I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
Amazon are installing solar panels on their fulfilment centres. They must see a business case for it.
As I said, if its economic then go for it!
Don't subsidise it though as a solution to climate change as it isn't. We need energy in the winter when the sun isn't shining.
Doesn't mean it can't be a good investment on purely economic as opposed to environmental grounds though.
Solar panels are clearly a solution to climate change, this is a consensus position.
Not in the UK they're not which is why the subsidies were rightly eliminated.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
The subsidies for solar panels went a while ago.
I know but some people want to bring them back.
Solar panels can be part of the answer, but the case is much weaker in the UK. They have an average of 50% built-in obsolescence (because it is dark) but that is much higher in winter when the power is needed for heating. Mostly when the sun has gone down.....
OTOH when the sun is shining the wind is not usually blowing much so there is some offset here on the variability of wind. In the last few days we have been generating more solar than wind. According to gridwtch itis currently 14% solar and 10% wind.
Aye it can be helpful in the Summer but even then conditions have been fairly optimal for solar and even then it's still a small fraction of our energy and only barely ahead of wind. And our energy demand is lower right now.
In December to February when our energy demand is at its peak, especially once we have electrical heating but it already peaks then, it isn't even close.
Invest in it if it's economic but not for "Green" reasons.
The UK is not SoCal.
Wind, Tide, Solar. All must play a part in UK renewables.
Emergent technologies to produce hydrocarbons from water and CO2 using electricity will be the game-changer, allowing effective storage of surplus electricity produced when the sun shines or the wind blows.
I agree with almost all of that, but I believe that solar is the placebo of the lot of them.
It is "green" energy for people who aren't taking Net Zero seriously and want to do something for the sake of doing something.
Surplus wind going into electrolysis is my view of the end state and we are surely not far from that. Once we get that, it's a game changer. And that's why we should be going hell for leather for offshore wind especially.
If you can do surplus wind going into electrolysis, why can't you do surplus solar going into electrolysis?
Because you'll have surplus solar in June, July and August while you need energy in December, January and February.
You'll have surplus wind on 17 January when you need it on 22 January.
The gap for storage or conversion is considerably smaller.
Plus electrolysis at scale on offshore wind turbines can be built in. On solar panels not so much.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
Amazon are installing solar panels on their fulfilment centres. They must see a business case for it.
As I said, if its economic then go for it!
Don't subsidise it though as a solution to climate change as it isn't. We need energy in the winter when the sun isn't shining.
Doesn't mean it can't be a good investment on purely economic as opposed to environmental grounds though.
Solar panels are clearly a solution to climate change, this is a consensus position.
Not in the UK they're not which is why the subsidies were rightly eliminated.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
The subsidies for solar panels went a while ago.
I know but some people want to bring them back.
Solar panels can be part of the answer, but the case is much weaker in the UK. They have an average of 50% built-in obsolescence (because it is dark) but that is much higher in winter when the power is needed for heating. Mostly when the sun has gone down.....
OTOH when the sun is shining the wind is not usually blowing much so there is some offset here on the variability of wind. In the last few days we have been generating more solar than wind. According to gridwtch itis currently 14% solar and 10% wind.
Aye it can be helpful in the Summer but even then conditions have been fairly optimal for solar and even then it's still a small fraction of our energy and only barely ahead of wind. And our energy demand is lower right now.
In December to February when our energy demand is at its peak, especially once we have electrical heating but it already peaks then, it isn't even close.
Invest in it if it's economic but not for "Green" reasons.
The UK is not SoCal.
Wind, Tide, Solar. All must play a part in UK renewables.
Emergent technologies to produce hydrocarbons from water and CO2 using electricity will be the game-changer, allowing effective storage of surplus electricity produced when the sun shines or the wind blows.
I agree with almost all of that, but I believe that solar is the placebo of the lot of them.
It is "green" energy for people who aren't taking Net Zero seriously and want to do something for the sake of doing something.
Surplus wind going into electrolysis is my view of the end state and we are surely not far from that. Once we get that, it's a game changer. And that's why we should be going hell for leather for offshore wind especially.
If you can do surplus wind going into electrolysis, why can't you do surplus solar going into electrolysis?
How about we get the productive people in the economy working and able to spend unlike giving pensioners hands out for doing fuck all
You'll be a pensioner one day, CHB. After working for 45-50 years, being exhausted, and paying vast amounts in various taxes you might fancy a bit of a break. Not sure we should have to beg.
I find this idea that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector very strange.
I've worked for two huge organisations in the private sector, one is that red company. I can tell you for a fact it was one of the most bloated, inefficient operations I've ever seen.
The private sector is more than large businesses though.
The larger the business the more like the public sector it gets. More Byzantine, more bureaucratic etc.
It is smaller businesses that are the most agile and that is what the public sector lacks.
No the ideology is that private sector = efficient, public sector = inefficient. That is not true in practice.
Not true.
The ideology is that private sector = faces competition and allowed to fail, public sector = no real competition, not allowed to fail.
If the red company is inefficient the orange company can take it's customers. If the public sector is inefficient, it's "stakeholders" (I hate that term) have nowhere else to go typically.
Competition doesn't mean the private sector is automatically efficient, it encourages it by encouraging inefficient businesses to fail.
Failure in the private sector is the private sector working, not failing, which is why when the public sector stops the private firms from failing the free market is buggered.
Banks say hello.
Absolutely! Moral hazard is real.
Banks should be allowed to fail.
Iceland handled the GFC better. Their banks went bust and were not bailed out.
Why is anyone surprised. I have been pointing out for some time how the membership wants him back and he is featuring in polls and petitions demanding his return.
These are now beginning to make their way to the mainstream and the momentum thereby builds.
If not to get him onto the ballot now (a membership demand) then for a future attempt.
If Truss is boring or a disaster and SKS continues to be boring and gains in popularity while the country treads water in the run up to 2024 then I can see an increasingly frustrated parliamentary party and furious membership.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
Amazon are installing solar panels on their fulfilment centres. They must see a business case for it.
As I said, if its economic then go for it!
Don't subsidise it though as a solution to climate change as it isn't. We need energy in the winter when the sun isn't shining.
Doesn't mean it can't be a good investment on purely economic as opposed to environmental grounds though.
Solar panels are clearly a solution to climate change, this is a consensus position.
Not in the UK they're not which is why the subsidies were rightly eliminated.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
The subsidies for solar panels went a while ago.
I know but some people want to bring them back.
Solar panels can be part of the answer, but the case is much weaker in the UK. They have an average of 50% built-in obsolescence (because it is dark) but that is much higher in winter when the power is needed for heating. Mostly when the sun has gone down.....
OTOH when the sun is shining the wind is not usually blowing much so there is some offset here on the variability of wind. In the last few days we have been generating more solar than wind. According to gridwtch itis currently 14% solar and 10% wind.
Aye it can be helpful in the Summer but even then conditions have been fairly optimal for solar and even then it's still a small fraction of our energy and only barely ahead of wind. And our energy demand is lower right now.
In December to February when our energy demand is at its peak, especially once we have electrical heating but it already peaks then, it isn't even close.
Invest in it if it's economic but not for "Green" reasons.
The UK is not SoCal.
Wind, Tide, Solar. All must play a part in UK renewables.
Emergent technologies to produce hydrocarbons from water and CO2 using electricity will be the game-changer, allowing effective storage of surplus electricity produced when the sun shines or the wind blows.
I agree with almost all of that, but I believe that solar is the placebo of the lot of them.
It is "green" energy for people who aren't taking Net Zero seriously and want to do something for the sake of doing something.
Surplus wind going into electrolysis is my view of the end state and we are surely not far from that. Once we get that, it's a game changer. And that's why we should be going hell for leather for offshore wind especially.
If you can do surplus wind going into electrolysis, why can't you do surplus solar going into electrolysis?
Because you'll have surplus solar in June, July and August while you need energy in December, January and February.
You'll have surplus wind on 17 January when you need it on 22 January.
The gap for storage or conversion is considerably smaller.
Plus electrolysis at scale on offshore wind turbines can be built in. On solar panels not so much.
The fact is that the large scale storage technology to warehouse these renewable surpluses is not in place now, and won't be for a while. When it is, we can start to leave gas behind.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
Amazon are installing solar panels on their fulfilment centres. They must see a business case for it.
As I said, if its economic then go for it!
Don't subsidise it though as a solution to climate change as it isn't. We need energy in the winter when the sun isn't shining.
Doesn't mean it can't be a good investment on purely economic as opposed to environmental grounds though.
Solar panels are clearly a solution to climate change, this is a consensus position.
Not in the UK they're not which is why the subsidies were rightly eliminated.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
The subsidies for solar panels went a while ago.
I know but some people want to bring them back.
Solar panels can be part of the answer, but the case is much weaker in the UK. They have an average of 50% built-in obsolescence (because it is dark) but that is much higher in winter when the power is needed for heating. Mostly when the sun has gone down.....
Solar is definitely part of the solution- but with current electricity prices together with the cost/efficiency of new generation panels already doesn't really require a subsidy. And when the new perovskite panels are commercialised they will be significantly cheaper. They will make sense for anyone with electric vehicles and a south facing rooftop despite their seasonality.
[BETTING QUESTION] Hi. I'm Australian & a bit unfamiliar with UK political dynamics.
My question is about why Liz Truss is still priced at around 1.56 on Betfair, when her lead over Sunak in membership polls is so overwhelming ?
Yougov has her ahead 49% vs 31%. The last ConHome survey also had her ahead by 49% vs 42%.
A US presidential candidate ahead by this much would be a prohibitive favourite & priced at no higher than something like 1.10 or 1.15 ? Both Yougov & ConHome also appear to have excellent records of predicting the actual result.
