Best Of

Good morning

This is a very good and profound article by the Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/12/france-crisis-political-faith-belief-democratic-world-vanishing?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

It's a good part 1 of an article. It defines the problem well; the sort of steady improvement that defined the postwar years and made government relatively easy has slowed or stopped in most of the western world.

What's happening now is much much harder to manage. Even if it's not really a loss, it sure feels that way, and we're not used to it, and aren't yet ready to vote for it.

Hence the siren calls of populism, whether that's Polanski or Farage or Trump or Sultana. One weird trick to make everything right, and the only people who will suffer deserve it really. Which would be great, except it never blooming works.

So what might work? Wish I knew, because it would save western democracy. The nearest I have to a conclusion is that we have a duty to each other and to the future, that taxes are how those of us who are successful repay our debt to the society and the fates who made us that way, and that is best expressed politically as a mix of liberal conservatism and mild social democracy. It's not perfect (if it were, we wouldn't be having this problem) but everything else is objectively worse.

That's the hard bit, the part two that's missing. Deep down, most of us know what needs to be done. How to get people to vote for it... that's another matter.

Happy news! The BBC are showing the 112min version of "Alien", which was the theatrical release, not the 116min version which the BFI were showing some days ago. The theatrical release doesn't contain the cocooned Dallas scene which I hate.

(PS Good article @MoonRabbit . I enjoyed it but was surprised it came from a Conservative. People are always surprising. )

It was easy to write. It’s defending an act that not only is working well, but is a Conservative creation in the Conservative Party’s guardians of the environment as well as businesses best friend image. Cameron strengthened the original bill, both with opposition amendments when LOTO and as PM, May renewed it from 80% to 100% (net zero).

It was easy to write as my dad clearly a One Nation Conservative Party Member, and we have been discussing it together all week and I completely agree with him - axing it is mindless vandalism.

It was very difficult to write despite knowing what I wanted to say, but use English Grammer correctly to write it. I didn’t bother to go into English Gramma lessons, I knocked off those to watch horse racing with gran. It was hours of chopping and changing it. I’m pleased it kick started strong “on topic” discussion with interesting new learning points coming from all different angles on the subject.

I see Haaland has done his bit to support the World Cup boycott of Israel by scoring a hat trick against them.

Israel contributed two own goals.

Classic Jewish guilt.

The absolute best Jewish joke (because whatever you think of them they have a mean line in humour) is the one they use in “Coming to America”.

I was in a restaurant and the waiter brought me my soup. I called him back and said, Waiter there’s something wrong with my soup. The waiter said, “it’s chicken broth like you ordered sir” and I said no, it’s wrong. The waiter said, “sir your soup is perfectly fine and what you ordered” I said no, you are wrong. So the waiter said “ok sir, pass me a spoon” and I said “ah-ha”.

This person needs the joke explained, I'm afraid.

The rise in sea temperatures is largely due to the banning of sulphur in maritime fuels. This is widely recognised - part of Ed's crazy carbon capture scheme (a part that I support) is 'cloud brightening', to counteract the effects of this fuel change on the skies over the sea.

@MoonRabbit's attempt to use the rise in sea temperatures to defend Net Zero (which will do absolutely nothing to cool the seas), is fundamentally dishonest - something sadly very common in the Net Zero lobby.

Talking of fundamentally dishonest, here’s a global SSTA history from the 19th century to now.



The banning of marine sulphates occurred in 2020. It’s clearly had a very impressive retrospective effect on temperatures since 1900.

1900-2020 being of course a period during which marine sulphate emissions increased exponentially. Yet still the oceans warmed. Weird, eh! I wonder what on earth might have caused that?

I don't doubt the trend, but I do have some scepticism about data sets that proclaim accuracy back to the 1850s for this sort of data, especially globally.

If only the 19th Century had a global power stationing scientists all around the world. Oh wait, it did – Britain.

Indeed we did. They were not necessarily out at sea all the time measuring sea temperatures to within a fraction of a degree. And the people that were measuring water temperatures - e.g. steamships via the bucket method - were not interested in fractions of a degree. Or even to the nearest degree.

I am not saying that water temperatures are not increasing. I just wish there was some realism about historic data in this sort of context.

This is a *fascinating* study on the accuracy of bucket sampling.
https://os.copernicus.org/articles/9/683/2013/os-9-683-2013.pdf

From the conclusion:
"Accurate temperatures can be obtained with either the bucket or intake method. However, measurements cannot be expected to be of high accuracy or precision when obtained by untrained sailors using poorly-calibrated, low-resolution thermometers"

Does it matter exactly what the temperatures are? Surely it's the trend which matters?

