies. Whilst a majority of people say they think climate change is an issue, a big majority do not rush to change their own lifestyles in line with the requests and requirements of big government and the green revolutionaries. Most people are happy with gas or oil boilers and or solid fuel fires to heat their homes, and most of us still have diesel or petrol vehicles. Meat eating is still popular and people like flying abroad for their holidays.
Governments have understood that it is easier to force big business to comply with their green agenda than it is to get the public to accept the current approved products and changed lifestyles of green transition. Car companies queue up to undermine their successful past investments in making petrol and diesel vehicles, and to condemn their past products. They do however expect large subsidies to help pay for the very costly investment in making batteries and electric alternatives, and now expect governments to force people to buy these products as not enough want to buy them from free choice. Electricity generators rush to put in wind turbines and solar farms so they can close their cost efficient and reliable gas and coal power stations, but expect priority rules for interruptible renewable power and price structures that favour the new investments. Steel companies plan expensive electric arc recycling works to replace steel production in blast furnaces, but they too need large subsidies to try to get the sums to work.
Governments and companies need to work on how they could create affordable reliable good products that help them in their aim of cutting CO 2. They are going to need much more buy in from consumers to achieve their ambitious targets. Consumers are making it very clear they expect the products to be better and cheaper than they currently are. Government does not have to subsidise or regulate to get people to buy mobile phones or to switch to on line shopping, as those changes area popular with customers at market prices without intervention. Sales of electric vehicles to individual buyers are struggling in many places without large subsidies. Hertz has recently announced difficulties in renting out EVs and decided to sell one third of its present EV fleet to get more in line with public demand.
Worse still for governments and political parties that are keen on the drive to net zero is the growing evidence that parties in government that go too far in forcing unpopular net zero changes lose elections. The Netherlands government lost heavily in the last election because it was trying to cut down animal husbandry and meat eating faster than the public thought acceptable. President Macron’s party has had some bruising encounters with public opinion over the level of fossil fuel taxes and diesel prices. The original gilets jaunes protests were about energy taxes which forced a climb down. Recently Macron has had to stop further taxes on agricultural diesel in the face of angry farmers.
When across Europe and the UK fossil fuel energy prices soared, doing the governments’ work for them forcing less use, governments rightly saw the need to cushion people from the price impact on this essential. Germany has given into pressure to delay the ending of new diesel and petrol cars. In the US Presidential Candidate Trump is ahead of President Biden in the polls , His policy of withdrawing from the Paris climate change treaty and targets compared to Biden who wants to go further faster is clearly no barrier to his possible victory and may be helping him. Many people do not want to be told by government how to heat their homes, what car to buy, and where to have their holiday.
February 13, 2024
The question is not âdo people think climate change is an issueâ the climate has always changed after all. The question is there evidence that a bit more CO2 going to cause a huge climate emergency the answer is no. Indeed the evidence suggest a bit more tree, plant and crop food will be a net positive. After all we are in an historical dearth of CO2 as William Happer and other sensible scientist not on the make explain.
âWhen across Europe and the UK fossil fuel energy prices soared, doing the governmentsâ work for them forcing less use, governments rightly saw the need to cushion people from the price impact on this essential.â
Price subsidies for energy were a mistake. Some, especially poorer people, would surely have preferred to have a bit more money and choose how to spend it. They might have preferred more jumpers, or to heat only one room and used the money saved elsewhere. Always best to give people the choice rather than give them subsidised things the government thinks best. The people know their personal circumstances.
The deluded net zero religion is the major driver of higher energy prices. Just get fracking, drilling, mining and drop net zero.
February 13, 2024
“Price subsidies for energy were a mistake. Some, especially poorer people, would surely have preferred to have a bit more money and choose how to spend it. They might have preferred more jumpers, or to heat only one room and used the money saved elsewhere. Always best to give people the choice rather than give them subsidised things the government thinks best. The people know their personal circumstances.”
Host doesn’t get this. He’s moved slightly in the wrong direction-print money when energy prices go up or a bug is going round. In the end it causes dependency and the country to go broke. Indeed totally unnecessary if people were taxed less in the first place and encouraged to invest those savings for such circumstances.
February 13, 2024
Agreed. Labour introduced compulsion via the Climate Change Act and the regulatory regimes that it imposed. Businesses were promised “guaranteed returns” by Cameron when he was PM if they invested in wind and solar energy. The attempted transition has been buttressed by planning rules, ministerial decisions to deny or allow planning permissions depending on how “green” they were. Research funding for universities was granted for “green” initiatives but denied to the so-called “climate deniers”. There needs to be a wholesale clear out of MPs who have promoted and allowed this gross distortion of the economy at huge and unsustainable cost to the UK economy.
February 13, 2024
The issue with the Nut Zero delusion is that, CO2 output saved here somehow disappears and is not the same as CO2 output in China, even thought they make out it is a global problem. None of the Nut Zero fanatics can see the glaring falsehood of their thinking.
Madness.
February 13, 2024
Good morning.
As this article alluded to, a good product will always manage to sell itself and not rely on subsidy or State mandate (law). The very fact that we are being forced to take up all manner of nonsense tells me that this is NOT a good product.
Electric vehicles have a place in the market. Small short range and low speed ‘city cars’ are their niche. Quick, easy to charge in a city or large town environment, as they do not need the range and a large expensive battery plus, access to numerous charge points. Salisbury’s is planning on installing charge points at most of its large stores and I am sure others will follow.
But it is the market that will decide. The market is not often wrong (VHS vs BETAMAX) and things change as technology improves. But you cannot go beyond the laws of physics and I am afraid that is something our scientific and engineering illiterate self styled elite fail on. A lithium-ion battery literally weighs a ton, costs a small fortune, and is really neither environmentally friendly or carbon neutral.