So, why is Liz still priced at 1.56 ? Am I missing something, e.g. Truss withdrawing for some reason ? Why do the betting markets still think that Sunak has a good chance of defeating Truss ?
I understand that Sunak has a chance of showing he's a better debater, but usually debates don't often result in a massive turn-around in a candidate's fortunes, and most electors have usually already made up their minds before debates.
Liz believes in the Laffer Curve fairy.
It's not a fairy.
Of course the fallacy some believe in is slashing taxes "due to the Laffer Curve" when they're already low. If taxes are low then the curve has a left hand side whereby higher taxes equals more revenue.
Taxes aren't low.
The Laffer curve has no units on the X axis, or for that matter the Y axis. Probably the apex of the curve varies over time and with other factors, being much to the right in wartime for example.
Taxes are not low, but still could be well to the left of the apex of the curve.
I really don't think tax policy can impact the coming autumn winter CoL crisis in time. Only borrowing to allow public services to pay and recruit, and for an uplift in UC back to pandemic levels etc can do so. Inflationary for sure, but the alternative is a major winter crisis for many Britons, strikes and other industrial action, people defaulting on fuel bills, and a contraction of discretionary consumer spending that wrecks a fragile post covid economy.
Yes, the Laffer Curve definitely exists.
If taxes are so high that you don't get sufficient net salary from hard work to make it worth your while then you'll plump for an easier job, or not try quite as hard, or quit the labour market or country entirely.
Worth remembering Hollande had to scrap his 75% supertax in less than 2 years after implementing it due to the damage it did to France's economy.
entirely.
It definitely exists, the problem being that there are no units on either axis, so no one knows at what point we are on the curve, so it is not a useful tool in deciding whether higher or lower taxes would be better for government revenue.
The demographic aging, and need to fund decent pensions, health care and other services as a result means that state spending will have to go up in the next decade. Financing that gap is not easily matched with tax cuts.
All parties claim that economic growth because of their wise economic management will close that gap, but the evidence of that being possible is not well grounded in recent economic history. We have not grown enough, look like we are going to contract GDP on current trajectory, have failed on productivity, hence the combination of high taxes and threadbare public services.
As Mrs Thatcher might say, we have been living beyond our means, and must tighten our belts.
But, then it acts as a general drag on the economy.
If you increase tax to pay, say, for extra spending on pensions and the NHS, then you are taking resources away from the productive part of the economy to pay for the non-productive, which will lower growth.
Not nessecarily. Just because an economic activity takes place in the state sector doesn't mean it is unproductive. Much of the increase in GDP in recent figures were due to increased numbers of GP appointments for example.
Why should a private consultation with me be considered a productive task, but an NHS one not? Both are more economically useful than some private sector middleman taking financial benefit from a transaction while producing nothing but cost.
Pensions are effectively taxing working people to generate handouts to redistribute to people who are not working - a drag.
On the NHS, it depends if the health intervention is returning a productive member back to the economy (avoiding them becoming long-term sick, for example) or dealing with those who will never work again, but giving them palliative care for long-term conditions.
Now, there are good ethical cases for spending good money on both, but it's hard to argue they drive much growth.
How we measure growth is tricky. If I, through some clever marketing, convince people to buy some average headphones at a higher price because branding, then I have contributed to an increase in GDP, even though I've not done anything to increase growth.
If I improve a bunch of Wikipedia pages on statistics in my own time... well, lots of people use Wikipedia, so better, clearer pages means increased efficiency. But that isn't recorded in GDP.
Pensioners may contribute to growth in many ways, passing on their wisdom, doing childcare, spending their money on goods and services. Working people may not contribute to growth when their work is counterproductive to the economy.
Working age people do more of the passing on wisdom and doing childcare than the retired, and also spend a far higher proportion of their money each year.
People of working age do more childcare, but people in work do less childcare than the unpaid (or part-time). Unpaid childcare is another example of something GDP doesn't capture.
Not that it matters much, but I would expect on average the part time do the most childcare, followed by full time workers followed by the not working, purely based on the not working being dominated by the retired with students another big part of the group.
"In April to June 2021, three in four mothers with dependent children (75.6%) were in work in the UK, reaching its highest level in the equivalent quarter over the last 20 years (66.5% in 2002).
"Over 9 in 10 (92.1%) fathers with dependent children were employed in April to June 2021; this is an increase from 89.6% in 2002 but has plateaued in recent years.
"The employment rate was higher for mothers than either women or men without dependent children and has been since 2017.
"From 2020, in families where both parents are employed, it has become more common for both parents to work full-time, rather than a man working full-time with a partner working part-time.
"In April to June 2021, 12.1% of parents reported that they mainly worked from home in their main job; mothers were more likely to report homeworking (13.4%) than fathers (10.7%).
"More than half (57.7%) of families with only one child had both parents working full-time, compared with 39.5% of families with three or more children.
"When asked about any special working arrangements, such as flexible or term-time hours, 33.3% of mothers reported an agreed special working arrangement in their job, compared with 23.6% of fathers.
"In March 2022, employed women with dependent children spent more time on unpaid childcare (an average of 85 minutes per day) and household work (an average of 167 minutes per day) than employed men with dependent children (56 and 102 minutes per day, respectively).
"In March 2022 Employed women with dependent children spent more time on all work combined (an average of 496 minutes per day working from home, working away from the home, on unpaid childcare and unpaid household work) than employed men with dependent children (481 minutes per day)."
"Two-fifths (40%) of the nation's grandparents over the age of 50 - five million - have provided regular childcare for their grandchildren, according to a new YouGov poll for leading older people's charity, Age UK.
"[...] The survey revealed that the vast majority (89%) of the five million grandparents who provided regular care do so at least once a week:
"one in 10 (12%) looking after their grandchildren at least once a day "a fifth (18%) look after them 4-6 times a week "two-fifths (38%) look after them 2-3 times a week
"Just over half (51%) of these grandparents providing regular care did so for up to five years and a further 28% did so for between 5-10 years, with well over half (57%) saying their help had enabled their own child/ children to work more to support their family."
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
Amazon are installing solar panels on their fulfilment centres. They must see a business case for it.
As I said, if its economic then go for it!
Don't subsidise it though as a solution to climate change as it isn't. We need energy in the winter when the sun isn't shining.
Doesn't mean it can't be a good investment on purely economic as opposed to environmental grounds though.
Solar panels are clearly a solution to climate change, this is a consensus position.
Not in the UK they're not which is why the subsidies were rightly eliminated.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
The subsidies for solar panels went a while ago.
I know but some people want to bring them back.
Solar panels can be part of the answer, but the case is much weaker in the UK. They have an average of 50% built-in obsolescence (because it is dark) but that is much higher in winter when the power is needed for heating. Mostly when the sun has gone down.....
OTOH when the sun is shining the wind is not usually blowing much so there is some offset here on the variability of wind. In the last few days we have been generating more solar than wind. According to gridwtch itis currently 14% solar and 10% wind.
Aye it can be helpful in the Summer but even then conditions have been fairly optimal for solar and even then it's still a small fraction of our energy and only barely ahead of wind. And our energy demand is lower right now.
In December to February when our energy demand is at its peak, especially once we have electrical heating but it already peaks then, it isn't even close.
Invest in it if it's economic but not for "Green" reasons.
The UK is not SoCal.
Wind, Tide, Solar. All must play a part in UK renewables.
Emergent technologies to produce hydrocarbons from water and CO2 using electricity will be the game-changer, allowing effective storage of surplus electricity produced when the sun shines or the wind blows.
I agree with almost all of that, but I believe that solar is the placebo of the lot of them.
It is "green" energy for people who aren't taking Net Zero seriously and want to do something for the sake of doing something.
Surplus wind going into electrolysis is my view of the end state and we are surely not far from that. Once we get that, it's a game changer. And that's why we should be going hell for leather for offshore wind especially.
If you can do surplus wind going into electrolysis, why can't you do surplus solar going into electrolysis?
Because you'll have surplus solar in June, July and August while you need energy in December, January and February.
You'll have surplus wind on 17 January when you need it on 22 January.
The gap for storage or conversion is considerably smaller.
Plus electrolysis at scale on offshore wind turbines can be built in. On solar panels not so much.
If you're doing electrolysis, the products thereof can be stored for years, so it doesn't matter that the surplus is seasonal.
How about we get the productive people in the economy working and able to spend unlike giving pensioners hands out for doing fuck all
You'll be a pensioner one day, CHB. After working for 45-50 years, being exhausted, and paying vast amounts in various taxes you might fancy a bit of a break. Not sure we should have to beg.
If the Government did anything for me I'd agree - but we get shafted
How about we get the productive people in the economy working and able to spend unlike giving pensioners hands out for doing fuck all
You'll be a pensioner one day, CHB. After working for 45-50 years, being exhausted, and paying vast amounts in various taxes you might fancy a bit of a break. Not sure we should have to beg.
Triple lock pensions and cutting taxes on pensions while wages are frozen and tuition fees and other taxes on working are going up isn't "a bit of a break" it is robbing the young. It is intergenerational theft.
Getting what you paid for is fair enough, but that isn't what is happening.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
Amazon are installing solar panels on their fulfilment centres. They must see a business case for it.
As I said, if its economic then go for it!
Don't subsidise it though as a solution to climate change as it isn't. We need energy in the winter when the sun isn't shining.
Doesn't mean it can't be a good investment on purely economic as opposed to environmental grounds though.
Solar panels are clearly a solution to climate change, this is a consensus position.
Not in the UK they're not which is why the subsidies were rightly eliminated.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
The subsidies for solar panels went a while ago.
I know but some people want to bring them back.
Solar panels can be part of the answer, but the case is much weaker in the UK. They have an average of 50% built-in obsolescence (because it is dark) but that is much higher in winter when the power is needed for heating. Mostly when the sun has gone down.....
