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“He said while there was sufficient evidence when charges were originally brought against the two men, a precedent set by another spying case earlier this year meant China would need to have been labelled a "threat to national security" at the time of the alleged offences.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0ex172rxwzo

What I don’t understand is why that is the case? It seems an oddly specific requirement. And the failure appears to be on the CPS not saying, “We need these exact words.”

Every minister, shadow minister, and government department concerned with such matters, should be shouting from the rooftops that China is a threat to national security.

Everyone needs to understand that China is a massive threat to national security, the biggest threat we’ve faced since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

a

If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.

What am I missing here?

It’s worse than that.

Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.

This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.

There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.

MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA
UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh
EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make

Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.

ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.

And a reminder

1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries.
2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.

Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.

And solar panels. Of all the stupid things the Reform clowns want to do, switch off renewables is top of the heap. We will end up having to reverse course some years later and be so far behind that we will always then be reliant on other countries.

We have abundant renewable sources, with so much energy flowing that we have to pay the companies to dump it as we can't transmit it and we can't consume it quickly enough. The obvious solution is better transmission - needed anyway as so little money has been spent by the private sector - and battery storage. And not just at big sites - local generation and storage.

But no, the fukers want to shut the whole thing down, import more LNG and then we're fine apparently. Asshats the lot of them, whether they turn up to selection meetings in union jack shorts or not.

Hi Rochdale,

What is the reaction in Aberdeenshire re the large pylon project up your way, are you hearing many opinions either way on the doorstep?

There are "stop the pylons" protestors linking this to Net Zero. But then again they objected to the ones not linked to Net Zero. I get it, pylons are ugly. But they need to go somewhere.

Just to add that it's employing a few of my friends so a big thumbs up from me. One is ex- O&G and doing conversions into electricity transmission.

I am ideologically opposed because I think it reflects our lack of regional pricing - building pylons in Scotland instead of turbines in England.

Ed miliband will be delighted so many new turbines are coming on in Scotland and Scottish waters, makes his job a lot easier. But energy should be built as close to source of use as possible, carting it nearly the full length of the UK is not going to bring energy bills down, the reverse instead

If Britain had regional pricing then there would be a clear price signal for two things to happen. Firstly, industry would have much cheaper energy available if it sited itself in Scotland. Secondly, the relatively higher price for electricity down south would provide the incentive to invest in more interconnect capacity to move the electricity to southern England.

The end result would be more efficient use of the electricity generated by wind in Scotland, and lower prices overall.

But I guess the London newspapers would criticise it as London subsidising electricity prices in Scotland.

.

a

If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.

What am I missing here?

It’s worse than that.

Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.

This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.

There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.

MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA
UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh
EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make

Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.

ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.

And a reminder

1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries.
2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.

Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.

And solar panels. Of all the stupid things the Reform clowns want to do, switch off renewables is top of the heap. We will end up having to reverse course some years later and be so far behind that we will always then be reliant on other countries.

We have abundant renewable sources, with so much energy flowing that we have to pay the companies to dump it as we can't transmit it and we can't consume it quickly enough. The obvious solution is better transmission - needed anyway as so little money has been spent by the private sector - and battery storage. And not just at big sites - local generation and storage.

But no, the fukers want to shut the whole thing down, import more LNG and then we're fine apparently. Asshats the lot of them, whether they turn up to selection meetings in union jack shorts or not.

ALL of that has been pretty clear for a decade. We've certainly been arguing about it here for at least as long as that.

The difference is that all the stuff people said wouldn't happen - renewables cheaper than fossil fuel; EVs cheaper than ICE cars; battery storage capable of solving daily intermittency economically etc has either now happened, or is about to be delivered within this decade.

We've not seriously planned for any of that - while China bet their future on it.

Time to end the denial.

“He said while there was sufficient evidence when charges were originally brought against the two men, a precedent set by another spying case earlier this year meant China would need to have been labelled a "threat to national security" at the time of the alleged offences.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0ex172rxwzo

What I don’t understand is why that is the case? It seems an oddly specific requirement. And the failure appears to be on the CPS not saying, “We need these exact words.”

AIUI and IANAE on this the original 1911 Official Secrets Act was focused on enemies of the state. Essentially, giving secrets to these enemies was a statutory form of treason. This meant that the prosecution had to prove that China was an enemy at the relevant time. This would effectively be certified by the government based on confidential and secret information. This is the witness statement that Starmer promised to release yesterday.

My understanding is that the initial statement was thought sufficient for these purposes. After that was made there was a Court of Appeal decision which specified more clearly what had to be said but also said ultimately this was not a matter for certification by the government but determination by the Jury. The deputy security chief, who had given the original statement, gave 2 more supplementary statements which I think we will find sought to address the requirements set out by the Court of Appeal. The view then seems to have been taken that they didn't and that the prosecution could not lead evidence that would entitle a jury properly instructed to reach that conclusion so the trial collapsed.

If all of this is right then the only political question is whether the author of the statements was pressured in any way to give statements that did not meet the relevant requirements. Starmer says not but then he also said that he wants to double check that.

And yes, this puts me in the 14% of saddos paying some attention.

a

If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.

What am I missing here?

It’s worse than that.

Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.

This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.

There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.

MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA
UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh
EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make

Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.

ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.

And a reminder

1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries.
2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.

Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.

a

If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.

What am I missing here?

It’s worse than that.

Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.

This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.

There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.

MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA
UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh
EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make

Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.

ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.

And a reminder

1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries.
2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.

Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.

And solar panels. Of all the stupid things the Reform clowns want to do, switch off renewables is top of the heap. We will end up having to reverse course some years later and be so far behind that we will always then be reliant on other countries.

