18 November 2015 – UK becomes first major country to announce coal phase-out
UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd announced that the UK would close all its coal-fired power plants by 2025, with proposals to replace coal power generation with gas and nuclear plants. The announcement came less than two weeks before the start of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which negotiated the Paris Agreement.
LOL
Who though now disputes anthropogenic climate change? And that it is going to be an increasing problem?
Whether we mitigate with infrastructure or attempt to limit emissions it is going to be costly.
Just because she said "here in Derbyshire" it doesn't necessarily mean the "here" referred to Derbyshire. "Here" could be the UK, "in Derbyshire" narrowing it down
She probably did forget where she was, but those three words don't prove it.
She isn't really wrong. There's a very guarded large section of Rolls Royce off Raynesway (IIRC) where the submarine nuclear reactors are designed, and many components constructed - though AIUI some of the nuclear parts are done at the Vulcan site at Dounreay.
The vast majority of our sub nuclear reactor work is done in Derby. The small reactors will also be designed and manufactured in Derby.
As I understand it, the small reactors will be heavily based on submarine reactors, but somewhat larger.
Probably something like the work done to turn the submarine reactor tech into the larger reactors built for the carriers, that the Americans did way back.
Come to think of it, the heavy integration between the US and U.K. on submarine reactor design - they shared the break through on natural convection at higher power levels - could this be coming from shared info on the larger reactors? If so, it would explain why RR are so confident and the apparently short timescales.
The thing is, when we decided that we were going to sack off coal, we should have done nuclear; wind, solar & battery; state sponsored expansion of north sea oil and gas; fracking or realistically some combination of all four PROPERLY. We err didn't and now we're fucked.
I think Whitehall needs to take a step back and think about water, energy and food outside the globalisation lens.
I've suddenly got a completely different attitude to the Qataris hosting the World Cup - if they keep exporting us gas, they can have it every year if they want.
Same for Norway. It should really be us sending the Christmas tree.
18 November 2015 – UK becomes first major country to announce coal phase-out
UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd announced that the UK would close all its coal-fired power plants by 2025, with proposals to replace coal power generation with gas and nuclear plants. The announcement came less than two weeks before the start of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which negotiated the Paris Agreement.
LOL
Who though now disputes anthropogenic climate change? And that it is going to be an increasing problem?
Whether we mitigate with infrastructure or attempt to limit emissions it is going to be costly.
The impact on the anthropocene from keeping the UK's coal stations running a while longer whilst we transitioned to sustainable green energy would have been absolubtely MINUTE...
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
What a sad story. A single old person, living in a big or old house, is going to be terribly affected by the utility bills. Let’s hope she can find some way through, by moving in with a friend or relative, or by living in one room for the winter.
From a political point of view, there’s going to be an awful lot of people with such stories, and the press will love printing them. Government needs to have a communication strategy, around how these people can find ways to work through the winter. It requires a war-time mentality from everyone, because a large part of the disruption is being caused by a war.
Difficult to have a "we're all in this together" mentality after the Downing Street parties and decorating.
I’m not quite sure how that follows. There will be a different Prime Minister, and we are talking about saving energy, which the government will be trying to do themselves, as much as the rest of us.
(It’s also why I really dislike the way ‘parties’ were reported in the press. The gross exaggeration of what actually took place, has been detrimental to societal cohesion).
More than 126 fines were issued.
You have no idea the anger in this country that moments after telling us not to go out and meet our friends and loved ones the PM and his staff were getting suitcases full of booze and getting sloshed.
How to illustrate my point for me.
The event in question was a few dozen staffers sitting outside in the garden at their workplace for an hour, with the boss turning up to thank them for their extraordinary efforts in dealing with a national emergency.
Describing it as “…suitcases full of booze and getting sloshed” is part of the problem, and why the public reaction was as it was.
But suitcases were of booze.
Again you miss the hypocrisy angle, my father has several colleagues and friends who worked for the NHS during the pandemic, on Christmas Day 2020 they planned to have a Christmas meal at the hospital they were working in during their lunch.
They were told they couldn't and they realised it would look bad.
So don't give me the bullshit about 'extraordinary efforts in dealing with a national emergency', if Doctors and nurses weren't allowed to do it, then neither should Downing Street staff.
👏 Exactly right. Staff at Downing Street repeatedly held events which breached lockdown regulations. They knew that what they were doing was against the regulations and they still did it. I can tell you that other areas of the public service who had to work in the office throughout the pandemic also scrupulous obeyed the regulations.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
Wfh, running fewer trains and running them more slowly seems sensible to me as a pretty quick win.
I was rather struck by Foxy’s widow story. It feels a lot like since Feb we’ve been in the phoney war stage in Western Europe. The public large are going to realise pretty soon that you can’t have a war waged against Europe by a non allied superpower without it touching our lives somehow. If a period of energy rationing is all we end up facing we’ll have got off lightly historically speaking.