OTOH when the sun is shining the wind is not usually blowing much so there is some offset here on the variability of wind. In the last few days we have been generating more solar than wind. According to gridwtch itis currently 14% solar and 10% wind.
Aye it can be helpful in the Summer but even then conditions have been fairly optimal for solar and even then it's still a small fraction of our energy and only barely ahead of wind. And our energy demand is lower right now.
In December to February when our energy demand is at its peak, especially once we have electrical heating but it already peaks then, it isn't even close.
Invest in it if it's economic but not for "Green" reasons.
The UK is not SoCal.
Wind, Tide, Solar. All must play a part in UK renewables.
Emergent technologies to produce hydrocarbons from water and CO2 using electricity will be the game-changer, allowing effective storage of surplus electricity produced when the sun shines or the wind blows.
I agree with almost all of that, but I believe that solar is the placebo of the lot of them.
It is "green" energy for people who aren't taking Net Zero seriously and want to do something for the sake of doing something.
Surplus wind going into electrolysis is my view of the end state and we are surely not far from that. Once we get that, it's a game changer. And that's why we should be going hell for leather for offshore wind especially.
If you can do surplus wind going into electrolysis, why can't you do surplus solar going into electrolysis?
Because you'll have surplus solar in June, July and August while you need energy in December, January and February.
You'll have surplus wind on 17 January when you need it on 22 January.
The gap for storage or conversion is considerably smaller.
Plus electrolysis at scale on offshore wind turbines can be built in. On solar panels not so much.
If you're doing electrolysis, the products thereof can be stored for years, so it doesn't matter that the surplus is seasonal.
The products can be, but they aren't. An electricity grid does not run on 'can be' and that is why National Grid is scrambling desperately to avoid blackouts this winter.
How about we get the productive people in the economy working and able to spend unlike giving pensioners hands out for doing fuck all
You'll be a pensioner one day, CHB. After working for 45-50 years, being exhausted, and paying vast amounts in various taxes you might fancy a bit of a break. Not sure we should have to beg.
Of course it should not be about begging, but being a pensioner does not give you a pass from debates about fair levels of tax and spend through the generations. Why is your particular generation deserving of a pensioner lifestyle better than your grandparents, parents, children and grand chilldren? For that is what is happening in the UK.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
Amazon are installing solar panels on their fulfilment centres. They must see a business case for it.
As I said, if its economic then go for it!
Don't subsidise it though as a solution to climate change as it isn't. We need energy in the winter when the sun isn't shining.
Doesn't mean it can't be a good investment on purely economic as opposed to environmental grounds though.
Solar panels are clearly a solution to climate change, this is a consensus position.
Not in the UK they're not which is why the subsidies were rightly eliminated.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
The subsidies for solar panels went a while ago.
I know but some people want to bring them back.
Solar panels can be part of the answer, but the case is much weaker in the UK. They have an average of 50% built-in obsolescence (because it is dark) but that is much higher in winter when the power is needed for heating. Mostly when the sun has gone down.....
OTOH when the sun is shining the wind is not usually blowing much so there is some offset here on the variability of wind. In the last few days we have been generating more solar than wind. According to gridwtch itis currently 14% solar and 10% wind.
Aye it can be helpful in the Summer but even then conditions have been fairly optimal for solar and even then it's still a small fraction of our energy and only barely ahead of wind. And our energy demand is lower right now.
In December to February when our energy demand is at its peak, especially once we have electrical heating but it already peaks then, it isn't even close.
Invest in it if it's economic but not for "Green" reasons.
The UK is not SoCal.
Wind, Tide, Solar. All must play a part in UK renewables.
Emergent technologies to produce hydrocarbons from water and CO2 using electricity will be the game-changer, allowing effective storage of surplus electricity produced when the sun shines or the wind blows.
I agree with almost all of that, but I believe that solar is the placebo of the lot of them.
It is "green" energy for people who aren't taking Net Zero seriously and want to do something for the sake of doing something.
Surplus wind going into electrolysis is my view of the end state and we are surely not far from that. Once we get that, it's a game changer. And that's why we should be going hell for leather for offshore wind especially.
If you can do surplus wind going into electrolysis, why can't you do surplus solar going into electrolysis?
Because you'll have surplus solar in June, July and August while you need energy in December, January and February.
You'll have surplus wind on 17 January when you need it on 22 January.
The gap for storage or conversion is considerably smaller.
Plus electrolysis at scale on offshore wind turbines can be built in. On solar panels not so much.
The fact is that the large scale storage technology to warehouse these renewable surpluses is not in place now, and won't be for a while. When it is, we can start to leave gas behind.
Distributed large scale storage tech is here and will be rolled out within a decade.
Electric vehicles will have a distributed storage that dwarves any possible large scale storage. It will mean that power generated on Tuesday can be consumed on Sunday, which deals with the intermittency of wind.
What it won't do is mean that power generated in July can be consumed in February to deal with the seasonality of Solar.
Eeesh, no international cricket for Scotland until they sort this out is the only apt penalty here.
Cricket Scotland's board has resigned a day ahead of the publication of a review of racism in the sport.
It is expected to report findings of institutional racism in the Scottish game.
The directors resigned with immediate effect on Sunday morning.
"We are all truly sorry and have apologised publicly to everyone who has experienced racism, or any other form of discrimination, in cricket in Scotland," they said.
How about we get the productive people in the economy working and able to spend unlike giving pensioners hands out for doing fuck all
Pensioners by and large believe they have 'paid in' via their working life and deserve what is coming to them
And to be fair, that is what the labour party has told them all their lives.
Labour is wrong.
Labour has not moved with the times.
I have a neighbour who is 99. She is a medical marvel, bright as a button, but her view is she paid in via her working life and deserves all the medical and social services she has received down the years (and those as you can imagine, are substantial).
Given she retired almost 40 years ago I think its most doubtful the amounts she paid in cover a fraction of what she has taken out.
How about we get the productive people in the economy working and able to spend unlike giving pensioners hands out for doing fuck all
You'll be a pensioner one day, CHB. After working for 45-50 years, being exhausted, and paying vast amounts in various taxes you might fancy a bit of a break. Not sure we should have to beg.
If the Government did anything for me I'd agree - but we get shafted
Cut taxes on workers, including tuition fees which is a graduate tax by any other name, and cut the welfare (pension) state.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
Amazon are installing solar panels on their fulfilment centres. They must see a business case for it.
As I said, if its economic then go for it!
Don't subsidise it though as a solution to climate change as it isn't. We need energy in the winter when the sun isn't shining.
Doesn't mean it can't be a good investment on purely economic as opposed to environmental grounds though.
Solar panels are clearly a solution to climate change, this is a consensus position.
Not in the UK they're not which is why the subsidies were rightly eliminated.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
The subsidies for solar panels went a while ago.
I know but some people want to bring them back.
Solar panels can be part of the answer, but the case is much weaker in the UK. They have an average of 50% built-in obsolescence (because it is dark) but that is much higher in winter when the power is needed for heating. Mostly when the sun has gone down.....
OTOH when the sun is shining the wind is not usually blowing much so there is some offset here on the variability of wind. In the last few days we have been generating more solar than wind. According to gridwtch itis currently 14% solar and 10% wind.
Aye it can be helpful in the Summer but even then conditions have been fairly optimal for solar and even then it's still a small fraction of our energy and only barely ahead of wind. And our energy demand is lower right now.
In December to February when our energy demand is at its peak, especially once we have electrical heating but it already peaks then, it isn't even close.
Invest in it if it's economic but not for "Green" reasons.
The UK is not SoCal.
Wind, Tide, Solar. All must play a part in UK renewables.
Emergent technologies to produce hydrocarbons from water and CO2 using electricity will be the game-changer, allowing effective storage of surplus electricity produced when the sun shines or the wind blows.
I agree with almost all of that, but I believe that solar is the placebo of the lot of them.
It is "green" energy for people who aren't taking Net Zero seriously and want to do something for the sake of doing something.
Surplus wind going into electrolysis is my view of the end state and we are surely not far from that. Once we get that, it's a game changer. And that's why we should be going hell for leather for offshore wind especially.
If you can do surplus wind going into electrolysis, why can't you do surplus solar going into electrolysis?
Because you'll have surplus solar in June, July and August while you need energy in December, January and February.
You'll have surplus wind on 17 January when you need it on 22 January.
The gap for storage or conversion is considerably smaller.
Plus electrolysis at scale on offshore wind turbines can be built in. On solar panels not so much.
The fact is that the large scale storage technology to warehouse these renewable surpluses is not in place now, and won't be for a while. When it is, we can start to leave gas behind.
Distributed large scale storage tech is here and will be rolled out within a decade.
Electric vehicles will have a distributed storage that dwarves any possible large scale storage. It will mean that power generated on Tuesday can be consumed on Sunday, which deals with the intermittency of wind.
What it won't do is mean that power generated in July can be consumed in February to deal with the seasonality of Solar.
Maybe but a week is a long time in politics. And I reckon blackouts in January won't be that popular
Eeesh, no international cricket for Scotland until they sort this out is the only apt penalty here.
Cricket Scotland's board has resigned a day ahead of the publication of a review of racism in the sport.
It is expected to report findings of institutional racism in the Scottish game.
The directors resigned with immediate effect on Sunday morning.
"We are all truly sorry and have apologised publicly to everyone who has experienced racism, or any other form of discrimination, in cricket in Scotland," they said.
How about we get the productive people in the economy working and able to spend unlike giving pensioners hands out for doing fuck all
You'll be a pensioner one day, CHB. After working for 45-50 years, being exhausted, and paying vast amounts in various taxes you might fancy a bit of a break. Not sure we should have to beg.