Yes and no. The trend does indeed matter; but the trend can be obscured if the data is obtained by a different, more accurate method. That link's quite interesting for showing the way that buckets (including different bucket types) and engine intake temperatures can vary - and that's in a modernish context.

Again, I'm not saying ocean temperatures are not rising.

Partly it's a question of when people formed their ideas on all this climate stuff.

Until... 2000 or so? it was just about possible to squint at the data and say "variations, cycles, uncertainty" and conclude that there might not be a problem. (It was a stretch, but not an impossible one).

Add the points since then and that is infinitely less credible. Even if sulfate reduction has given a bit more of an uptick in the last few years.

Another thing. The Bjørn Lomborg thesis boiled down to the idea that the world should get richer, so it could afford to deal with global warming. Sort of arguable then, but less so now.

The trouble is you only need the weakest counter arguments, the tiniest bit of grit in the system, and the status quo will reassert itself. Combating climate change is like trying to build HS2. There’s always a reason to curtail it or delay it. We’re heading for the net zero equivalent of terminating at Old Oak Common.

Every time one denialist talking point is debunked, another one comes along. Often a recycled one that was already debunked.

Marc Seguin’s - inventor of the wire-cable suspension bridge - famous bridge over the Rhone, now pedestrians only, with the renowned Hermitage vineyards on the hillside behind. Sadly, DFS doesn’t like wooden bridges where you can see water below between the planks, and does look rather terrified here.

Why did you name your dog after a sofa shop that has constantly got a sale running?

Crap sofas as well; we bought one years back, and had to dump it just a few years later. So we then invested in some handmade Ilford sofas, which are still going strong twenty years later…mind you, I rarely use them as sitting on the floor is way more healthy, especially for us older folks

The sofa in our lounge is one my parents' bought in the early 80s; I remember buying it, as we had to drive to Nottingham to order it, and I was worried we would not be back in time for "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century". It is quite heavy, with a solid frame, and has been reupholstered at least once. Quality lasts.

We're still using the Ercol suite my parents got as a wedding present, getting on for sixty years ago. Which does feed back into the energy conversation. Something in the British psyche is really bad at processing "this is pricey upfront, but will save loads over decades."

If I may rant for a minute, we've had two appliances, a dishwasher and a washing machine, break irreparably in the last two yeas, just outside their warranties. One was Bosch, so should be reasonable quality. I'm generally a positive person, but it does sometimes feel like there's a general enshittification of consumer goods.

Whenever my dishwasher breaks down I dump her and pull a new one.

The hard part of achieving Net Zero will be decarbonising domestic heating. Do we go with air source heat pumps, or convert the gas network to hydrogen?

The former requires most folk to rip out their entire central heating system, and most likely freeze their bits off on the coldest winter days.

The latter has people shouting "Hindenberg!" and fleeing in terror. (The two proposed 'hydrogen village' projects were cancelled due to opposition from the residents.)

Unsurprisingly, the decision on what to do is not one that governments wish to take.

There's also the question of how much hydrogen will leak out of pipes, given how tiny the molecules are. So improving insulation and heat pumps it is.

And yes, it's going to cost upfront. Tough. Conservatives are meant to believe in the evil of borrowing resources, whether financial or ecological, from future generations. As our most scientifically literate PM said,

No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease.

The current Conservative position on the tax/spend/borrow trilemma, and on the environment is "don't stop the party now, let out kids endure the hangover."

It's been that way for a while, but it simply isn't conservative.

There are a lot of old houses that cannot be practically insulated to make heat pumps effective. I've heard the plan in Basingstoke is for the council to buy up areas of old houses, flatten them, and replace with new housing. Given the national housing deficit it feels counterproductive to demolish lots of existing houses.

My favoured approach is to use excess - and effectively free - wind and solar energy to produce green methane (electrolysis and the Sabatier process - it isn't that efficient, but when you have a large excess of renewable energy that doesn't matter).

Then you can use your existing gas infrastructure for energy storage, home heating, even cooking if people want a gas stove. The final bit is to persuade people in rural areas who aren't on the gas grid to switch from oil heating to LPG

Hydrogen is a failed technology. It's too hard to store and transport. Methane has the additional advantage that we can keep our gas-fired power stations as a backup for the notorious two-week period each winter when it's calm and settled and there's no wind energy.

