The latest survey of Antarctic ice shows it has hit a new record extent (since measurements began in 1980).  Explanations as to why would be interesting from those who write in telling us they can forecast the weather and these important environmental matters.

 

       Today sees the government publish details of just how much extra UK taxpayers have to pay to support an NHS which gives free treatment to people who do not pay taxes in the UK. They think we could be spending as much as £2000 m a year.

           Those of you who write in and say ideas from this site and like minded MPs are ignored should note that this is a case where the government has listened. It also shows that the government is trying to find economies and ways of offsetting public sector costs which do not harm UK voters and taxpayers.

 

           It is good news that the government is taking some decisons to ensure more electricity generation capacity is built in the UK. The past decade saw the Labour government agree to various EU proposals, and add proposals of their own, which shut down plants. They did not take the  decisions to provide for their replacements, leaving us short of capacity from next winter.

         Emission controls and above all CO2 controls are leading to the closure of older coal, oil and gas plants. Age is leading to the closure of many of our existing nuclear plants. We do need decisions followed by investment in the replacements. The pipeline was empty  in 2010.

         I have no objection in principle to civil  nuclear power, and no objection in principle to foreign investment in our power production system. I do, however, want us to go for cheaper energy. I do want us to play to the strengths of the UK economy in our choices of new power stations, to maximise the economic benefits within the UK from the large investment programme we need.

          Some worry about our nuclear know how. The truth is Labour sold our nuclear industry to overseas interests sometime ago. The absence of new nuclear stations in the UK from the mid 1990s onwards meant the industry fell into disuse here at home. If you place no orders for almost twenty years you do lose a lot of expertise and modern design. This new deal could be a way for the UK to rebuild parts of its nuclear industry, and to benefit from French technology in an area where France has moved onwards whilst the UK has headed for the exit.

         Some worry about the price and the returns that The French and the Chinese will enjoy. Listening yesterday to the Secretary of State answering in the Commons, it sounds as if the draft contract does offer some benefits to UK consumers in the event of costs undershooting on the project. However, the guaranteed price at twice today’s wholesale market price, to come in in 2023 when they start generating power, is also indexed to general prices.  The overseas investors will enjoy some protections from political and other risks, and should be able to generate  a good return on the money they are putting up.

       I would like to see UK investors and companies coming forward to supply our future power needs. I also want to see more cheaper power in the future mix, which will come from gas fired stations. I will look at the way this could happen in a later posting.

 

 

        Are you today celebrating the fact that at last, after years of Labour and the EU closing electricity plant without effective replacements, a decision has been made that will help keep the lights on in the next decade? Or are you concerned that the drive to low carbon energy means  an expensive solution compared to current energy prices and the costs of keeping open older stations or driving hard for gas?

        I will give you my thoughts tomorrow when I have studied some of the detail of this new deal.

 

                 Today we commemorate one of  Britain’s  greatest days. Talking and thinking this week-end about Englishness has made me more conscious of the achievement on October 21st 1805, when the  navy met the combined fleets of Spain and France off the Spanish coast. It summed up the best of our principles and capacities.  It was an action fought to keep our own country free from foreign invasion, but also to help liberate the rest of Europe from a restless warlord who wished to enforce a false unity on the continent by force of arms.

              It was victory for the underdog. Napoleon’s forces on land, and on this occasion at sea, were greatly superior. It was victory for daring and innovative tactics. The encounter followed a hectic chase of the French fleet, as Nelson tried to track it down and stop it getting to the English Channel. It was proof, if proof were needed, that training, experience, and belief in their cause, could give the British the strength they needed to vanquish the bully.

                Victory at Trafalgar over the combined French and Spanish fleets in 1805 was decisive. It meant Napoleon could not complete his conquest of Europe. England by her exertions had once again ensured the ultimate freedom of many nations and peoples on the continent, as well as protecting her own. Shorn of control of the coasts, and unable to invade England to stop her independent support for the conquered countries on the continent, Napoleon fought on, only to face ultimate defeat. England, then as later, stood for liberty and the self determination of nations.

               The victory was   comprehensive.  17 Allied ships surrendered, and  the Achille blew up .  27 English ships of the line with 2154 guns had overwhelmed a Franco Spanish fleet of 33 capital ships, with 2638 guns. The Allies also mounted more guns on frigates and smaller vessels.  4408 French and Spanish were dead, with 449 English killed in action. It is almost unbelievable that such an inferior force, attacking in the  full face of Allied naval fire in a light wind that maximised the time at risk as the fleets edged closer, could achieve so much.