But as we all know, it isn’t about saving the planet but keeping to those world agendas and forums desires on us đ
February 13, 2024
Interesting that you mention beta max vs VHS. In technology the pornography sector drives change the quickest. Internet speed, DVDs, VHS, passwords and access etc.
Maybe the green lobby should try to make their green strategy useful to the pornography suppliers.
February 13, 2024
Why has Network Rail not been asked to put forward a timetable for electrifying nearly all the rest of the railway system (about 60% are still diesel)? The programme halted ages ago. This would probably delight many people who still have to put up with less reliable diesel trains. (A green measure with public support … there’s a novelty.)
The Indian railways have a higher proportion of electrified lines than the UK. The Swiss railways reached nearly 100% electric traction by the early 21st.C.
No batteries are needed by electric transport with overhead cables (or third rail). So no great problem with the shortage of scarce minerals. That’s a huge barrier to any renewable energy future.
February 13, 2024
Bravo Sir J.!
Pick up this cause, however tentatively, and force your incompetent PCP leaders to face the democratic reality of its mad Net Zero policy. Make it clear to them; if they continue with Net Zero, then you’ll be removed from office.
Bring in the counter arguments, find similarly minded colleagues and call yourselves something like ‘Common-sense Conservatives’, tell the PCP manifesto writers to change course on this existential issue.
February 13, 2024
The world needs Trump because for all his faults he talks a lot of sense. Especially in climate change and NATO
February 13, 2024
That made me smile. Do you seriously think there is 1 chance in a 1000 they won’t be removed from office. Although, to be fair, the bookies are not that sure. 16/1 for a Tory victory, 1/6 for a Labour victory. As I read that, they are 22 times more certain of a Labour victory than a Tory victory.
February 13, 2024
It’s not what I think that matters; but it appears, bizarrely, that Rishi and crew think they’re on the right track and in with a chance. Perhaps Sir J. can disabuse him of that fantasy.
February 14, 2024
Implied probability of Tory victory is 1/17th and of Labour is 6/7ths, so the probability ratio is 14 4/7ths (17×6/7).
February 13, 2024
Congratulation to Starmer on finally coming to the right decision on his Rochdale ex-candidate and to Richard Tice for promising a vaccine injury inquiry – not that it is likely he will ever get any power to deliver it.
February 13, 2024
On a slightly different topic, I was glad to see the ‘lawfare’ against the Brexiteer MP for Romford has failed. It’s remarkable how many attempts there have been, of one kind or another, to attack MPs who supported Brexit,
February 13, 2024
Someone as blinkered in his outlook on the world as Starmer would not be aware that many in Israel have been unhappy for years about Netanyahu’s apparent leniency towards Hamas. The former Israeli defence minister Avigdor Lieberman was reported in the Times of Israel in February 2020 as being very critical of the current Israeli PM. He accused him of encouraging the Qataris to go on financing Hamas, calling this “protection money” so that Israel would not be attacked. Netanyahu’s arguably reasonable objective was to split the Palestinian resistance movement between secular Fatah and Islamist Hamas. Well, that policy seems to have failed. To understand Israel, we need to follow the – in my view – intelligently written Israeli media, which I doubt Starmer ever does. Certainly not the BBC and the useless British press.
February 13, 2024
This Rochdale business is the kind of uber mess we’ll be experiencing for years to come, unfortunately. U turn on U turn. Poor old Reform, having the most sensible approach of all, might well continue to suffer from a mixture of tribal voting on the left and the cold shoulder from those in the Tory party who should truly be throwing their lot in. Neither augurs well.
February 13, 2024
A transparent meaningless political gesture. Even if he had the power, and as you say he wonât, any enquiry would take tens of years, cost umpteen millions everyone will have moved on, so what?
And if they didnât like the result conspiracy theorists like you would continue find some reason to keep going.
February 14, 2024
Surely what Andrew Bridgen (and LL) are saying is that once the harms-to-jabs ratio has risen – as it has – much higher with the mRNA injections than with conventional vaccines, the MHRA’s job is to find out why. Since it won’t do that job, there has to be a public inquiry scrutinising the regulator’s actions. We simply need the facts to be brought out into the open. Calling people who want to see that happen ‘conspiracy theorists’ just shows, Nigl, your parti pris in favour of the politicians and bureaucrats who experimented with public health.
February 13, 2024
In Jan 2023 Richard Tice said on X, Andrew Bridgen would not be welcome in his Reform Party quoting
âAndrew has got it wrong on vaccinesâ
Strange it was his latter statement you chose to highlight.
February 13, 2024
His problems in places like rochdale will continue to get worse and worse is we continue with open door immigration as both Sunak and Starmer seem to both want. Judged by Sunakâs actions.
February 13, 2024
With John’s permission I shall humbly correct the title which more accurately reflects what we are dealing with, ‘The Marxist revolution hits a democratic barrier’
The perpetrators and purveyors of this ideological and authoritarian poison aren’t in anyway concerned with environmental protection, racial equality, public health and human concern of any kind. Their objective is the total absorption of humanity into an oppressive ideological construct whose purpose is to assert total control. Morality purged and replaced by the Marxist poison of the oppressor v oppressed narrative allowing for the creation of a threat and the destruction of that threat
Only Braverman is prepared to stand up and expose the racist cancer that is woke. This lady truly understands the existential threat of a regurgitated form of the politics of what we saw in Germany throughout the 1930’s. The left are the far right. The non-woke are the decent, moral majority
February 13, 2024
Well DOM, George Orwell with 1984 and Animal Farm gave us fair warning. So did Enoch Powell who at his most allegorical did not foretell the situation we face today.