But you are still championing the energy companies. What is your proposal to stop millions sliding into penury this winter? These bills aren't getting paid which leaves someone holding the baby...
I think that is the great unknown. Many people will be unable to pay, and will fall into arrears. How soon will they be cut off?
I was discussing this last night, you're looking at non payment of 3 months/£1200 arrears for the energy companies to apply to the courts for a warrant of entry to fit a prepayment meter.
Given how sclerotic the courts are at the moment, you could probably get away without paying your bills for about 6 to 8 months before a prepayment meter is fitted.
If millions do it it would probably be 6 to 8 years, given the supply of meters and, more significantly, fitters.
Having watched a couple of guys fit out smart meter recently (one training the other) that looks like quite a skilled job to me.
You can probably get away with paying rent to your landlord for about 12 months, unless they're the type of landlord who send round men with baseball bats to collect it.
18 November 2015 – UK becomes first major country to announce coal phase-out
UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd announced that the UK would close all its coal-fired power plants by 2025, with proposals to replace coal power generation with gas and nuclear plants. The announcement came less than two weeks before the start of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which negotiated the Paris Agreement.
LOL
Gas is probably the cleanest fossil fuel there is.
To be honest, I don't blame them for that - as a 15-20 year fix. I do blame them for killing all gas storage, and can-kicking on new nuclear, and assuming the gas market would always remain JIT, cheap and liquid.
Boris Johnson is taking legal advice over a privileges committee investigation as those close to him accept it is a “foregone conclusion” that he will be found in contempt of parliament.
The prime minister is fighting to save his seat by arguing for a lenient punishment that would avoid a recall petition. A petition could result in his leaving the Commons only weeks after being pushed out of Downing Street.
Some of Johnson’s senior team have all but given up hope of escaping censure after the committee of MPs who will decide his fate concluded that he did not have to have knowingly misled the Commons to be found in contempt.
Allies of the prime minister have attempted to argue that this means the process is “rigged”, with loyalists such as Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, condemning the investigation as a “witch-hunt”.
The committee hit back yesterday, criticising attempts to “undermine” and “subvert” the process and “intimidate” members. Harriet Harman, the Labour MP who is chairing the committee during the inquiry, and the Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin wrote in The Times Red Box: “There have been unfounded allegations about ‘goalposts being moved’ and ‘rules changed’. But this is inaccurate.
One problem with the price setting mechanism for energy in this country is that the most expensive generation method (Currently gas) forms the price for the whole of the market. So even if we got down to say 5% gas use over the year (OK we won't any time soon but hey ho) the price would still be the same even though the generation cost is lower. That doesn't feel right to me, and excludes the benefit of adding additional excellent value wind & solar from the consumer ?
Do I have that right ?
Dunno. CCGT is about 55-65% of our power gen at the moment, so yeah.
But, if gas dropped to 5% and then its price suddenly increased five-fold I think it would either be thrown out the market or so diluted by the 95% that overall prices barely increased.
18 November 2015 – UK becomes first major country to announce coal phase-out
UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd announced that the UK would close all its coal-fired power plants by 2025, with proposals to replace coal power generation with gas and nuclear plants. The announcement came less than two weeks before the start of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which negotiated the Paris Agreement.
LOL
Who though now disputes anthropogenic climate change? And that it is going to be an increasing problem?
Whether we mitigate with infrastructure or attempt to limit emissions it is going to be costly.
The impact on the anthropocene from keeping the UK's coal stations running a while longer whilst we transitioned to sustainable green energy would have been absolubtely MINUTE...
The vast majority of our sub nuclear reactor work is done in Derby. The small reactors will also be designed and manufactured in Derby.
They haven't chosen the site for the SMR factory yet but none of potential ones are in Derbyshire. Regular Truss watchers will not be surprised to hear that she opened her stupid fucking mouth without knowing what she was talking about.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
Wfh, running fewer trains and running them more slowly seems sensible to me as a pretty quick win.
I was rather struck by Foxy’s widow story. It feels a lot like since Feb we’ve been in the phoney war stage in Western Europe. The public large are going to realise pretty soon that you can’t have a war waged against Europe by a non allied superpower without it touching our lives somehow. If a period of energy rationing is all we end up facing we’ll have got off lightly historically speaking.
But you are still championing the energy companies. What is your proposal to stop millions sliding into penury this winter? These bills aren't getting paid which leaves someone holding the baby...
I think that is the great unknown. Many people will be unable to pay, and will fall into arrears. How soon will they be cut off?
I was discussing this last night, you're looking at non payment of 3 months/£1200 arrears for the energy companies to apply to the courts for a warrant of entry to fit a prepayment meter.
Given how sclerotic the courts are at the moment, you could probably get away without paying your bills for about 6 to 8 months before a prepayment meter is fitted.
If millions do it it would probably be 6 to 8 years, given the supply of meters and, more significantly, fitters.