They one good use for CCS would be to capture the CO2 from those gas-fired plants, and then you have a carbon negative part of the electricity system.

There's what people say and what people do.

In reality, outside a committed few, no-one wants to strip out and totally retrofit their house with new radiators and new insulation, and change how moisture circulation works in their homes, just to make a heat pump effective. And they never will.

Heat pumps will only ever be effective in mass take-up when (a) you can do a direct swap with a gas boiler in an afternoon, and nothing else and (b) they are cheaper than gas.

We've recently moved into a house built in 2006 that had a (ground-source) heat pump when constructed, underfloor heating downstairs and normal-sized radiators upstairs.

Even at Britain's anaemic rate of house-building there could be a large number of houses with heat pumps if they'd been the dominant heating technology in new-builds for the last decade or so.

One technology doesn't need to suit every circumstance, but there's such a luddite attitude towards heat pumps from a lot of people which is baffling.

I hear a lot of criticism towards those who are sceptical of heat pumps, I've heard it and felt it myself, so people just keep their mouths shut instead and... don't buy heat pumps.

I'd need to be convinced it'd keep my family warm in Winter, and not disrupt my home, as well as save me money. Since I've never have that assurance, I haven't taken it any further.

Why would I do otherwise?

Your house would be turned into a building site while your existing perfectly good central heating system is ripped out and replaced with new that can cope with the Luke warm water provided by an air source heat pump.

Then you will be freezing cold in winter because, funnily enough, air at -5C isn't a great source of heat.

More than you might think, which is why they work in Scandinavia.

The relevant way to think about the temperature isn't -5C, it's 268 K.

There has been a considerable amount of discussion on PB in recent weeks, from many contributors - @JosiasJessop, @Nigelb, @Stuartinromford - regarding the role of heat pumps in domestic and commercial heating systems. According to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (2023), approximately 1.2% of UK homes currently use a heat pump as their primary heat source, compared to 5.7% in Sweden

As noted by @MattW, the principle behind a heat pump is relatively straightforward. It involves the transfer of heat energy from one location to another through the operation of a vapour-compression refrigeration cycle. Air-source heat pumps (ASHPs) and ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs) differ mainly in the location of their heat exchangers. ASHPs generally achieve a seasonal coefficient of performance (SCOP) between 2.5 and 3.5, whereas GSHPs may reach between 3.8 and 4.5 under optimal soil conditions. These figures are influenced by factors such as outdoor air temperature, humidity, brine concentration, and compressor age. It is worth noting that the variance in SCOP between systems installed before 2016 and those installed after 2020 can exceed 0.4, a detail which some analysts have described as “not insignificant.”

Government incentives - yes, @TimS - have played a considerable role in determining adoption rates. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), launched in April 2022, offers grants of up to £7,500 toward installation costs, which typically range from £7,000 to £19,000 depending on system complexity. Uptake has been uneven: data from Ofgem (Q2 2024) show that 22,781 BUS vouchers were redeemed in England and Wales, representing a 7.3% increase year-on-year. Scotland’s equivalent programme achieved a slightly higher per capita rate, although precise comparative metrics are difficult due to differing reporting methodologies. It is generally agreed that public awareness remains limited, particularly among households with Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) ratings below band C

In conclusion, heat pumps represent a technology of some promise, albeit with notable caveats regarding cost, efficiency, and suitability. Their future success will rely on continued refinement of compressor materials, enhanced refrigerant regulation (notably the phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons under EU Regulation 517/2014), and the ongoing engagement of stakeholders across the supply chain. That’s my amateur opinion, anyway

Your amateur option, or ChatGPTs?

Are you saying @Leon doesn't often begin paragraphs with "In conclusion,"

Marc Seguin’s - inventor of the wire-cable suspension bridge - famous bridge over the Rhone, now pedestrians only, with the renowned Hermitage vineyards on the hillside behind. Sadly, DFS doesn’t like wooden bridges where you can see water below between the planks, and does look rather terrified here.

Why did you name your dog after a sofa shop that has constantly got a sale running?

Crap sofas as well; we bought one years back, and had to dump it just a few years later. So we then invested in some handmade Ilford sofas, which are still going strong twenty years later…mind you, I rarely use them as sitting on the floor is way more healthy, especially for us older folks

The sofa in our lounge is one my parents' bought in the early 80s; I remember buying it, as we had to drive to Nottingham to order it, and I was worried we would not be back in time for "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century". It is quite heavy, with a solid frame, and has been reupholstered at least once. Quality lasts.