February 13, 2024
DOM :
I agree with your first two paragraphs. With regard to the third it needs to be recognised that there is no such separate movement as âwokeâ, as in âawake to injusticeâ.
Woke is simply the fifth column Marxists/communists at work to destroy the Westâs wealth, social cohesion and ultimately security. Woke will invent and promote any policy which weakens and wrecks our nation. Attacking our history, implementing diversity to replace meritocracy, abolishing free speech, causing racist, religious and gender divisions and ruining our education/culture, judicial system and economy are all tools they use.
The reason why so much woke is hypocritical and impractical economy destroying nonsense is because the only common thread is the wrecking of the West and this includes the âGreen Revolutionâ.
February 13, 2024
Every ‘purveyor of this ideological and authoritarian poison’ sounds to me to be completely convinced that climate armageddon is around the corner. Admittedly, their solution is very much ‘big state’ – not sure it has anything to do with Marxist philosophy – but it strikes me they genuinely believe they are going to save ‘the planet’.
February 13, 2024
I have no issue with the desire for greener energy if it is deemed to be cleaner and more sustainable, who wouldn’t want that.
My issue is that I don’t trust the reasoning, or the people pushing this agenda and see far too many contradictions from said people.
Anything that the public is bombarded with from on high without there being an equal platform for those more than qualified to show things are not quite as we are being told, immediately arouses my suspicions.
Follow the money.
It is sad to say that I no longer feel I live in a safe democratic country, when so many people can be gagged on a number of issues.
Why, if the green lobby is so sure of their facts, are they afraid of open debate with their peers?
February 13, 2024
Green often signifies healthy growth, but people dislike green slime and mould.
February 13, 2024
and children generally refuse to try eating anything green…
February 13, 2024
@ Michelle – Well said!
February 13, 2024
“if it is deemed to be cleaner and more sustainable” deemed by whom people like King Charles and Sunak who spend hours flying in private jets, helicopters and first class and their “experts”? Similar expert to the medical ones who did so much harm with their dangerous net harm Covid vaccines. This even coerced onto people with zero need for them such as the young and those who had already had Covid. Not very safe, not needed by most and not even effective.
When is Sunak going to correct his lie(?) or idioticly misguided assurance to parliament that the new tech. Covid Vaccines were/are safe? Is his maths not up to looking at the stats or getting some one competent to do so. The evidence of overwhelming and worldwide.
February 13, 2024
@Michelle
Yep.
As I have posted before, I am no scientist and whether I believe there is a âclimate crisisâ (or not) depends on which expert I listen to.
Before any politician spends my money, disrupts my life and causes an increase in my personal expenditure in a march towards net zero âŠâŠ I would expect the experts to be involved in a full, open, transparent, independent and well publicised discussion in order to convince me, a mere pleb.
I would very much hope that the farmers riots currently taking place on the continent help convince Governments of the need for government by consensus.
February 13, 2024
They have a new very profitable religion & so not remotely interested in âfactsâ just new saints like St Greta the school drop out whom Gove takes advice from. Gove an english graduate taking advice from a school drop out about our climate and energy policies then having a big say in them. We are government by fools who take advice from fools.
February 14, 2024
Religion indeed. It is concerning that rumours suggest that Prince George will be raised in the green religion at Oundle. Whilst it is understandable that Prince William is said to have his doubts about the link between church and state, replacing it with green religion would be a big mistake.
February 13, 2024
I don’t think that there can be a single even modestly critical thinking person who deep down actually believes the climate apocalypse nonsense.
February 13, 2024
Indeed the models they use cannot even predict past climate changes let alone the future, a bit more CO2 is actually a net benefit to humanity and things like EV vehicles buring wood at Drax do not even save CO2 anyway.
February 13, 2024
When I think about it, it seems a globalist plot to destroy the American led west to atone for a perceived white privilege. The whole circus is designed to destroy the Caucasian society and move leadership east to the advantage of China.
They of course will have Russi, India, Iran etc as allies, the word ruled by autocrat regumes.
February 13, 2024
A vast amount of lies and propaganda, not least from the dire BBC, has convinced many people – people often with little grasp of science that that most of the experts say this and they think they do not know enough to challenge this and trust government.
Rather like the experts who pushed the net harm Covid Vaccines that have done so much harm to people who never even needed them. Sunak still assuring people they are safe despite all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Last night he tried to shift the blame onto his experts a little. Many of his experts were often largely funded by big Pharma. Just as Ed Davey was paid by a law company that took huge sums in fees from the post office. Has Davey resigned yet.
February 13, 2024
One of the questions for me is why such as China and India do not seem to be in this mad scramble to do away with CO2.
Are they not concerned with the climate crisis we are told we face?
Why is it (or so it seems to me) just European nations (and their cousins) that are betting all on this dash to net zero?
I can’t help but wonder if this is a globalist levelling up gambit, by levelling us down.
February 13, 2024
Yes Michelle, it is the planned destruction of the West.
February 13, 2024
As far as I know âlevelling upâ is precisely as you say, â levelling downâ.
It is I think a communist ploy.
The end game being âequalityââŠ.as in we will all be equally poor.
Except for a very few at the top.
February 13, 2024
No need to wonder Michelle. That’s exactly what it is.
February 13, 2024
Michelle
I think a lot of people think now, the green agenda is a levelling up strategy – by levelling us – the west- down.
I think the idea is to take us all back to pre-industrialised times, where the poor are dependent on the rich.
