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I think the Tory problem is simple. If you want a Reform government you vote Reform. If you don't, you vote for the party that can beat Reform in your seat AND certainly won't help them govern. It doesn't matter what they say, people will believe the Tories might sustain a Reform government.

If (like me) you want an old fashioned One Nation Tory government, tough.

The Tory dilemma may be insoluble for now.

The problem is if the Tories rule out supporting Reform the follow up questions are likely to result in the Tories calling Reform out as the racists they are.

And you can’t call your potential voters racist.

More than half of Reform voters want to deport my kids. I'm not sure what I'm meant to do with this information, other than doing everything I can to ensure they don't get to run the country.

What does Reforms official policy say ?

I cannot see any party ever deporting children like yours. They’re as British as any of us

Had a scan at the weekend with a lovely ex-Philippino nurse. Now a British national and loves it here (been 14 years). Why would anyone want to deport such people?

I’ve always wondered if there’s any nurses left in the Philippines? About 80% of nurses in the sandpit are from there, as well as many more in the UK and US.

They must train twice as many as they actually need domestically!

FPT

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Surely this latest war is just more evidence we need to stop importing energy which surely means more renewables? How can anyone disagree.

There are some alternatives. We could have massive strategic reserves of gas and oil that the government can release in an emergency (see Japan). We could nationalise and massively subsidise O&G production to isolate the industry from global energy prices and boost domestic production. Coal in theory could work because it's easy to store, we'd just need to import lots of it and, again, nationalise it in preperation for a period like this.

These aren't cost-free options though.

The massive gas storage facility which Conservative governments decided wasn't worth the cost of subsidising would have probably been the most cost effective mitigation.

As a I understand it the North Sea would make an excellent gas storage facility, if we hadn't drilled it so extensively. That's why Rough is unusual for being a decent UK option, neglected until 2022 and the Ukraine invasion.

Richard_Tyndall is online however so he can put me straight.

The problem is not how much we have drilled. Indeed drilling/producing a field is a pre-requisite to reduce the existing volumes/pressures in the formation so you can then use it to store gas. And the cement we use to abandon wells is, by necessity, stronger than the surrounding formations. This is my job these days, abandoning hundreds of wells across the North Sea and Denmark. As long as it is done properly then it has no impact on the storage capabilities.

The problem with the gas storage is that continualy pumping gas into and out of the formation weakens it over time. Rough has no where near the capacity it had at the start of its storage life because of this. And suprisingly the number of fields suitable for such storage are vanishingly small. I am not aware currently of any other serious contenders for gas storage in the UK sector - although some of those being looked at for CCS might be suitable. Germany generally uses salt as the storage formation for its gas reserves which is much more stable but in the North Sea the Zechstein Salts are much deeper which causes a lot of additional problems as the pressures are higher and salt under pressure acts like a fluid and flows.

I am sure there are suitable targets but successive governments over the last 40 years have not really invested in looking for or apppraising them.

The other thing is the Netherlands has oodles of gas storage capacity suitable for the purpose, so we don't need old North Sea fields, unless we start getting worried about the Dutch

Its not so much being worried about the Dutch. More that if things get really tight then there is no gaurantee that gas will head our way. For a start they have their own domestic needs (they currently have just enough stored for their needs) and after that we are simply another customer along with the whole of the rest of Europe. Bear in mind the Norwegians were planning on cutting back supplies to the UK last year as well.

The only way to have any form of security is to have our own storage capacity.

Surely everyone realised four years ago, when Russia turned overnight from a tolerable but necessary bad place to a pariah state, that a national strategic supply of fuel was a good idea?

It’s like spending on the military - the problem is too big, so the people raising the problem become the problem.

Herman Kahn noted this when he suggested a Swiss style bomb shelter rule for housing.

Example - we don’t have the right formations for storage (mostly) in the UK.

So do a deal with the Dutch. If you are worried about them playing games, setup the storage so there is no connection to the Dutch gas network.

We’d just buy/rent some of their subsurface at a fixed rate. Pipeline to the UK.

I think the Tory problem is simple. If you want a Reform government you vote Reform. If you don't, you vote for the party that can beat Reform in your seat AND certainly won't help them govern. It doesn't matter what they say, people will believe the Tories might sustain a Reform government.

If (like me) you want an old fashioned One Nation Tory government, tough.

The Tory dilemma may be insoluble for now.

The problem is if the Tories rule out supporting Reform the follow up questions are likely to result in the Tories calling Reform out as the racists they are.

And you can’t call your potential voters racist.

More than half of Reform voters want to deport my kids. I'm not sure what I'm meant to do with this information, other than doing everything I can to ensure they don't get to run the country.

What does Reforms official policy say ?

I cannot see any party ever deporting children like yours. They’re as British as any of us

Had a scan at the weekend with a lovely ex-Philippino nurse. Now a British national and loves it here (been 14 years). Why would anyone want to deport such people?

FPT

.

Surely this latest war is just more evidence we need to stop importing energy which surely means more renewables? How can anyone disagree.