We have abundant renewable sources, with so much energy flowing that we have to pay the companies to dump it as we can't transmit it and we can't consume it quickly enough. The obvious solution is better transmission - needed anyway as so little money has been spent by the private sector - and battery storage. And not just at big sites - local generation and storage.

But no, the fukers want to shut the whole thing down, import more LNG and then we're fine apparently. Asshats the lot of them, whether they turn up to selection meetings in union jack shorts or not.

The problem is that the other parties are no better.

One Labour MP got interested in space for about 10 seconds. Then lambasted the British Government for not encouraging more launch start ups in the UK. When it was pointed out that they had personally campaigned against a particular test stand for rocket engines* in the UK - "but that's different"

If you turned up in Northumberland and said "I want to build a gigafactory", you'd be on the receiving end of a political shit storm.

Come build it here in Aberdeenshire. We are a world centre for energy, have a huge amount of technical expertise, great transport links including a choice of large ports geared to the needs of the energy sector, and more green power than we can transmit.

And the jolly chaps and chapesses in Edinburgh and London - they will help? As opposed to sit back and watch as the Enquiry Industrial Complex fires up?

A few years back, a friend was told that factories weren't wanted in the former Industrial North East - well, they were wanted, but not his* actual factory, and he needed to x, y and z before they would think about maybe not opposing it it too violently.

So he built it in Malaysia. Where the government attitude was "Yay, factory! Here's agreements for next 20 years covering taxes, rules and regs. Here's the local union chap with a copy of the usual non-strike, negotiation setup here. Here are the 27 existing locations for factories. Here are the reps of the all the local factory construction companies.... Can we pencil you in for starting Wednesday?"

*The company he worked for.

Funny how Reform voters are so interested in the rather opaque China spying trial collapse, yet completely uninterested in the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia.

I wonder why.

Why don't you ask the Westminster Lobby or the UK wide news channels why that is the case, its been a serious problem now since devolution. There has been numerous political scandals in Scotland, Wales and NI for the last twenty five years and they simple do not get reported or forensically scrutinised by the London media. In fact a case in point, Nicola Sturgeon's actual record as FM in Scotland is absolutely terrible, she launched a ferry with no windows or funnels in 2017, it never saw service for another eight years and should never have been launched when it was for that big Sturgeon headline on the Scottish news. But the London media fawned over her and believed the huge spad driven narrative without so much as doing the most basic homework of scraping below the surface. The endless list of SNP government scandals would have ended a Westminster government years ago. And as for the Labour run Welsh government, ditto!

So poor is the UK wide coverage of the devolved areas in the UK and the poor governance or scandals I once watched an episode of Question Time where an audience member in Wales ranted about the Westminster government's poor running of NHS Wales when they had not been in charge of it for years! It was embarrassing and it should have been a huge wake up call to the UK media, but it wasn't. So excuse me if I am not in the least surprised that the conviction of a key friend and colleague of Farage in Wales for taking bribes to further the interests of Russia has been of any more interest to Reform voters UK wide than any of the rest of the UK electorate who support other parties. And that is because they have probable not even heard about it thanks to the lack of UK wide reporting while the scandal of the Westminster China Spying trial is making the frontpages UK wide.

To be fair to Newsnight, they did run a story a few years back about the ferries scandal in Scotland, but who was watching apart from political anoraks like me? I will go one better, why not ask Reform, Conservative, Labour, Libdem or any other voters on the mainland UK how many of them knew that there was no functioning devolved government at Stormont for three years? You get my point, if the UK media doesn't ever bother to scrutinise or report news from devolved areas in the way they do Westminster, don't bother trying to blame the ordinary voters from parties you don't like for not being aware of it. And I say this as a frustrated member of the Scottish Conservatives who are currently being hammered in the polls here by a faceless Scottish Reform party with no discernable leadership or policies while my party has been the most effective Opposition to the SNP and thankfully saw off the terrible GRR bill and its awful implications for women in Scotland!

a

If we get on the wrong side of China, they might stop selling us tat that we don't need.

What am I missing here?

It’s worse than that.

Their plan is to stop selling us things that we might really need, such as EV batteries, so they can instead sell us their cars by denying European and American manufacturers the batteries - because Europe and America don’t have the technology to produce the new improved batteries the Chinese are now making.

This is why Trump is talking about 100% tariffs on China, and other Western nations face the same dilemma.

There is of course a way forward - develop and manufacture batteries in the west.

MURICA - Batteries are ANTIFA
UK - Ah, Yes, Brugh, BRITVOLT, er, right, oh
EU - we want to make profit from the engines we already make

Electrification is here and it can't be stopped. What the rage baiters foaming on about EVs don't get is that most people don't care that much about cars. Offer them a new one thats easier to drive cheaper to maintain and more reliable and they'll take it. And they are, with EV sales continuing to rise.

ICE is on its way out, and China will rule the world unless the west wakes up and starts investing serious money.

And a reminder

1) A speech about building batteries isn’t building batteries.
2) A report on building batteries isn’t building batteries.
3) A policy on building batteries isn’t building batteries.

Building fuck off gigantic factories building batteries *is* building batteries.

And solar panels. Of all the stupid things the Reform clowns want to do, switch off renewables is top of the heap. We will end up having to reverse course some years later and be so far behind that we will always then be reliant on other countries.

We have abundant renewable sources, with so much energy flowing that we have to pay the companies to dump it as we can't transmit it and we can't consume it quickly enough. The obvious solution is better transmission - needed anyway as so little money has been spent by the private sector - and battery storage. And not just at big sites - local generation and storage.

But no, the fukers want to shut the whole thing down, import more LNG and then we're fine apparently. Asshats the lot of them, whether they turn up to selection meetings in union jack shorts or not.