February 13, 2024
@Michelle
They are. China is reducing itâs CO2 growth. China is the worldâs leader in electricity production from renewable energy sources, with over triple the generation of the second-ranking country, the United States. Chinaâs renewable energy sector is growing faster than its fossil fuels and nuclear power capacity, and is expected to contribute 43 per cent of global renewable capacity growth by 2030. Source; Wikipedia
Chinaâs total renewable energy capacity exceeded 1,000 GW in 2021, accounting for 43.5% of the countryâs total power generation capacity, 10.2% higher than in 2015. The country aims to have 80 per cent of its total energy mix coming from non-fossil fuel sources by 2060 and will achieve a combined 1,200 GW of solar and wind capacity by 2030. India is catching China up.
India and China are both trying to achieve developed world prosperity levels while reducing the proportion of their energy mix that generates CO2 and CH3
February 13, 2024
China has plenty of coal and plenty of wind but no oil or gas. With the coal comes plenty of air pollution so that is something they would rather do without. The Chinese do not make irrational decisions such as importing unassimilable aliens or trying to save the planet. They want to keep on growing their economy by minimising the potential impact on their economy by the globalist enemy within that controls the West through their bought and paid for politicians.
February 14, 2024
Do we have to do this again?
China’s renewables output accounted for just 8.3% of its energy use in 2022, compared with 18.6% for the UK. Its per capita emissions were 8.33 tCO2e compared with 5.26 tCO2e for the UK. China has a lot of catching up to do.
February 13, 2024
Spot on Michelle. A WEF scam to impoverish the west in favour of the BRICs
February 13, 2024
+1
February 13, 2024
A question I have asked here many times. I am sure they have just as capable scientists as we do, yet they do not seem concerned, and according to the green activists they are hurtling at a fast pace to suicide. I do not believe that, nor do they. Money is at the bottom of it and we know what the love of money is- the root of all evil. We are being lied to by people paid handsomely to do it.
February 13, 2024
Is it not inherently racist to assume that the Indian and Chinese scientists who are not urging their governments to hamstring themselves with a green agenda are not as competent as the Western disciples?
February 13, 2024
You have to put yourself into the shoes of the political leaders of both countries. One a hell bent dictatorship with a softly spoken intent to rule the world, and the other full of desperately ignored millions living in horror conditions while the elite are in the land of plenty. Come to think of it not much difference in it really!
Make hay while the sun shines, the rest of the world are having a decade long siesta.
February 13, 2024
The only possibility of imposing One World Government required living standards to be âlevelâ across the globe. As they knew they could not âlevel the world up to European Standardsâ, they knew they had to destroy our living standards and this was the problem discussed for years at the global conferences – how to get Europeans (whether in USA, Australia etc or at home) to surrender their living standards.
Now they have played their gambit and unbelievably just about succeeded while ânice but dimâ people swallow it whole.
Net zero, the MRNA jabs – all targeted at Europeans, indeed, forced on them. Our numbers will dwindle dramatically in the next couple of decades.
These are the plans of people who lead us, elected or not.
I see David Cameron has caused the name of his hometown to be changed by adopting it in his title. Itâs colloquially called âChipping SNortonâ now. So there is the root of our real problem.
February 13, 2024
Indeed and even if manmade CO2 were a problem (it is not) AND Wind farms, EVs, public transport⊠saved sig. CO2 (they do not) then the fact that India, China, Russia⊠will do nothing obviously means we are wasting out time and money anyway.
February 13, 2024
I don’t know about India, but China has a large and growing renewable energy sector. I know they are still building coal power stations but, hey, they need energy to keep producing the goods WE keep buying.
February 13, 2024
Could that be because when not massively subsidised renewables are cheaper to run just expensive to keep the back ups for. China’s one pot economy where the CCP owns everything allows for this.
February 13, 2024
Undoubtedly so.
February 13, 2024
Not quite on topic, but in Bath, where they have had a 20mph speed limit for 3 years, they have had more accidents, injuries and deaths since the change. Reported in the Bath Chronicle.
The council now says it cannot afford to put it back to 30mph. I expect the same to happen here in Wales.
February 13, 2024
Make an adhesive sticker ‘3’ of the right size and get the unemployed to walk around whacking it on the ‘2’.
Get some imagination for God’s sake.
February 13, 2024
It’s not green and it’s not a revolution. It’s wasteful, often environmentally damaging (but mostly out of sight in the UK so it “doesn’t matter”) and it’s a dictatorial tyranny by Globalists and single-issue Eco obsessives.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with the climate, and everything to do with CONTROL: surveillance, restrictions, lowering living standards in the west and transferring money from the “peasants” to Big Business and Globalist Institutions so they can buy influence and control in the 2nd and 3rd world.
Credit for Sunak for appearing in front of a (largely sympathetic) audience on GB News last night, but he was frankly embarrassing, Right? Apparently in our so-called democracy, we’re offered a choice between WEF Puppet Sunak or WEF Puppet Starmer and have to vote for one or the other, Right? If he’s the best the Not-a-Conservative-Party can find to lead it, it’s finished, Right?
It was good to see him confronted with John Watt, the man damaged by the experimental gene therapy. Sunak didn’t dare come out with the “safe and effective” bovine excrement when a victim was standing in front of him. But apparently, the “vaccine” injured shouldn’t be silenced and ignored ….. although that’s precisely what the Government, Parliament and the MSM have done.
February 13, 2024
You sum it up very well. I question the whole premis on which climate change is based. I do not question that it is happening, because change is one of the basic properties of climate and has been for aeons. I observe what is happening in the garden and the increasing extent to which we can now grow wine in the UK as indicators. I do not readily buy into mans production of CO2 as the great satan, particularly as plant life thrives on it.
I do support changes in the way we conduct our lives, and deal with the detritus of modern living we have out of expediency drifted into, with a push from less enviromentally minded industry. By changing our habits here there is an enormous health benefit to be gained, and for the UK a reduced burdon on the NHS. Industry should be forcefully eased into much less retail food packaging, and what is necessary should be natural and harmlessly recycled or disposed of, maybe in a way that produces reliable energy.