            So what was it about that encounter that made it possible? It is true England had a charismatic Admiral who instilled confidence in his captains and men just as he struck doubt and fear into the minds of his enemies. His strategy was bold, and gave the English the advantage once the lines had closed of being able briefly to rake the French and Spanish ships through their vulnerable sterns. His leadership created a true band of brothers amongst his captains, who had considerable freedom to choose their own method of fighting in the melee which followed the clash of the fleets. The heroism of Captain Harvey and his crew on the Temeraire was an example, even  on that day of  formidable bravery and daring.

               The English were able to manoeuvre most of their ships in the light winds from great seamanship, whilst the Allied fleet struggled to get the van of its fleet back into the action once their lines had been cut. The English shot more broadsides from superior loading and firing, and fired on the down roll into the decks of the opponents. The Allied fleet disabled English ships by firing on the uproll into the rigging, without killing so many personnel.

               It was the most remarkable day in the long and remarkable history of the  English and British navies. May we use wisely the freedoms they helped us secure.

 

 

      One of the latest ruses by those who want the state to do more, spend more and interfere more, is to encourage a battle of the generations.  Mr Milburn was at it this week.  The young can only do better if we spend more public money on them, so we need to take more money away from the old.

     I have never bought into the theory that the Baby bulgers are a lucky generation who have sucked up too much of the country’s wealth. The amount of a country’s wealth is not limited or static. Many of the baby boomers made their own luck. They worked hard to advance their own and the nation’s wealth. Their children should be able to go further and faster, as they after all will benefit from the huge sums spent on their health, welfare and schooling (far more than was spent on the baby boomers), and will come to inherit the wealth their parents have built up.

 

The baby bulgers with wealth are fairly generous to their children. They are already giving them money for deposits on homes, assisting their family budgets and giving money to grandchildren where they have a surplus. Those who don’t have a surplus are often working hard for no reward as child minders and family assistants to their children.

 

The true battle should be over policy to help to ensure that the next generation can be wealthier and more successful than the baby bulgers. We should not settle for nasty fights over distributing what has already been made or created. We should be more active in debating how to create conditions in which the next generations can be more successful. They too must add to the stock of the nation’s wealth, and earn the higher incomes they naturally seek.

 

That is why on this site I try to spend more time describing the policies that would liberate enterprise, attract more capital, create more jobs and drive forward higher productivity. Such policies will mean  higher average real living standards. Robbing richer Peter to pay poorer Paul will not create higher living standards and may simply alienate, demotivate or lose us Peter. Paul needs a job. Once he has a job he needs help to make a success of it, to move on to a better paid job.

Too many are fatalistic about low wages and no wages. They think people have to stay trapped by them all their lives. They think it unrealistic to suggest people can help themselves to a better life by working hard, undertaking training, venturing in a business of their own and many other ways. Fortunately, in  practice, many still do walk from poverty to success, and many more walk from modest beginnings to a more comfortable middle age. Of course state policies should help, and should take care of those who cannot, but the state needs to say more people can succeed.

 

If we spend all our time arguing over how to distribute what we have, we will put off the entrepreneurs, innovators and grafters who would otherwise stay here and create more wealth, employment and income here. That is the challenge. To do that requires lower tax rates and less government interference with those who are energetic and hard working, not more.

As for the elderly, it is true they have benefitted from recent Coalition improvements to state pensions, and from tripartisan policies of  free services and income top ups. They too would benefit more from an improved climate for savings and investment, so they can enjoy a better return on their pension investments, and have a better deal from annuities.

I thought I would share my piece for the Spectator with you. I will be speaking about Englishness on Saturday.

 

Taking tea at 4, strawberries and cream, Wimbledon on a hot summer’s day, Christmas  carols round the tree, street parties for a Queen’s Jubilee: the images of England are often nostalgic and middle class. To some,  England, our England, is summed up in the poems of Rupert Brooke, and turned into childhood mystery  in the sympathetic portrait of the Shire in Tolkein’s Hobbit. England is the Wind in the Willows, kindness to animals, appreciation of nature’s rich and gentle abundance in a rain swept temperature island.  It is Alice in Wonderland, tales for children that recognise children are embarked on their own important journey in their own right. We are seafarers and stay at home islanders, world traders who value our independence.

