"What using an iPhone for 15 years has done to your brain Apple's pioneering device has been dubbed as addictive as cigarettes with consequences that are impossible to reverse By Io Dodds"
Three weeks of heavy snow and sub zero temperatures and the economy could be on its back rather than arse. It's being cheerful what keeps me going.
The seasonal forecast gives a much lower probability of a cold January - March than normal, with an increased probability of the three months being much wetter than normal (consistent with a general pattern of westerly and south-westerly weather systems). I'd suggest Johnson should have his favourite Peppa Pig wellies on standby, rather than bright pink snow shovel.
I see we are going lots of nonsense tweets. Italy are 140k, France are 125k, Germany are up to 115k now....and UK have gold plated all their stats.
Not to say UK could and should have done better, but people saying well 10-20k was the line to be judged by is idiotic.
It was Vallance who gave us the 20k number to judge the government against. As far as I'm concerned there is a lot of blood on Bozo's hands for his failure to act in the right way at the right time in 2020.
UK deaths per capita a smidgeon ahead of EU average wikipedia tells me.
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
What does PB think? I'd go for lat flows on onset of symptoms, reasonable precautions (no pub, WFH) if possible. All voluntary. Plus booster vax every autumn.
Get vaccinated.
Get boosters as often as required.
Stop all other bullshit. Stop testing. Stop isolating.
I've just had the virus and while it was unpleasant for a couple of days, I've had much worse manflu in prior winters. Based on symptoms alone I'd have just taken 48 hours off, not a week.
And killed a few grannies with the spread. What is not bad for you is hellish for others. That's the problem, and no sounding like Bartholomew Roberts of the Pirates talking about merchant sailors resolves that.
And we're straight back to the balance of harms problem again.
Whole population test, trace and isolate to contain a deadly pandemic is one thing. Whole population test, trace and isolate for the rest of time to save the occasional frail oldie or leukaemia patient is quite another.
Having a situation in which we lock everybody up several times a year whenever they catch Covid (or Flu, for that matter, because by your reasoning we should also be testing, tracing and isolating for that deadly illness as well,) means making everyone take several weeks off work every year whether they are ill or not, making children take several weeks off school every year whether they're ill or not, and making it impossible for anyone to plan to do anything in advance, because they're at constant risk of being forced to lock themselves up at home for 7 or 10 days whether they're ill or not. These are significant harms.
Or, to borrow an oft-used example from the last couple of years, you could save every single child that's killed each year by being runover by a car or truck via the simple expedient of banning motor vehicles. It doesn't necessarily follow that this would be a good idea. By your logic the failure to take motor vehicles off the roads means endorsing the cruel slaughter of children to preserve the freedom of motorists, but we all know that's nonsense.
BR doesn't want to stay at home for fivea days. FIVE DAYS. He's happy to spread disease because he can;t be arsed to be responsible. Decent. Civilised.
I wouldn't do that (go out after 48hrs) for 'normal' flu - never mind covid.
I did stay at home for my seven (not five in England, or Scotland AFAIK) days despite being perfectly healthy and as a result our NYE table for seven people and however many hundreds of pounds we'd have spent at our local restaurant we had a table booked for was cancelled.
Had isolation not been a rule then yes I would have gone out.
You may consider disrupting everyone's lives and people's work and businesses etc civilised and decent, I certainly don't.
There is this thing about viruses. They spread. To other people.
Cancelling a party if I had flu was a COMPLETELY FUCKING NORMAL AND CONSIDERATE action long before covid. I couldn't give a monkey's about the pub - I always paid a cancellation fee if required.
What the hell is wrong with you?
If you get flu bad, you ain't going anywhere.
But are you seriously telling us that you've never gone out when you've had a cold? Because that's what omicron is for the vast majority of people that are symptomatic.
That being the case, why do we have a growing NHS swamping crisis across chunks of the country?
"Its just a cold" is fuck you to the poor sods in the NHS trying to keep people alive.
The crisis isn’t the patients it’s the staff absences through isolation.
In parts of the country the crisis is staff absences AND hospitalisation heading well north of the previous peak 12 months ago.
They won’t be as demanding patients as last year though. Ventilation levels are actually going down right now. With prevalence so high many of those patients are there for something other than Covid.
I know that it's fashionable on here to dismiss it all as just a cold. And yes, perhaps you know more than the NHS Trust CEOs talking to the NHS Providers CEO about the state of things in reality on the ground.
Have you and the others not considered a rather basic point? If it's just a cold, if it's just staff absences, if its not a problem why are hospitals desperately building mini nightingales in their carparks?
They need space because the Covid positive broken legs need to be separated from the non Covid broken legs. Look, I’m not denying pressures on the nhs. I would not want to work at a hospital. But I’m not sure what you want us to say, or do. Lockdowns are not working for omicron. For better or worse we need to see out the next few weeks. It’s not going to be easy. But it is true that the patients are generally a lot less sick. Hopson himself has tweeted this. We also have the problem that fairly routine things in winter in hospitals are being blown up by the media and Twitter. Hospitals have a system in place for when they come under pressure and several trusts have used this. Some have already come out of this.
What do I want? How about people stop saying "it's just a cold". It absolutely isn't. Stop belittling and patronising the families of the 150k dead, and the people who are still suffering from Covid long after "recovering".
Final point. You say this is being "blown up by the media and Twitter". I was quoting the CEO of NHS Providers who in turn was summarising the conversations he had had with NHS Trust CEOs. The suggestion that this is all hysterical media spin is bizarre - how much more of a direct line onto how the NHS is coping than him?
I think there's an Opinium poll tonight, here's some of the supplementaries.
an Opinium poll for the Observer suggests households are already noticing price inflation. About 70% of voters said they had seen their cost of living increase more than their income over the last 12 months, despite reports of pay rises. A majority who voted Tory at the last election (57%) said they backed removing VAT from energy bills.
One in eight voters (12%) would now describe their financial situation as “struggling”, up slightly from 9% from the end of lockdown in April. A huge majority of the public say they have noticed price rises. About 86% have noticed a rise in the overall cost of living, 83% a rise in grocery bills, 80% a rise in energy bills and 59% a rise in council tax.
The issue with removing VAT is it’s gesture politics.
I remember reading that the average bill is going to double from £600 to £1,200. No idea if that is true but let’s use fir illustrative purposes.
Cutting 5% off the £1,200 saves £60 - which won’t be noticed by the average person in the context of a £600 rise and will benefit the rich more (on the assumption they have higher energy bills).
Far better to use the money - I think someone said £1.4bn - for targeted help at those who need it rather than middle class journalists
I disagree. The doubling of rates is I believe based on some extreme examples, eg being on a very heavily discounted rate from one of the aggressive retailers and then ending up on the price cap instead.
But "targeted help" is in general the worst possible thing that creates the poverty trap.
The rich will benefit the least because the amount of tax removed will be a tiny proportion of their income, a bigger proportion of middle incomes and a much bigger proportion of poor ones.
VAT on energy is a regressive tax not a progressive one.
A one time targeted payment is fine re poverty trap and it eliminates the deadweight cost. I would get something like £180 from eliminating VAT on fuel which I would save.
It just kicks the can down the road though. This is unlikely to go away in the next few years. We will still need gas, and plenty of it, to generate electricity and for domestic heating and cooking as well as industry. A one off payment really is just short termism. There needs to be something to manage the transition, affordable, to self sufficient renewables.
There's metric shit tonnes of gas in the world - the problem is that electricity generators have been able to make more money by buying spot than entering into long term supply contracts.
If you were at Centrica in 2007 and bought a 10 year gas supply contract, you lost your job in 2009 because spot gas prices were a quarter of where you'd committed to buy gas.
The UK retail electricity market has encouraged people to buy short and sell long. Which is a recipe for disaster if there's ever a disruption. (In this case, three disruptions: US gas drilling dried up in the pandemic, Russia has caused trouble by restricting supply to Europe, and the wind didn't blow.)
Presumably the removal of the UKs gas storage capacity hasn’t helped us either.
Good point: at the same time we've become more dependent on gas, we've got rid of storage faciltiies.
The numbers I saw were that the UK has 9TwH equivalent against 150TWH in Germany or Italy.
The justification for us having less storage than our European neighbours used to be that we were self sufficient in gas whereas they relied on imports from dodgy sources.
Well that argument doesn't hold water anymore, so we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
This article has some interesting points about it. It was to save money as we’d have cheap gas a plenty. They were warned.
I think there's an Opinium poll tonight, here's some of the supplementaries.
an Opinium poll for the Observer suggests households are already noticing price inflation. About 70% of voters said they had seen their cost of living increase more than their income over the last 12 months, despite reports of pay rises. A majority who voted Tory at the last election (57%) said they backed removing VAT from energy bills.
One in eight voters (12%) would now describe their financial situation as “struggling”, up slightly from 9% from the end of lockdown in April. A huge majority of the public say they have noticed price rises. About 86% have noticed a rise in the overall cost of living, 83% a rise in grocery bills, 80% a rise in energy bills and 59% a rise in council tax.
The issue with removing VAT is it’s gesture politics.
I remember reading that the average bill is going to double from £600 to £1,200. No idea if that is true but let’s use fir illustrative purposes.
Cutting 5% off the £1,200 saves £60 - which won’t be noticed by the average person in the context of a £600 rise and will benefit the rich more (on the assumption they have higher energy bills).
Far better to use the money - I think someone said £1.4bn - for targeted help at those who need it rather than middle class journalists
I disagree. The doubling of rates is I believe based on some extreme examples, eg being on a very heavily discounted rate from one of the aggressive retailers and then ending up on the price cap instead.
But "targeted help" is in general the worst possible thing that creates the poverty trap.
The rich will benefit the least because the amount of tax removed will be a tiny proportion of their income, a bigger proportion of middle incomes and a much bigger proportion of poor ones.
VAT on energy is a regressive tax not a progressive one.
A one time targeted payment is fine re poverty trap and it eliminates the deadweight cost. I would get something like £180 from eliminating VAT on fuel which I would save.
It just kicks the can down the road though. This is unlikely to go away in the next few years. We will still need gas, and plenty of it, to generate electricity and for domestic heating and cooking as well as industry. A one off payment really is just short termism. There needs to be something to manage the transition, affordable, to self sufficient renewables.
There's metric shit tonnes of gas in the world - the problem is that electricity generators have been able to make more money by buying spot than entering into long term supply contracts.
If you were at Centrica in 2007 and bought a 10 year gas supply contract, you lost your job in 2009 because spot gas prices were a quarter of where you'd committed to buy gas.
The UK retail electricity market has encouraged people to buy short and sell long. Which is a recipe for disaster if there's ever a disruption. (In this case, three disruptions: US gas drilling dried up in the pandemic, Russia has caused trouble by restricting supply to Europe, and the wind didn't blow.)
Presumably the removal of the UKs gas storage capacity hasn’t helped us either.
Good point: at the same time we've become more dependent on gas, we've got rid of storage faciltiies.
The numbers I saw were that the UK has 9TwH equivalent against 150TWH in Germany or Italy.
The justification for us having less storage than our European neighbours used to be that we were self sufficient in gas whereas they relied on imports from dodgy sources.
Well that argument doesn't hold water anymore, so we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
Is it resilience vs efficiency again?
(Same argument as... quite a lot of aspects of British life, really. You see it in hospitals, you get the same in new-build schools. Most of the time, running everything at maximum capacity with minimum fat is a way to get more for less, and we all enjoy the benefits. Until something goes wrong.)
Three weeks of heavy snow and sub zero temperatures and the economy could be on its back rather than arse. It's being cheerful what keeps me going.
The seasonal forecast gives a much lower probability of a cold January - March than normal, with an increased probability of the three months being much wetter than normal (consistent with a general pattern of westerly and south-westerly weather systems). I'd suggest Johnson should have his favourite Peppa Pig wellies on standby, rather than bright pink snow shovel.
Lucky old Boris yet again. No repeat of last year with these gas prices. We had snow that lay on May 6th 2021.
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I see we are going lots of nonsense tweets. Italy are 140k, France are 125k, Germany are up to 115k now....and UK have gold plated all their stats.
Not to say UK could and should have done better, but people saying well 10-20k was the line to be judged by is idiotic.
It was Vallance who gave us the 20k number to judge the government against. As far as I'm concerned there is a lot of blood on Bozo's hands for his failure to act in the right way at the right time in 2020.
UK deaths per capita a smidgeon ahead of EU average wikipedia tells me.
Everyone has made mistakes.
When its all said and done and proper academic investigation of excess deaths it will turn out its all pretty much of a muchness, with only Germany the one that is done statistically better, and not sure you can say what will be 125k+ has having smashed it.
That isn't to say UK didn't make some terrible decisions. Both Boris, the government and advisors.
NEW: Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie, are accused of attending a “booze-up” in the garden of No 10 that broke Covid rules during the first lockdown
The party on May 20, 2020, was thrown by Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, the most senior civil servant in Downing Street
Three sources say Reynolds emailed officials inviting them to a drinks party and adding “BYOB”, which stands for “bring your own bottle” — removing any doubt that it was a planned party
The email is key evidence in a sleaze inquiry being run by the Whitehall enforcer Sue Gray, which is now threatening to force the resignations of several senior members of Johnson’s team
The suggestion the prime minister himself attended the event — not denied by No 10 — makes this allegation more serious for Johnson than other recent revelations
A witness said: “There were 40 people in the garden, including Boris and Carrie. There were long tables laden with drink, crisps, sausage rolls and other picnic food. It was a proper booze-up
Three weeks of heavy snow and sub zero temperatures and the economy could be on its back rather than arse. It's being cheerful what keeps me going.
The seasonal forecast gives a much lower probability of a cold January - March than normal, with an increased probability of the three months being much wetter than normal (consistent with a general pattern of westerly and south-westerly weather systems). I'd suggest Johnson should have his favourite Peppa Pig wellies on standby, rather than bright pink snow shovel.
Well that’s good news (about the weather, not the wellies) as long as it comes to pass, as last January to March was bitter.
One thing I am Glad I did was putting additional lagging in the loft in the summer. Had to put a few extra lap vents up,there too. But it has made a difference.
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
Indeed. What was the point? However. The Sun correctly discerns that a lot of folk are struggling. Now. About that high wage economy...
I think there's an Opinium poll tonight, here's some of the supplementaries.
an Opinium poll for the Observer suggests households are already noticing price inflation. About 70% of voters said they had seen their cost of living increase more than their income over the last 12 months, despite reports of pay rises. A majority who voted Tory at the last election (57%) said they backed removing VAT from energy bills.
One in eight voters (12%) would now describe their financial situation as “struggling”, up slightly from 9% from the end of lockdown in April. A huge majority of the public say they have noticed price rises. About 86% have noticed a rise in the overall cost of living, 83% a rise in grocery bills, 80% a rise in energy bills and 59% a rise in council tax.
The issue with removing VAT is it’s gesture politics.
I remember reading that the average bill is going to double from £600 to £1,200. No idea if that is true but let’s use fir illustrative purposes.