Most car manufacturers are now producing to Euro 6 emmission standards. I see no reason why, via engineering and scientific evolution, we should not push the bar even higher within market acceptance. Too many of our parliamentary representatives delude themselves with the idea that problems are solved by producing law. We have a plethora of law and to an unacceptable level lawlessness out of control, unpoliced, and a growth industry. We need incentivised industrial evolution not top down revolution from an ignorant government. If government fails to carry the public/ electorate with it, we the electorate will change it. This last sentence goes way beyond the climate question here in the UK. For starters the woke dragon must be slain. It is a fatal virus that has permeated government, big business, banks, and our armed forces. All to the detriment of the population.
To his credit, Rishi conducted himself tolerably well last night on GBNews, while accepting that the interrogation was less intrusive than it could have been. I don’t doubt his sincerity but I do doubt the purpose of his parliamentary tribe who will enter the election with 13 years of largely failure behind them. They havn’t killed Conservatism, but pushed it to thrive under a different banner.
February 13, 2024
Excellent diary entry, Sir John!
Public Private Partnerships, corporatocracy, population control?
February 13, 2024
As i say here regularly; The UK reducing it’s tiny CO2 emissions (less than 1% of the global total) will make not a jot of difference.
February 13, 2024
Spot On
February 13, 2024
The only people in the UK who object to our net zero goals are those MP’s with large buy-to-let portfolios. They do not wish to invest in insulating their properties because of the costs.
Big oil is a major donor to Mr Trump’s election campaign. He has stated repeatedly that he will roll back President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act measures, which promote investment in renewable energy and other green technologies. The fact that Mr Trump may win the November election will stop much investment in the American green economy this year
Big oil and the fossil fuel industry are not going to give up without a fight. Like Mr Trump’s legal woes, their aim is now to delay the transition for as long as possible
February 14, 2024
Sounds like good news to me.
February 13, 2024
As the Telegraph once put it in an editorial, the way to pursue environmental goals is not to impose higher taxation along with more bans and regulation, it is to trust human ingenuity.
When the main UK parties appear to be in consensus upon pursuing a policy we may reasonably describe as the Great Leap Backward, with a mission statement that rads “we have to destroy quality of life in order to save it”, we should all know that it is not going to end well.
February 13, 2024
The Green revolution hits a democratic barrier.
Thank goodness it is scientific lunacy, environmental lunacy, economic lunacy and not even possible with current technology. The problem is politicians will, post election ignore, what the public want. After all they the Tories have done for 13 years. The public want to ditch net zero, go for cheap on demand energy, cut low skilled immigration drastically, build sufficient houses, cut taxes and have public services that work. For 13+ years the Tories have delivered the complete reverse.
February 13, 2024
Our non-Conservative government is far too big, expensive and intrusive, and will thoroughly deserve their removal from office later this year.
February 13, 2024
This âdiaryâ is a backward looking view. We will be out of oil by the mid 2050âs , so by then we will have to drive an electric/ hydrogen powered car unless someone comes up with something better. China is already the most efficient producer of EVâs, so do we buy from them or build our own industry? It is less about CO2 which has positive and negative impact and more about enlightened self interest.
February 13, 2024
I don’t mind what we drive in 2050, it’s just that the EV technology is just not good enough and the cars are too expensive for us to adopt now. That is why the average private buyer is shunning them and will continue to do so while the government tries to ram them down our collective throats.
Same problem with heat pumps. By 2050, we should be awash with SMRs and can generate enough reliable electrical energy to have electric heating. Note : not via heat pumps, but the kind of electric boilers that the MOD are fitting to some married quarters to test their suitability. Unlike heat pumps, these are silent and are a direct replacement for a gas boiler and require no other changes to the radiators already installed in the houses.
However they will require a 3 phase supply to every home.
The problem are that the boilers are currently four times the price of a gas one ( this will come down, and they are a lot cheaper overall than a heat pump ) but the price per kW/h is three times the price of gas, so unless we can reduce the overal cost of generating electricity by a factor of three, it is going to cost a lot more.
February 13, 2024
People with a free choice donât want to buy another dud government either. âConservativesâ have developed into a defective product. Taxpayers want their money back, and compensation.
February 13, 2024
It certainly didn’t do what it said on the can!
February 13, 2024
I was reading about Germany’s self-harm between 2002 and 2022.
â Its energy capacity has doubled.
â Its population has increased slightly.
â Its energy production is down a bit, despite the doubling in theoretical capacity.
â Allowing for price inflation, the price of energy has still doubled.
It would be interesting to see comparisons like this for the UK.
February 13, 2024
and what about the EU Budget debt that they are holding up somehow, hoping miracles will come along.
February 13, 2024
Two more straws in the wind of public opposition to top down control are to be found in:
1 the disabling or covering up with placards of Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ cameras around London and
2 attacks on self driving taxis in San Francisco where recently one was attacked, vandalized and burned out; others have been disabled by obstructions.
These events and the farmer revolts reported in Europe suggest people have had enough. It will need to be resolved via the ballot bos or it will turn even more ugly very quickly.
February 13, 2024
What a shame that the leaders of all of the large Political Party’s in the UK hold the opposite view to your very sensible post John.
Big brother does not always know best, because everyone has different circumstances, different income levels, different priorities, and different thoughts, responsibilities.
We are not, and should not become, robots of the State.
February 13, 2024
Ford decided to go for full electric expensive cars and have had to make a U turn after losing over $40k per vehicle. Toyota stuck to hybrids and are booming.
February 13, 2024
Never has a truer sentence seen the light of day.
“Invented and enforced” — That should be written on every billboard in the country.