Of course it should not be about begging, but being a pensioner does not give you a pass from debates about fair levels of tax and spend through the generations. Why is your particular generation deserving of a pensioner lifestyle better than your grandparents, parents, children and grand chilldren? For that is what is happening in the UK.
You're arguing against something I've never said. If you subsist just on the state pension (£9,628 pa) that's not going to be a lavish lifestyle, and quite a lot of pensioners have nothing more than that. I've consistently argued that those pensioners who have other pensions or earnings on top of the state pension should be taxed/NI'd significantly more than they are currently.
Eeesh, no international cricket for Scotland until they sort this out is the only apt penalty here.
Cricket Scotland's board has resigned a day ahead of the publication of a review of racism in the sport.
It is expected to report findings of institutional racism in the Scottish game.
The directors resigned with immediate effect on Sunday morning.
"We are all truly sorry and have apologised publicly to everyone who has experienced racism, or any other form of discrimination, in cricket in Scotland," they said.
It seems to me that Liz Truss has fundamental disagreements with Tory policy since 2010, where if she'd been running as leader in that election she'd have been closer to Brown than Cameron.
So my question is, why would you run and praise a platform for 13 years afterwards, if you feel so strongly the country is going in the wrong direction?
She is just a massive opportunist who will say whatever is needed at a particular time.
Rawnsley in today's Observer lays out all the twists and u-turns she has taken in her political life.
The Tories seem to have concluded that the problem wasn't the lies, the hypocrisy, the fantasy politics, but merely the individual liar, and so are going to try us out on fantasy politics mark two
Yep - selling a boosterish fairytale again.
Don't know about other people but I’m starting to really react against this sort of thing – bubbly, wide-eyed talk about “great country” and “unleashing our potential” and "world's our oyster" ra ra bla bla.
It's such nonsense and I thirst for the opposite, a genuine “telling the truth” prospectus from somebody.
“Look, people, we are nothing special but we are fortunate. We’re a very wealthy country compared to most of the world, in large part due to our imperialist exploitation of vast tracts of it, and it’s both inevitable and right that as time passes we become less wealthy relatively speaking. It isn’t inevitable, however, that we underperform our peers and if I’m elected PM I intend to enact some modest practical measures to reverse this trend. But please note we can’t fix any of our issues by pretending money grows on trees and in any case governments can only impact the sustainable growth of the modern economy on the margins. Mostly it depends on things outside our control. More important is to avoid doing stupid stuff which actively makes us poorer – eg leaving large frictionless single markets – so you won’t be seeing any of that from me.”
Slogan – Adult Nation, Facing the Facts.
I'd vote for that politician regardless of what rosette they were wearing.
How about we get the productive people in the economy working and able to spend unlike giving pensioners hands out for doing fuck all
You'll be a pensioner one day, CHB. After working for 45-50 years, being exhausted, and paying vast amounts in various taxes you might fancy a bit of a break. Not sure we should have to beg.
Triple lock pensions and cutting taxes on pensions while wages are frozen and tuition fees and other taxes on working are going up isn't "a bit of a break" it is robbing the young. It is intergenerational theft.
Getting what you paid for is fair enough, but that isn't what is happening.
OMG we agree on something finally ! More needs to be done to help younger people .
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
Amazon are installing solar panels on their fulfilment centres. They must see a business case for it.
As I said, if its economic then go for it!
Don't subsidise it though as a solution to climate change as it isn't. We need energy in the winter when the sun isn't shining.
Doesn't mean it can't be a good investment on purely economic as opposed to environmental grounds though.
Solar panels are clearly a solution to climate change, this is a consensus position.
Not in the UK they're not which is why the subsidies were rightly eliminated.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
The subsidies for solar panels went a while ago.
I know but some people want to bring them back.
Solar panels can be part of the answer, but the case is much weaker in the UK. They have an average of 50% built-in obsolescence (because it is dark) but that is much higher in winter when the power is needed for heating. Mostly when the sun has gone down.....
OTOH when the sun is shining the wind is not usually blowing much so there is some offset here on the variability of wind. In the last few days we have been generating more solar than wind. According to gridwtch itis currently 14% solar and 10% wind.
Aye it can be helpful in the Summer but even then conditions have been fairly optimal for solar and even then it's still a small fraction of our energy and only barely ahead of wind. And our energy demand is lower right now.
In December to February when our energy demand is at its peak, especially once we have electrical heating but it already peaks then, it isn't even close.
Invest in it if it's economic but not for "Green" reasons.
The UK is not SoCal.
Wind, Tide, Solar. All must play a part in UK renewables.
Emergent technologies to produce hydrocarbons from water and CO2 using electricity will be the game-changer, allowing effective storage of surplus electricity produced when the sun shines or the wind blows.
I agree with almost all of that, but I believe that solar is the placebo of the lot of them.
It is "green" energy for people who aren't taking Net Zero seriously and want to do something for the sake of doing something.
Surplus wind going into electrolysis is my view of the end state and we are surely not far from that. Once we get that, it's a game changer. And that's why we should be going hell for leather for offshore wind especially.
If you can do surplus wind going into electrolysis, why can't you do surplus solar going into electrolysis?
Because you'll have surplus solar in June, July and August while you need energy in December, January and February.
You'll have surplus wind on 17 January when you need it on 22 January.
The gap for storage or conversion is considerably smaller.
Plus electrolysis at scale on offshore wind turbines can be built in. On solar panels not so much.
The fact is that the large scale storage technology to warehouse these renewable surpluses is not in place now, and won't be for a while. When it is, we can start to leave gas behind.
Distributed large scale storage tech is here and will be rolled out within a decade.
Electric vehicles will have a distributed storage that dwarves any possible large scale storage. It will mean that power generated on Tuesday can be consumed on Sunday, which deals with the intermittency of wind.
What it won't do is mean that power generated in July can be consumed in February to deal with the seasonality of Solar.
I have some hopes that the work on gravity batteries being done will give us ways of having longer-term power storage. There was a piece on the BBC a few weeks ago about work on them in the UK and Switzerland :
Eeesh, no international cricket for Scotland until they sort this out is the only apt penalty here.
Cricket Scotland's board has resigned a day ahead of the publication of a review of racism in the sport.
It is expected to report findings of institutional racism in the Scottish game.
The directors resigned with immediate effect on Sunday morning.
"We are all truly sorry and have apologised publicly to everyone who has experienced racism, or any other form of discrimination, in cricket in Scotland," they said.
How about we get the productive people in the economy working and able to spend unlike giving pensioners hands out for doing fuck all
Pensioners by and large believe they have 'paid in' via their working life and deserve what is coming to them
And to be fair, that is what the labour party has told them all their lives.
Labour is wrong.
Labour has not moved with the times.
I have a neighbour who is 99. She is a medical marvel, bright as a button, but her view is she paid in via her working life and deserves all the medical and social services she has received down the years (and those as you can imagine, is substantial).
Given she retired almost 40 years ago I think its most doubtful the amounts she paid in cover a fraction of what she has taken out.
Is that what Clem Attlee envisaged in 1945?
I've read that they thought an improvement in general health would lead to NHS costs falling in the long term.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
Amazon are installing solar panels on their fulfilment centres. They must see a business case for it.
As I said, if its economic then go for it!
Don't subsidise it though as a solution to climate change as it isn't. We need energy in the winter when the sun isn't shining.
Doesn't mean it can't be a good investment on purely economic as opposed to environmental grounds though.
Solar panels are clearly a solution to climate change, this is a consensus position.
Not in the UK they're not which is why the subsidies were rightly eliminated.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
The subsidies for solar panels went a while ago.
I know but some people want to bring them back.
Solar panels can be part of the answer, but the case is much weaker in the UK. They have an average of 50% built-in obsolescence (because it is dark) but that is much higher in winter when the power is needed for heating. Mostly when the sun has gone down.....
OTOH when the sun is shining the wind is not usually blowing much so there is some offset here on the variability of wind. In the last few days we have been generating more solar than wind. According to gridwtch itis currently 14% solar and 10% wind.
Aye it can be helpful in the Summer but even then conditions have been fairly optimal for solar and even then it's still a small fraction of our energy and only barely ahead of wind. And our energy demand is lower right now.
In December to February when our energy demand is at its peak, especially once we have electrical heating but it already peaks then, it isn't even close.
Invest in it if it's economic but not for "Green" reasons.
The UK is not SoCal.
Wind, Tide, Solar. All must play a part in UK renewables.
Emergent technologies to produce hydrocarbons from water and CO2 using electricity will be the game-changer, allowing effective storage of surplus electricity produced when the sun shines or the wind blows.
I agree with almost all of that, but I believe that solar is the placebo of the lot of them.
It is "green" energy for people who aren't taking Net Zero seriously and want to do something for the sake of doing something.
Surplus wind going into electrolysis is my view of the end state and we are surely not far from that. Once we get that, it's a game changer. And that's why we should be going hell for leather for offshore wind especially.
If you can do surplus wind going into electrolysis, why can't you do surplus solar going into electrolysis?
Because you'll have surplus solar in June, July and August while you need energy in December, January and February.
You'll have surplus wind on 17 January when you need it on 22 January.
The gap for storage or conversion is considerably smaller.
Plus electrolysis at scale on offshore wind turbines can be built in. On solar panels not so much.
The fact is that the large scale storage technology to warehouse these renewable surpluses is not in place now, and won't be for a while. When it is, we can start to leave gas behind.
Distributed large scale storage tech is here and will be rolled out within a decade.
Electric vehicles will have a distributed storage that dwarves any possible large scale storage. It will mean that power generated on Tuesday can be consumed on Sunday, which deals with the intermittency of wind.
What it won't do is mean that power generated in July can be consumed in February to deal with the seasonality of Solar.