We're still using the Ercol suite my parents got as a wedding present, getting on for sixty years ago. Which does feed back into the energy conversation. Something in the British psyche is really bad at processing "this is pricey upfront, but will save loads over decades."

If I may rant for a minute, we've had two appliances, a dishwasher and a washing machine, break irreparably in the last two yeas, just outside their warranties. One was Bosch, so should be reasonable quality. I'm generally a positive person, but it does sometimes feel like there's a general enshittification of consumer goods.

Whenever my dishwasher breaks down I dump her and pull a new one.

But eventually you need to pick one for life.

“Lad working in the butchers got sacked for putting his dick in the bacon slicer”

“What did the butcher do with the bacon slicer?”

“Sacked her as well!”

As an aside, the (very real) improvements in San Francisco are largely the simple consequence of getting a decent Mayor in.

Daniel Laurie was elected last year, on a platform of dealing with petty crime and homelessness. The biggest element has been a very simple 'move along' policy. If you're hanging out on a street corner (particularly in the center, financial or tourist districts), the police will simply move you on. You can no longer pitch a tent and be ignored by the police.

This has been combined with creating 1,500 new beds for homeless people... away from the City itelf. Get fed and a bed... but you won't be near Union Square.

Laurie also had a policy of avoiding conflict with Washington. The people of San Francisco wanted their city back, not political statements.

The San Franciscans seem to be pretty happy with him: his 75% approval rating has to be among the highest of Mayors in the US.

Came across this and had a mild LOL myself.
@Leon 's fellow travel writer.

I don’t really consider myself a travel writer, but Substack does, and the industry is LOL. Taking paid for trips is the norm and I just don’t understand how that’s not absurdly corrupt
https://x.com/Chris_arnade/status/1976810792248131867

Leon’s stalker is on Twitter extolling the virtues of San Fransisco at the moment. Ignore the homeless and the crime and the violent protests, it’s a lovely place really.

... it kinda of is, for American standards. The places with antifa terrorist uprisings tend to have relatively low crime rates. Sorry to pop the bubble:

San Fran: 7 per 100,000 (murder rate)
St Louis: 88
New Orleans: 52
Memphis: 48
Chicago: 29
Portland: 13

Sadiq Khan's London: 1

When you stop recording crime, recorded crime goes down.

Even the murder rates are suspect in the US, with many being classified as overdoses, accidents, or suicides.

It’s the low-level crime that really defines a city though, the petty theft and muggings.

You’re right that recorded crime can fall if you stop recording it.

But there are independent ways to check whether crime is actually falling. I.e., we can look at different (ideally non-government) sets of stats, and see if they tell a similar story or a contradictory one.

The first is the US's equivalent of the BCS - the National Crime Victimization Survey. It interviews about 240,000 people every year and asks if they’ve been victims, whether they went to the police or not. It shows about 22 violent victimizations per 1,000 people in 2023, roughly the same as 2022 and far below the early 1990s. About 40 percent of victims report to police, and that share hasn’t changed much. So even allowing for underreporting, the overall trend really has improved.

Then there’s insurance data. Now, I'm an auto insurance industry CEO, so these numbers are near and dear to my heart. Car crime is falling (while unfortunately medical costs are soaring). Last year we paid out a record low percentage of premium on car crime. Now, some of this is technology (albeit my customers are poor and don't tend to have immobilisers), but the drops are really significant. And out insustry body - the National Insurance Crime Bureau - says vehicle thefts fell 17 percent in 2024.

There's also Police Union data. Remember that the US police are heavily unionized, and like to use attacks on officers as a reason for pay rises. Well, assaults on officers rose during 2020 and 2021 (Black Lives Matter, Defund the Police, George Floyd, etc), then eased off again in 2023 and 2024. They are currently - in terms of percentage of officers being assaulted - almost back down to 2019 levels. And this is from a group that likes to highlight risk to police officers, not hide it.

There are softer indicators too. Public transport use in cities like New York and Chicago have bounced back to near pre-pandemic levels. The restaurant booking data tells an even starker story: OpenTable publishes really good data (there's a really good API) , which probably gives you about as good an idea of where people feel safe. (Of course, the percentage of bookings through OpenTable will have risen, so you can't just assume it is 100% accurate. But it's still an important data point.)

Simply: people don’t crowd trains and book dinners if they think they’ll get mugged.

So yes, recording practices matter. But when surveys, insurers, police unions, and everyday behaviour all tell the same story, it’s hard to argue that falling crime is just a statistical illusion.