Having watched a couple of guys fit out smart meter recently (one training the other) that looks like quite a skilled job to me.
Indeed, what many free marketeers, including the prospective PM, don't seem to realise is the free market response of several million customers will be to stop paying (whether this is can't, won't or they should heat their homes less does not make much difference in impact), and even more of the energy distributors go bust. At that point we can either refuse to get involved and go without energy or eventually bail out the distributors with the payments we are refusing to make at the moment. Just get ahead of the game for once.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
What a sad story. A single old person, living in a big or old house, is going to be terribly affected by the utility bills. Let’s hope she can find some way through, by moving in with a friend or relative, or by living in one room for the winter.
From a political point of view, there’s going to be an awful lot of people with such stories, and the press will love printing them. Government needs to have a communication strategy, around how these people can find ways to work through the winter. It requires a war-time mentality from everyone, because a large part of the disruption is being caused by a war.
Difficult to have a "we're all in this together" mentality after the Downing Street parties and decorating.
I’m not quite sure how that follows. There will be a different Prime Minister, and we are talking about saving energy, which the government will be trying to do themselves, as much as the rest of us.
(It’s also why I really dislike the way ‘parties’ were reported in the press. The gross exaggeration of what actually took place, has been detrimental to societal cohesion).
Wouldn't be like that in the army, eh? Bloody press wallahs! Dunno whether you had any problem in 2010 when they revealed how Gordon Brown really felt about the population, when he thought the mics were off. This time it was only the prime minister and "staffers" pissing and vomiting all over the population as they had a f***ing good party - sorry, celebration of their success as philanthropic public servants - while they'd practically locked most of the rest of us up for months. I blame the media. Is talking about the crown prince receiving millions of pounds in cash from Arab princes bad for social cohesion too?
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
Wfh, running fewer trains and running them more slowly seems sensible to me as a pretty quick win.
I was rather struck by Foxy’s widow story. It feels a lot like since Feb we’ve been in the phoney war stage in Western Europe. The public large are going to realise pretty soon that you can’t have a war waged against Europe by a non allied superpower without it touching our lives somehow. If a period of energy rationing is all we end up facing we’ll have got off lightly historically speaking.
But you are still championing the energy companies. What is your proposal to stop millions sliding into penury this winter? These bills aren't getting paid which leaves someone holding the baby...
I think that is the great unknown. Many people will be unable to pay, and will fall into arrears. How soon will they be cut off?
Supposedly it takes months. In which time the impoverished bill payer is being harassed by growing red bills and then likely debt collection letters and threats of summonses. For money they don't have for bills that are grotesque and can't be paid even with a court order.
This is why we need to agree up front that they won't be paid. The energy companies will make a loss this winter. Making a loss for a period is business, isn't it?
It does feel like a classic case of privatise the profits, socialise the losses.
I appreciate it's not really like that, but still.
And the problem for the government is that politics is about the feels, even if government is about the reality.
A really good government manage to make the feels and the reality good, but it's a while since we've had one of those.
Not convinced this government scores on either count.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
What a sad story. A single old person, living in a big or old house, is going to be terribly affected by the utility bills. Let’s hope she can find some way through, by moving in with a friend or relative, or by living in one room for the winter.
From a political point of view, there’s going to be an awful lot of people with such stories, and the press will love printing them. Government needs to have a communication strategy, around how these people can find ways to work through the winter. It requires a war-time mentality from everyone, because a large part of the disruption is being caused by a war.
Difficult to have a "we're all in this together" mentality after the Downing Street parties and decorating.
I’m not quite sure how that follows. There will be a different Prime Minister, and we are talking about saving energy, which the government will be trying to do themselves, as much as the rest of us.
(It’s also why I really dislike the way ‘parties’ were reported in the press. The gross exaggeration of what actually took place, has been detrimental to societal cohesion).
More than 126 fines were issued.
You have no idea the anger in this country that moments after telling us not to go out and meet our friends and loved ones the PM and his staff were getting suitcases full of booze and getting sloshed.
How to illustrate my point for me.
The event in question was a few dozen staffers sitting outside in the garden at their workplace for an hour, with the boss turning up to thank them for their extraordinary efforts in dealing with a national emergency.
Describing it as “…suitcases full of booze and getting sloshed” is part of the problem, and why the public reaction was as it was.
But we know for a fact there were suitcases full of booze and people getting sloshed.
Just because she said "here in Derbyshire" it doesn't necessarily mean the "here" referred to Derbyshire. "Here" could be the UK, "in Derbyshire" narrowing it down
She probably did forget where she was, but those three words don't prove it.
Whether or not there is a comma to be understood, it's still very ambiguous, and if this were Mr Biden the PB conservatives would be all over him.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
What a sad story. A single old person, living in a big or old house, is going to be terribly affected by the utility bills. Let’s hope she can find some way through, by moving in with a friend or relative, or by living in one room for the winter.