Maybe but a week is a long time in politics. And I reckon blackouts in January won't be that popular
Totally agreed but there's no reason why blackouts would or should happen.
Presently we have minimal storage in significant terms. Within a decade I expect we will have TWh* of distributed storage.
This is happening organically already. It is the game changer.
* I can never remember if storage is TWh or plain TW so sorry if that's the wrong term.
Eeesh, no international cricket for Scotland until they sort this out is the only apt penalty here.
Cricket Scotland's board has resigned a day ahead of the publication of a review of racism in the sport.
It is expected to report findings of institutional racism in the Scottish game.
The directors resigned with immediate effect on Sunday morning.
"We are all truly sorry and have apologised publicly to everyone who has experienced racism, or any other form of discrimination, in cricket in Scotland," they said.
The track record of the private sector when it takes over public sector functions isn't very impressive. Workers are paid less, bosses are paid more, and services deteriorate. Even the Tories had to admit that the private sector made a pig's ear of the Probation Service. And as for Capita.....
The problem of outsourcing in the public sector is that the customer is not the user, it is the government. This is done on price rather than quality, with minimal lip service to quality measures.
We therefore create a system that fails in consumer responsiveness, while incentivises the contractor to skimp on services and screw the workers pay and conditions in order to profit and pay themselves bonuses.
I have seen this in the NHS but it is a feature of outsourcing in other sectors too. It is a system combining the worst of the public and private sectors rather than the best of each.
Eeesh, no international cricket for Scotland until they sort this out is the only apt penalty here.
Cricket Scotland's board has resigned a day ahead of the publication of a review of racism in the sport.
It is expected to report findings of institutional racism in the Scottish game.
The directors resigned with immediate effect on Sunday morning.
"We are all truly sorry and have apologised publicly to everyone who has experienced racism, or any other form of discrimination, in cricket in Scotland," they said.
I played kwik cricket with them when at school. Got a signed calendar and everything.
The cricket pitches of Edinburgh have been packed with asian-background people all summer. Lovely to see, and not sure if it's always been a thing? I hope they don't have to put up with too much racism.
Eeesh, no international cricket for Scotland until they sort this out is the only apt penalty here.
Cricket Scotland's board has resigned a day ahead of the publication of a review of racism in the sport.
It is expected to report findings of institutional racism in the Scottish game.
The directors resigned with immediate effect on Sunday morning.
"We are all truly sorry and have apologised publicly to everyone who has experienced racism, or any other form of discrimination, in cricket in Scotland," they said.
"Refugees pour into Ireland as Dublin blames Britain’s Rwanda policy An increase in people seeking asylum in Ireland is causing an accommodation crisis that has forced Ukrainians to be put in tents" (£)
It seems to me that Liz Truss has fundamental disagreements with Tory policy since 2010, where if she'd been running as leader in that election she'd have been closer to Brown than Cameron.
So my question is, why would you run and praise a platform for 13 years afterwards, if you feel so strongly the country is going in the wrong direction?
She is just a massive opportunist who will say whatever is needed at a particular time.
Rawnsley in today's Observer lays out all the twists and u-turns she has taken in her political life.
The Tories seem to have concluded that the problem wasn't the lies, the hypocrisy, the fantasy politics, but merely the individual liar, and so are going to try us out on fantasy politics mark two
Yep - selling a boosterish fairytale again.
Don't know about other people but I’m starting to really react against this sort of thing – bubbly, wide-eyed talk about “great country” and “unleashing our potential” and "world's our oyster" ra ra bla bla.
It's such nonsense and I thirst for the opposite, a genuine “telling the truth” prospectus from somebody.
“Look, people, we are nothing special but we are fortunate. We’re a very wealthy country compared to most of the world, in large part due to our imperialist exploitation of vast tracts of it, and it’s both inevitable and right that as time passes we become less wealthy relatively speaking. It isn’t inevitable, however, that we underperform our peers and if I’m elected PM I intend to enact some modest practical measures to reverse this trend. But please note we can’t fix any of our issues by pretending money grows on trees and in any case governments can only impact the sustainable growth of the modern economy on the margins. Mostly it depends on things outside our control. More important is to avoid doing stupid stuff which actively makes us poorer – eg leaving large frictionless single markets – so you won’t be seeing any of that from me.”
Slogan – Adult Nation, Facing the Facts.
I'd vote for that politician regardless of what rosette they were wearing.
I fear it is all going to get far worse before it gets better. The peddling fantasies to cover for the failure has barely begun.
I’ve seen this type of meme a lot. No one expects freedom of movement. What they expect is for France to want to accept our tourists in numbers, in their own interests, and manage the flow. If they do not, the market will act and others will. They might not enjoy the result.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
Amazon are installing solar panels on their fulfilment centres. They must see a business case for it.
As I said, if its economic then go for it!
Don't subsidise it though as a solution to climate change as it isn't. We need energy in the winter when the sun isn't shining.
Doesn't mean it can't be a good investment on purely economic as opposed to environmental grounds though.
Solar panels are clearly a solution to climate change, this is a consensus position.
Not in the UK they're not which is why the subsidies were rightly eliminated.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
The subsidies for solar panels went a while ago.
I know but some people want to bring them back.
Solar panels can be part of the answer, but the case is much weaker in the UK. They have an average of 50% built-in obsolescence (because it is dark) but that is much higher in winter when the power is needed for heating. Mostly when the sun has gone down.....
OTOH when the sun is shining the wind is not usually blowing much so there is some offset here on the variability of wind. In the last few days we have been generating more solar than wind. According to gridwtch itis currently 14% solar and 10% wind.
Aye it can be helpful in the Summer but even then conditions have been fairly optimal for solar and even then it's still a small fraction of our energy and only barely ahead of wind. And our energy demand is lower right now.
In December to February when our energy demand is at its peak, especially once we have electrical heating but it already peaks then, it isn't even close.
Invest in it if it's economic but not for "Green" reasons.
The UK is not SoCal.
Wind, Tide, Solar. All must play a part in UK renewables.
Emergent technologies to produce hydrocarbons from water and CO2 using electricity will be the game-changer, allowing effective storage of surplus electricity produced when the sun shines or the wind blows.
I agree with almost all of that, but I believe that solar is the placebo of the lot of them.
It is "green" energy for people who aren't taking Net Zero seriously and want to do something for the sake of doing something.
Surplus wind going into electrolysis is my view of the end state and we are surely not far from that. Once we get that, it's a game changer. And that's why we should be going hell for leather for offshore wind especially.
If you can do surplus wind going into electrolysis, why can't you do surplus solar going into electrolysis?
This is interesting, but we should also use other renewables.
Interesting, makes Rishi's proposed ban on onshore wind look even dafter now. The TLDR implication for the UK of this analysis is that basically our best bet is to massively overbuild wind power to ~ 120+ or higher GW capacity.
Eeesh, no international cricket for Scotland until they sort this out is the only apt penalty here.
Cricket Scotland's board has resigned a day ahead of the publication of a review of racism in the sport.
It is expected to report findings of institutional racism in the Scottish game.
The directors resigned with immediate effect on Sunday morning.
"We are all truly sorry and have apologised publicly to everyone who has experienced racism, or any other form of discrimination, in cricket in Scotland," they said.
"Refugees pour into Ireland as Dublin blames Britain’s Rwanda policy An increase in people seeking asylum in Ireland is causing an accommodation crisis that has forced Ukrainians to be put in tents" (£)
This is interesting, but we should also use other renewables.
Interesting, makes Rishi's proposed ban on onshore wind look even dafter now.
It depends on your definition of daft.
Again, remember which audience Rishi Sunak is addressing. The Tory selectorate is dominated, crudely speaking, by rich old men. What's going to motivate a load of rich old men more than the terror of property blight?
The Tory selectorate wants giant wind turbines near their houses even less than they want more houses near their houses. QED.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
Amazon are installing solar panels on their fulfilment centres. They must see a business case for it.
As I said, if its economic then go for it!
Don't subsidise it though as a solution to climate change as it isn't. We need energy in the winter when the sun isn't shining.
Doesn't mean it can't be a good investment on purely economic as opposed to environmental grounds though.
Solar panels are clearly a solution to climate change, this is a consensus position.
Not in the UK they're not which is why the subsidies were rightly eliminated.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
The subsidies for solar panels went a while ago.
I know but some people want to bring them back.
Solar panels can be part of the answer, but the case is much weaker in the UK. They have an average of 50% built-in obsolescence (because it is dark) but that is much higher in winter when the power is needed for heating. Mostly when the sun has gone down.....
OTOH when the sun is shining the wind is not usually blowing much so there is some offset here on the variability of wind. In the last few days we have been generating more solar than wind. According to gridwtch itis currently 14% solar and 10% wind.
Aye it can be helpful in the Summer but even then conditions have been fairly optimal for solar and even then it's still a small fraction of our energy and only barely ahead of wind. And our energy demand is lower right now.
In December to February when our energy demand is at its peak, especially once we have electrical heating but it already peaks then, it isn't even close.
Invest in it if it's economic but not for "Green" reasons.
The UK is not SoCal.
Wind, Tide, Solar. All must play a part in UK renewables.
Emergent technologies to produce hydrocarbons from water and CO2 using electricity will be the game-changer, allowing effective storage of surplus electricity produced when the sun shines or the wind blows.
I agree with almost all of that, but I believe that solar is the placebo of the lot of them.
It is "green" energy for people who aren't taking Net Zero seriously and want to do something for the sake of doing something.
Surplus wind going into electrolysis is my view of the end state and we are surely not far from that. Once we get that, it's a game changer. And that's why we should be going hell for leather for offshore wind especially.
If you can do surplus wind going into electrolysis, why can't you do surplus solar going into electrolysis?