Cutting 5% off the £1,200 saves £60 - which won’t be noticed by the average person in the context of a £600 rise and will benefit the rich more (on the assumption they have higher energy bills).
Far better to use the money - I think someone said £1.4bn - for targeted help at those who need it rather than middle class journalists
I disagree. The doubling of rates is I believe based on some extreme examples, eg being on a very heavily discounted rate from one of the aggressive retailers and then ending up on the price cap instead.
But "targeted help" is in general the worst possible thing that creates the poverty trap.
The rich will benefit the least because the amount of tax removed will be a tiny proportion of their income, a bigger proportion of middle incomes and a much bigger proportion of poor ones.
VAT on energy is a regressive tax not a progressive one.
A one time targeted payment is fine re poverty trap and it eliminates the deadweight cost. I would get something like £180 from eliminating VAT on fuel which I would save.
It just kicks the can down the road though. This is unlikely to go away in the next few years. We will still need gas, and plenty of it, to generate electricity and for domestic heating and cooking as well as industry. A one off payment really is just short termism. There needs to be something to manage the transition, affordable, to self sufficient renewables.
There's metric shit tonnes of gas in the world - the problem is that electricity generators have been able to make more money by buying spot than entering into long term supply contracts.
If you were at Centrica in 2007 and bought a 10 year gas supply contract, you lost your job in 2009 because spot gas prices were a quarter of where you'd committed to buy gas.
The UK retail electricity market has encouraged people to buy short and sell long. Which is a recipe for disaster if there's ever a disruption. (In this case, three disruptions: US gas drilling dried up in the pandemic, Russia has caused trouble by restricting supply to Europe, and the wind didn't blow.)
Presumably the removal of the UKs gas storage capacity hasn’t helped us either.
Good point: at the same time we've become more dependent on gas, we've got rid of storage faciltiies.
The numbers I saw were that the UK has 9TwH equivalent against 150TWH in Germany or Italy.
The justification for us having less storage than our European neighbours used to be that we were self sufficient in gas whereas they relied on imports from dodgy sources.
Well that argument doesn't hold water anymore, so we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
This article has some interesting points about it. It was to save money as we’d have cheap gas a plenty. They were warned.
Unless we are going to use gas as a means of storing excess wind energy now would be a really silly time to build extra gas storage. National Grid are planning for the electricity grid to be fully decarbonised by 2035, HMG are planning to ban the sale of gas boilers - what are we going to be using gas for that we would need to store it?
I think there's an Opinium poll tonight, here's some of the supplementaries.
an Opinium poll for the Observer suggests households are already noticing price inflation. About 70% of voters said they had seen their cost of living increase more than their income over the last 12 months, despite reports of pay rises. A majority who voted Tory at the last election (57%) said they backed removing VAT from energy bills.
One in eight voters (12%) would now describe their financial situation as “struggling”, up slightly from 9% from the end of lockdown in April. A huge majority of the public say they have noticed price rises. About 86% have noticed a rise in the overall cost of living, 83% a rise in grocery bills, 80% a rise in energy bills and 59% a rise in council tax.
The issue with removing VAT is it’s gesture politics.
I remember reading that the average bill is going to double from £600 to £1,200. No idea if that is true but let’s use fir illustrative purposes.
Cutting 5% off the £1,200 saves £60 - which won’t be noticed by the average person in the context of a £600 rise and will benefit the rich more (on the assumption they have higher energy bills).
Far better to use the money - I think someone said £1.4bn - for targeted help at those who need it rather than middle class journalists
I disagree. The doubling of rates is I believe based on some extreme examples, eg being on a very heavily discounted rate from one of the aggressive retailers and then ending up on the price cap instead.
But "targeted help" is in general the worst possible thing that creates the poverty trap.
The rich will benefit the least because the amount of tax removed will be a tiny proportion of their income, a bigger proportion of middle incomes and a much bigger proportion of poor ones.
VAT on energy is a regressive tax not a progressive one.
A one time targeted payment is fine re poverty trap and it eliminates the deadweight cost. I would get something like £180 from eliminating VAT on fuel which I would save.
It just kicks the can down the road though. This is unlikely to go away in the next few years. We will still need gas, and plenty of it, to generate electricity and for domestic heating and cooking as well as industry. A one off payment really is just short termism. There needs to be something to manage the transition, affordable, to self sufficient renewables.
There's metric shit tonnes of gas in the world - the problem is that electricity generators have been able to make more money by buying spot than entering into long term supply contracts.
If you were at Centrica in 2007 and bought a 10 year gas supply contract, you lost your job in 2009 because spot gas prices were a quarter of where you'd committed to buy gas.
The UK retail electricity market has encouraged people to buy short and sell long. Which is a recipe for disaster if there's ever a disruption. (In this case, three disruptions: US gas drilling dried up in the pandemic, Russia has caused trouble by restricting supply to Europe, and the wind didn't blow.)
Presumably the removal of the UKs gas storage capacity hasn’t helped us either.
Good point: at the same time we've become more dependent on gas, we've got rid of storage faciltiies.
The numbers I saw were that the UK has 9TwH equivalent against 150TWH in Germany or Italy.
The justification for us having less storage than our European neighbours used to be that we were self sufficient in gas whereas they relied on imports from dodgy sources.
Well that argument doesn't hold water anymore, so we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
Is it resilience vs efficiency again?
(Same argument as... quite a lot of aspects of British life, really. You see it in hospitals, you get the same in new-build schools. Most of the time, running everything at maximum capacity with minimum fat is a way to get more for less, and we all enjoy the benefits. Until something goes wrong.)
Resilience costs money. We're running an economy on 101% capacity rather than 105%, it limits our growth potential as well as our economic resilience. It's a decision we've made so more of our tax money can be shoveled to old people.
Told you so (that this doesn't damage Andrew[s position)
Though it doesn't help that he has denied it happened at all; tricky to plead that It didn't happen at all but if it did she loved every minute of it.
That revelation.doesn't help Andy whatsoever. As she was under the age of US consent and "trafficked" across state lines, he remains up shit street.
Whether she "loved every minute of it" or not she was under age (in the US) and thus she was abused. Under such circumstances she is entitled to buyer's remorse. Ask the girls from Rotherham and Rochdale.
NEW: Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie, are accused of attending a “booze-up” in the garden of No 10 that broke Covid rules during the first lockdown
The party on May 20, 2020, was thrown by Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, the most senior civil servant in Downing Street
Three sources say Reynolds emailed officials inviting them to a drinks party and adding “BYOB”, which stands for “bring your own bottle” — removing any doubt that it was a planned party
The email is key evidence in a sleaze inquiry being run by the Whitehall enforcer Sue Gray, which is now threatening to force the resignations of several senior members of Johnson’s team
The suggestion the prime minister himself attended the event — not denied by No 10 — makes this allegation more serious for Johnson than other recent revelations
A witness said: “There were 40 people in the garden, including Boris and Carrie. There were long tables laden with drink, crisps, sausage rolls and other picnic food. It was a proper booze-up
NEW: Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie, are accused of attending a “booze-up” in the garden of No 10 that broke Covid rules during the first lockdown
The party on May 20, 2020, was thrown by Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, the most senior civil servant in Downing Street
Three sources say Reynolds emailed officials inviting them to a drinks party and adding “BYOB”, which stands for “bring your own bottle” — removing any doubt that it was a planned party
The email is key evidence in a sleaze inquiry being run by the Whitehall enforcer Sue Gray, which is now threatening to force the resignations of several senior members of Johnson’s team
The suggestion the prime minister himself attended the event — not denied by No 10 — makes this allegation more serious for Johnson than other recent revelations
A witness said: “There were 40 people in the garden, including Boris and Carrie. There were long tables laden with drink, crisps, sausage rolls and other picnic food. It was a proper booze-up
Can someone just remind what's caused the sudden hike in energy prices over the past six months and why it's a permanent increase?
The initial pandemic lockdowns reduced demand for gas, so a lot of the most marginal gas production in the US shut down - and now many of the laid-off workers there have better paying jobs elsewhere.
When economies reopened I believe demand for gas rebounded strongly, among other trends China is attempting to switch from coal to gas for a variety of reasons. Leading up to this winter Russia has restricted exports of gas, presumably for use in leverage over future Ukraine conflicts, or to have Nordstream 2 opened, or both.
Given enough time, you would expect US production to increase in response to the higher prices, and this should bring prices back down. The thinking seems to be that "enough time" probably won't be until after next winter, but I'm not sure about that. Also, if Chinese demand for gas grows in a similar way to its previous demand for coal, then supply may lag some way behind demand for a good while longer, which would keep the pressure on prices high.
Another domestic British factor is that one of the possible ways to deal with the present spike in prices is for HMG to loan the energy companies tens of billions of pounds so that they can sell gas at below market prices in the short term (say, until increased US supply brings the price back down) and then allow them to charge considerably above the then lower market prices to pay the loans back. We'd still see prices go up a lot in April, but not as much as otherwise, but the prices wouldn't come down for a few years as the loans would need repaying.
We could do with speeding up our transition away from fossil fuels entirely.
Thanks - I certainly agree with that last point. Tidal barrages anyone?
Loaning £bns to the energy companies might be better than giving the same in support to consumers tbh. But it does amount to the state setting the prices.
The details of the event prompted speculation last night that Reynolds might be forced to resign. One colleague said: “Martin was loose with the rules. That’s why Boris likes him: because he doesn’t challenge him or stop him having fun.”
When Reynolds sent his email Cummings replied saying that it was ill advised. At least one other senior official told him it was a bad idea.
The details of the event prompted speculation last night that Reynolds might be forced to resign. One colleague said: “Martin was loose with the rules. That’s why Boris likes him: because he doesn’t challenge him or stop him having fun.”
When Reynolds sent his email Cummings replied saying that it was ill advised. At least one other senior official told him it was a bad idea.
In a further blow to Johnson, questions are being asked about Dan Rosenfield, the Downing Street chief of staff, who is accused of presiding over an “overbearing” culture that contributed to the departures of six women from the No 10 office towards the end of last year. He is accused of making them buy sandwiches for his lunch, collect his dry-cleaning and buy presents.
Another thing about the Warm Home Discount. I've yet to meet a benefit claimant who knew about it. Until I informed them. Making benefits and grants hidden, opaque and difficult to access has been a feature of the last 10 years. On which note. How are Councils doing in distributing the UC grant money to the "most needy"? The Household Support Fund?
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
I believe the phrase that they are looking for is the "Squeezed Middle".
Another thing about the Warm Home Discount. I've yet to meet a benefit claimant who knew about it. Until I informed them. Making benefits and grants hidden, opaque and difficult to access has been a feature of the last 10 years. On which note. How are Councils doing in distributing the UC grant money to the "most needy"?
I am surprised Martin Lewis hasn't done the same for this as he did for money saving expert.
I kinda feel bad, pre plague, my staff used to get my lunch, collect my dry cleaning and stuff.
They used to offer and pointed out they loved working for me, some of them have worked for me for over a decade, and moved jobs and cities to work for me.
I think there's an Opinium poll tonight, here's some of the supplementaries.
an Opinium poll for the Observer suggests households are already noticing price inflation. About 70% of voters said they had seen their cost of living increase more than their income over the last 12 months, despite reports of pay rises. A majority who voted Tory at the last election (57%) said they backed removing VAT from energy bills.
One in eight voters (12%) would now describe their financial situation as “struggling”, up slightly from 9% from the end of lockdown in April. A huge majority of the public say they have noticed price rises. About 86% have noticed a rise in the overall cost of living, 83% a rise in grocery bills, 80% a rise in energy bills and 59% a rise in council tax.
The issue with removing VAT is it’s gesture politics.
I remember reading that the average bill is going to double from £600 to £1,200. No idea if that is true but let’s use fir illustrative purposes.
Cutting 5% off the £1,200 saves £60 - which won’t be noticed by the average person in the context of a £600 rise and will benefit the rich more (on the assumption they have higher energy bills).
Far better to use the money - I think someone said £1.4bn - for targeted help at those who need it rather than middle class journalists
I disagree. The doubling of rates is I believe based on some extreme examples, eg being on a very heavily discounted rate from one of the aggressive retailers and then ending up on the price cap instead.
But "targeted help" is in general the worst possible thing that creates the poverty trap.
The rich will benefit the least because the amount of tax removed will be a tiny proportion of their income, a bigger proportion of middle incomes and a much bigger proportion of poor ones.
VAT on energy is a regressive tax not a progressive one.
A one time targeted payment is fine re poverty trap and it eliminates the deadweight cost. I would get something like £180 from eliminating VAT on fuel which I would save.
It just kicks the can down the road though. This is unlikely to go away in the next few years. We will still need gas, and plenty of it, to generate electricity and for domestic heating and cooking as well as industry. A one off payment really is just short termism. There needs to be something to manage the transition, affordable, to self sufficient renewables.
There's metric shit tonnes of gas in the world - the problem is that electricity generators have been able to make more money by buying spot than entering into long term supply contracts.
If you were at Centrica in 2007 and bought a 10 year gas supply contract, you lost your job in 2009 because spot gas prices were a quarter of where you'd committed to buy gas.
The UK retail electricity market has encouraged people to buy short and sell long. Which is a recipe for disaster if there's ever a disruption. (In this case, three disruptions: US gas drilling dried up in the pandemic, Russia has caused trouble by restricting supply to Europe, and the wind didn't blow.)
Presumably the removal of the UKs gas storage capacity hasn’t helped us either.
Good point: at the same time we've become more dependent on gas, we've got rid of storage faciltiies.
The numbers I saw were that the UK has 9TwH equivalent against 150TWH in Germany or Italy.
The justification for us having less storage than our European neighbours used to be that we were self sufficient in gas whereas they relied on imports from dodgy sources.
Well that argument doesn't hold water anymore, so we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
This article has some interesting points about it. It was to save money as we’d have cheap gas a plenty. They were warned.
How would increased storage help with international gas prices? Sure it may delay passing them on to the consumer for a few months but that's all. Even 150TWH of storage is only a couple of months usage for the UK AIUI.
What does PB think? I'd go for lat flows on onset of symptoms, reasonable precautions (no pub, WFH) if possible. All voluntary. Plus booster vax every autumn.
Get vaccinated.
Get boosters as often as required.
Stop all other bullshit. Stop testing. Stop isolating.
I've just had the virus and while it was unpleasant for a couple of days, I've had much worse manflu in prior winters. Based on symptoms alone I'd have just taken 48 hours off, not a week.
And killed a few grannies with the spread. What is not bad for you is hellish for others. That's the problem, and no sounding like Bartholomew Roberts of the Pirates talking about merchant sailors resolves that.
And we're straight back to the balance of harms problem again.
Whole population test, trace and isolate to contain a deadly pandemic is one thing. Whole population test, trace and isolate for the rest of time to save the occasional frail oldie or leukaemia patient is quite another.