From a political point of view, there’s going to be an awful lot of people with such stories, and the press will love printing them. Government needs to have a communication strategy, around how these people can find ways to work through the winter. It requires a war-time mentality from everyone, because a large part of the disruption is being caused by a war.
Difficult to have a "we're all in this together" mentality after the Downing Street parties and decorating.
I’m not quite sure how that follows. There will be a different Prime Minister, and we are talking about saving energy, which the government will be trying to do themselves, as much as the rest of us.
(It’s also why I really dislike the way ‘parties’ were reported in the press. The gross exaggeration of what actually took place, has been detrimental to societal cohesion).
On your last point, I think that the Prime Minister breaking the draconian rules that his government had imposed on the rest of us was somewhat more detrimental to societal cohesion.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
Wfh, running fewer trains and running them more slowly seems sensible to me as a pretty quick win.
I was rather struck by Foxy’s widow story. It feels a lot like since Feb we’ve been in the phoney war stage in Western Europe. The public large are going to realise pretty soon that you can’t have a war waged against Europe by a non allied superpower without it touching our lives somehow. If a period of energy rationing is all we end up facing we’ll have got off lightly historically speaking.
But you are still championing the energy companies. What is your proposal to stop millions sliding into penury this winter? These bills aren't getting paid which leaves someone holding the baby...
I think that is the great unknown. Many people will be unable to pay, and will fall into arrears. How soon will they be cut off?
Supposedly it takes months. In which time the impoverished bill payer is being harassed by growing red bills and then likely debt collection letters and threats of summonses. For money they don't have for bills that are grotesque and can't be paid even with a court order.
This is why we need to agree up front that they won't be paid. The energy companies will make a loss this winter. Making a loss for a period is business, isn't it?
It does feel like a classic case of privatise the profits, socialise the losses.
I appreciate it's not really like that, but still.
And the problem for the government is that politics is about the feels, even if government is about the reality.
A really good government manage to make the feels and the reality good, but it's a while since we've had one of those.
Not convinced this government scores on either count.
Bozo and the coalition were both pretty good on the feels for their natural supporters, but at the expense of the feels for their opponents.
Early Blair is probably the only govt in my lifetime that did both well for a clear majority. And he became the most hated of all former PMs.
18 November 2015 – UK becomes first major country to announce coal phase-out
UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd announced that the UK would close all its coal-fired power plants by 2025, with proposals to replace coal power generation with gas and nuclear plants. The announcement came less than two weeks before the start of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which negotiated the Paris Agreement.
LOL
Who though now disputes anthropogenic climate change? And that it is going to be an increasing problem?
Whether we mitigate with infrastructure or attempt to limit emissions it is going to be costly.
The impact on the anthropocene from keeping the UK's coal stations running a while longer whilst we transitioned to sustainable green energy would have been absolubtely MINUTE...
China's going to sh*t on humanity's head regardless of what we do.
We could reach Net Zero in 2045 and it still make jack-all difference to the climate because they are reckless, destructive, dystopian morons.
In the short term the gov't just needs to get people through this. But they also need to look at a massive expansion of internal energy however it is produced.
I'm not going to vote Tory so my view is irrelevant, but she sounds more interesting than I thought - quite Govian in her enthusiasm for thinking the unthinkable, with the upsides and downsides of that approach.
18 November 2015 – UK becomes first major country to announce coal phase-out
UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd announced that the UK would close all its coal-fired power plants by 2025, with proposals to replace coal power generation with gas and nuclear plants. The announcement came less than two weeks before the start of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which negotiated the Paris Agreement.
LOL
Who though now disputes anthropogenic climate change? And that it is going to be an increasing problem?
Whether we mitigate with infrastructure or attempt to limit emissions it is going to be costly.
The impact on the anthropocene from keeping the UK's coal stations running a while longer whilst we transitioned to sustainable green energy would have been absolubtely MINUTE...
China's going to sh*t on humanity's head regardless of what we do.
We could reach Net Zero in 2045 and it still make jack-all difference to the climate because they are reckless, destructive, dystopian morons.
In the short term the gov't just needs to get people through this. But they also need to look at a massive expansion of internal energy however it is produced.
IMV the key is as many different forms of energy generation as possible, without letting one get dominance. We also need to consider supply chains for equipment as well; for instance, if we were to go all solar (ha!), then many of the panels are made in China...
In fact, how much electrical equipment is made in the UK? Just Brush at Loughborough?
The vast majority of our sub nuclear reactor work is done in Derby. The small reactors will also be designed and manufactured in Derby.
They haven't chosen the site for the SMR factory yet but none of potential ones are in Derbyshire. Regular Truss watchers will not be surprised to hear that she opened her stupid fucking mouth without knowing what she was talking about.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
What a sad story. A single old person, living in a big or old house, is going to be terribly affected by the utility bills. Let’s hope she can find some way through, by moving in with a friend or relative, or by living in one room for the winter.
