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FPT, with regards to North Sea oil and gas:

Jobs
Energy security
Balance payments
Not wanting to syphon cash to despots and dictators

Stopping UK production will not reduce CO2 emissions. Importing LNG from Qatar rather than piping gas ashore has a much greater carbon footprint.

Nor will it reduce consumption. Not while the government is subsidising new build CCGT and blue hydrogen projects tolock in demand for natural gas for decades to come.

I honestly don’t get it. Labour, SNP, Scottish Greens - trying to shut down a viable energy source because reasons. Reform. Wanting to shut down the new viable energy source because reasons. Tories, honestly had no idea they were still here.

Ditch net zero say Reform, we need to ditch Net Stupid. I don’t understand the rationale of any policy on energy that doesn’t combine bringing up more oil and gas with a transition to renewables.

Re your last sentence neither do I

For me the transition needs to be on a sensible timescale and not an arbitrary date

You sound like one of our contractors. So this IT transition will be complete in roughly 2130.

Frankly, arbitrary dates are not the way to transition unless they are realistic

We put man on the moon 66 years after the first powered flight. 2050 is not only realistic, it's pathetic.

Thumping tables isn’t an answer either.

The moon landing decision was made long *after* 1) Staging rockets was proved, 2) the multi stage rocket equations were developed and proven 3) fuels with sufficient ISP were developed. And demonstrated in working rocket engines.

Which meant that scientists could tell JFK that they could land multiple tons on the moon, given a jillion dollars.

There are large areas, in non-burning applications of fossil fuels where we don’t have the answers. Yet.

Politicians with arts degrees demanding the tide turn won’t turn the tide.

If Ed Quetaband was actually useful, the U.K. would be building a non-fossil fuel steel works. That technology is on the edge of practicality - first trial plants are being built elsewhere - and may offer cheaper steel in the long run.

But he is hooked on the reductionist approach. Which, in reality, just means sending the emissions abroad with the jobs.

I really do not like Richard Tice but in his interview with Trevor Phillips he is straightforward with his answers no matter they are unworkable

What’s the point of being straightforward if the policy is unworkable. Anyone can go out and tell people what they want to hear ?

Which is why opposition is easy and governing is hard. Opposition is especially easy when you don't have a governing track record, you rely on the general public not understanding the place of the rule of law, you treat the courts and judges as if they are a sort of enemy and an absurd imposition on the rest of us, the media conspire not to ask searching questions on intractable economic and fiscal matters, and many voters prefer to believe that a Reform state can cut expenditure on everyone else while maintaining all the free stuff for oneself.

FPT, with regards to North Sea oil and gas:

Jobs
Energy security
Balance payments
Not wanting to syphon cash to despots and dictators

Stopping UK production will not reduce CO2 emissions. Importing LNG from Qatar rather than piping gas ashore has a much greater carbon footprint.

Nor will it reduce consumption. Not while the government is subsidising new build CCGT and blue hydrogen projects tolock in demand for natural gas for decades to come.

I honestly don’t get it. Labour, SNP, Scottish Greens - trying to shut down a viable energy source because reasons. Reform. Wanting to shut down the new viable energy source because reasons. Tories, honestly had no idea they were still here.

Ditch net zero say Reform, we need to ditch Net Stupid. I don’t understand the rationale of any policy on energy that doesn’t combine bringing up more oil and gas with a transition to renewables.

Re your last sentence neither do I

For me the transition needs to be on a sensible timescale and not an arbitrary date

Net Zero gets branded as zero emissions. This is incorrect. It’s balancing the emissions against renewables to get to a net zero, not an actual zero.

I’d rebrand it. “Energy Freedom”.
We can’t really refine our own oil so we have to export it - we’re reliant on imports.
We can’t bring up enough gas now - a quarter of power is from burning gas and we have to import half. Burn more gas even with more production = reliance on imports.
Wind? That is ours. Reform demand that we literally switch the windfarms off. The “patriots” in Reform want us reliant on foreigners.

This 35% for Reform could be their Boris in Hartlepool moment.

Let me give you the scenario - the rise of Advance UK.

RetardUK was founded by Ben "Nigel was mean" Habib and now has Rock-on Tommeh as a member and Elon Musk as cheerleader.

We haven't yet seen which way Rupert Lowe goes, but he seems to be heading to join Retard as well.

Reform - Farage - knows that to get elected they can't go full fascist. So they are throwing out soundbites and genius tribe-building moves like the football shirt, but when pressed on policy detail they equivocate.

If Muskbaby amplifies the fascist cause then they will find a way to build a tribe which is more effective than a football shirt.

In this scenario, if we are lucky then the Fukker and the Retard mobs cancel each other out. If we are unlucky? Tommy Robinson as LOTO shouting DEPORT THE PAKIS NOW across the dispatch box at PM Nigel Farage.

Advance UK may be yet another damp squib. We will see. But they are far more dangerous than Farage. For all of his endless faults SYL is a very effective agitator. Give him a BIG platform and who knows what damage he could do to our electoral system.

Can this be translated into English ?

Farage is smart enough not to be outwardly racist if he wants to be PM but a lot of his support would prefer the outwardly racist option.

More importantly, up to now, Farage has broadly been able to take the racist vote for granted. He hasn't had to give them anything really.

Now he is at risk of having to fight on two fronts, which tends to end badly.

Oh well.

The problem with the centrist mindset is that it always assumes people will 'come around to it'; 'it' being whatever often barking proposal is currently being pursued by the process state, often at the behest of the Treasury Mindset. The 'it' of the moment is mass immigration.

The reality is that mass immigration - a very very new experiment in a welfare state - is simply not popular, and almost certainly too expensive. For too long too many people have put up with the negative externalities of it, and/or been too scared to oppose it. That has now ended.

If nothing really changes, I think @RochdalePioneers scenario of a Faragist govt with an opposition of even more strident views on immigration is more likely than the current supposed 'centre' holding.

This description doesn't seem to have much to do with reality.

Immigration is well down on the Johnson/Sunak years. Figures for 2025 will probably be further reduced.

I've just realised that your response is in fact the perfect encapsulation of my description of the 'centrist mindset'.
Unspoofable.

Does 'centrist' just mean skeptical of populist nonsense now?