Having a situation in which we lock everybody up several times a year whenever they catch Covid (or Flu, for that matter, because by your reasoning we should also be testing, tracing and isolating for that deadly illness as well,) means making everyone take several weeks off work every year whether they are ill or not, making children take several weeks off school every year whether they're ill or not, and making it impossible for anyone to plan to do anything in advance, because they're at constant risk of being forced to lock themselves up at home for 7 or 10 days whether they're ill or not. These are significant harms.
Or, to borrow an oft-used example from the last couple of years, you could save every single child that's killed each year by being runover by a car or truck via the simple expedient of banning motor vehicles. It doesn't necessarily follow that this would be a good idea. By your logic the failure to take motor vehicles off the roads means endorsing the cruel slaughter of children to preserve the freedom of motorists, but we all know that's nonsense.
BR doesn't want to stay at home for fivea days. FIVE DAYS. He's happy to spread disease because he can;t be arsed to be responsible. Decent. Civilised.
I wouldn't do that (go out after 48hrs) for 'normal' flu - never mind covid.
I did stay at home for my seven (not five in England, or Scotland AFAIK) days despite being perfectly healthy and as a result our NYE table for seven people and however many hundreds of pounds we'd have spent at our local restaurant we had a table booked for was cancelled.
Had isolation not been a rule then yes I would have gone out.
You may consider disrupting everyone's lives and people's work and businesses etc civilised and decent, I certainly don't.
There is this thing about viruses. They spread. To other people.
Cancelling a party if I had flu was a COMPLETELY FUCKING NORMAL AND CONSIDERATE action long before covid. I couldn't give a monkey's about the pub - I always paid a cancellation fee if required.
What the hell is wrong with you?
If you get flu bad, you ain't going anywhere.
But are you seriously telling us that you've never gone out when you've had a cold? Because that's what omicron is for the vast majority of people that are symptomatic.
That being the case, why do we have a growing NHS swamping crisis across chunks of the country?
"Its just a cold" is fuck you to the poor sods in the NHS trying to keep people alive.
What does PB think? I'd go for lat flows on onset of symptoms, reasonable precautions (no pub, WFH) if possible. All voluntary. Plus booster vax every autumn.
Get vaccinated.
Get boosters as often as required.
Stop all other bullshit. Stop testing. Stop isolating.
I've just had the virus and while it was unpleasant for a couple of days, I've had much worse manflu in prior winters. Based on symptoms alone I'd have just taken 48 hours off, not a week.
And killed a few grannies with the spread. What is not bad for you is hellish for others. That's the problem, and no sounding like Bartholomew Roberts of the Pirates talking about merchant sailors resolves that.
And we're straight back to the balance of harms problem again.
Whole population test, trace and isolate to contain a deadly pandemic is one thing. Whole population test, trace and isolate for the rest of time to save the occasional frail oldie or leukaemia patient is quite another.
Having a situation in which we lock everybody up several times a year whenever they catch Covid (or Flu, for that matter, because by your reasoning we should also be testing, tracing and isolating for that deadly illness as well,) means making everyone take several weeks off work every year whether they are ill or not, making children take several weeks off school every year whether they're ill or not, and making it impossible for anyone to plan to do anything in advance, because they're at constant risk of being forced to lock themselves up at home for 7 or 10 days whether they're ill or not. These are significant harms.
Or, to borrow an oft-used example from the last couple of years, you could save every single child that's killed each year by being runover by a car or truck via the simple expedient of banning motor vehicles. It doesn't necessarily follow that this would be a good idea. By your logic the failure to take motor vehicles off the roads means endorsing the cruel slaughter of children to preserve the freedom of motorists, but we all know that's nonsense.
BR doesn't want to stay at home for fivea days. FIVE DAYS. He's happy to spread disease because he can;t be arsed to be responsible. Decent. Civilised.
I wouldn't do that (go out after 48hrs) for 'normal' flu - never mind covid.
I did stay at home for my seven (not five in England, or Scotland AFAIK) days despite being perfectly healthy and as a result our NYE table for seven people and however many hundreds of pounds we'd have spent at our local restaurant we had a table booked for was cancelled.
Had isolation not been a rule then yes I would have gone out.
You may consider disrupting everyone's lives and people's work and businesses etc civilised and decent, I certainly don't.
There is this thing about viruses. They spread. To other people.
Cancelling a party if I had flu was a COMPLETELY FUCKING NORMAL AND CONSIDERATE action long before covid. I couldn't give a monkey's about the pub - I always paid a cancellation fee if required.
What the hell is wrong with you?
If you get flu bad, you ain't going anywhere.
But are you seriously telling us that you've never gone out when you've had a cold? Because that's what omicron is for the vast majority of people that are symptomatic.
That being the case, why do we have a growing NHS swamping crisis across chunks of the country?
"Its just a cold" is fuck you to the poor sods in the NHS trying to keep people alive.
The crisis isn’t the patients it’s the staff absences through isolation.
In parts of the country the crisis is staff absences AND hospitalisation heading well north of the previous peak 12 months ago.
if the PB Brains Trust say it is over it must be over.
To be fair this Omicron spike does look like it's over. We're going to have a rough month and the things will calm down. Until the next variant comes at is again.
The point remains that Covid is not just a cold, the NHS in towns/regions is under threat, and saying "it's over" doesn't cure the massive staffing crisis caused by all the people ill with this "cold"
Restrictions were specifically to protect the NHS. The NHS is on its arse.
I don't dispute Johnson's epidemiology genius in calling Omicron as relatively harmless before the science did, but wasn't his key job to keep the NHS's head above water?
What are the full admissions numbers like? Remember a good chunk are Covid incidentals, so they are actually part of the normal admissions. I think ive seen elsewhere that overall admissions are a bit lower than normal, but that could be bullshit.
Hasn't all elective surgery been cancelled for starters? That seems to have got lost in all the excitement.
I think there's an Opinium poll tonight, here's some of the supplementaries.
an Opinium poll for the Observer suggests households are already noticing price inflation. About 70% of voters said they had seen their cost of living increase more than their income over the last 12 months, despite reports of pay rises. A majority who voted Tory at the last election (57%) said they backed removing VAT from energy bills.
One in eight voters (12%) would now describe their financial situation as “struggling”, up slightly from 9% from the end of lockdown in April. A huge majority of the public say they have noticed price rises. About 86% have noticed a rise in the overall cost of living, 83% a rise in grocery bills, 80% a rise in energy bills and 59% a rise in council tax.
The issue with removing VAT is it’s gesture politics.
I remember reading that the average bill is going to double from £600 to £1,200. No idea if that is true but let’s use fir illustrative purposes.
Cutting 5% off the £1,200 saves £60 - which won’t be noticed by the average person in the context of a £600 rise and will benefit the rich more (on the assumption they have higher energy bills).
Far better to use the money - I think someone said £1.4bn - for targeted help at those who need it rather than middle class journalists
I disagree. The doubling of rates is I believe based on some extreme examples, eg being on a very heavily discounted rate from one of the aggressive retailers and then ending up on the price cap instead.
But "targeted help" is in general the worst possible thing that creates the poverty trap.
The rich will benefit the least because the amount of tax removed will be a tiny proportion of their income, a bigger proportion of middle incomes and a much bigger proportion of poor ones.
VAT on energy is a regressive tax not a progressive one.
A one time targeted payment is fine re poverty trap and it eliminates the deadweight cost. I would get something like £180 from eliminating VAT on fuel which I would save.
It just kicks the can down the road though. This is unlikely to go away in the next few years. We will still need gas, and plenty of it, to generate electricity and for domestic heating and cooking as well as industry. A one off payment really is just short termism. There needs to be something to manage the transition, affordable, to self sufficient renewables.
There's metric shit tonnes of gas in the world - the problem is that electricity generators have been able to make more money by buying spot than entering into long term supply contracts.
If you were at Centrica in 2007 and bought a 10 year gas supply contract, you lost your job in 2009 because spot gas prices were a quarter of where you'd committed to buy gas.
The UK retail electricity market has encouraged people to buy short and sell long. Which is a recipe for disaster if there's ever a disruption. (In this case, three disruptions: US gas drilling dried up in the pandemic, Russia has caused trouble by restricting supply to Europe, and the wind didn't blow.)
Presumably the removal of the UKs gas storage capacity hasn’t helped us either.
Good point: at the same time we've become more dependent on gas, we've got rid of storage faciltiies.
The numbers I saw were that the UK has 9TwH equivalent against 150TWH in Germany or Italy.
The justification for us having less storage than our European neighbours used to be that we were self sufficient in gas whereas they relied on imports from dodgy sources.
Well that argument doesn't hold water anymore, so we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
This article has some interesting points about it. It was to save money as we’d have cheap gas a plenty. They were warned.
Unless we are going to use gas as a means of storing excess wind energy now would be a really silly time to build extra gas storage. National Grid are planning for the electricity grid to be fully decarbonised by 2035, HMG are planning to ban the sale of gas boilers - what are we going to be using gas for that we would need to store it?
Given the time to build additional storage it’s probably pointless now. Anyway there’d be no political will to do,it and even if there was there’d be numerous challenges in the courts from various lobby groups.
Gas will still be needed for the foreseeable future while we transition, of we can transition completely, though to produce electricity, blue hydrogen and for domestic applications.
2035 is a great plan but let’s see how they get there.
What does PB think? I'd go for lat flows on onset of symptoms, reasonable precautions (no pub, WFH) if possible. All voluntary. Plus booster vax every autumn.
Get vaccinated.
Get boosters as often as required.
Stop all other bullshit. Stop testing. Stop isolating.
I've just had the virus and while it was unpleasant for a couple of days, I've had much worse manflu in prior winters. Based on symptoms alone I'd have just taken 48 hours off, not a week.
And killed a few grannies with the spread. What is not bad for you is hellish for others. That's the problem, and no sounding like Bartholomew Roberts of the Pirates talking about merchant sailors resolves that.
And we're straight back to the balance of harms problem again.
Whole population test, trace and isolate to contain a deadly pandemic is one thing. Whole population test, trace and isolate for the rest of time to save the occasional frail oldie or leukaemia patient is quite another.
Having a situation in which we lock everybody up several times a year whenever they catch Covid (or Flu, for that matter, because by your reasoning we should also be testing, tracing and isolating for that deadly illness as well,) means making everyone take several weeks off work every year whether they are ill or not, making children take several weeks off school every year whether they're ill or not, and making it impossible for anyone to plan to do anything in advance, because they're at constant risk of being forced to lock themselves up at home for 7 or 10 days whether they're ill or not. These are significant harms.
Or, to borrow an oft-used example from the last couple of years, you could save every single child that's killed each year by being runover by a car or truck via the simple expedient of banning motor vehicles. It doesn't necessarily follow that this would be a good idea. By your logic the failure to take motor vehicles off the roads means endorsing the cruel slaughter of children to preserve the freedom of motorists, but we all know that's nonsense.
BR doesn't want to stay at home for fivea days. FIVE DAYS. He's happy to spread disease because he can;t be arsed to be responsible. Decent. Civilised.
I wouldn't do that (go out after 48hrs) for 'normal' flu - never mind covid.
I did stay at home for my seven (not five in England, or Scotland AFAIK) days despite being perfectly healthy and as a result our NYE table for seven people and however many hundreds of pounds we'd have spent at our local restaurant we had a table booked for was cancelled.
Had isolation not been a rule then yes I would have gone out.
You may consider disrupting everyone's lives and people's work and businesses etc civilised and decent, I certainly don't.
There is this thing about viruses. They spread. To other people.
Cancelling a party if I had flu was a COMPLETELY FUCKING NORMAL AND CONSIDERATE action long before covid. I couldn't give a monkey's about the pub - I always paid a cancellation fee if required.
What the hell is wrong with you?
If you get flu bad, you ain't going anywhere.
But are you seriously telling us that you've never gone out when you've had a cold? Because that's what omicron is for the vast majority of people that are symptomatic.
That being the case, why do we have a growing NHS swamping crisis across chunks of the country?
"Its just a cold" is fuck you to the poor sods in the NHS trying to keep people alive.
The crisis isn’t the patients it’s the staff absences through isolation.
In parts of the country the crisis is staff absences AND hospitalisation heading well north of the previous peak 12 months ago.
They won’t be as demanding patients as last year though. Ventilation levels are actually going down right now. With prevalence so high many of those patients are there for something other than Covid.
I know that it's fashionable on here to dismiss it all as just a cold. And yes, perhaps you know more than the NHS Trust CEOs talking to the NHS Providers CEO about the state of things in reality on the ground.
Have you and the others not considered a rather basic point? If it's just a cold, if it's just staff absences, if its not a problem why are hospitals desperately building mini nightingales in their carparks?
They need space because the Covid positive broken legs need to be separated from the non Covid broken legs. Look, I’m not denying pressures on the nhs. I would not want to work at a hospital. But I’m not sure what you want us to say, or do. Lockdowns are not working for omicron. For better or worse we need to see out the next few weeks. It’s not going to be easy. But it is true that the patients are generally a lot less sick. Hopson himself has tweeted this. We also have the problem that fairly routine things in winter in hospitals are being blown up by the media and Twitter. Hospitals have a system in place for when they come under pressure and several trusts have used this. Some have already come out of this.
What do I want? How about people stop saying "it's just a cold". It absolutely isn't. Stop belittling and patronising the families of the 150k dead, and the people who are still suffering from Covid long after "recovering".
Final point. You say this is being "blown up by the media and Twitter". I was quoting the CEO of NHS Providers who in turn was summarising the conversations he had had with NHS Trust CEOs. The suggestion that this is all hysterical media spin is bizarre - how much more of a direct line onto how the NHS is coping than him?
Your misreporting my view. There is huge pressure on the hospitals. But it’s January, a time of huge pressure on hospitals. It’s made worse by being after 22 months of a pandemic. It’s made even worse by lots of staff isolating, many of whom could be working, say on Covid positive wards. And frankly for most people this disease is like a cold. But getting a cold wh3n you are old and frail can lead to pneumonia and death. And if you get Covid as a reasonably fit and well 40 year old who just didn’t bother to get vaccinated, or didn’t get vaccinated because someone on Twitter said your clock would fall off, and you die of it, then that’s on you. Vaccines have made this into a cold. That and omicron being less intrinsically severe. I have every sympathy for those who have lost people to this. But how many people have died in the UK since Jan 2020? A lot more than just the Covid deaths.
I think there's an Opinium poll tonight, here's some of the supplementaries.
an Opinium poll for the Observer suggests households are already noticing price inflation. About 70% of voters said they had seen their cost of living increase more than their income over the last 12 months, despite reports of pay rises. A majority who voted Tory at the last election (57%) said they backed removing VAT from energy bills.
One in eight voters (12%) would now describe their financial situation as “struggling”, up slightly from 9% from the end of lockdown in April. A huge majority of the public say they have noticed price rises. About 86% have noticed a rise in the overall cost of living, 83% a rise in grocery bills, 80% a rise in energy bills and 59% a rise in council tax.
The issue with removing VAT is it’s gesture politics.