From a political point of view, there’s going to be an awful lot of people with such stories, and the press will love printing them. Government needs to have a communication strategy, around how these people can find ways to work through the winter. It requires a war-time mentality from everyone, because a large part of the disruption is being caused by a war.
Difficult to have a "we're all in this together" mentality after the Downing Street parties and decorating.
I’m not quite sure how that follows. There will be a different Prime Minister, and we are talking about saving energy, which the government will be trying to do themselves, as much as the rest of us.
(It’s also why I really dislike the way ‘parties’ were reported in the press. The gross exaggeration of what actually took place, has been detrimental to societal cohesion).
On your last point, I think that the Prime Minister breaking the draconian rules that his government had imposed on the rest of us was somewhat more detrimental to societal cohesion.
"Societal cohesion" is one of those irregular nouns, which behind closed doors is synonymous with "respect for authority". We need a damned good fall in it.
18 November 2015 – UK becomes first major country to announce coal phase-out
UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd announced that the UK would close all its coal-fired power plants by 2025, with proposals to replace coal power generation with gas and nuclear plants. The announcement came less than two weeks before the start of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which negotiated the Paris Agreement.
LOL
Gas is probably the cleanest fossil fuel there is.
To be honest, I don't blame them for that - as a 15-20 year fix. I do blame them for killing all gas storage, and can-kicking on new nuclear, and assuming the gas market would always remain JIT, cheap and liquid.
JIT and cheap was certainly assuming too much, but I'd be surprised if the gas market switches to solids any time soon.
Just because she said "here in Derbyshire" it doesn't necessarily mean the "here" referred to Derbyshire. "Here" could be the UK, "in Derbyshire" narrowing it down
She probably did forget where she was, but those three words don't prove it.
Whether or not there is a comma to be understood, it's still very ambiguous, and if this were Mr Biden the PB conservatives would be all over him.
"Truss said something ambiguous that might have been a mistake" is rather weak sauce.
Truss must be really confident her lead is true and unassailable to defend energy company profits at this point in time.
I mean it's when they have record or near record profits at such a time that irritates people, not merely that they profit, since it looks like more then just passing on the costs of rises.
Eahbal's point about how it feels re losses, even if there are reasons it works out this way in timing, makes it a weird hill to climb up for her. She could have waffled it.
Maybe we'll get economic sanctions, and even conflicts, in future generated by ecocide rather than genocide.
I could see the world throttling China with sanctions or, in-extremis even occupying/destroying coal plants for renegade states (although obvs not China)
“As energy prices spiral, this unfair prepayment premium must end. Labour would make sure that no-one pays over the odds for the same gas and electricity that everyone else gets, as well as taking broader action to help people manage their bills over the winter.”
She added: “We’re in the midst of an energy emergency that is only going to get worse."
It is understood Labour would eliminate the gap between the two price caps and reimburse energy companies for the difference over the winter, estimated to cost around £113 million between October and March.
This would be paid for through a strengthened windfall tax on oil and gas companies, which the opposition claims currently has a “loophole” which allows energy giants to exploit it in order to pay less tax.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
18 November 2015 – UK becomes first major country to announce coal phase-out
UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd announced that the UK would close all its coal-fired power plants by 2025, with proposals to replace coal power generation with gas and nuclear plants. The announcement came less than two weeks before the start of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which negotiated the Paris Agreement.
LOL
Who though now disputes anthropogenic climate change? And that it is going to be an increasing problem?
Whether we mitigate with infrastructure or attempt to limit emissions it is going to be costly.
The impact on the anthropocene from keeping the UK's coal stations running a while longer whilst we transitioned to sustainable green energy would have been absolubtely MINUTE...
China's going to sh*t on humanity's head regardless of what we do.
We could reach Net Zero in 2045 and it still make jack-all difference to the climate because they are reckless, destructive, dystopian morons.
Looking it up, China's plan is for peak emissions in 2030 and net zero in 2060. In case you say the whole thing is bullshit, their renewables build-out is pretty insanely fast, and they're building nuclear at a rate of knots as well.
Like everyone else they're balancing the need to reduce emissions with economic development, and as they're still in the catch-up phase they're obviously growing their economy much faster than mature western economies, so their power usage goes up every year. You can definitely criticize them for being too slow to transition, but it's not accurate to talk as if the west are doing all the work and the Chinese are doing nothing.
I'm not going to vote Tory so my view is irrelevant, but she sounds more interesting than I thought - quite Govian in her enthusiasm for thinking the unthinkable, with the upsides and downsides of that approach.
One clear difference from Johnson is that she is not lazy, the other big difference is her apparent lack of emotional connection to people.
I can see her running quite a campaign against The Four Olds.