This is interesting, but we should also use other renewables.
Interesting, makes Rishi's proposed ban on onshore wind look even dafter now. The TLDR implication for the UK of this analysis is that basically our best bet is to massively overbuild wind power to ~ 120+ or higher GW capacity.
Rishi's proposed ban on onshore wind follows the government's determination that offshore wind is cheaper and more efficient.
"Refugees pour into Ireland as Dublin blames Britain’s Rwanda policy An increase in people seeking asylum in Ireland is causing an accommodation crisis that has forced Ukrainians to be put in tents" (£)
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on delays at the UK-French border
Deluded
Why? Generally she’s a moron but she’s not wrong here. The consensus seems to be that the French can’t manage the numbers. They need to decide if they want British tourists in numbers post-Brexit or not. If not, that’s fine. Maybe give over the tunnel and some ferry routes to freight.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
Amazon are installing solar panels on their fulfilment centres. They must see a business case for it.
As I said, if its economic then go for it!
Don't subsidise it though as a solution to climate change as it isn't. We need energy in the winter when the sun isn't shining.
Doesn't mean it can't be a good investment on purely economic as opposed to environmental grounds though.
Solar panels are clearly a solution to climate change, this is a consensus position.
Not in the UK they're not which is why the subsidies were rightly eliminated.
I don't remember where, but at least one Country is installing solar farms over car parks, which seems like a genius plan
Early on there was a suggestion of using solar panels to run charging points for electric cars, so it is all coming together.
They do already in the US. Tesla charging points have massive battery storage, fed by the Grid and solar panels at optimum times.
Of course solar power in California where its reliably sunny all year round and energy demand spikes in the sunshine to feed air conditioning is different to solar power in the UK when energy demand peaks in the winter and it's night-time by 4pm.
If it's economical then great, invest in it if it pays for itself, but don't subsidise it for environmental reasons.
The subsidies for solar panels went a while ago.
I know but some people want to bring them back.
Solar panels can be part of the answer, but the case is much weaker in the UK. They have an average of 50% built-in obsolescence (because it is dark) but that is much higher in winter when the power is needed for heating. Mostly when the sun has gone down.....
OTOH when the sun is shining the wind is not usually blowing much so there is some offset here on the variability of wind. In the last few days we have been generating more solar than wind. According to gridwtch itis currently 14% solar and 10% wind.
Aye it can be helpful in the Summer but even then conditions have been fairly optimal for solar and even then it's still a small fraction of our energy and only barely ahead of wind. And our energy demand is lower right now.
In December to February when our energy demand is at its peak, especially once we have electrical heating but it already peaks then, it isn't even close.
Invest in it if it's economic but not for "Green" reasons.
The UK is not SoCal.
Wind, Tide, Solar. All must play a part in UK renewables.
Emergent technologies to produce hydrocarbons from water and CO2 using electricity will be the game-changer, allowing effective storage of surplus electricity produced when the sun shines or the wind blows.
I agree with almost all of that, but I believe that solar is the placebo of the lot of them.
It is "green" energy for people who aren't taking Net Zero seriously and want to do something for the sake of doing something.
Surplus wind going into electrolysis is my view of the end state and we are surely not far from that. Once we get that, it's a game changer. And that's why we should be going hell for leather for offshore wind especially.
If you can do surplus wind going into electrolysis, why can't you do surplus solar going into electrolysis?
This is interesting, but we should also use other renewables.
Interesting, makes Rishi's proposed ban on onshore wind look even dafter now. The TLDR implication for the UK of this analysis is that basically our best bet is to massively overbuild wind power to ~ 120+ or higher GW capacity.
Rishi's proposed ban on onshore wind follows the government's determination that offshore wind is cheaper and more efficient.
The proposed offshore wind farms only offer ~ 40 GW capacity. We should be building way more as per that video which chimes with my intuition.
Cheap as chips net zero beckons if we do. As with housing the problem is gov't getting in the way of building.
If only there was some organisation we were members of that would reduce these problems. Oh well.
Tweeting and attacking the French will surely resolve this
I’m not persuaded in the case to join the EU in order to fix the fringe issue of these queues. Like I say, if the French don’t want our tourists then the market will act and in a few years they won’t have them. It’s already made me think twice about that route.
I’ve seen this type of meme a lot. No one expects freedom of movement. What they expect is for France to want to accept our tourists in numbers, in their own interests, and manage the flow. If they do not, the market will act and others will. They might not enjoy the result.
Except France is the gateway of choice for most of the rest of Europe.
Pre-Brexit, if I was travelling to Belgium, or Holland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland or Italy, I would use the chunnel
If only there was some organisation we were members of that would reduce these problems. Oh well.
Tweeting and attacking the French will surely resolve this
I’m not persuaded in the case to join the EU in order to fix the fringe issue of these queues. Like I say, if the French don’t want our tourists then the market will act and in a few years they won’t have them. It’s already made me think twice about that route.
We shouldn't join the EU, of course not. But we should acknowledge that this is a downside of what we've done and work to resolve it.
Attacking the French and starting trade wars is not the way forward
"Refugees pour into Ireland as Dublin blames Britain’s Rwanda policy An increase in people seeking asylum in Ireland is causing an accommodation crisis that has forced Ukrainians to be put in tents" (£)
If only there was some organisation we were members of that would reduce these problems. Oh well.
Tweeting and attacking the French will surely resolve this
I’m not persuaded in the case to join the EU in order to fix the fringe issue of these queues. Like I say, if the French don’t want our tourists then the market will act and in a few years they won’t have them. It’s already made me think twice about that route.
We shouldn't join the EU, of course not. But we should acknowledge that this is a downside of what we've done and work to resolve it.
Attacking the French and starting trade wars is not the way forward
Who said anything about a trade war? This is a French issue, not ours to intervene in.
I’ve seen this type of meme a lot. No one expects freedom of movement. What they expect is for France to want to accept our tourists in numbers, in their own interests, and manage the flow. If they do not, the market will act and others will. They might not enjoy the result.
It's almost certainly a political marker.
France wants to make a statement in the existing Tory leadership race that it won't be trifled with.
If only there was some organisation we were members of that would reduce these problems. Oh well.
Tweeting and attacking the French will surely resolve this
I’m not persuaded in the case to join the EU in order to fix the fringe issue of these queues. Like I say, if the French don’t want our tourists then the market will act and in a few years they won’t have them. It’s already made me think twice about that route.
We had Operation Stack, regularly, whenever there was a labour dispute in France.
Rejoiners simply want to argue that all our problems will be solved if we Rejoin because, um, they want us to Rejoin.
We "took back control of our borders" by handing them to the French.
Fucking genius...
See this is where we differ. I don’t think it’s my business how France runs its border for tourists, other than in terms of where I decide to go on holiday.
I might want to reciprocate if France makes silly immigration requirements or really screws up trade flows.
[BETTING QUESTION] Hi. I'm Australian & a bit unfamiliar with UK political dynamics.
My question is about why Liz Truss is still priced at around 1.56 on Betfair, when her lead over Sunak in membership polls is so overwhelming ?
Yougov has her ahead 49% vs 31%. The last ConHome survey also had her ahead by 49% vs 42%.
A US presidential candidate ahead by this much would be a prohibitive favourite & priced at no higher than something like 1.10 or 1.15 ? Both Yougov & ConHome also appear to have excellent records of predicting the actual result.
So, why is Liz still priced at 1.56 ? Am I missing something, e.g. Truss withdrawing for some reason ? Why do the betting markets still think that Sunak has a good chance of defeating Truss ?
I understand that Sunak has a chance of showing he's a better debater, but usually debates don't often result in a massive turn-around in a candidate's fortunes, and most electors have usually already made up their minds before debates.
Liz believes in the Laffer Curve fairy.
It's not a fairy.
Of course the fallacy some believe in is slashing taxes "due to the Laffer Curve" when they're already low. If taxes are low then the curve has a left hand side whereby higher taxes equals more revenue.
Taxes aren't low.
The Laffer curve has no units on the X axis, or for that matter the Y axis. Probably the apex of the curve varies over time and with other factors, being much to the right in wartime for example.
Taxes are not low, but still could be well to the left of the apex of the curve.
I really don't think tax policy can impact the coming autumn winter CoL crisis in time. Only borrowing to allow public services to pay and recruit, and for an uplift in UC back to pandemic levels etc can do so. Inflationary for sure, but the alternative is a major winter crisis for many Britons, strikes and other industrial action, people defaulting on fuel bills, and a contraction of discretionary consumer spending that wrecks a fragile post covid economy.
Yes, the Laffer Curve definitely exists.
If taxes are so high that you don't get sufficient net salary from hard work to make it worth your while then you'll plump for an easier job, or not try quite as hard, or quit the labour market or country entirely.
Worth remembering Hollande had to scrap his 75% supertax in less than 2 years after implementing it due to the damage it did to France's economy.
entirely.
It definitely exists, the problem being that there are no units on either axis, so no one knows at what point we are on the curve, so it is not a useful tool in deciding whether higher or lower taxes would be better for government revenue.
The demographic aging, and need to fund decent pensions, health care and other services as a result means that state spending will have to go up in the next decade. Financing that gap is not easily matched with tax cuts.
All parties claim that economic growth because of their wise economic management will close that gap, but the evidence of that being possible is not well grounded in recent economic history. We have not grown enough, look like we are going to contract GDP on current trajectory, have failed on productivity, hence the combination of high taxes and threadbare public services.
As Mrs Thatcher might say, we have been living beyond our means, and must tighten our belts.
But, then it acts as a general drag on the economy.
If you increase tax to pay, say, for extra spending on pensions and the NHS, then you are taking resources away from the productive part of the economy to pay for the non-productive, which will lower growth.