I remember reading that the average bill is going to double from £600 to £1,200. No idea if that is true but let’s use fir illustrative purposes.
Cutting 5% off the £1,200 saves £60 - which won’t be noticed by the average person in the context of a £600 rise and will benefit the rich more (on the assumption they have higher energy bills).
Far better to use the money - I think someone said £1.4bn - for targeted help at those who need it rather than middle class journalists
I disagree. The doubling of rates is I believe based on some extreme examples, eg being on a very heavily discounted rate from one of the aggressive retailers and then ending up on the price cap instead.
But "targeted help" is in general the worst possible thing that creates the poverty trap.
The rich will benefit the least because the amount of tax removed will be a tiny proportion of their income, a bigger proportion of middle incomes and a much bigger proportion of poor ones.
VAT on energy is a regressive tax not a progressive one.
A one time targeted payment is fine re poverty trap and it eliminates the deadweight cost. I would get something like £180 from eliminating VAT on fuel which I would save.
It just kicks the can down the road though. This is unlikely to go away in the next few years. We will still need gas, and plenty of it, to generate electricity and for domestic heating and cooking as well as industry. A one off payment really is just short termism. There needs to be something to manage the transition, affordable, to self sufficient renewables.
There's metric shit tonnes of gas in the world - the problem is that electricity generators have been able to make more money by buying spot than entering into long term supply contracts.
If you were at Centrica in 2007 and bought a 10 year gas supply contract, you lost your job in 2009 because spot gas prices were a quarter of where you'd committed to buy gas.
The UK retail electricity market has encouraged people to buy short and sell long. Which is a recipe for disaster if there's ever a disruption. (In this case, three disruptions: US gas drilling dried up in the pandemic, Russia has caused trouble by restricting supply to Europe, and the wind didn't blow.)
Presumably the removal of the UKs gas storage capacity hasn’t helped us either.
Good point: at the same time we've become more dependent on gas, we've got rid of storage faciltiies.
The numbers I saw were that the UK has 9TwH equivalent against 150TWH in Germany or Italy.
The justification for us having less storage than our European neighbours used to be that we were self sufficient in gas whereas they relied on imports from dodgy sources.
Well that argument doesn't hold water anymore, so we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
Is it resilience vs efficiency again?
(Same argument as... quite a lot of aspects of British life, really. You see it in hospitals, you get the same in new-build schools. Most of the time, running everything at maximum capacity with minimum fat is a way to get more for less, and we all enjoy the benefits. Until something goes wrong.)
Resilience costs money. We're running an economy on 101% capacity rather than 105%, it limits our growth potential as well as our economic resilience. It's a decision we've made so more of our tax money can be shoveled to old people.
Agreed, though I wonder how clear the decision was... how often have we judged "we can squeeze out 5% (say), but it means things are likely to go badly wrong once every five years." Or have we just thought about the first bit and patted ourselves on the back for being so clever? And then gone back for a second and third bite, by which time you end up closing down vital functions?
Often, efficiency gains look like something for nothing. Which, as the TV show put it, often ends in getting nothing for something...
Can someone just remind what's caused the sudden hike in energy prices over the past six months and why it's a permanent increase?
The initial pandemic lockdowns reduced demand for gas, so a lot of the most marginal gas production in the US shut down - and now many of the laid-off workers there have better paying jobs elsewhere.
When economies reopened I believe demand for gas rebounded strongly, among other trends China is attempting to switch from coal to gas for a variety of reasons. Leading up to this winter Russia has restricted exports of gas, presumably for use in leverage over future Ukraine conflicts, or to have Nordstream 2 opened, or both.
Given enough time, you would expect US production to increase in response to the higher prices, and this should bring prices back down. The thinking seems to be that "enough time" probably won't be until after next winter, but I'm not sure about that. Also, if Chinese demand for gas grows in a similar way to its previous demand for coal, then supply may lag some way behind demand for a good while longer, which would keep the pressure on prices high.
Another domestic British factor is that one of the possible ways to deal with the present spike in prices is for HMG to loan the energy companies tens of billions of pounds so that they can sell gas at below market prices in the short term (say, until increased US supply brings the price back down) and then allow them to charge considerably above the then lower market prices to pay the loans back. We'd still see prices go up a lot in April, but not as much as otherwise, but the prices wouldn't come down for a few years as the loans would need repaying.
We could do with speeding up our transition away from fossil fuels entirely.
Thanks - I certainly agree with that last point. Tidal barrages anyone?
Loaning £bns to the energy companies might be better than giving the same in support to consumers tbh. But it does amount to the state setting the prices.
The problem with subsidising energy prices is that, once you start it becomes very hard to stop. Seems like unwinding an energy subsidy was the trigger for the recent problems in Kazakhstan for example.
What does HMG do if the gas prices don't go down?
The tidal lagoon projects aren't looking as expensive now as they did when Theresa May kiboshed them.
What does PB think? I'd go for lat flows on onset of symptoms, reasonable precautions (no pub, WFH) if possible. All voluntary. Plus booster vax every autumn.
Get vaccinated.
Get boosters as often as required.
Stop all other bullshit. Stop testing. Stop isolating.
I've just had the virus and while it was unpleasant for a couple of days, I've had much worse manflu in prior winters. Based on symptoms alone I'd have just taken 48 hours off, not a week.
And killed a few grannies with the spread. What is not bad for you is hellish for others. That's the problem, and no sounding like Bartholomew Roberts of the Pirates talking about merchant sailors resolves that.
I miss my Grannies, so I don't mean to sound heartless, but isn't that what we've done with influenza for decades, stay in bed when unwell, but otherwise go about our lives as normally as possible. Clearly this means that many thousands of grannies have died every winter because we didn't have lateral flow tests for influenza, and we didn't self-isolate for 10 days after the onset of influenza symptoms.
But, well, that's just part of life, isn't it? There are risks. Infectious diseases will spread, and some people will die of them.
Covid was different during the period March 2020 - March 2021, because it was that much more deadly and infectious than the seasonal flu, but since then we've had our most vulnerable immunised against it, and the risk is much reduced - and so should our response to it. I don't think it is reasonable to continue with massive levels of community testing, and all the other extraordinary interventions, now that vaccines have reduced the risk from Covid to the normal level of seasonal influenza.
If someone in 2019 had suggested introducing lateral flow tests for influenza, and asked everyone to test themselves before meeting anyone else, and isolating for 10 days if they tested positive, and wearing masks when out and about, just in case the negative test was a false negative, or you'd become infectious since you took your test - everyone would have thought they were mad. Despite all the resulting dead grannies from not doing those things.
We've been through a terrible trauma with the pandemic, but we really ought to put some effort into unwinding all the coping mechanisms we adopted to get through it. I almost feel like we have to try and pretend it didn't happen.
I take the point, but equally it's a matter of knowing. I;'d have been very pleased to have LFTs available for flu iuf I felt unwell before going to visit my elderly parents or other members of their generation.
In the Before Times there were various infection control measures put in place at one time or another. I remember seeing reminders about norovirus at the entrance to our local hospital back in the day, for example. And I also once cancelled a visit to my Grandad because I had a cold and didn't want to pass it on to him. And I agree with stodge completely that I hope the pandemic will have seen the end of the martyrs who would drag themselves into work when suffering from a heavy cold and then pass it on to all and sundry.
And yet, we do need to keep our response in proportion to the level of the risk. Is routine mass-testing and mandatory self-isolation enforced by the law proportionate? I really don't think so.
I'm just saying that if you know you have covid you shouldn't behave in a way to pass it on. Simple as that.
And I don't agree.
Viruses like that spreading is part of life. It's entirely natural.
Besides if we stop endemic testing we will mean people don't know, so they can safely by your logic go out and about. Win/win.
Fucking hell, necrotising fasciitis is entirely natural, and indeed part of the Circle of Life. You want some of that?
Last I checked everyone in the country is going to end end up with Covid, many times probably. If not infected by one person then will still get it from someone else.
Is that the case with necrotising fascitis? I don't think so.
We can cross the necrotising fascitis bridge when we come to it, I suppose, is what you're saying here, Bartholomew.
On the Covid, can you not just relax and ride out this final phase of the pandemic without going all pantomime libertarian and yelling that it's just a cold and we have to forget all about it NOW!?
I think you've decided you compromised your purity when supporting previous lockdowns and so now, feeling dirty, you're overcompensating.
Bit like Owen Jones trying to bury his wobble on Corbyn with ultra slavish support post GE17.
A previous poster on this site used the words exit wave several times a day while declaring it over during the Summer ISTR.
That would be before Omicron evolved one assumes?
Of course we did have an exit wave over the summer. The exit wave is the wave from exiting the restrictions, not the virus, there is no exit to the virus.
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I suspect you’re right. The cost of living crisis that appears to be on the horizon could be fatal to Bojo.
NEW: Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie, are accused of attending a “booze-up” in the garden of No 10 that broke Covid rules during the first lockdown
The party on May 20, 2020, was thrown by Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, the most senior civil servant in Downing Street
Three sources say Reynolds emailed officials inviting them to a drinks party and adding “BYOB”, which stands for “bring your own bottle” — removing any doubt that it was a planned party
The email is key evidence in a sleaze inquiry being run by the Whitehall enforcer Sue Gray, which is now threatening to force the resignations of several senior members of Johnson’s team
The suggestion the prime minister himself attended the event — not denied by No 10 — makes this allegation more serious for Johnson than other recent revelations
A witness said: “There were 40 people in the garden, including Boris and Carrie. There were long tables laden with drink, crisps, sausage rolls and other picnic food. It was a proper booze-up
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I suspect you’re right. The cost of living crisis that appears to be on the horizon could be fatal to Bojo.
Inflation is an absolute killer for any government.... because it effects everybody and it effects things you have to pay for every day.
NEW: Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie, are accused of attending a “booze-up” in the garden of No 10 that broke Covid rules during the first lockdown
The party on May 20, 2020, was thrown by Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, the most senior civil servant in Downing Street
Three sources say Reynolds emailed officials inviting them to a drinks party and adding “BYOB”, which stands for “bring your own bottle” — removing any doubt that it was a planned party
The email is key evidence in a sleaze inquiry being run by the Whitehall enforcer Sue Gray, which is now threatening to force the resignations of several senior members of Johnson’s team
The suggestion the prime minister himself attended the event — not denied by No 10 — makes this allegation more serious for Johnson than other recent revelations
A witness said: “There were 40 people in the garden, including Boris and Carrie. There were long tables laden with drink, crisps, sausage rolls and other picnic food. It was a proper booze-up
What does PB think? I'd go for lat flows on onset of symptoms, reasonable precautions (no pub, WFH) if possible. All voluntary. Plus booster vax every autumn.
Get vaccinated.
Get boosters as often as required.
Stop all other bullshit. Stop testing. Stop isolating.
I've just had the virus and while it was unpleasant for a couple of days, I've had much worse manflu in prior winters. Based on symptoms alone I'd have just taken 48 hours off, not a week.
And killed a few grannies with the spread. What is not bad for you is hellish for others. That's the problem, and no sounding like Bartholomew Roberts of the Pirates talking about merchant sailors resolves that.
And we're straight back to the balance of harms problem again.
Whole population test, trace and isolate to contain a deadly pandemic is one thing. Whole population test, trace and isolate for the rest of time to save the occasional frail oldie or leukaemia patient is quite another.
Having a situation in which we lock everybody up several times a year whenever they catch Covid (or Flu, for that matter, because by your reasoning we should also be testing, tracing and isolating for that deadly illness as well,) means making everyone take several weeks off work every year whether they are ill or not, making children take several weeks off school every year whether they're ill or not, and making it impossible for anyone to plan to do anything in advance, because they're at constant risk of being forced to lock themselves up at home for 7 or 10 days whether they're ill or not. These are significant harms.
Or, to borrow an oft-used example from the last couple of years, you could save every single child that's killed each year by being runover by a car or truck via the simple expedient of banning motor vehicles. It doesn't necessarily follow that this would be a good idea. By your logic the failure to take motor vehicles off the roads means endorsing the cruel slaughter of children to preserve the freedom of motorists, but we all know that's nonsense.
BR doesn't want to stay at home for fivea days. FIVE DAYS. He's happy to spread disease because he can;t be arsed to be responsible. Decent. Civilised.
I wouldn't do that (go out after 48hrs) for 'normal' flu - never mind covid.
I did stay at home for my seven (not five in England, or Scotland AFAIK) days despite being perfectly healthy and as a result our NYE table for seven people and however many hundreds of pounds we'd have spent at our local restaurant we had a table booked for was cancelled.
Had isolation not been a rule then yes I would have gone out.
You may consider disrupting everyone's lives and people's work and businesses etc civilised and decent, I certainly don't.
There is this thing about viruses. They spread. To other people.
Cancelling a party if I had flu was a COMPLETELY FUCKING NORMAL AND CONSIDERATE action long before covid. I couldn't give a monkey's about the pub - I always paid a cancellation fee if required.
What the hell is wrong with you?
If you get flu bad, you ain't going anywhere.
But are you seriously telling us that you've never gone out when you've had a cold? Because that's what omicron is for the vast majority of people that are symptomatic.
That being the case, why do we have a growing NHS swamping crisis across chunks of the country?
"Its just a cold" is fuck you to the poor sods in the NHS trying to keep people alive.
What does PB think? I'd go for lat flows on onset of symptoms, reasonable precautions (no pub, WFH) if possible. All voluntary. Plus booster vax every autumn.
Get vaccinated.
Get boosters as often as required.
Stop all other bullshit. Stop testing. Stop isolating.
I've just had the virus and while it was unpleasant for a couple of days, I've had much worse manflu in prior winters. Based on symptoms alone I'd have just taken 48 hours off, not a week.
And killed a few grannies with the spread. What is not bad for you is hellish for others. That's the problem, and no sounding like Bartholomew Roberts of the Pirates talking about merchant sailors resolves that.
And we're straight back to the balance of harms problem again.
Whole population test, trace and isolate to contain a deadly pandemic is one thing. Whole population test, trace and isolate for the rest of time to save the occasional frail oldie or leukaemia patient is quite another.
Having a situation in which we lock everybody up several times a year whenever they catch Covid (or Flu, for that matter, because by your reasoning we should also be testing, tracing and isolating for that deadly illness as well,) means making everyone take several weeks off work every year whether they are ill or not, making children take several weeks off school every year whether they're ill or not, and making it impossible for anyone to plan to do anything in advance, because they're at constant risk of being forced to lock themselves up at home for 7 or 10 days whether they're ill or not. These are significant harms.
Or, to borrow an oft-used example from the last couple of years, you could save every single child that's killed each year by being runover by a car or truck via the simple expedient of banning motor vehicles. It doesn't necessarily follow that this would be a good idea. By your logic the failure to take motor vehicles off the roads means endorsing the cruel slaughter of children to preserve the freedom of motorists, but we all know that's nonsense.
BR doesn't want to stay at home for fivea days. FIVE DAYS. He's happy to spread disease because he can;t be arsed to be responsible. Decent. Civilised.