With puppet governments the style of the day, we may never know those responsible for the misery and deaths caused by netzero. It’s impossible to know how many older people died of the cold.
The globalisation insanity has done so much harm to this small world already, allowing those already rich to prosper further, while alleged Green issues provide them with the excuse.
February 13, 2024
Why do humans see so many shades of green?
âOn a bell curve of colours distinguished by the human eye, greens are right in the middle. This is an adaptation based on humans interacting in the natural world, where green are predominant.â
(or maybe too many Greens are shady!)
February 13, 2024
“Governments and companies need to work on how they could create affordable reliable good products”
Not sure what you mean by that? How would that work?
February 13, 2024
Firstly it highlights the stupidity of our MPs acting as voting and promoting fodder responding to a loud self interested minority, a metaphor for wider government and secondly hubristic duplicity in promoting benefits that at best are questionable whilst frankly lying about true cost.
Finally it shows they think we are stupid. You only have to read a government spokes persons responses to criticism, never accepting it, to know they live in a parallel universe.
Read (off topic) the ludicrous response justifying the tourist tax whilst it has cost us umpteen billions or the shutdown on MOD spending as examples.
February 13, 2024
“and now expect governments to force people to buy these products”
Well that’s disturbing….
February 13, 2024
I would like to see this article as an opinion piece in the Guardian
February 13, 2024
The weather will change as the sun’s activity increases and decreases. Summer and Winter see huge swings in temperature due to the position of the sun relative to different countries and hemispheres which does suggest that the sun has more influence that a few cars and heaters. (The Sun is massive).
Better to find ways to mitigate the changes than to think we can stop them – hubris and gauging
February 13, 2024
I wonder if Hertz are flogging their EVs off cheap. If they are, Iâd be interested. 95% of my journeys are 20 miles or (a lot) less and I could charge at home.
Mr. Redwood referred to âcar manufacturersâ. Not Toyota, they have sensibly stuck with hybrids. They have one EV offering – I bet they have sold barely half a dozen of them.
February 13, 2024
Is a hybrid car sensible, Mike?
It has a heavy battery that has to pull a heavy ICE to move, and has an ICE that has to pull a heavy battery too. That seems to add up to duplicitous waste.
February 13, 2024
If environmental sustainability was the driving factor in all this Green stuff , then front and centre of the agenda would be population sustainability , but it’s not , instead we are being told to buy in to completely divergent policies. On the one hand we are told to live like paupers to save the planet, the next told we have unlimited resources to house the world. Go figure, for one thing these policies don’t do is add up.
February 13, 2024
Would it not be better to focus on technologies to extract CO2 from the atmosphere?
February 13, 2024
Everyone is cloning the direction demonstrated to them by this Conservative Government.
From the MsM â âMinistry of Defence has 93 diversity networks that ‘celebrate diversity related events’â
âMoD freezes all new capital spending as budgets spiral out of controlâ
âArmed Forces were widely criticised for spending on diversity issues and it has now emerged that the cost of staff focused on the issue has doubledâ
Why does this Conservative Government believe spending money on discrimination will create a better ‘killing machine’ to defend the Country – they have lost the plot just to signal a non-virtue to those that would never support or vote for them in a million years.
This Conservative Government is awarding our Taxpayer money to those that put âDiscriminationâ above ability.
This attitude to someone elseâs money from the top can be shown in every, nook and cranny this Conservative Government is in charge of.
February 13, 2024
Speaking last month to The Telegraph, the Defence Secretary said he was very concerned about the militaryâs lack of diversity, saying they needed to attract more women for a more inclusive representation of society.
It would appear the Conservative Government is against any sector that by it very existence is there to ‘defend’ the Country. All UK capabilities to ‘exists’ as they demonstrate time and time again have to be removed and put into the hands of others – that now includes defence.
The UK needs MPs and leadership that supports and defends the UK and it People. That is one thing what some are calling the ‘Green Revolution’ and many similar projects doesn’t do. The whole thrust of this Conservative Government is about neutralizing the people of the UK and pushing everything that would allow us to thrive into the whims of those we cant vote for and are perusing their own agenda of unfettered growth.
February 13, 2024
Sensible stuff as usual but whatever is put in the budget no one now trusts the Tories to deliver as:- 1. they have had thirteen years of non delivery and 2:- anyway are going to lose power this Autumn. Hunt is unlikely even to be an MP.
“Armed with better cost controls and an attack on some of these areas of needless spending, the Chancellor and PM could show how you get more public service for less cost under Conservatives. That would mean money left over for tax cuts to boost living standards and make it more worthwhile working. That is what all these reluctant Conservatives want.”
Better services for less and tax cuts is indeed what is needed but for thirteen years the Tories have increased taxes, public services are appalling and still declining and government waste and mis-spending is vast.
HS2, the lockdowns, net harm vaccines, pointless degrees, migrant hotels, PPE, the Covid loans fiasco, the two useless while elephant aircraft carriers, benefits for health people who could work but choose not to, the dire NHS…
Circa 86% of journeys are done by car yet the DoT spend far more on rail and buses circa 80% and doubtless the 20% they do spend on roads is mainly on motorist mugging cameras, road blocking, bus and bike lanes or moronic things like the 20 million roundabout in Basinstoke. Or the cash cow cameras on the M1 junction 33 and 34 near Sheffield and Rotherham. A smart motorway which had a 60mph speed limit imposed to âlower pollutionâ has netted millions of pounds in fines for the Treasury on a 2.6 mile stretch of the M1 where 22,546 motorists were mugged so far it seems.
February 13, 2024
Excellent article, Sir John. You have precisely explained the position. In a so-called free and democratic UK, the Government is trying to impose change based on a myth. CO2 is not a problem and Global warming / Climate Change is absolute nonsense.