Not nessecarily. Just because an economic activity takes place in the state sector doesn't mean it is unproductive. Much of the increase in GDP in recent figures were due to increased numbers of GP appointments for example.
Why should a private consultation with me be considered a productive task, but an NHS one not? Both are more economically useful than some private sector middleman taking financial benefit from a transaction while producing nothing but cost.
Pensions are effectively taxing working people to generate handouts to redistribute to people who are not working - a drag.
On the NHS, it depends if the health intervention is returning a productive member back to the economy (avoiding them becoming long-term sick, for example) or dealing with those who will never work again, but giving them palliative care for long-term conditions.
Now, there are good ethical cases for spending good money on both, but it's hard to argue they drive much growth.
I appreciate that in the ideal capitalist world that people would die immediately after retiring, but the real world people are less obliging.
Treating the retired is an economic benefit to the country because it reduces either the cost of other disability benefits or frees up informal carers to return to economically useful work, depending on the amount of welfare state.
You do miss my point though. Why is a private medical consultation economically productive and a state one not? Why is an accountant economically productive in a bank, but not in a council while doing the same job?
The idea that state expenditure is economically unproductive and private is productive is just wrong.
Only just logged in to see this; you are attacking a caricature of what I could have said, which you seem to think was some private-good state-bad thing and a besmirch on your profession, and not what I actually said.
I am saying we are taxing too much on those that work and spending too much on those who aren't in work and this is creating a progressive drag on the economy as it crowds out investment in other areas, like education and science, and creates an ever higher tax burden on working people.
I think the solution is to encourage people to work flexibly, for longer, incentivise work for retired people, be it paid or voluntary, spread the tax burden more fairly, and also encourage greater spending on mitigating personal health risk by individuals, and not just rely solely on the NHS.
I know you agree, because you wrote a thread header on social insurance/private healthcare accounts, so let's leave the strawmen at the door and get serious - it will make for a far more interesting discussion.
We "took back control of our borders" by handing them to the French.
Fucking genius...
See this is where we differ. I don’t think it’s my business how France runs its border for tourists, other than in terms of where I decide to go on holiday.
I might want to reciprocate if France makes silly immigration requirements or really screws up trade flows.
We "took back control of our borders" by handing them to the French.
Fucking genius...
You keep saying you're a Conservative. Regularly.
Leaving Brexit at the door for a minute (which I know will be a challenge for you) what would you like to see a Conservative Government do to fix our long-term challenges, other than Rejoin the EU?
What policies would you like to see ? What are you interested in ?
If only there was some organisation we were members of that would reduce these problems. Oh well.
Tweeting and attacking the French will surely resolve this
I’m not persuaded in the case to join the EU in order to fix the fringe issue of these queues. Like I say, if the French don’t want our tourists then the market will act and in a few years they won’t have them. It’s already made me think twice about that route.
We had Operation Stack, regularly, whenever there was a labour dispute in France.
Rejoiners simply want to argue that all our problems will be solved if we Rejoin because, um, they want us to Rejoin.
I think Operation Stack smoothed out peaks and troughs in a perfectly good system. I think we need plan B now, or Operation "oh, Shit, what have we done?".....
I see Sunak has said he wants an end to hotel accomodation for asylum seekers whilst their claims are processed. Fair enough. Where? It's Rwanda, or camps in the UK, or the vast amount of empty housing all around.
“Most heavy goods vehicles over 7.5 tonnes are banned from the French road and motorway network every weekend between the hours of 10 p.m Saturday and 10 p.m Sunday.”
Fun fact I ran across in one of the replies to that tweet.
How about we get the productive people in the economy working and able to spend unlike giving pensioners hands out for doing fuck all
Pensioners by and large believe they have 'paid in' via their working life and deserve what is coming to them
And to be fair, that is what the labour party has told them all their lives.
Brexit peer Lord Moylan says they need to come out of retirement and get working in hotels, care homes, coffee shops and picking vegetables, to solve the labour shortage!
I’ve seen this type of meme a lot. No one expects freedom of movement. What they expect is for France to want to accept our tourists in numbers, in their own interests, and manage the flow. If they do not, the market will act and others will. They might not enjoy the result.
It's almost certainly a political marker.
France wants to make a statement in the existing Tory leadership race that it won't be trifled with.
I’ve seen this type of meme a lot. No one expects freedom of movement. What they expect is for France to want to accept our tourists in numbers, in their own interests, and manage the flow. If they do not, the market will act and others will. They might not enjoy the result.
It's almost certainly a political marker.
France wants to make a statement in the existing Tory leadership race that it won't be trifled with.
If only there was some organisation we were members of that would reduce these problems. Oh well.
Tweeting and attacking the French will surely resolve this
I’m not persuaded in the case to join the EU in order to fix the fringe issue of these queues. Like I say, if the French don’t want our tourists then the market will act and in a few years they won’t have them. It’s already made me think twice about that route.
We had Operation Stack, regularly, whenever there was a labour dispute in France.
Rejoiners simply want to argue that all our problems will be solved if we Rejoin because, um, they want us to Rejoin.
I think Operation Stack smoothed out peaks and troughs in a perfectly good system. I think we need plan B now, or Operation "oh, Shit, what have we done?".....
Operation “gosh isn’t Spain lovely this time of year - leave Dover for freight”.
I don’t see why it’s so hard to admit that the additional bureaucracy the UK chose for our border with the EU will increase delays in entering the EU from time to time. It will do so at seaports and airports - not always, but during busy periods. That is inevitable. The queues at Dover were not about Brexit, they were about the form of Brexit this government decided to pursue.
If only there was some organisation we were members of that would reduce these problems. Oh well.
Tweeting and attacking the French will surely resolve this
I’m not persuaded in the case to join the EU in order to fix the fringe issue of these queues. Like I say, if the French don’t want our tourists then the market will act and in a few years they won’t have them. It’s already made me think twice about that route.
We had Operation Stack, regularly, whenever there was a labour dispute in France.
Rejoiners simply want to argue that all our problems will be solved if we Rejoin because, um, they want us to Rejoin.
I think Operation Stack smoothed out peaks and troughs in a perfectly good system. I think we need plan B now, or Operation "oh, Shit, what have we done?".....
Operation “gosh isn’t Spain lovely this time of year - leave Dover for freight”.
There seems to be something of a fallacy that all Calais traffic is heading for a final destination in France. And that we have airport capacity for those who wish to switch to just hop on a plane. We don't. This may be the French playing silly buggers or not, but the fact is our government has done precious little to alleviate the situation.
And if you think it’s bad this year, wait for next year - when all third country citizens have to be photographed and fingerprinted on initial entry to the EU. It will be annoying at airports and will be disastrous at ferry ports.
And if you think it’s bad this year, wait for next year - when all third country citizens have to be photographed and fingerprinted on initial entry to the EU. It will be annoying at airports and will be disastrous at ferry ports.
Are they doing that at all the Swiss border crossings?
If only there was some organisation we were members of that would reduce these problems. Oh well.
Tweeting and attacking the French will surely resolve this
I’m not persuaded in the case to join the EU in order to fix the fringe issue of these queues. Like I say, if the French don’t want our tourists then the market will act and in a few years they won’t have them. It’s already made me think twice about that route.
We had Operation Stack, regularly, whenever there was a labour dispute in France.
Rejoiners simply want to argue that all our problems will be solved if we Rejoin because, um, they want us to Rejoin.
I think Operation Stack smoothed out peaks and troughs in a perfectly good system. I think we need plan B now, or Operation "oh, Shit, what have we done?".....
Absolute nonsense.
We had the same problems inside the EU and we have exactly the same ones outside, whenever France decide to through a ding-dong. It was implemented 95 times between 1996 and 2007 - and there was a major version of it in 2015 at unprecedented levels:
And if you think it’s bad this year, wait for next year - when all third country citizens have to be photographed and fingerprinted on initial entry to the EU. It will be annoying at airports and will be disastrous at ferry ports.
I've used these systems at the aiports in several countries. It happens while the officer is flipping through your passport, and adds no extra time.
Now, at the ferry port, where it would require getting out of the car - that's another kettle of fish.
If only there was some organisation we were members of that would reduce these problems. Oh well.
Tweeting and attacking the French will surely resolve this
I’m not persuaded in the case to join the EU in order to fix the fringe issue of these queues. Like I say, if the French don’t want our tourists then the market will act and in a few years they won’t have them. It’s already made me think twice about that route.
We had Operation Stack, regularly, whenever there was a labour dispute in France.
Rejoiners simply want to argue that all our problems will be solved if we Rejoin because, um, they want us to Rejoin.
I think Operation Stack smoothed out peaks and troughs in a perfectly good system. I think we need plan B now, or Operation "oh, Shit, what have we done?".....
Operation “gosh isn’t Spain lovely this time of year - leave Dover for freight”.
Portsmouth to Santander takes 23 hours.
Harwich to Hook of Holland takes 6 1/2 hours.
Dover-Calais can become a lot less convenient and it will still be the most plausible driving route from England to Europe.
If only there was some organisation we were members of that would reduce these problems. Oh well.
Tweeting and attacking the French will surely resolve this
I’m not persuaded in the case to join the EU in order to fix the fringe issue of these queues. Like I say, if the French don’t want our tourists then the market will act and in a few years they won’t have them. It’s already made me think twice about that route.
We had Operation Stack, regularly, whenever there was a labour dispute in France.
Rejoiners simply want to argue that all our problems will be solved if we Rejoin because, um, they want us to Rejoin.
I think Operation Stack smoothed out peaks and troughs in a perfectly good system. I think we need plan B now, or Operation "oh, Shit, what have we done?".....
Operation “gosh isn’t Spain lovely this time of year - leave Dover for freight”.