I wouldn't do that (go out after 48hrs) for 'normal' flu - never mind covid.
I did stay at home for my seven (not five in England, or Scotland AFAIK) days despite being perfectly healthy and as a result our NYE table for seven people and however many hundreds of pounds we'd have spent at our local restaurant we had a table booked for was cancelled.
Had isolation not been a rule then yes I would have gone out.
You may consider disrupting everyone's lives and people's work and businesses etc civilised and decent, I certainly don't.
There is this thing about viruses. They spread. To other people.
Cancelling a party if I had flu was a COMPLETELY FUCKING NORMAL AND CONSIDERATE action long before covid. I couldn't give a monkey's about the pub - I always paid a cancellation fee if required.
What the hell is wrong with you?
If you get flu bad, you ain't going anywhere.
But are you seriously telling us that you've never gone out when you've had a cold? Because that's what omicron is for the vast majority of people that are symptomatic.
That being the case, why do we have a growing NHS swamping crisis across chunks of the country?
"Its just a cold" is fuck you to the poor sods in the NHS trying to keep people alive.
The crisis isn’t the patients it’s the staff absences through isolation.
In parts of the country the crisis is staff absences AND hospitalisation heading well north of the previous peak 12 months ago.
if the PB Brains Trust say it is over it must be over.
To be fair this Omicron spike does look like it's over. We're going to have a rough month and the things will calm down. Until the next variant comes at is again.
The point remains that Covid is not just a cold, the NHS in towns/regions is under threat, and saying "it's over" doesn't cure the massive staffing crisis caused by all the people ill with this "cold"
Restrictions were specifically to protect the NHS. The NHS is on its arse.
I don't dispute Johnson's epidemiology genius in calling Omicron as relatively harmless before the science did, but wasn't his key job to keep the NHS's head above water?
What are the full admissions numbers like? Remember a good chunk are Covid incidentals, so they are actually part of the normal admissions. I think ive seen elsewhere that overall admissions are a bit lower than normal, but that could be bullshit.
Hasn't all elective surgery been cancelled for starters? That seems to have got lost in all the excitement.
NEW: Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie, are accused of attending a “booze-up” in the garden of No 10 that broke Covid rules during the first lockdown
The party on May 20, 2020, was thrown by Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, the most senior civil servant in Downing Street
Three sources say Reynolds emailed officials inviting them to a drinks party and adding “BYOB”, which stands for “bring your own bottle” — removing any doubt that it was a planned party
The email is key evidence in a sleaze inquiry being run by the Whitehall enforcer Sue Gray, which is now threatening to force the resignations of several senior members of Johnson’s team
The suggestion the prime minister himself attended the event — not denied by No 10 — makes this allegation more serious for Johnson than other recent revelations
A witness said: “There were 40 people in the garden, including Boris and Carrie. There were long tables laden with drink, crisps, sausage rolls and other picnic food. It was a proper booze-up
I doubt it makes any difference, those annoyed by the last set of photos will be annoyed by this, those who weren't won't.
As long as Boris continues to not impose any new restrictions, especially not on the vaccinated, it will make no difference to the current coalition who continue to back him. That is mainly those who want to continue their lives without restriction post vaccination and most of whom were not bothered by the photos once it became clear Boris was not going to impose any new restrictions (some of them having briefly gone RefUK or DK when it looked he was going to be hypocritical and impose restrictions)
I think there's an Opinium poll tonight, here's some of the supplementaries.
an Opinium poll for the Observer suggests households are already noticing price inflation. About 70% of voters said they had seen their cost of living increase more than their income over the last 12 months, despite reports of pay rises. A majority who voted Tory at the last election (57%) said they backed removing VAT from energy bills.
One in eight voters (12%) would now describe their financial situation as “struggling”, up slightly from 9% from the end of lockdown in April. A huge majority of the public say they have noticed price rises. About 86% have noticed a rise in the overall cost of living, 83% a rise in grocery bills, 80% a rise in energy bills and 59% a rise in council tax.
The issue with removing VAT is it’s gesture politics.
I remember reading that the average bill is going to double from £600 to £1,200. No idea if that is true but let’s use fir illustrative purposes.
Cutting 5% off the £1,200 saves £60 - which won’t be noticed by the average person in the context of a £600 rise and will benefit the rich more (on the assumption they have higher energy bills).
Far better to use the money - I think someone said £1.4bn - for targeted help at those who need it rather than middle class journalists
I disagree. The doubling of rates is I believe based on some extreme examples, eg being on a very heavily discounted rate from one of the aggressive retailers and then ending up on the price cap instead.
But "targeted help" is in general the worst possible thing that creates the poverty trap.
The rich will benefit the least because the amount of tax removed will be a tiny proportion of their income, a bigger proportion of middle incomes and a much bigger proportion of poor ones.
VAT on energy is a regressive tax not a progressive one.
A one time targeted payment is fine re poverty trap and it eliminates the deadweight cost. I would get something like £180 from eliminating VAT on fuel which I would save.
It just kicks the can down the road though. This is unlikely to go away in the next few years. We will still need gas, and plenty of it, to generate electricity and for domestic heating and cooking as well as industry. A one off payment really is just short termism. There needs to be something to manage the transition, affordable, to self sufficient renewables.
There's metric shit tonnes of gas in the world - the problem is that electricity generators have been able to make more money by buying spot than entering into long term supply contracts.
If you were at Centrica in 2007 and bought a 10 year gas supply contract, you lost your job in 2009 because spot gas prices were a quarter of where you'd committed to buy gas.
The UK retail electricity market has encouraged people to buy short and sell long. Which is a recipe for disaster if there's ever a disruption. (In this case, three disruptions: US gas drilling dried up in the pandemic, Russia has caused trouble by restricting supply to Europe, and the wind didn't blow.)
Presumably the removal of the UKs gas storage capacity hasn’t helped us either.
Good point: at the same time we've become more dependent on gas, we've got rid of storage faciltiies.
The numbers I saw were that the UK has 9TwH equivalent against 150TWH in Germany or Italy.
The justification for us having less storage than our European neighbours used to be that we were self sufficient in gas whereas they relied on imports from dodgy sources.
Well that argument doesn't hold water anymore, so we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
This article has some interesting points about it. It was to save money as we’d have cheap gas a plenty. They were warned.
Unless we are going to use gas as a means of storing excess wind energy now would be a really silly time to build extra gas storage. National Grid are planning for the electricity grid to be fully decarbonised by 2035, HMG are planning to ban the sale of gas boilers - what are we going to be using gas for that we would need to store it?
We'll be storing plenty of gas. Hydrogen gas. As both the usual seasonal storage for winter heating and as a storage vector for renewables. On dark, still winter evenings we can use some of it to meet peak electricity demand without CO2 emissions.
NEW: Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie, are accused of attending a “booze-up” in the garden of No 10 that broke Covid rules during the first lockdown
The party on May 20, 2020, was thrown by Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, the most senior civil servant in Downing Street
Three sources say Reynolds emailed officials inviting them to a drinks party and adding “BYOB”, which stands for “bring your own bottle” — removing any doubt that it was a planned party
The email is key evidence in a sleaze inquiry being run by the Whitehall enforcer Sue Gray, which is now threatening to force the resignations of several senior members of Johnson’s team
The suggestion the prime minister himself attended the event — not denied by No 10 — makes this allegation more serious for Johnson than other recent revelations
A witness said: “There were 40 people in the garden, including Boris and Carrie. There were long tables laden with drink, crisps, sausage rolls and other picnic food. It was a proper booze-up
I doubt it makes any difference, those annoyed by the last set of photos will be annoyed by this, those who weren't won't.
As long as Boris continues to not impose any new restrictions, especially not on the vaccinated, it will make no difference to the current coalition who continue to back him. That is mainly those who want to continue their lives without restriction post vaccination and most of whom were not bothered by the photos once it became clear Boris was not going to impose any new restrictions (some of them having briefly gone RefUK or DK when it looked he was going to be hypocritical and impose restrictions)
I suspect you are right, I think people will start zoning out on these stories now. The damage is done, they have had their impact. The media needs to find something else as a stick to beat Boris with now.
I think there's an Opinium poll tonight, here's some of the supplementaries.
an Opinium poll for the Observer suggests households are already noticing price inflation. About 70% of voters said they had seen their cost of living increase more than their income over the last 12 months, despite reports of pay rises. A majority who voted Tory at the last election (57%) said they backed removing VAT from energy bills.
One in eight voters (12%) would now describe their financial situation as “struggling”, up slightly from 9% from the end of lockdown in April. A huge majority of the public say they have noticed price rises. About 86% have noticed a rise in the overall cost of living, 83% a rise in grocery bills, 80% a rise in energy bills and 59% a rise in council tax.
The issue with removing VAT is it’s gesture politics.
I remember reading that the average bill is going to double from £600 to £1,200. No idea if that is true but let’s use fir illustrative purposes.
Cutting 5% off the £1,200 saves £60 - which won’t be noticed by the average person in the context of a £600 rise and will benefit the rich more (on the assumption they have higher energy bills).
Far better to use the money - I think someone said £1.4bn - for targeted help at those who need it rather than middle class journalists
I disagree. The doubling of rates is I believe based on some extreme examples, eg being on a very heavily discounted rate from one of the aggressive retailers and then ending up on the price cap instead.
But "targeted help" is in general the worst possible thing that creates the poverty trap.
The rich will benefit the least because the amount of tax removed will be a tiny proportion of their income, a bigger proportion of middle incomes and a much bigger proportion of poor ones.
VAT on energy is a regressive tax not a progressive one.
A one time targeted payment is fine re poverty trap and it eliminates the deadweight cost. I would get something like £180 from eliminating VAT on fuel which I would save.
It just kicks the can down the road though. This is unlikely to go away in the next few years. We will still need gas, and plenty of it, to generate electricity and for domestic heating and cooking as well as industry. A one off payment really is just short termism. There needs to be something to manage the transition, affordable, to self sufficient renewables.
There's metric shit tonnes of gas in the world - the problem is that electricity generators have been able to make more money by buying spot than entering into long term supply contracts.
If you were at Centrica in 2007 and bought a 10 year gas supply contract, you lost your job in 2009 because spot gas prices were a quarter of where you'd committed to buy gas.
The UK retail electricity market has encouraged people to buy short and sell long. Which is a recipe for disaster if there's ever a disruption. (In this case, three disruptions: US gas drilling dried up in the pandemic, Russia has caused trouble by restricting supply to Europe, and the wind didn't blow.)
Presumably the removal of the UKs gas storage capacity hasn’t helped us either.
Good point: at the same time we've become more dependent on gas, we've got rid of storage faciltiies.
The numbers I saw were that the UK has 9TwH equivalent against 150TWH in Germany or Italy.
The justification for us having less storage than our European neighbours used to be that we were self sufficient in gas whereas they relied on imports from dodgy sources.
Well that argument doesn't hold water anymore, so we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
Is it resilience vs efficiency again?
(Same argument as... quite a lot of aspects of British life, really. You see it in hospitals, you get the same in new-build schools. Most of the time, running everything at maximum capacity with minimum fat is a way to get more for less, and we all enjoy the benefits. Until something goes wrong.)
Resilience costs money. We're running an economy on 101% capacity rather than 105%, it limits our growth potential as well as our economic resilience. It's a decision we've made so more of our tax money can be shoveled to old people.
Agreed, though I wonder how clear the decision was... how often have we judged "we can squeeze out 5% (say), but it means things are likely to go badly wrong once every five years." Or have we just thought about the first bit and patted ourselves on the back for being so clever? And then gone back for a second and third bite, by which time you end up closing down vital functions?
Often, efficiency gains look like something for nothing. Which, as the TV show put it, often ends in getting nothing for something...
The second one I think, we think we're being clever, then love the ability to shovel another £5bn to old people to buy votes so we go back for the next £5bn and the next. Eventually those cuts tell, we lose essential additional capacity like gas storage subsidies or put up decades old electricity generation infrastructure that needs tens of billions in investment subsidies by the time we get around to it.
And it's not just the Tories, Brown did it all the time with his give aways, though this government has been more guilty than any I can remember. Cameron did it with the truly idiotic triple lock. Blair and Brown did it with buy-to-let replacing pensions they taxed into deficits, Brown did it with the bus passes and free TV licences, this government are doing it with that NI rise on working people and protection of unearned incomes.
Our whole society is geared towards shovelling money to old people to win their votes. Until this changes we're unlikely to fix these underlying issues of economic resilience and increasing our growth potential. Spending on healthcare and pensions will hit over 50% of what the state spends next year iirc. That's not a sustainable figure.
I think there's an Opinium poll tonight, here's some of the supplementaries.
an Opinium poll for the Observer suggests households are already noticing price inflation. About 70% of voters said they had seen their cost of living increase more than their income over the last 12 months, despite reports of pay rises. A majority who voted Tory at the last election (57%) said they backed removing VAT from energy bills.
One in eight voters (12%) would now describe their financial situation as “struggling”, up slightly from 9% from the end of lockdown in April. A huge majority of the public say they have noticed price rises. About 86% have noticed a rise in the overall cost of living, 83% a rise in grocery bills, 80% a rise in energy bills and 59% a rise in council tax.
The issue with removing VAT is it’s gesture politics.
I remember reading that the average bill is going to double from £600 to £1,200. No idea if that is true but let’s use fir illustrative purposes.
Cutting 5% off the £1,200 saves £60 - which won’t be noticed by the average person in the context of a £600 rise and will benefit the rich more (on the assumption they have higher energy bills).
Far better to use the money - I think someone said £1.4bn - for targeted help at those who need it rather than middle class journalists
I disagree. The doubling of rates is I believe based on some extreme examples, eg being on a very heavily discounted rate from one of the aggressive retailers and then ending up on the price cap instead.
But "targeted help" is in general the worst possible thing that creates the poverty trap.
The rich will benefit the least because the amount of tax removed will be a tiny proportion of their income, a bigger proportion of middle incomes and a much bigger proportion of poor ones.
VAT on energy is a regressive tax not a progressive one.
A one time targeted payment is fine re poverty trap and it eliminates the deadweight cost. I would get something like £180 from eliminating VAT on fuel which I would save.
It just kicks the can down the road though. This is unlikely to go away in the next few years. We will still need gas, and plenty of it, to generate electricity and for domestic heating and cooking as well as industry. A one off payment really is just short termism. There needs to be something to manage the transition, affordable, to self sufficient renewables.
There's metric shit tonnes of gas in the world - the problem is that electricity generators have been able to make more money by buying spot than entering into long term supply contracts.
If you were at Centrica in 2007 and bought a 10 year gas supply contract, you lost your job in 2009 because spot gas prices were a quarter of where you'd committed to buy gas.
The UK retail electricity market has encouraged people to buy short and sell long. Which is a recipe for disaster if there's ever a disruption. (In this case, three disruptions: US gas drilling dried up in the pandemic, Russia has caused trouble by restricting supply to Europe, and the wind didn't blow.)