 

           To others, there is a more muscular side to Englishness. Are we not the nation that pioneered liberty? Did not the English Parliament gain the upper hand

well before the Bastille was stormed?  Can we not see in Shakespeare’s blessed plot the sturdy outlines of freedom and nationhood? Did we not inspire an Empire and then transform it into a Commonwealth?  Have we not helped save Europe from the twin tyrannies of fascism and communism?

 

            To me Englishness is a living protean creation. We are not done yet. There is a modern side to England which is warm and tolerant, which can wrap itself around the fugitive from tyranny, the overseas  adventurer with money and the island dweller brought up in  a fast changing world. Whilst England still has some of its old class structure, modern England is open to the talents and critical of snobbery.

 

             Perhaps at its heart Englishness is anti clerical. The English value traditions and the establishment, but only at the price of ridiculing that same  power. We may allow some to stand in authority over us, because we prefer order to chaos. We also intend to tease and challenge them, safe in  the knowledge that the English elect their rulers and overturn them when necessary.

 

             The English were above all Protestants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Like the Dutch and some Germans they challenged the Catholic Church and defenestrated Catholic power. Unlike the continent England had a bloodless sixteenth century religious revolution, led by the King and cemented by the transfer of wealth from the Monasteries to the energetic and  successful. For many decades English thought was governed by its reaction to the Catholic powers. Only England could have bishops but no Pope, all secured under a constitutional monarch who answered to  Parliament.

 

               The English were monarchists who intended to control their King. Royals were always the object of scatological pamphlets and cartoons, and were regularly changed or brought to account by others who formed the political nation. Today Parliament gets the treatment once meted out to monarchs. The mother of Parliaments has to be caricatured and pilloried in her turn.

 

                The English like playing games. They have given many to the world. The world has taken to football with passion and ability. Cricket remains the preserve of a smaller group of nations where it acts as a magic circle for a set of values. The English accept we should play up and play the game. The rules in sport, however recondite, should be respected. That should never impede or detract from the full force of sporting conflict.

 

               England is strong enough to keep her identity without a national Parliament, and with her identity and power partly shared with the rest of the United Kingdom.  As Scotland has made more moves to assert its own identity, so more have waved English flags and have thought more lovingly of tea at 4. Is that the time?  I must find a kettle.

 

PS Yes, I still want to see English votes for English issues in the Westminster Parliament, which should be both the Union and the English Parliament. I do not think England needs lumbering with yet another bunch of politicians and all their costs and spending plans on top of what we already have.  There is too much government in England  already, without imposing yet another layer.

 

 

 

     On August 8th 2011 I wrote on this site that energy prices were the biggest political issue needing attention. Many now seem to agree with me.  The cost of EU and UK energy policy is increasing, just as some of us feared. In the last two weeks has come the shock announcements of major hikes by two of the big six energy companies, meaning even bigger bills ahead. The high cost of renewable energy, carbon taxes, emissions based closures,  and the costs of closing and replacing older oil, coal, and nuclear plant is catching up with us.

    When I checked my bill I  noticed it had  gone up not just because gas and electricity are dearer, but also because I have used more gas for heating over the last year. I well remember that as late as May I was getting up when the outside temperature was just a few degrees above freezing.  On  more occasions  the central heating triggered because it was so cold. It also started to deliver cold evenings before August was out.

It is one of those ironies as we tackle global warming  that in recent years in the UK we have had some colder  and longer winters. Whilst we did at last get some hot days this summer, it felt  autumnal in the early morning and in the evening before  August was  out. Before adjustment, the heating started  to trigger early again.

      Many, especially the frail and elderly, will not be able to cut the increase in  their bills by using less, as they are already on prudent  settings and need to keep warm. Indeed, if we have a very  cold long winter they may have to use more, not less. The government should be generous to the ill and  the elderly who have to incur higher bills, through its pensions and disability benefit increases, cold weather payments and the like.

I will continue to press for cheaper energy. Household bills are too high primarily because the fuel cost is too high. The industrial revival the government seeks will need much more cheaper energy to power it. The EU experiment with very expensive renewable power from unreliable sources like wind will not power our factories or keep us warm on a regular basis. To do that we will need those standby power stations burning gas.

An energy price freeze which does not include protection against wholesale energy price rises cannot help. Nor does it help if you need to burn more to keep warm.  The underlying reality is that Mr Miliband, Labour and the EU signed us up to much dearer energy than the US or Asia enjoys. There may be arguments at the margin over how much of the great extra cost is paid for by customers, and how much by taxpayers in subsidies. As they are largely the same people it does not make a lot of difference. What matters is when and how we are going to cut loose from the very dear  energy strategy we are locked into.