There seems to be something of a fallacy that all Calais traffic is heading for a final destination in France. And that we have airport capacity for those who wish to switch to just hop on a plane. We don't. This may be the French playing silly buggers or not, but the fact is our government has done precious little to alleviate the situation.
The government never wanted to concede it might be an issue, so they never allocated the resources needed to mitigate it.
Comments
You'll have surplus wind on 17 January when you need it on 22 January.
The gap for storage or conversion is considerably smaller.
Plus electrolysis at scale on offshore wind turbines can be built in. On solar panels not so much.
And to be fair, that is what the labour party has told them all their lives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zgwiQ6BoLA&t=171s
This is interesting, but we should also use other renewables.
Banks should be allowed to fail.
Iceland handled the GFC better. Their banks went bust and were not bailed out.
Why is anyone surprised. I have been pointing out for some time how the membership wants him back and he is featuring in polls and petitions demanding his return.
These are now beginning to make their way to the mainstream and the momentum thereby builds.
If not to get him onto the ballot now (a membership demand) then for a future attempt.
If Truss is boring or a disaster and SKS continues to be boring and gains in popularity while the country treads water in the run up to 2024 then I can see an increasingly frustrated parliamentary party and furious membership.
And when the new perovskite panels are commercialised they will be significantly cheaper.
They will make sense for anyone with electric vehicles and a south facing rooftop despite their seasonality.
"In April to June 2021, three in four mothers with dependent children (75.6%) were in work in the UK, reaching its highest level in the equivalent quarter over the last 20 years (66.5% in 2002).
"Over 9 in 10 (92.1%) fathers with dependent children were employed in April to June 2021; this is an increase from 89.6% in 2002 but has plateaued in recent years.
"The employment rate was higher for mothers than either women or men without dependent children and has been since 2017.
"From 2020, in families where both parents are employed, it has become more common for both parents to work full-time, rather than a man working full-time with a partner working part-time.
"In April to June 2021, 12.1% of parents reported that they mainly worked from home in their main job; mothers were more likely to report homeworking (13.4%) than fathers (10.7%).
"More than half (57.7%) of families with only one child had both parents working full-time, compared with 39.5% of families with three or more children.
"When asked about any special working arrangements, such as flexible or term-time hours, 33.3% of mothers reported an agreed special working arrangement in their job, compared with 23.6% of fathers.
"In March 2022, employed women with dependent children spent more time on unpaid childcare (an average of 85 minutes per day) and household work (an average of 167 minutes per day) than employed men with dependent children (56 and 102 minutes per day, respectively).
"In March 2022 Employed women with dependent children spent more time on all work combined (an average of 496 minutes per day working from home, working away from the home, on unpaid childcare and unpaid household work) than employed men with dependent children (481 minutes per day)."
But also see https://www.ageuk.org.uk/latest-news/articles/2017/september/five-million-grandparents-take-on-childcare-responsibilities/
"Two-fifths (40%) of the nation's grandparents over the age of 50 - five million - have provided regular childcare for their grandchildren, according to a new YouGov poll for leading older people's charity, Age UK.
"[...] The survey revealed that the vast majority (89%) of the five million grandparents who provided regular care do so at least once a week:
"one in 10 (12%) looking after their grandchildren at least once a day
"a fifth (18%) look after them 4-6 times a week
"two-fifths (38%) look after them 2-3 times a week
"Just over half (51%) of these grandparents providing regular care did so for up to five years and a further 28% did so for between 5-10 years, with well over half (57%) saying their help had enabled their own child/ children to work more to support their family."
Getting what you paid for is fair enough, but that isn't what is happening.
Electric vehicles will have a distributed storage that dwarves any possible large scale storage. It will mean that power generated on Tuesday can be consumed on Sunday, which deals with the intermittency of wind.
What it won't do is mean that power generated in July can be consumed in February to deal with the seasonality of Solar.
Cricket Scotland's board has resigned a day ahead of the publication of a review of racism in the sport.
It is expected to report findings of institutional racism in the Scottish game.
The directors resigned with immediate effect on Sunday morning.
"We are all truly sorry and have apologised publicly to everyone who has experienced racism, or any other form of discrimination, in cricket in Scotland," they said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-62283600
I have a neighbour who is 99. She is a medical marvel, bright as a button, but her view is she paid in via her working life and deserves all the medical and social services she has received down the years (and those as you can imagine, are substantial).
Given she retired almost 40 years ago I think its most doubtful the amounts she paid in cover a fraction of what she has taken out.
Is that what Clem Attlee envisaged in 1945?
Join us on the Dark Side. We have cookies.
Scotland plays cricket?
Don't know about other people but I’m starting to really react against this sort of thing – bubbly, wide-eyed talk about “great country” and “unleashing our potential” and "world's our oyster" ra ra bla bla.
It's such nonsense and I thirst for the opposite, a genuine “telling the truth” prospectus from somebody.
“Look, people, we are nothing special but we are fortunate. We’re a very wealthy country compared to most of the world, in large part due to our imperialist exploitation of vast tracts of it, and it’s both inevitable and right that as time passes we become less wealthy relatively speaking. It isn’t inevitable, however, that we underperform our peers and if I’m elected PM I intend to enact some modest practical measures to reverse this trend. But please note we can’t fix any of our issues by pretending money grows on trees and in any case governments can only impact the sustainable growth of the modern economy on the margins. Mostly it depends on things outside our control. More important is to avoid doing stupid stuff which actively makes us poorer – eg leaving large frictionless single markets – so you won’t be seeing any of that from me.”
Slogan – Adult Nation, Facing the Facts.
I'd vote for that politician regardless of what rosette they were wearing.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20220511-can-gravity-batteries-solve-our-energy-storage-problems
(And I am indeed aware of Betteridge's law of headlines...)
Presently we have minimal storage in significant terms. Within a decade I expect we will have TWh* of distributed storage.
This is happening organically already. It is the game changer.
* I can never remember if storage is TWh or plain TW so sorry if that's the wrong term.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/24/uk-victim-left-feeling-suicidal-after-five-year-wait-for-case-to-come-to-trial
Successive Conservative governments have laid waste to the criminal justice system.
An increase in people seeking asylum in Ireland is causing an accommodation crisis that has forced Ukrainians to be put in tents" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/07/23/refugees-pour-ireland-dublin-blames-britains-rwanda-policy/
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=333257
The TLDR implication for the UK of this analysis is that basically our best bet is to massively overbuild wind power to ~ 120+ or higher GW capacity.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/02/28/britain-joins-fight-wean-europe-russian-gas/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/24/liz-truss-reminds-me-of-a-tory-leader-but-its-not-margaret-thatcher
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on delays at the UK-French border
Deluded
Again, remember which audience Rishi Sunak is addressing. The Tory selectorate is dominated, crudely speaking, by rich old men. What's going to motivate a load of rich old men more than the terror of property blight?
The Tory selectorate wants giant wind turbines near their houses even less than they want more houses near their houses. QED.
If they don't, then Britons can travel via alternatives like Zeebrugge or aviation or much more instead and France loses money as a result.
Tweeting and attacking the French will surely resolve this
Cheap as chips net zero beckons if we do. As with housing the problem is gov't getting in the way of building.
Its tourism.
So the effect will be to send British tourists away from France and to other destinations.
And the laughter you hear is the Spanish and Portuguese laughing at France.
It is UK soil, UK Border infrastructure.
The Spanish want our tourists. If the French don't, then they lose out and Spain benefits.
Pre-Brexit, if I was travelling to Belgium, or Holland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland or Italy, I would use the chunnel
We have our own border infrastructure in France.
Countries having their own border infrastructure in other nations isn't unique. America has border infrastructure in Ireland.
Attacking the French and starting trade wars is not the way forward
France wants to make a statement in the existing Tory leadership race that it won't be trifled with. It's deliberate.
The French Government want to make a statement in the Conservative Party leadership contest that they are not to be trifled with.
Rejoiners simply want to argue that all our problems will be solved if we Rejoin because, um, they want us to Rejoin.
Fucking genius...
I might want to reciprocate if France makes silly immigration requirements or really screws up trade flows.
I am saying we are taxing too much on those that work and spending too much on those who aren't in work and this is creating a progressive drag on the economy as it crowds out investment in other areas, like education and science, and creates an ever higher tax burden on working people.
I think the solution is to encourage people to work flexibly, for longer, incentivise work for retired people, be it paid or voluntary, spread the tax burden more fairly, and also encourage greater spending on mitigating personal health risk by individuals, and not just rely solely on the NHS.
I know you agree, because you wrote a thread header on social insurance/private healthcare accounts, so let's leave the strawmen at the door and get serious - it will make for a far more interesting discussion.
Leaving Brexit at the door for a minute (which I know will be a challenge for you) what would you like to see a Conservative Government do to fix our long-term challenges, other than Rejoin the EU?
What policies would you like to see ? What are you interested in ?
(*) Very little.
Dover back to normal, at least according to its operators.
Fun fact I ran across in one of the replies to that tweet.
...just putting it out there....
And that we have airport capacity for those who wish to switch to just hop on a plane. We don't.
This may be the French playing silly buggers or not, but the fact is our government has done precious little to alleviate the situation.
So how do we resolve this issue
And in Ireland?
We had the same problems inside the EU and we have exactly the same ones outside, whenever France decide to through a ding-dong. It was implemented 95 times between 1996 and 2007 - and there was a major version of it in 2015 at unprecedented levels:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-33688822.amp
Let's not pretend this would all disappear if we rejoined. It insults people's intelligence
Now, at the ferry port, where it would require getting out of the car - that's another kettle of fish.
Harwich to Hook of Holland takes 6 1/2 hours.
Dover-Calais can become a lot less convenient and it will still be the most plausible driving route from England to Europe.
Geography- distance and time- wins.