Presumably the removal of the UKs gas storage capacity hasn’t helped us either.
Good point: at the same time we've become more dependent on gas, we've got rid of storage faciltiies.
The numbers I saw were that the UK has 9TwH equivalent against 150TWH in Germany or Italy.
The justification for us having less storage than our European neighbours used to be that we were self sufficient in gas whereas they relied on imports from dodgy sources.
Well that argument doesn't hold water anymore, so we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
This article has some interesting points about it. It was to save money as we’d have cheap gas a plenty. They were warned.
Unless we are going to use gas as a means of storing excess wind energy now would be a really silly time to build extra gas storage. National Grid are planning for the electricity grid to be fully decarbonised by 2035, HMG are planning to ban the sale of gas boilers - what are we going to be using gas for that we would need to store it?
We'll be storing plenty of gas. Hydrogen gas. As both the usual seasonal storage for winter heating and as a storage vector for renewables. On dark, still winter evenings we can use some of it to meet peak electricity demand without CO2 emissions.
Good point - presumably requires different storage methods though. Isn't hydrogen notorious difficult to store?
Another thing about the Warm Home Discount. I've yet to meet a benefit claimant who knew about it. Until I informed them. Making benefits and grants hidden, opaque and difficult to access has been a feature of the last 10 years. On which note. How are Councils doing in distributing the UC grant money to the "most needy"?
I am surprised Martin Lewis hasn't done the same for this as he did for money saving expert.
The thing about the Household Support Fund, which is so little publicised I'd forgotten its name, (even though I'm supposed to be trained in it), but it was supposed to make up for the £20 cut in UC, is that every Council has set up an entirely different system of application, and has different eligibility criteria. So. It is impossible to run a national campaign telling folk how to get it, even if it anyone wanted to. Very few will publicise their criteria even if you deep dive into the far reaches of a Council website. What's more, the authorities handling your claim have different names depending on your LA. So. It is at to the whim of the Council. And seriously advantages those who take a "professional" interest in claiming benefits.
NEW: Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie, are accused of attending a “booze-up” in the garden of No 10 that broke Covid rules during the first lockdown
The party on May 20, 2020, was thrown by Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, the most senior civil servant in Downing Street
Three sources say Reynolds emailed officials inviting them to a drinks party and adding “BYOB”, which stands for “bring your own bottle” — removing any doubt that it was a planned party
The email is key evidence in a sleaze inquiry being run by the Whitehall enforcer Sue Gray, which is now threatening to force the resignations of several senior members of Johnson’s team
The suggestion the prime minister himself attended the event — not denied by No 10 — makes this allegation more serious for Johnson than other recent revelations
A witness said: “There were 40 people in the garden, including Boris and Carrie. There were long tables laden with drink, crisps, sausage rolls and other picnic food. It was a proper booze-up
NEW: Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie, are accused of attending a “booze-up” in the garden of No 10 that broke Covid rules during the first lockdown
The party on May 20, 2020, was thrown by Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, the most senior civil servant in Downing Street
Three sources say Reynolds emailed officials inviting them to a drinks party and adding “BYOB”, which stands for “bring your own bottle” — removing any doubt that it was a planned party
The email is key evidence in a sleaze inquiry being run by the Whitehall enforcer Sue Gray, which is now threatening to force the resignations of several senior members of Johnson’s team
The suggestion the prime minister himself attended the event — not denied by No 10 — makes this allegation more serious for Johnson than other recent revelations
A witness said: “There were 40 people in the garden, including Boris and Carrie. There were long tables laden with drink, crisps, sausage rolls and other picnic food. It was a proper booze-up
I think there's an Opinium poll tonight, here's some of the supplementaries.
an Opinium poll for the Observer suggests households are already noticing price inflation. About 70% of voters said they had seen their cost of living increase more than their income over the last 12 months, despite reports of pay rises. A majority who voted Tory at the last election (57%) said they backed removing VAT from energy bills.
One in eight voters (12%) would now describe their financial situation as “struggling”, up slightly from 9% from the end of lockdown in April. A huge majority of the public say they have noticed price rises. About 86% have noticed a rise in the overall cost of living, 83% a rise in grocery bills, 80% a rise in energy bills and 59% a rise in council tax.
The issue with removing VAT is it’s gesture politics.
I remember reading that the average bill is going to double from £600 to £1,200. No idea if that is true but let’s use fir illustrative purposes.
Cutting 5% off the £1,200 saves £60 - which won’t be noticed by the average person in the context of a £600 rise and will benefit the rich more (on the assumption they have higher energy bills).
Far better to use the money - I think someone said £1.4bn - for targeted help at those who need it rather than middle class journalists
I disagree. The doubling of rates is I believe based on some extreme examples, eg being on a very heavily discounted rate from one of the aggressive retailers and then ending up on the price cap instead.
But "targeted help" is in general the worst possible thing that creates the poverty trap.
The rich will benefit the least because the amount of tax removed will be a tiny proportion of their income, a bigger proportion of middle incomes and a much bigger proportion of poor ones.
VAT on energy is a regressive tax not a progressive one.
A one time targeted payment is fine re poverty trap and it eliminates the deadweight cost. I would get something like £180 from eliminating VAT on fuel which I would save.
It just kicks the can down the road though. This is unlikely to go away in the next few years. We will still need gas, and plenty of it, to generate electricity and for domestic heating and cooking as well as industry. A one off payment really is just short termism. There needs to be something to manage the transition, affordable, to self sufficient renewables.
There's metric shit tonnes of gas in the world - the problem is that electricity generators have been able to make more money by buying spot than entering into long term supply contracts.
If you were at Centrica in 2007 and bought a 10 year gas supply contract, you lost your job in 2009 because spot gas prices were a quarter of where you'd committed to buy gas.
The UK retail electricity market has encouraged people to buy short and sell long. Which is a recipe for disaster if there's ever a disruption. (In this case, three disruptions: US gas drilling dried up in the pandemic, Russia has caused trouble by restricting supply to Europe, and the wind didn't blow.)
Presumably the removal of the UKs gas storage capacity hasn’t helped us either.
Good point: at the same time we've become more dependent on gas, we've got rid of storage faciltiies.
The numbers I saw were that the UK has 9TwH equivalent against 150TWH in Germany or Italy.
The justification for us having less storage than our European neighbours used to be that we were self sufficient in gas whereas they relied on imports from dodgy sources.
Well that argument doesn't hold water anymore, so we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
This article has some interesting points about it. It was to save money as we’d have cheap gas a plenty. They were warned.
Unless we are going to use gas as a means of storing excess wind energy now would be a really silly time to build extra gas storage. National Grid are planning for the electricity grid to be fully decarbonised by 2035, HMG are planning to ban the sale of gas boilers - what are we going to be using gas for that we would need to store it?
We'll be storing plenty of gas. Hydrogen gas. As both the usual seasonal storage for winter heating and as a storage vector for renewables. On dark, still winter evenings we can use some of it to meet peak electricity demand without CO2 emissions.
Good point - presumably requires different storage methods though. Isn't hydrogen notorious difficult to store?
Yes it is, although to make blue hydrogen you produce that from natural gas and then capture and dispose of the carbon by product.
All domestic gas boilers are now hydrogen enabled and, roughly, 80% of the networks is able to take hydrogen should domestic heating move to hydrogen. Baxi have a few demo houses in Gateshead running hydrogen boilers.
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I suspect you’re right. The cost of living crisis that appears to be on the horizon could be fatal to Bojo.
Inflation is an absolute killer for any government.... because it effects everybody and it effects things you have to pay for every day.
NEW: Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie, are accused of attending a “booze-up” in the garden of No 10 that broke Covid rules during the first lockdown
The party on May 20, 2020, was thrown by Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, the most senior civil servant in Downing Street
Three sources say Reynolds emailed officials inviting them to a drinks party and adding “BYOB”, which stands for “bring your own bottle” — removing any doubt that it was a planned party
The email is key evidence in a sleaze inquiry being run by the Whitehall enforcer Sue Gray, which is now threatening to force the resignations of several senior members of Johnson’s team
The suggestion the prime minister himself attended the event — not denied by No 10 — makes this allegation more serious for Johnson than other recent revelations
A witness said: “There were 40 people in the garden, including Boris and Carrie. There were long tables laden with drink, crisps, sausage rolls and other picnic food. It was a proper booze-up
I think there's an Opinium poll tonight, here's some of the supplementaries.
an Opinium poll for the Observer suggests households are already noticing price inflation. About 70% of voters said they had seen their cost of living increase more than their income over the last 12 months, despite reports of pay rises. A majority who voted Tory at the last election (57%) said they backed removing VAT from energy bills.
One in eight voters (12%) would now describe their financial situation as “struggling”, up slightly from 9% from the end of lockdown in April. A huge majority of the public say they have noticed price rises. About 86% have noticed a rise in the overall cost of living, 83% a rise in grocery bills, 80% a rise in energy bills and 59% a rise in council tax.
The issue with removing VAT is it’s gesture politics.
I remember reading that the average bill is going to double from £600 to £1,200. No idea if that is true but let’s use fir illustrative purposes.
Cutting 5% off the £1,200 saves £60 - which won’t be noticed by the average person in the context of a £600 rise and will benefit the rich more (on the assumption they have higher energy bills).
Far better to use the money - I think someone said £1.4bn - for targeted help at those who need it rather than middle class journalists
I disagree. The doubling of rates is I believe based on some extreme examples, eg being on a very heavily discounted rate from one of the aggressive retailers and then ending up on the price cap instead.
But "targeted help" is in general the worst possible thing that creates the poverty trap.
The rich will benefit the least because the amount of tax removed will be a tiny proportion of their income, a bigger proportion of middle incomes and a much bigger proportion of poor ones.
VAT on energy is a regressive tax not a progressive one.
A one time targeted payment is fine re poverty trap and it eliminates the deadweight cost. I would get something like £180 from eliminating VAT on fuel which I would save.
It just kicks the can down the road though. This is unlikely to go away in the next few years. We will still need gas, and plenty of it, to generate electricity and for domestic heating and cooking as well as industry. A one off payment really is just short termism. There needs to be something to manage the transition, affordable, to self sufficient renewables.
There's metric shit tonnes of gas in the world - the problem is that electricity generators have been able to make more money by buying spot than entering into long term supply contracts.
If you were at Centrica in 2007 and bought a 10 year gas supply contract, you lost your job in 2009 because spot gas prices were a quarter of where you'd committed to buy gas.
The UK retail electricity market has encouraged people to buy short and sell long. Which is a recipe for disaster if there's ever a disruption. (In this case, three disruptions: US gas drilling dried up in the pandemic, Russia has caused trouble by restricting supply to Europe, and the wind didn't blow.)
Presumably the removal of the UKs gas storage capacity hasn’t helped us either.
Good point: at the same time we've become more dependent on gas, we've got rid of storage faciltiies.
The numbers I saw were that the UK has 9TwH equivalent against 150TWH in Germany or Italy.
The justification for us having less storage than our European neighbours used to be that we were self sufficient in gas whereas they relied on imports from dodgy sources.
Well that argument doesn't hold water anymore, so we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
This article has some interesting points about it. It was to save money as we’d have cheap gas a plenty. They were warned.
Unless we are going to use gas as a means of storing excess wind energy now would be a really silly time to build extra gas storage. National Grid are planning for the electricity grid to be fully decarbonised by 2035, HMG are planning to ban the sale of gas boilers - what are we going to be using gas for that we would need to store it?
We'll be storing plenty of gas. Hydrogen gas. As both the usual seasonal storage for winter heating and as a storage vector for renewables. On dark, still winter evenings we can use some of it to meet peak electricity demand without CO2 emissions.
I used to think so, but it's beginning to look like batteries are going to fill our storage needs. You could say that smartphones killed hydrogen (by providing an extra boost to research into battery technology).
I can see a future where every consumer of electricity - homes, car charging points, businesses - has battery storage. Would have been really handy for those left without a grid connection for more than a week by Storm Arwen. I think the competition from batteries will make it hard for the economics to work for using gas to store electricity. The market niche will be filled.
Any action to help those struggling with energy costs has to be national, transparent, well publicised, simple and easy to claim. Otherwise we'll get more bureaucratic red tape dumped on floundering Councils yet again.
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I suspect you’re right. The cost of living crisis that appears to be on the horizon could be fatal to Bojo.
Inflation is an absolute killer for any government.... because it effects everybody and it effects things you have to pay for every day.
I think there's an Opinium poll tonight, here's some of the supplementaries.
an Opinium poll for the Observer suggests households are already noticing price inflation. About 70% of voters said they had seen their cost of living increase more than their income over the last 12 months, despite reports of pay rises. A majority who voted Tory at the last election (57%) said they backed removing VAT from energy bills.
One in eight voters (12%) would now describe their financial situation as “struggling”, up slightly from 9% from the end of lockdown in April. A huge majority of the public say they have noticed price rises. About 86% have noticed a rise in the overall cost of living, 83% a rise in grocery bills, 80% a rise in energy bills and 59% a rise in council tax.
The issue with removing VAT is it’s gesture politics.
I remember reading that the average bill is going to double from £600 to £1,200. No idea if that is true but let’s use fir illustrative purposes.
Cutting 5% off the £1,200 saves £60 - which won’t be noticed by the average person in the context of a £600 rise and will benefit the rich more (on the assumption they have higher energy bills).
Far better to use the money - I think someone said £1.4bn - for targeted help at those who need it rather than middle class journalists
I disagree. The doubling of rates is I believe based on some extreme examples, eg being on a very heavily discounted rate from one of the aggressive retailers and then ending up on the price cap instead.
But "targeted help" is in general the worst possible thing that creates the poverty trap.
The rich will benefit the least because the amount of tax removed will be a tiny proportion of their income, a bigger proportion of middle incomes and a much bigger proportion of poor ones.
VAT on energy is a regressive tax not a progressive one.
A one time targeted payment is fine re poverty trap and it eliminates the deadweight cost. I would get something like £180 from eliminating VAT on fuel which I would save.
It just kicks the can down the road though. This is unlikely to go away in the next few years. We will still need gas, and plenty of it, to generate electricity and for domestic heating and cooking as well as industry. A one off payment really is just short termism. There needs to be something to manage the transition, affordable, to self sufficient renewables.
There's metric shit tonnes of gas in the world - the problem is that electricity generators have been able to make more money by buying spot than entering into long term supply contracts.
If you were at Centrica in 2007 and bought a 10 year gas supply contract, you lost your job in 2009 because spot gas prices were a quarter of where you'd committed to buy gas.
The UK retail electricity market has encouraged people to buy short and sell long. Which is a recipe for disaster if there's ever a disruption. (In this case, three disruptions: US gas drilling dried up in the pandemic, Russia has caused trouble by restricting supply to Europe, and the wind didn't blow.)
Presumably the removal of the UKs gas storage capacity hasn’t helped us either.
Good point: at the same time we've become more dependent on gas, we've got rid of storage faciltiies.