I am told the government is working on ensuring the older standby coal and oil stations to generate electricity are available should need arise. Next year they intend to secure back up supplies for days when not enough wind blows. It just serves to remind us of the extra costs the renewables policy is imposing, as both these methods of ensuring security of supply cost extra. The government has started to cut the allowable costs of renewables and needs to do more in that direction. The way to cheaper energy is through an energy mix that is more based on lower  price and efficiency.

  This crisis has been building for more than a decade.Previous posts include:

August 8 2011 Energy prices

May 18 2012  Cheap energy can be energising

July 29 2012  Green energy makes some people see red

August 28 2012   Germany switches to coal

December 5 2012   Drill Davey, drill

March 27 2013    Letter to the Energy Minister

April 27 2013   The UK needs cheaper energy for an industrial revival

June 29  2013  Keep the lights on Mr Davey

 

          The Attorney General himself went to argue his case in the Supreme Court against claims from prisoners that they were owed compensation as they had a right to vote in elections. This issue has become the cause of friction between the UK Parliament and the European Court of Human Rights. These latest two cases saw prisoners seek to bring cases under EU law, which post Lisbon is increasingly moving into  human rights matters.

          As someone who thinks we keep too many people in prison, and thinks we need to do more to train and educate prisoners so they can lead a more worthwhile and law abiding life on exit, I have not been leading the campaign to prevent prisoners voting. I do, however, think it is a very good example of exactly the kind of issue a sovereign country chould  decide for itself through Parliament. I am against any moves by any European Court to change Parliament’s policy.

       The victory of the Attorney General in yesterday’s judgement is therefore welcome. So too is the definitive statement in the judgement about Parliament’ s supremacy in this matter:

“the legislation (UK election law) is entirely clear and it would flatly contradict the evident intention of the UK (if it  required some prisoners to vote). It would also be impossible for the Supreme Court itself to devise an alternative scheme of voting eligibility that would or might pass muster in a domestic or supra-national European court…Such matters would be beyond its jurisdiction….That being so the creation of any new scheme must be a matter for the UK Parliament”

          However, the long and complex judgement serves to remind anyone who reads it just how much encroachment on our affairs there is from ECJ as well ECHR law. The Judges did not agree with the Attorney General that they should disregard previous ECHR judgements in favour of prisoner voting. Instead they dismissed both prisoner appeals under European law, primarily on the grounds that European (EU ) law “does not incorporate any right to vote paralleling that recognised by the ECHR in its case law…”

          Ministers are finding out the hard way that in so many areas of life they have to fight in court to defend what we have been doing for years, or face a court case where they wish to change policy and honour promises they have made to the public.  To all those who are scornful of Conservative Ministers, I would point out that they are often seeking to limit the EU’s power and to enlarge our opportunity to make our own domestic democratic decisions. Yesterday was a good top line result, but the detail reveals just how much power this country has surrendered.

 

I was able to do some more spot checks on the capacity issue on railways to Manchester when going to conference.

I caught a later train than I usually do to go to Manchester. The 7.20 you might have thought would be one of the busiest, getting you into Manchester in good  time for a 10 o clock meeting.  When we left Euston over half the seats in the Standard class carriage and  70% of the seats in the 1st class carriage where I counted   were empty. The proportion empty rose  at Milton Keynes, the first stop on the route, and stayed that way for the rest of the journey. That was despite the Conservative conference which must have  created some extra demand.

The other carriages on the train seemed similarly populated to the ones where I counted. Coming home on the 9.15pm  most seats in Standard were empty, with around 90% of the first class seats empty  in a carriage where I counted.     Tickets were checked both  before getting onto the platform on the way to Manchester, and again on the train  just as we pulled out of Euston. Tickets were not checked on  the way back.

When I try and get on a commuter train at Reading or Wokingham during the morning peak we have a real capacity problem. I went to a reception with the  train operating companies at conference, and talked to them about the priorities I draw from these experiences. We need to boost capacity on popular routes at popular times. The main capacity problems seem to be on commuter routes into major cities.  Once again I did not experience any capacity problem on trains out of Euston,  or back to Euston.

It will be interesting to see if Labour’s reshuffle heralds a change of their view on HS2. The new Shadow Transport Secretary is not such a keen advocate, and I hear the Shadow Treasury team do think they would like to get  their hands on the £50bn in the books for HS2. The fact that it will all be borrowed would not put them off proposing spending it in some different way if they do decide as a matter of Shadow policy to ditch the grand project a Labour government started.