What has happened to most of our MPs is that they have lost a sense of enquiry, a desire to research so they know what they are voting for, and plain common sense. Putting Net Zero by 2050 in law was probably the most stupid decision ever made. But on they sail in blissful ignorance of the damage they are doing to the UK!
No wonder the Government is 20% plus behind in the polls.
February 13, 2024
Dear Mr. Redwood,
…..and, of course, all happening here in the UK under a ‘Conservative’ government including the ‘dangerous farrago of nonsense’ pushed by the Diversity, Equality and Inclusivity ideology that has been allowed to infiltrate and take over HM Armed Forces.
But never fear, dear comrades, because riding over the hill to our rescue is none other than the Secretary of State himself, Mr. Grant Sch…(you know who) who has ordered a review…..
February 13, 2024
”The Green revolution is a top down revolution.”
Totally agree, there’s no mandate from the people, its wasn’t a topic in the 2019 manifesto and no vote in the HoCs
”It is invented and enforced by governments and big companies”
Totally agree with the government bit, and totally disagree with the big- companies bit …they just follow the government subsidy and therefore support whatever mad green policy they produce eg Tata Steel didn’t come up with the idea of banning the mining of coke coal, they didn’t come up with the strategy of developing net-zero plans …no, they welcomed the huge government subsidy …the same with EV in the automotive sector and every other industry sector
February 13, 2024
The current practice of governments’ across the Western World is to ignore the wish of the people. They (government) have adopted the ‘we know best’ approach, having been persuaded by vested interests what that ‘best’ is. Let us call them lobbyists.
This is not how democratic representation works. Which explains why, so many societies are now rejecting the autocrats/government agents that have driven divisions into our previously stable and united civilisation.
Bear with me for a moment.
Wars it has been argued, are the sole preserve of nations, and thus the destruction of nations will by default, eliminate wars. That simplistic logic, was the foundation on which the EEC then EU was built. The original objective was to prevent the factors of war, coal and steel (principally in Germany and France) from being deployed in such a focused way ever again. The EEC/EU even has a plaque stating its determination to eliminate nations, stating they are the precursors of wars?
The reality however is more complex. Wars or the cause of wars more accurately are not caused by nations. Wars are caused by mad men/women, usually mad political men/women once they have removed the democratic voice from government policies.
Sadly that is precisely where we are now, and heading there at an ever increasing speed.
The complete pointlessness of ESG and DEI is driving chaos into all sectors of business and society. They are not wanted and certainly are not being requested by society in general. No matter what the public want and are demanding, yet more those policies along with the bizarre LGBTQ+ fixation, are introduced reducing society into angry factions. Those factions along with the anger never existed before, it is certainly not positive for society.
The disquiet in general society is all due to flawed top down instruction by government. It has to stop, if it doesn’t the anger will take over….
February 13, 2024
I will not be distracted by all the side issues but go straight to the heart of it: The idea that CO2 is some sort of temperature and climate control knob so we need to restrict its release into the atmosphere by human activity is The Great Lie of our times.
The whole of life on Earth is carbon-based and that carbon came from CO2 in the primordial atmosphere. No CO2, no life. Less CO2, less life; more CO2, more life. We see it happening now in satellite imagery as increased atmospheric CO2 ‘greens’ desert regions of the planet. We see it in improved plant growth and crop yields. We need MORE CO2 in the atmosphere, not less.
‘Climate change’ exists only in the computer models used by the activists who call themselves “climate scientists”. It is not based on observed data so they are peddling junk science. Garbage in, garbage out.
We need not get involved in debating the insane nitty-gritty of persuading people to change their habits. We need only cancel “Nett Zero” and repeal the ridiculous Climate Change Act which is the greatest public policy blunder in the history of the world.
Over to you, Sir John.
February 13, 2024
Only Chain, India and Russia have seen through the scam …..but than again, they don’t need net-zero to control their people
February 13, 2024
Off Topic – – a bit.
Just checked my next annual Thames Water bill, and was shocked to reach for the calculator to find an increase of 11.15%.
What is happening ? We once again have no shortage of rainwater to collect in Wokingham.
February 13, 2024
Politicians, of all parties, never explain to us why reducing our carbon emissions from less than 1% of the World’s to 0% will have a major positive impact on Climate Change. Of course it will have no impact whatsoever given China and India are actively ignoring it.
Yet politicians persist in committing ÂŁbillions of tax payer money on gesture politics, no doubt because their focus groups say this will go down well with the UK voters.
As our industrial base collapses, a certain consequence will be that Private Industry will no longer be able to fund the Public Sector. A perfect scenario for Marxist Theory to take hold.
And Sir Keir is presently odds on to lead the next Government!
February 13, 2024
The âGreen Revolutionâ is simply a Marxist trick to wreck the West by destroying its access to cheap, abundant and reliable hydrocarbon energy and the reason the climate activists have no issue with Chinaâs CO2 emissions for instance is because China is already an authoritarian/communist state.
CAGW does not exist, as shown by Happer & Wijngaarden whose calculations on the real atmosphere, including water vapour, unlike the IPCC models, show a negligible increase in GHG when atmospheric CO2 is doubled. Solving the equation of transfer, originally developed by astrophysicists to calculate the radiation loss from a star such as the sun, their results, the ultimate test of any scientific work or theory, match the observed data so impressively well they can even show, correctly, that atmospheric CO2 actually cools rather than warms above Antarctica. Go to the CO2 Coalition website or YouTube âCO2, The Gas of Life, William Happerâ for the details.
February 13, 2024
Every little helps but does it matter when China outstrips the rest of us by far ?.
February 13, 2024
Indeed we WILL NOT BE TOLD!
Many of us are wondering where Boris Johnson got the money for his huge new home and itâs extensions when he was borrowing large sums very recently.