The numbers I saw were that the UK has 9TwH equivalent against 150TWH in Germany or Italy.
The justification for us having less storage than our European neighbours used to be that we were self sufficient in gas whereas they relied on imports from dodgy sources.
Well that argument doesn't hold water anymore, so we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
This article has some interesting points about it. It was to save money as we’d have cheap gas a plenty. They were warned.
Unless we are going to use gas as a means of storing excess wind energy now would be a really silly time to build extra gas storage. National Grid are planning for the electricity grid to be fully decarbonised by 2035, HMG are planning to ban the sale of gas boilers - what are we going to be using gas for that we would need to store it?
We'll be storing plenty of gas. Hydrogen gas. As both the usual seasonal storage for winter heating and as a storage vector for renewables. On dark, still winter evenings we can use some of it to meet peak electricity demand without CO2 emissions.
Good point - presumably requires different storage methods though. Isn't hydrogen notorious difficult to store?
Salt caverns and depleted hydrocarbon fields. Just like natural gas. There are existing hydrogen storage caverns under Teesside.
Truss absolutely should be firm on this and call the EUs bluff. She has nothing to lose by doing so and it will further her ambition, plus it's the right thing to do for the UK.
Of course the same old whingers who were always against Brexit anyway will bitch and moan but what do they know?
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I don't see how Sunak can cancel the NI uplift. The much-heralded plan for social care is based entirely on the funds raised from that. So he'd be saying - "you know that social care plan that we've promised for years, that Boris finally fixed in the autumn - well, we've changed our minds. Got social care undone. Soz". Otherwise, I agree with you.
I think there's an Opinium poll tonight, here's some of the supplementaries.
an Opinium poll for the Observer suggests households are already noticing price inflation. About 70% of voters said they had seen their cost of living increase more than their income over the last 12 months, despite reports of pay rises. A majority who voted Tory at the last election (57%) said they backed removing VAT from energy bills.
One in eight voters (12%) would now describe their financial situation as “struggling”, up slightly from 9% from the end of lockdown in April. A huge majority of the public say they have noticed price rises. About 86% have noticed a rise in the overall cost of living, 83% a rise in grocery bills, 80% a rise in energy bills and 59% a rise in council tax.
The issue with removing VAT is it’s gesture politics.
I remember reading that the average bill is going to double from £600 to £1,200. No idea if that is true but let’s use fir illustrative purposes.
Cutting 5% off the £1,200 saves £60 - which won’t be noticed by the average person in the context of a £600 rise and will benefit the rich more (on the assumption they have higher energy bills).
Far better to use the money - I think someone said £1.4bn - for targeted help at those who need it rather than middle class journalists
I disagree. The doubling of rates is I believe based on some extreme examples, eg being on a very heavily discounted rate from one of the aggressive retailers and then ending up on the price cap instead.
But "targeted help" is in general the worst possible thing that creates the poverty trap.
The rich will benefit the least because the amount of tax removed will be a tiny proportion of their income, a bigger proportion of middle incomes and a much bigger proportion of poor ones.
VAT on energy is a regressive tax not a progressive one.
A one time targeted payment is fine re poverty trap and it eliminates the deadweight cost. I would get something like £180 from eliminating VAT on fuel which I would save.
It just kicks the can down the road though. This is unlikely to go away in the next few years. We will still need gas, and plenty of it, to generate electricity and for domestic heating and cooking as well as industry. A one off payment really is just short termism. There needs to be something to manage the transition, affordable, to self sufficient renewables.
There's metric shit tonnes of gas in the world - the problem is that electricity generators have been able to make more money by buying spot than entering into long term supply contracts.
If you were at Centrica in 2007 and bought a 10 year gas supply contract, you lost your job in 2009 because spot gas prices were a quarter of where you'd committed to buy gas.
The UK retail electricity market has encouraged people to buy short and sell long. Which is a recipe for disaster if there's ever a disruption. (In this case, three disruptions: US gas drilling dried up in the pandemic, Russia has caused trouble by restricting supply to Europe, and the wind didn't blow.)
Presumably the removal of the UKs gas storage capacity hasn’t helped us either.
Good point: at the same time we've become more dependent on gas, we've got rid of storage faciltiies.
The numbers I saw were that the UK has 9TwH equivalent against 150TWH in Germany or Italy.
The justification for us having less storage than our European neighbours used to be that we were self sufficient in gas whereas they relied on imports from dodgy sources.
Well that argument doesn't hold water anymore, so we've got ourselves into a bit of a pickle.
This article has some interesting points about it. It was to save money as we’d have cheap gas a plenty. They were warned.
Unless we are going to use gas as a means of storing excess wind energy now would be a really silly time to build extra gas storage. National Grid are planning for the electricity grid to be fully decarbonised by 2035, HMG are planning to ban the sale of gas boilers - what are we going to be using gas for that we would need to store it?
We'll be storing plenty of gas. Hydrogen gas. As both the usual seasonal storage for winter heating and as a storage vector for renewables. On dark, still winter evenings we can use some of it to meet peak electricity demand without CO2 emissions.
I used to think so, but it's beginning to look like batteries are going to fill our storage needs. You could say that smartphones killed hydrogen (by providing an extra boost to research into battery technology).
I can see a future where every consumer of electricity - homes, car charging points, businesses - has battery storage. Would have been really handy for those left without a grid connection for more than a week by Storm Arwen. I think the competition from batteries will make it hard for the economics to work for using gas to store electricity. The market niche will be filled.
It will be interesting to see which way it plays out. One reason why I would like to live until 2050.
Can someone just remind what's caused the sudden hike in energy prices over the past six months and why it's a permanent increase?
The initial pandemic lockdowns reduced demand for gas, so a lot of the most marginal gas production in the US shut down - and now many of the laid-off workers there have better paying jobs elsewhere.
When economies reopened I believe demand for gas rebounded strongly, among other trends China is attempting to switch from coal to gas for a variety of reasons. Leading up to this winter Russia has restricted exports of gas, presumably for use in leverage over future Ukraine conflicts, or to have Nordstream 2 opened, or both.
Given enough time, you would expect US production to increase in response to the higher prices, and this should bring prices back down. The thinking seems to be that "enough time" probably won't be until after next winter, but I'm not sure about that. Also, if Chinese demand for gas grows in a similar way to its previous demand for coal, then supply may lag some way behind demand for a good while longer, which would keep the pressure on prices high.
Another domestic British factor is that one of the possible ways to deal with the present spike in prices is for HMG to loan the energy companies tens of billions of pounds so that they can sell gas at below market prices in the short term (say, until increased US supply brings the price back down) and then allow them to charge considerably above the then lower market prices to pay the loans back. We'd still see prices go up a lot in April, but not as much as otherwise, but the prices wouldn't come down for a few years as the loans would need repaying.
We could do with speeding up our transition away from fossil fuels entirely.
Thanks - I certainly agree with that last point. Tidal barrages anyone?
Loaning £bns to the energy companies might be better than giving the same in support to consumers tbh. But it does amount to the state setting the prices.
How does that work with the current market system? What stops new entrants turning up once the price has dropped and wiping the floor with the firms laden with debt?
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I don't see how Sunak can cancel the NI uplift. The much-heralded plan for social care is based entirely on the funds raised from that. So he'd be saying - "you know that social care plan that we've promised for years, that Boris finally fixed in the autumn - well, we've changed our minds. Got social care undone. Soz". Otherwise, I agree with you.
Cut taxes and get the money for social care from economic growth, as per the Laffer Curve.
The NI tax rise was bad economics as well as bad politics.
I just don't see it getting reversed because ego will prevent him from admitting he made a mistake. Then I expect to add insult to injury there'll be a cut of Income Tax instead so those working for a living are worse off while those on unearned incomes are better off.
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I don't see how Sunak can cancel the NI uplift. The much-heralded plan for social care is based entirely on the funds raised from that. So he'd be saying - "you know that social care plan that we've promised for years, that Boris finally fixed in the autumn - well, we've changed our minds. Got social care undone. Soz". Otherwise, I agree with you.
That and the restabilising the NHS. (I'm still a bit dubious that Social Care will see much of the cash in the end.) It is a big ol' tax rise, because the government needs a big ol' pile of money. And whilst leaving the EU has given us certain freedoms, it hasn't given us freedom from arithmetic.
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I don't see how Sunak can cancel the NI uplift. The much-heralded plan for social care is based entirely on the funds raised from that. So he'd be saying - "you know that social care plan that we've promised for years, that Boris finally fixed in the autumn - well, we've changed our minds. Got social care undone. Soz". Otherwise, I agree with you.
If you think this shower aren't capable of doing exactly what you said then you've not been following the plotlines.
Truss absolutely should be firm on this and call the EUs bluff. She has nothing to lose by doing so and it will further her ambition, plus it's the right thing to do for the UK.
Of course the same old whingers who were always against Brexit anyway will bitch and moan but what do they know?
Patersongate, Partygate, Trussexpensegate, an economy in freefall. How do we get the RedWall back on board?...er...Brexit!
Truss absolutely should be firm on this and call the EUs bluff. She has nothing to lose by doing so and it will further her ambition, plus it's the right thing to do for the UK.
Of course the same old whingers who were always against Brexit anyway will bitch and moan but what do they know?
Patersongate, Partygate, Trussexpensegate, an economy in freefall. How do we get the RedWall back on board?...er...Brexit!
Bound to do the trick. Investment cancelled, levelling up,cancelled, NI hiked, energy bills through the roof all forgotten for a bit of pointless sabre rattling with the EU !
Peter Mandelson grins as Jeffrey Epstein blows out the candles on a birthday cake in a photo taken after the paedophile had been charged in an underage sex probe
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I don't see how Sunak can cancel the NI uplift. The much-heralded plan for social care is based entirely on the funds raised from that. So he'd be saying - "you know that social care plan that we've promised for years, that Boris finally fixed in the autumn - well, we've changed our minds. Got social care undone. Soz". Otherwise, I agree with you.
That and the restabilising the NHS. (I'm still a bit dubious that Social Care will see much of the cash in the end.) It is a big ol' tax rise, because the government needs a big ol' pile of money. And whilst leaving the EU has given us certain freedoms, it hasn't given us freedom from arithmetic.
Tax Year 22/23 is a 1.25% increase on employer and employee NI (it’s not a separate charge it’s just a new employer / employee in rate).
From 23/24 the NI rates return to 21/22 levels but there are new social levy’s of 1.25% paid by both employers and employees
You may remember that I pointed out who long the lead times for changes to PAYE software is.
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I don't see how Sunak can cancel the NI uplift. The much-heralded plan for social care is based entirely on the funds raised from that. So he'd be saying - "you know that social care plan that we've promised for years, that Boris finally fixed in the autumn - well, we've changed our minds. Got social care undone. Soz". Otherwise, I agree with you.
That and the restabilising the NHS. (I'm still a bit dubious that Social Care will see much of the cash in the end.) It is a big ol' tax rise, because the government needs a big ol' pile of money. And whilst leaving the EU has given us certain freedoms, it hasn't given us freedom from arithmetic.
Tax Year 22/23 is a 1.25% increase on employer and employee NI (it’s not a separate charge it’s just a new employer / employee in rate).
From 23/24 the NI rates return to 21/22 levels but there are new social levy’s of 1.25% paid by both employers and employees
You may remember that I pointed out who long the lead times for changes to PAYE software is.
Good point. Though pointing out that the government doesn't have freedom from the laws of time sounds a bit like a Russell T Davis Dr Who script.
Truss absolutely should be firm on this and call the EUs bluff. She has nothing to lose by doing so and it will further her ambition, plus it's the right thing to do for the UK.
Of course the same old whingers who were always against Brexit anyway will bitch and moan but what do they know?
Patersongate, Partygate, Trussexpensegate, an economy in freefall. How do we get the RedWall back on board?...er...Brexit!
Bound to do the trick. Investment cancelled, levelling up,cancelled, NI hiked, energy bills through the roof all forgotten for a bit of pointless sabre rattling with the EU !
If she is briefing the Telegraph then the purpose is solely about the membership and the leadership vote.
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I don't see how Sunak can cancel the NI uplift. The much-heralded plan for social care is based entirely on the funds raised from that. So he'd be saying - "you know that social care plan that we've promised for years, that Boris finally fixed in the autumn - well, we've changed our minds. Got social care undone. Soz". Otherwise, I agree with you.
I find the idea of cancelling the NI uplift odd. Why would Sunak do that so soon after announcing it? What has changed?
VAT on energy is only 5%, small beer given the 40% + energy price rises that are coming along.
If they did temporarily nil-rate VAT on energy (or permanently scrap it) then this is a trap because the Labour Party and the media will say this is a tax cut for the rich at the expense of the poor because higher energy bills would come down in tax more nominally than lower bills.
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I don't see how Sunak can cancel the NI uplift. The much-heralded plan for social care is based entirely on the funds raised from that. So he'd be saying - "you know that social care plan that we've promised for years, that Boris finally fixed in the autumn - well, we've changed our minds. Got social care undone. Soz". Otherwise, I agree with you.
That and the restabilising the NHS. (I'm still a bit dubious that Social Care will see much of the cash in the end.) It is a big ol' tax rise, because the government needs a big ol' pile of money. And whilst leaving the EU has given us certain freedoms, it hasn't given us freedom from arithmetic.
Tax Year 22/23 is a 1.25% increase on employer and employee NI (it’s not a separate charge it’s just a new employer / employee in rate).
From 23/24 the NI rates return to 21/22 levels but there are new social levy’s of 1.25% paid by both employers and employees
You may remember that I pointed out who long the lead times for changes to PAYE software is.
Which means that you could scrap the employer / employer NI changes in 22/23 without much difficulty because it’s a different tax than the 23/24 onward versions..
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I don't see how Sunak can cancel the NI uplift. The much-heralded plan for social care is based entirely on the funds raised from that. So he'd be saying - "you know that social care plan that we've promised for years, that Boris finally fixed in the autumn - well, we've changed our minds. Got social care undone. Soz". Otherwise, I agree with you.
Cut taxes and get the money for social care from economic growth, as per the Laffer Curve.
The NI tax rise was bad economics as well as bad politics.
I just don't see it getting reversed because ego will prevent him from admitting he made a mistake. Then I expect to add insult to injury there'll be a cut of Income Tax instead so those working for a living are worse off while those on unearned incomes are better off.
Sunak will pause it for a year, to "see where we go as an economy with inflation pressures".
Then it will be quietly dropped as we are into election year.
This idea that we should 'stop spreading diseases' in winter time is nonsense. Exposure to them is a good thing for our immune system. I've not been sick at all for two years and it doesn't feel right to me. I accept I might be prejudiced, but I trust my common sense on this.
Also, you cant stop turning up to important work meetings because you've got a bad cold etc. Sometimes business needs to be done and you need to go to meetings. Nor should teachers miss school because they have colds. WFH is appropriate for some jobs when people are sick, but having a cold should not be a free pass to stay at home, that is just a road to lost productivity in large parts of the economy.