“As energy prices spiral, this unfair prepayment premium must end. Labour would make sure that no-one pays over the odds for the same gas and electricity that everyone else gets, as well as taking broader action to help people manage their bills over the winter.”
She added: “We’re in the midst of an energy emergency that is only going to get worse."
It is understood Labour would eliminate the gap between the two price caps and reimburse energy companies for the difference over the winter, estimated to cost around £113 million between October and March.
This would be paid for through a strengthened windfall tax on oil and gas companies, which the opposition claims currently has a “loophole” which allows energy giants to exploit it in order to pay less tax.
Less that 4% of our energy from wind at the moment. Hot, dry and still. Presumably solar will be performing exceptionally but we are burning 56% gas right now which is way too high for comfort.
Don’t ever fall for the lie that Royal Family are good for the economy.
Britain’s economy contracted by 0.1% in the three months to June, according to official figures that revealed the weakening outlook for the UK, which is expected to enter a recession later this year.
The Office for National Statistics said two bank holidays to celebrate the Queen’s jubilee contributed to a 0.6% fall in output in June alone.
Back in 1981 I was legally obliged to give every ungrateful employee a day's extra holiday pay to celebrate Chaz'n'Di's nuptials. I naturally assumed I'd get it all back when they divorced. Still waiting...
Truss must be really confident her lead is true and unassailable to defend energy company profits at this point in time.
I mean it's when they have record or near record profits at such a time that irritates people, not merely that they profit, since it looks like more then just passing on the costs of rises.
Yes, but there's also a long-game here.
BP and Shell are spearheading our ambitions for carbon capture, blue and green hydrogen, energy storage, and renewables, and have the engineering skills and financial depth to pull it off, so a knee-jerk response will have consequences.
Boris Johnson is taking legal advice over a privileges committee investigation as those close to him accept it is a “foregone conclusion” that he will be found in contempt of parliament.
The prime minister is fighting to save his seat by arguing for a lenient punishment that would avoid a recall petition. A petition could result in his leaving the Commons only weeks after being pushed out of Downing Street.
Some of Johnson’s senior team have all but given up hope of escaping censure after the committee of MPs who will decide his fate concluded that he did not have to have knowingly misled the Commons to be found in contempt.
Allies of the prime minister have attempted to argue that this means the process is “rigged”, with loyalists such as Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, condemning the investigation as a “witch-hunt”.
The committee hit back yesterday, criticising attempts to “undermine” and “subvert” the process and “intimidate” members. Harriet Harman, the Labour MP who is chairing the committee during the inquiry, and the Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin wrote in The Times Red Box: “There have been unfounded allegations about ‘goalposts being moved’ and ‘rules changed’. But this is inaccurate.
The MP's can't really come to any other conclusion.
The drinking at 10 Downing Street doesn't bother me much. The endless lying does.
I'm not sure the Committee is heading for a decisive endgame. He obviously misled Parliament, and has I think conceded as much, but said it was unintentional. Harman and Jenkin in turn concede that if they find lack of intention that will be relevant to the more serious issues. They may end up simply saying he should formally apologise.
Less that 4% of our energy from wind at the moment. Hot, dry and still. Presumably solar will be performing exceptionally but we are burning 56% gas right now which is way too high for comfort.
Wind and solar are generally complementary like ice cream and hot drinks.
'In the next 60 seconds I'm going to raise £20bn for you.' This caller amazes Nick Ferrari with tax proposals that could be enacted 'tomorrow' to help Brits with the cost of living. @NickFerrariLBC
To win over the Mail Truss has said she will scrap Sunak's NI rise. She will stick to her low tax, economically Thatcherite agenda by not putting a windfall tax on the energy companies and pushing tax cuts to keep bills down rather than the subsidies Sunak prefers.
Expect a Truss government to be the most economically rightwing and Thatcherite government we have had since Thatcher herself. A government committed to low tax and privatisation not nationalisation
18 November 2015 – UK becomes first major country to announce coal phase-out
UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd announced that the UK would close all its coal-fired power plants by 2025, with proposals to replace coal power generation with gas and nuclear plants. The announcement came less than two weeks before the start of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which negotiated the Paris Agreement.
LOL
Who though now disputes anthropogenic climate change? And that it is going to be an increasing problem?
Whether we mitigate with infrastructure or attempt to limit emissions it is going to be costly.
The impact on the anthropocene from keeping the UK's coal stations running a while longer whilst we transitioned to sustainable green energy would have been absolubtely MINUTE...
China's going to sh*t on humanity's head regardless of what we do.
We could reach Net Zero in 2045 and it still make jack-all difference to the climate because they are reckless, destructive, dystopian morons.
Looking it up, China's plan is for peak emissions in 2030 and net zero in 2060. In case you say the whole thing is bullshit, their renewables build-out is pretty insanely fast, and they're building nuclear at a rate of knots as well.