Many of us are wondering how Mr Sunak managed to pay 22% tax on ÂŁ2.2 million income – if we all were liable for that percentage there would be no need to cut taxes. Perhaps that is why Mr Sunak does not understand the problem he has imposed on the law abiding British? In Russia the tax burden is 8% – you wonder why Russians will fight and die for Mr Putin? They have freedom of religion and that INCLUDES Christianity, they recognize what we all knew yesterday – that there are males and females – PERIOD. Marriage is between a man and a woman.
Think about why recruitment to the Armed forces in western countries and specifically Britain, is in such dire straights?
The political class is sailing very very close to the wind! Many are too stupid to comprehend what they do – they have removed the means to repair our grievances via the ballot box – but they will pay anyway.
February 14, 2024
+1
February 14, 2024
Sunak paying tax via PAYE? ?? Not a chance – it was Capital gains at a lower rate.
Mention PAYE to him and he might flinch as if confronted with Christopher Lee the vampire.
February 13, 2024
Many of those advocating âgreenâ ideas are the same people encouraging immigration.
Our ports witness millions of people travelling âback homeâ on regular basis, often in aeroplanes.
Many of those protesting in favour of more âgreenâ ideas have been exposed as regular flyers.
How can the People take up these ideas when the activist donât appear to be serious about it and we have managed to create large number of global commuters because of excessive immigration.
February 13, 2024
Quite so Sir John. It is a pity that the ‘One Nation’ Jellies can’t understand the logic.
February 13, 2024
It is now 55 MPâs that call themselves Conservative that will dessert what is left of this once great party at the next election.
Those that are left having brought back the weak traitor, the unelected Cameron, to join the unelected leader of the Party, are now suggesting that Boris Johnson the architect of the âwokeâ revolution the man that brought Parliament and Conservatives into disrepute by ramping up the punishment for his overzealous NetZero green campaign should be brought back in to Government.
The Conservatives can now stand for not only destroying the country, its resilience and self-reliance, but now the party that has trashed what little we have of democracy.
February 13, 2024
Lord Cameron today in the lords said that theyâre developing plans to transfer the Gaza children to the UK until Palestine becomes safe again âŠ..looking at the middle-east map shows that there are many âwealthyâ muslim countries that could accommodate the children âŠso why send them here ?
February 13, 2024
So what’s left?
– Just stop coal and LNG
– World zero population growth
– Just stop COP conferences
That will do for starters. Isn’t it about time we had our own foreign policy?
February 13, 2024
There are at least two major issues on which the mainstream political parties are completely at odds with voters.
The first is mass migration which almost everyone wants to see reduced to the tens of thousands. The parties are going in the opposite direction !
The second is Net Zero. On this, not only are they all out of step with voters, they are using dodgy science to justify their obsession. I will make only one point about this, although there are many :
In his comment above, Mark B mentions that small EVs have a place in the market, but I would take odds with his view :
Most private buyers of small EVs are acquiring them as second cars. The electric Mini is a perfect example: even though they cost over ÂŁ40,000, and have an official range of only 143 miles, BMW sold 43,744 of them in 2022. These cars are being acquired by drivers whose annual mileage is probably no more than 3,000 miles, because the reliable range is reduced to around 100 miles especially in the depths of winter.
Yet these cars need to cover 65-80,000 miles just to overcome the emissions from building them !
So all those smug ladies recharging their overpriced Electric minis at Waitrose are actually harming the planet, not saving it !
February 13, 2024
Haven’t looked but I can imagine the sticker in the rear windows ‘ I’m saving the World’.
February 13, 2024
Actively pushing people to take a position, (be it for net-zero, anti-racism, or whatever), inevitably leads to conflict. Whereas more can be achieved in the long run by taking a diplomatically neutral position, and allowing people to make up their own minds.
February 13, 2024
“Biden who wants to go further faster”
As I mentioned in a previous post I’ve just spent two months in Florida in the US. There is NO sign of net zero there. Free plastic bags are still in use, huge Disney car park with only 4 charging points and only two in use, not seen one solar panel or wind turbine. Little to no public transport. Large gas-guzzling vehicles are everywhere.
It seems to me that the USA is only paying lip service to the green agenda whilst the UK is bankrupting itself and destroying what’s left of our industrial base. Our politicians are either fools or have their own money-making agenda. None of their policies make any sense and they are heading for annihilation as a party. I doubt your party can save itself in the time it has left but can’t you see it has been intentionally destroyed from within?
February 13, 2024
Problem: Nanny state, aka a socialist government standing under the name âconservativeâ and thinking that we wonât notice. When will a true Conservative government arise and take over the reins of power? Itâs long overdue – but MSM etc. rubbish truly conservative thinking. They have no interest in conserving the good, but naively think that anything over 5 years old should be dtiched. We need John Redwood for PM.
February 13, 2024
Spot On
February 13, 2024
The carbon they want to get rid of is us plebs.
As Lifelogic says..get fracking.
Drop the insanity of net zero.
February 13, 2024
The problem is that changes in the climate are indiscernible. Many believe, including me, that “Climate Change” is a scam. Certainly not worth ruining your lifestyle and bank account for.
February 13, 2024
Farmers Weekly – The Improving Farm Productivity solar grant Defraâs drive to improve energy resilience and encourage electrification in agriculture. Grants range from ÂŁ15,000 to ÂŁ100,000
https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/diversification/farm-energy/solar-grants-for-farm-projects-whats-covered-and-how-to-apply?fbclid=IwAR1xS8-dwk1UKZbKnBIw1JFmUDF3JRcfVFQVA7PdturLrnkvkf5UYpo4Tkg
February 15, 2024
As ever, completely right, Sir John.