If, thanks to HMG policy being reported, you can't get a LFT and can't tell the difference between a cold and covid?
Then Covid colds can be treated the same as every other rhinovirus and coronavirus etc cold.
Just as they should be!
There is this small difference of the heterogeneity of people's actual response to the virus. But of course you don't want to acknowledge that covid isn't just a cold and that you kill people by scattering it around. It's not a moral responsibility I want.
Mine was just a cold. As has been the case for everyone I know post vaccines. 🤷♂️
You don't kill people by scattering it around since colds like Covid spread whether you want to spread it or not.
People are vaccinated. That's it as far as I'm concerned.
But as far as you are concerned, is not really far enough to give much comfort to the rest of us. Have you adjusted your position to take account of the incredibly disappointing performance of the vaccines, vs what we were promised when they were first released?
No sorry I don't buy into any antivaxx bullshit that vaccines have disappointing performance. The performance is great from vaccines and it's primarily the unvaccinated idiots who are getting sick because they've decline the great performance of the vaccines. So no adjustments necessary.
Vaccines work and are good. It seems the horseshoe theory is working with Covid now too. You lockdown fetishists and antivaxxers are both fishing with the same bullshit.
What are the EU supposed to have done, or not done, to cause these pointless endless threats from lightweight politicians wanting to look tough ?
Not agreed with Boris that the deal he negotiated was bollocks, therefore they need to give in. One flaw. The Telegraph is available in Brussels. That frites avec mayonnaise doesn't wrap itself.
What are the EU supposed to have done, or not done, to cause these pointless endless threats from lightweight politicians wanting to look tough ?
A fair question, but on this issue at least both sides-ism is pretty appropriate - these last years have shown 'tough guy' shit talking (including the faux-bemused 'we just don't understand what they want' variant) has been prevalent among the negotiators. Leaks, whinges, threats to look strong to domestic audiences, practically every comment around the negotiations from every single one of them has been of no worth.
So far a way through has always, eventually, been found, but the worry is that at some point one side or the another will miscalculate with their shit talking and accidentally cross a point they cannot come back from.
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I don't see how Sunak can cancel the NI uplift. The much-heralded plan for social care is based entirely on the funds raised from that. So he'd be saying - "you know that social care plan that we've promised for years, that Boris finally fixed in the autumn - well, we've changed our minds. Got social care undone. Soz". Otherwise, I agree with you.
I find the idea of cancelling the NI uplift odd. Why would Sunak do that so soon after announcing it? What has changed?
VAT on energy is only 5%, small beer given the 40% + energy price rises that are coming along.
If they did temporarily nil-rate VAT on energy (or permanently scrap it) then this is a trap because the Labour Party and the media will say this is a tax cut for the rich at the expense of the poor because higher energy bills would come down in tax more nominally than lower bills.
The only problem with that is that Rachel is leading the charge to abolish the 5% vat on energy
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I don't see how Sunak can cancel the NI uplift. The much-heralded plan for social care is based entirely on the funds raised from that. So he'd be saying - "you know that social care plan that we've promised for years, that Boris finally fixed in the autumn - well, we've changed our minds. Got social care undone. Soz". Otherwise, I agree with you.
I find the idea of cancelling the NI uplift odd. Why would Sunak do that so soon after announcing it? What has changed?
VAT on energy is only 5%, small beer given the 40% + energy price rises that are coming along.
If they did temporarily nil-rate VAT on energy (or permanently scrap it) then this is a trap because the Labour Party and the media will say this is a tax cut for the rich at the expense of the poor because higher energy bills would come down in tax more nominally than lower bills.
Aren't Labour calling for the VAT at 5% to be scrapped iirc?
The SUN SAYS: Boris seems to think the world is neatly divided between “the poor” and the wine-swigging, cheese-noshing, wallpaper-fretting elite circles that he knocks around in. But ordinary families who work for a living are seeing a tidal wave of debt heading straight for them. They are not “the poor”. They are the struggling workers of this country.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
VAT will go on energy. As will the NI uplift.
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
I don't see how Sunak can cancel the NI uplift. The much-heralded plan for social care is based entirely on the funds raised from that. So he'd be saying - "you know that social care plan that we've promised for years, that Boris finally fixed in the autumn - well, we've changed our minds. Got social care undone. Soz". Otherwise, I agree with you.
I find the idea of cancelling the NI uplift odd. Why would Sunak do that so soon after announcing it? What has changed?
VAT on energy is only 5%, small beer given the 40% + energy price rises that are coming along.
If they did temporarily nil-rate VAT on energy (or permanently scrap it) then this is a trap because the Labour Party and the media will say this is a tax cut for the rich at the expense of the poor because higher energy bills would come down in tax more nominally than lower bills.
The only problem with that is that Rachel is leading the charge to abolish the 5% vat on energy
A Labour MP is a director of a controversial website that has been accused of publishing antisemitic attacks and conspiracy theories, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Grahame Morris, MP for the ‘Red Wall’ constituency of Easington in County Durham, is a director of Palestine Deep Dive (PDD) which has been accused of providing a platform for antisemitism.
Wont't briefing the Times your plans to get rid of free LFT tests lead to even more pressure on LFT supply chains as every man and his dog try to get their hands on as many as possible for nought in next couple of weeks?
Covid should now be treated as an endemic virus similar to flu, and ministers should end mass-vaccination after the booster campaign, the former chairman of the UK’s vaccine taskforce has said.
With health chiefs and senior Tories also lobbying for a post-pandemic plan for a straining NHS, Dr Clive Dix called for a major rethink of the UK’s Covid strategy, in effect reversing the approach of the last two years and returning to a “new normality”.
“We need to analyse whether we use the current booster campaign to ensure the vulnerable are protected, if this is seen to be necessary,” he said. “Mass population-based vaccination in the UK should now end.”
He said that ministers should urgently back research into Covid immunity beyond antibodies to include B-cells and T-cells (white blood cells), which could be used to create vaccines for vulnerable people specific to Covid variants: “We now need to manage disease, not virus spread. So stopping progression to severe disease in vulnerable groups is the future objective.”
Wont't briefing the Times your plans to get rid of free LFT tests lead to even more pressure on LFT supply chains as every man and his dog try to get their hands on as many as possible for nought in next couple of weeks?
Yes. I've just sent the dog out to try and get hold of some at the 24-hour chemist.
Comments
Apple's pioneering device has been dubbed as addictive as cigarettes with consequences that are impossible to reverse
By Io Dodds"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/0/using-iphone-15-years-has-done-brain/
Everyone has made mistakes.
They are not on benefits so do not qualify for the Government’s £140 Warm Home Discount. Their taxes pay for benefits. They voted Leave in their millions. They put Boris in 10 Downing Street. And they are being betrayed by a Government that cares more about its pious, self-harming net-zero emission goals than the Brexit promises of years ago.
But I struggle to comprehend that Boris can so brazenly betray the people who believed he was telling the truth in 2016.
It is not too late. But ditching VAT on gas and electricity prices needs to be done NOW. Brexit cost us all so much. All that poison, all that division, all those long years of national paralysis.
If leaving the EU did not set us free, then what was the point?
Final point. You say this is being "blown up by the media and Twitter". I was quoting the CEO of NHS Providers who in turn was summarising the conversations he had had with NHS Trust CEOs. The suggestion that this is all hysterical media spin is bizarre - how much more of a direct line onto how the NHS is coping than him?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/24/how-uk-energy-policies-have-left-britain-exposed-to-winter-gas-price-hikes
(Same argument as... quite a lot of aspects of British life, really. You see it in hospitals, you get the same in new-build schools. Most of the time, running everything at maximum capacity with minimum fat is a way to get more for less, and we all enjoy the benefits. Until something goes wrong.)
Just a question of when Sunak announces it and how. I guess he is looking for a opportunity for maximum exposure for his leadership bid.
Of cousre, neither will come anywhere close to dealing with the crisis.
I say again, GE 2023/4 is wide open and all to play for for Starmer.
That isn't to say UK didn't make some terrible decisions. Both Boris, the government and advisors.
NEW: Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie, are accused of attending a “booze-up” in the garden of No 10 that broke Covid rules during the first lockdown
The party on May 20, 2020, was thrown by Martin Reynolds, Johnson’s principal private secretary, the most senior civil servant in Downing Street
Three sources say Reynolds emailed officials inviting them to a drinks party and adding “BYOB”, which stands for “bring your own bottle” — removing any doubt that it was a planned party
The email is key evidence in a sleaze inquiry being run by the Whitehall enforcer Sue Gray, which is now threatening to force the resignations of several senior members of Johnson’s team
The suggestion the prime minister himself attended the event — not denied by No 10 — makes this allegation more serious for Johnson than other recent revelations
A witness said: “There were 40 people in the garden, including Boris and Carrie. There were long tables laden with drink, crisps, sausage rolls and other picnic food. It was a proper booze-up
https://twitter.com/thesundaytimes/status/1479939211440668680
One thing I am Glad I did was putting additional lagging in the loft in the summer. Had to put a few extra lap vents up,there too. But it has made a difference.
However. The Sun correctly discerns that a lot of folk are struggling.
Now. About that high wage economy...
Whether she "loved every minute of it" or not she was under age (in the US) and thus she was abused. Under such circumstances she is entitled to buyer's remorse. Ask the girls from Rotherham and Rochdale.
Loaning £bns to the energy companies might be better than giving the same in support to consumers tbh. But it does amount to the state setting the prices.
The details of the event prompted speculation last night that Reynolds might be forced to resign. One colleague said: “Martin was loose with the rules. That’s why Boris likes him: because he doesn’t challenge him or stop him having fun.”
When Reynolds sent his email Cummings replied saying that it was ill advised. At least one other senior official told him it was a bad idea.
I've yet to meet a benefit claimant who knew about it. Until I informed them.
Making benefits and grants hidden, opaque and difficult to access has been a feature of the last 10 years.
On which note. How are Councils doing in distributing the UC grant money to the "most needy"? The Household Support Fund?
They used to offer and pointed out they loved working for me, some of them have worked for me for over a decade, and moved jobs and cities to work for me.
Gas will still be needed for the foreseeable future while we transition, of we can transition completely, though to produce electricity, blue hydrogen and for domestic applications.
2035 is a great plan but let’s see how they get there.
And frankly for most people this disease is like a cold. But getting a cold wh3n you are old and frail can lead to pneumonia and death. And if you get Covid as a reasonably fit and well 40 year old who just didn’t bother to get vaccinated, or didn’t get vaccinated because someone on Twitter said your clock would fall off, and you die of it, then that’s on you.
Vaccines have made this into a cold. That and omicron being less intrinsically severe.
I have every sympathy for those who have lost people to this. But how many people have died in the UK since Jan 2020? A lot more than just the Covid deaths.
Often, efficiency gains look like something for nothing. Which, as the TV show put it, often ends in getting nothing for something...
What does HMG do if the gas prices don't go down?
The tidal lagoon projects aren't looking as expensive now as they did when Theresa May kiboshed them.
Of course we did have an exit wave over the summer. The exit wave is the wave from exiting the restrictions, not the virus, there is no exit to the virus.
As long as Boris continues to not impose any new restrictions, especially not on the vaccinated, it will make no difference to the current coalition who continue to back him. That is mainly those who want to continue their lives without restriction post vaccination and most of whom were not bothered by the photos once it became clear Boris was not going to impose any new restrictions (some of them having briefly gone RefUK or DK when it looked he was going to be hypocritical and impose restrictions)
And it's not just the Tories, Brown did it all the time with his give aways, though this government has been more guilty than any I can remember. Cameron did it with the truly idiotic triple lock. Blair and Brown did it with buy-to-let replacing pensions they taxed into deficits, Brown did it with the bus passes and free TV licences, this government are doing it with that NI rise on working people and protection of unearned incomes.
Our whole society is geared towards shovelling money to old people to win their votes. Until this changes we're unlikely to fix these underlying issues of economic resilience and increasing our growth potential. Spending on healthcare and pensions will hit over 50% of what the state spends next year iirc. That's not a sustainable figure.
Seriously, it’s pathetic, so much crap on the horizon and this anti EU crap to try to divert from it and bolster her failing leadership,ambitions.
Very few will publicise their criteria even if you deep dive into the far reaches of a Council website. What's more, the authorities handling your claim have different names depending on your LA.
So. It is at to the whim of the Council. And seriously advantages those who take a "professional" interest in claiming benefits.
All domestic gas boilers are now hydrogen enabled and, roughly, 80% of the networks is able to take hydrogen should domestic heating move to hydrogen. Baxi have a few demo houses in Gateshead running hydrogen boilers.
I can see a future where every consumer of electricity - homes, car charging points, businesses - has battery storage. Would have been really handy for those left without a grid connection for more than a week by Storm Arwen. I think the competition from batteries will make it hard for the economics to work for using gas to store electricity. The market niche will be filled.
well publicised, simple and easy to claim.
Otherwise we'll get more bureaucratic red tape dumped on floundering Councils yet again.
Truss absolutely should be firm on this and call the EUs bluff. She has nothing to lose by doing so and it will further her ambition, plus it's the right thing to do for the UK.
Of course the same old whingers who were always against Brexit anyway will bitch and moan but what do they know?
Otherwise, I agree with you.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17262658/peter-mandelson-jeffrey-epstein-after-paedophile-underage-sex-probe/
The NI tax rise was bad economics as well as bad politics.
I just don't see it getting reversed because ego will prevent him from admitting he made a mistake. Then I expect to add insult to injury there'll be a cut of Income Tax instead so those working for a living are worse off while those on unearned incomes are better off.
From 23/24 the NI rates return to 21/22 levels but there are new social levy’s of 1.25% paid by both employers and employees
You may remember that I pointed out who long the lead times for changes to PAYE software is.
VAT on energy is only 5%, small beer given the 40% + energy price rises that are coming along.
If they did temporarily nil-rate VAT on energy (or permanently scrap it) then this is a trap because the Labour Party and the media will say this is a tax cut for the rich at the expense of the poor because higher energy bills would come down in tax more nominally than lower bills.
Then it will be quietly dropped as we are into election year.
Vaccines work and are good. It seems the horseshoe theory is working with Covid now too. You lockdown fetishists and antivaxxers are both fishing with the same bullshit.
One flaw. The Telegraph is available in Brussels.
That frites avec mayonnaise doesn't wrap itself.
So far a way through has always, eventually, been found, but the worry is that at some point one side or the another will miscalculate with their shit talking and accidentally cross a point they cannot come back from.
It is labour party policy
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10381913/Anti-lockdown-protest-kicks-Glasgow-anger-Nicola-Sturgeons-Covid-curbs-boils-over.html
Third-highest opening partnership for England against Australia since the beginning of the 2015 series
Grahame Morris, MP for the ‘Red Wall’ constituency of Easington in County Durham, is a director of Palestine Deep Dive (PDD) which has been accused of providing a platform for antisemitism.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10382363/Labour-MP-Grahame-Morris-director-controversial-website-broke-antisemitic-guidelines.html