There are some alternatives. We could have massive strategic reserves of gas and oil that the government can release in an emergency (see Japan). We could nationalise and massively subsidise O&G production to isolate the industry from global energy prices and boost domestic production. Coal in theory could work because it's easy to store, we'd just need to import lots of it and, again, nationalise it in preperation for a period like this.

These aren't cost-free options though.

The massive gas storage facility which Conservative governments decided wasn't worth the cost of subsidising would have probably been the most cost effective mitigation.

As a I understand it the North Sea would make an excellent gas storage facility, if we hadn't drilled it so extensively. That's why Rough is unusual for being a decent UK option, neglected until 2022 and the Ukraine invasion.

Richard_Tyndall is online however so he can put me straight.

The problem is not how much we have drilled. Indeed drilling/producing a field is a pre-requisite to reduce the existing volumes/pressures in the formation so you can then use it to store gas. And the cement we use to abandon wells is, by necessity, stronger than the surrounding formations. This is my job these days, abandoning hundreds of wells across the North Sea and Denmark. As long as it is done properly then it has no impact on the storage capabilities.

The problem with the gas storage is that continualy pumping gas into and out of the formation weakens it over time. Rough has no where near the capacity it had at the start of its storage life because of this. And suprisingly the number of fields suitable for such storage are vanishingly small. I am not aware currently of any other serious contenders for gas storage in the UK sector - although some of those being looked at for CCS might be suitable. Germany generally uses salt as the storage formation for its gas reserves which is much more stable but in the North Sea the Zechstein Salts are much deeper which causes a lot of additional problems as the pressures are higher and salt under pressure acts like a fluid and flows.

I am sure there are suitable targets but successive governments over the last 40 years have not really invested in looking for or apppraising them.

The other thing is the Netherlands has oodles of gas storage capacity suitable for the purpose, so we don't need old North Sea fields, unless we start getting worried about the Dutch

Its not so much being worried about the Dutch. More that if things get really tight then there is no gaurantee that gas will head our way. For a start they have their own domestic needs (they currently have just enough stored for their needs) and after that we are simply another customer along with the whole of the rest of Europe. Bear in mind the Norwegians were planning on cutting back supplies to the UK last year as well.

The only way to have any form of security is to have our own storage capacity.

We do have other storage in the form of LNG landing tanks. The risk we would protect against with extremely expensive redundant storage is that the Dutch could break contract on - steal essentially - gas storage that we're not bothering to fill anyway. Not saying No, but we do have a lot of other necessary investments this would compete with.

I would suggest that keeping the lights on and our homes warm is pretty high on the list of priorities for any Government. Though I accept that with Miliband in charge this is by no means a certainty.

FPT

.

Surely this latest war is just more evidence we need to stop importing energy which surely means more renewables? How can anyone disagree.

There are some alternatives. We could have massive strategic reserves of gas and oil that the government can release in an emergency (see Japan). We could nationalise and massively subsidise O&G production to isolate the industry from global energy prices and boost domestic production. Coal in theory could work because it's easy to store, we'd just need to import lots of it and, again, nationalise it in preperation for a period like this.

These aren't cost-free options though.

The massive gas storage facility which Conservative governments decided wasn't worth the cost of subsidising would have probably been the most cost effective mitigation.

As a I understand it the North Sea would make an excellent gas storage facility, if we hadn't drilled it so extensively. That's why Rough is unusual for being a decent UK option, neglected until 2022 and the Ukraine invasion.

Richard_Tyndall is online however so he can put me straight.

The problem is not how much we have drilled. Indeed drilling/producing a field is a pre-requisite to reduce the existing volumes/pressures in the formation so you can then use it to store gas. And the cement we use to abandon wells is, by necessity, stronger than the surrounding formations. This is my job these days, abandoning hundreds of wells across the North Sea and Denmark. As long as it is done properly then it has no impact on the storage capabilities.

The problem with the gas storage is that continualy pumping gas into and out of the formation weakens it over time. Rough has no where near the capacity it had at the start of its storage life because of this. And suprisingly the number of fields suitable for such storage are vanishingly small. I am not aware currently of any other serious contenders for gas storage in the UK sector - although some of those being looked at for CCS might be suitable. Germany generally uses salt as the storage formation for its gas reserves which is much more stable but in the North Sea the Zechstein Salts are much deeper which causes a lot of additional problems as the pressures are higher and salt under pressure acts like a fluid and flows.

I am sure there are suitable targets but successive governments over the last 40 years have not really invested in looking for or apppraising them.

The other thing is the Netherlands has oodles of gas storage capacity suitable for the purpose, so we don't need old North Sea fields, unless we start getting worried about the Dutch

Its not so much being worried about the Dutch. More that if things get really tight then there is no gaurantee that gas will head our way. For a start they have their own domestic needs (they currently have just enough stored for their needs) and after that we are simply another customer along with the whole of the rest of Europe. Bear in mind the Norwegians were planning on cutting back supplies to the UK last year as well.