Like everyone else they're balancing the need to reduce emissions with economic development, and as they're still in the catch-up phase they're obviously growing their economy much faster than mature western economies, so their power usage goes up every year. You can definitely criticize them for being too slow to transition, but it's not accurate to talk as if the west are doing all the work and the Chinese are doing nothing.
I am criticising them for being too slow to transition.
Xi committed to phasing down coal from 2026 - four years time. I hope that proves to be right.
To win over the Mail Truss has said she will scrap Sunak's NI rise. She will stick to her low tax, economically Thatcherite agenda by not putting a windfall tax on the energy companies and pushing tax cuts to keep bills down rather than the subsidies Sunak prefers.
Expect a Truss government to be the most economically rightwing and Thatcherite government we have had since Thatcher herself. A government committed to low tax and privatisation not nationalisation
None of this is what the Red Wall wants. And I am not sure it is what the Blue Wall now wants either.
I simply cannot see how she wins a majority on this platform.
Boris Johnson is taking legal advice over a privileges committee investigation as those close to him accept it is a “foregone conclusion” that he will be found in contempt of parliament.
The prime minister is fighting to save his seat by arguing for a lenient punishment that would avoid a recall petition. A petition could result in his leaving the Commons only weeks after being pushed out of Downing Street.
Some of Johnson’s senior team have all but given up hope of escaping censure after the committee of MPs who will decide his fate concluded that he did not have to have knowingly misled the Commons to be found in contempt.
Allies of the prime minister have attempted to argue that this means the process is “rigged”, with loyalists such as Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, condemning the investigation as a “witch-hunt”.
The committee hit back yesterday, criticising attempts to “undermine” and “subvert” the process and “intimidate” members. Harriet Harman, the Labour MP who is chairing the committee during the inquiry, and the Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin wrote in The Times Red Box: “There have been unfounded allegations about ‘goalposts being moved’ and ‘rules changed’. But this is inaccurate.
The MP's can't really come to any other conclusion.
The drinking at 10 Downing Street doesn't bother me much. The endless lying does.
Boris and his supporters are acting like anyone subject to complaint who has no remorse - by slamming the process and the participants so thoroughly right from the start (and causing delays by getting lawyers involved) theyll then point to their own comments about the bias as proof of bias. From a parish councillor to John Bercow it's very transparent and cliche. Perhaps the committee will help out by foing something untoward, but that wouldn't change the accusations one iota.
For what it's worth if its misleading rather than inadvertent misleading perhaps censure will be lower than a recall. If it isnt I can see Truss doing a Paterson and seeking to get around it - her allies are already lining up to make the same ignorant criticisms about unfairness of the process, with the obvious view that any allegation and thus any process is itself a witch hunt.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
That is quite difficult though. My dad is 96. Still lives alone in his house. Admittedly just a small semi detached, so fuel costs not an issue, but he shouldn't be there. Can't get him to move out. He should have been in sheltered housing a decade ago. Stubborn doesn't cover it. Doesn't eat properly, can't wash properly, stairs to negotiate. Won't move.
18 November 2015 – UK becomes first major country to announce coal phase-out
UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd announced that the UK would close all its coal-fired power plants by 2025, with proposals to replace coal power generation with gas and nuclear plants. The announcement came less than two weeks before the start of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which negotiated the Paris Agreement.
LOL
Who though now disputes anthropogenic climate change? And that it is going to be an increasing problem?
Whether we mitigate with infrastructure or attempt to limit emissions it is going to be costly.
The impact on the anthropocene from keeping the UK's coal stations running a while longer whilst we transitioned to sustainable green energy would have been absolubtely MINUTE...
China's going to sh*t on humanity's head regardless of what we do.
We could reach Net Zero in 2045 and it still make jack-all difference to the climate because they are reckless, destructive, dystopian morons.
Indeed, as global carbon emissions per head decline in China they are still increasing. Ironically using more electricity for aircon as yet another heatwave there
Boris Johnson is taking legal advice over a privileges committee investigation as those close to him accept it is a “foregone conclusion” that he will be found in contempt of parliament.
The prime minister is fighting to save his seat by arguing for a lenient punishment that would avoid a recall petition. A petition could result in his leaving the Commons only weeks after being pushed out of Downing Street.
Some of Johnson’s senior team have all but given up hope of escaping censure after the committee of MPs who will decide his fate concluded that he did not have to have knowingly misled the Commons to be found in contempt.
Allies of the prime minister have attempted to argue that this means the process is “rigged”, with loyalists such as Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, condemning the investigation as a “witch-hunt”.
The committee hit back yesterday, criticising attempts to “undermine” and “subvert” the process and “intimidate” members. Harriet Harman, the Labour MP who is chairing the committee during the inquiry, and the Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin wrote in The Times Red Box: “There have been unfounded allegations about ‘goalposts being moved’ and ‘rules changed’. But this is inaccurate.
The MP's can't really come to any other conclusion.
The drinking at 10 Downing Street doesn't bother me much. The endless lying does.