The only way to have any form of security is to have our own storage capacity.

Surely everyone realised four years ago, when Russia turned overnight from a tolerable but necessary bad place to a pariah state, that a national strategic supply of fuel was a good idea?

FPT

We kill their children, flatten their country, destroy their water supplies and now the ungrateful Iranians refuse to rise up in support....

https://x.com/DanielPipes/status/2030291411275276397

Are there any instances in history of people rising up to overthrow tyrannical rulers (indigenous, not invaders) as a result of foreign intervention?

I think the Kurds in Iraq would meet that one in 1991. Though they were incited to rebellion by the USA in 1975.

In both cases they were aiui betrayed and abandoned to their fate, which might explain their hesitancy to take Trump at his word now.

(Pipes interests me, but I I'll make another comment.)

The Marsh Arabs in Southern Iraq similarly. Encouraged to rebel against Saddam back in 1991 and then abandoned when the West decided not to pursue regime change.

I think the Tory problem is simple. If you want a Reform government you vote Reform. If you don't, you vote for the party that can beat Reform in your seat AND certainly won't help them govern. It doesn't matter what they say, people will believe the Tories might sustain a Reform government.

If (like me) you want an old fashioned One Nation Tory government, tough.

The Tory dilemma may be insoluble for now.

The problem is if the Tories rule out supporting Reform the follow up questions are likely to result in the Tories calling Reform out as the racists they are.

And you can’t call your potential voters racist.

At the next general election Reform voters will vote Reform, the Tories will win very few back while Farage leads Reform. Hence Tory MPs and councillors need anti Reform Labour and LD tactical votes

And as I’ve said no Labour or LD is going to tactically vote for them - for the reasons in my previous reply.

You can say all you want - it simply isn’t going to happen

Which is bullshit. Yougov had 45%
of LDs and a third of Labour voters
and even a quarter of Greens willing to tactically vote Conservative in a Conservative held seat to beat Reform

Notice one thing about all those figures it’s less than half of all voters.

Now let’s move on to the next issue - where are those seats where the Tories are the clear opposition to Reform, as there are only 116 such seats.

Basically the Tories are fighting to keep the seats they have at the next election

If the Tories held those seats and gained Chelsea and Fulham, Chipping Barnet and Welwyn Hatfield and a few other seats where Reform are weak from Labour that could give them more seats than Reform in a hung parliament. Though anti Reform voters will not only need to vote Labour, LD or Green but Tory in Tory held seats to stop a Reform majority

Yes, and the further Kemi moves the Tories to the right, the harder it becomes for non-Tory voters like me to vote tactically for them. I really don't want to risk Reform taking my safe Conservative constituency and would consider voting Conservative to stop them, but for me Kemi has crossed a line with her abandonment of net zero. If Conservative policies are indistinguishable from those of Reform in the area that I care most about, what is the point of voting tactically for the Tories?

Some drone footage of the aftermath of last nights fire next to Glasgow Central station :

https://www.tiktok.com/@vyromedia_/video/7615156447374085398?_r=1&_t=ZN-94XVQz5Y2II

All trains cancelled for the foreseeable future.

There are trains passing through the station - local services.

Yesterday, trains from the south were stopping at Carlisle and turning back - this morning it seems they are going as far as Motherwell and presumably buses are being provided for the rest of the journey.

I think it's possible to get to Queen Street from Edinburgh and that line could be used to get more services into Glasgow - from memory (a walk on a cold Monday morning in the 1990s) it's not a long walk from Central to Queen Street (does it involve Buchanan Street?). From the latter you can get services to places like Oban and Fort William.

It’s five blocks, around 500yds, between Queen St and Central stations. Yes Buchanan St is part of the route, you can walk up it or cross over it.

Yes QS trains go to Edinburgh, but not sure where the lines cross. @Sunil_Prasannan is your man for trains!

QS is the main Glasgow departure point for Edinburgh trains.

I think the Tory problem is simple. If you want a Reform government you vote Reform. If you don't, you vote for the party that can beat Reform in your seat AND certainly won't help them govern. It doesn't matter what they say, people will believe the Tories might sustain a Reform government.

If (like me) you want an old fashioned One Nation Tory government, tough.

The Tory dilemma may be insoluble for now.

The problem is if the Tories rule out supporting Reform the follow up questions are likely to result in the Tories calling Reform out as the racists they are.

And you can’t call your potential voters racist.

At the next general election Reform voters will vote Reform, the Tories will win very few back while Farage leads Reform. Hence Tory MPs and councillors need anti Reform Labour and LD tactical votes

That's another Tory problem. Even if (unlikely) left of centre voters believe that a lent Tory vote is truly an anti Reform vote, there are only 120 or so seats where as things stand voting Tory is the tactical voter anti Reform option - current Tory + Reform seats. Leaving 500+ where this is not the case.

I think most tactical voters will start their calculations from the perspective of the party of the current MP and that it is the front runner.