He'd probably still be in office were it not for the Covid parties, IMHO: people don't care too much about politicians indiscretions - they think they're all at it - but they do care about one rule applying to them and another to everyone else when they couldn't mourn their dead relatives, or see their sick loved ones.
That was the straw that broke the camel's back. The fact he still doesn't understand why that was such a massive issue, and learnt nothing from it in terms of subsequently modifying his behaviour, explains why he had to go.
Just because she said "here in Derbyshire" it doesn't necessarily mean the "here" referred to Derbyshire. "Here" could be the UK, "in Derbyshire" narrowing it down
She probably did forget where she was, but those three words don't prove it.
Whether or not there is a comma to be understood, it's still very ambiguous, and if this were Mr Biden the PB conservatives would be all over him.
"Truss said something ambiguous that might have been a mistake" is rather weak sauce.
Politicians get very uppity about people 'misrepresenting' them even when they are directly quoted, calling it slurs even, Truss has done so in effect, so they get less sympathy from me about people making use of potential errors of ambiguity.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
What a sad story. A single old person, living in a big or old house, is going to be terribly affected by the utility bills. Let’s hope she can find some way through, by moving in with a friend or relative, or by living in one room for the winter.
From a political point of view, there’s going to be an awful lot of people with such stories, and the press will love printing them. Government needs to have a communication strategy, around how these people can find ways to work through the winter. It requires a war-time mentality from everyone, because a large part of the disruption is being caused by a war.
Difficult to have a "we're all in this together" mentality after the Downing Street parties and decorating.
I’m not quite sure how that follows. There will be a different Prime Minister, and we are talking about saving energy, which the government will be trying to do themselves, as much as the rest of us.
(It’s also why I really dislike the way ‘parties’ were reported in the press. The gross exaggeration of what actually took place, has been detrimental to societal cohesion).
More than 126 fines were issued.
You have no idea the anger in this country that moments after telling us not to go out and meet our friends and loved ones the PM and his staff were getting suitcases full of booze and getting sloshed.
How to illustrate my point for me.
The event in question was a few dozen staffers sitting outside in the garden at their workplace for an hour, with the boss turning up to thank them for their extraordinary efforts in dealing with a national emergency.
Describing it as “…suitcases full of booze and getting sloshed” is part of the problem, and why the public reaction was as it was.
But suitcases were of booze.
Again you miss the hypocrisy angle, my father has several colleagues and friends who worked for the NHS during the pandemic, on Christmas Day 2020 they planned to have a Christmas meal at the hospital they were working in during their lunch.
They were told they couldn't and they realised it would look bad.
So don't give me the bullshit about 'extraordinary efforts in dealing with a national emergency', if Doctors and nurses weren't allowed to do it, then neither should Downing Street staff.
Also remember on the very day the DfE were threatening schools with court action for closing early due to staff shortages, they were having a boozy party of their own.
They were unpopular in education before, because they're thick, arrogant, complacent and rude.
Since then, they're so hated that literally nobody has a kind word to say for them.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
Don't be horrible. Too large for one don't mean huge, most people at 80 simply don't have it in them to move house of their own volition, and the helpful neighbours are a knockdown argument. You can't move house and build a brand new support group just like that.
To win over the Mail Truss has said she will scrap Sunak's NI rise. She will stick to her low tax, economically Thatcherite agenda by not putting a windfall tax on the energy companies and pushing tax cuts to keep bills down rather than the subsidies Sunak prefers.
Expect a Truss government to be the most economically rightwing and Thatcherite government we have had since Thatcher herself. A government committed to low tax and privatisation not nationalisation
I knew you'd be won over before too long to my view that the "Clown is dead, long live the Lady Clown".
Truss must be really confident her lead is true and unassailable to defend energy company profits at this point in time.
I mean it's when they have record or near record profits at such a time that irritates people, not merely that they profit, since it looks like more then just passing on the costs of rises.
Yes, but there's also a long-game here.
BP and Shell are spearheading our ambitions for carbon capture, blue and green hydrogen, energy storage, and renewables, and have the engineering skills and financial depth to pull it off, so a knee-jerk response will have consequences.
But they will do those things anyway. We are talking about long term investment strategies which will generate them hundreds of billions in profits. They are hardly going to scrap all of that because of a one-off winter where they had to take a hit due to insane market conditions.
Let's setup a state energy company which people on low incomes and those struggling to afford bills, can switch to over the winter and next few months.
We can fund it using a tax on the large energy companies.
To win over the Mail Truss has said she will scrap Sunak's NI rise. She will stick to her low tax, economically Thatcherite agenda by not putting a windfall tax on the energy companies and pushing tax cuts to keep bills down rather than the subsidies Sunak prefers.
Expect a Truss government to be the most economically rightwing and Thatcherite government we have had since Thatcher herself. A government committed to low tax and privatisation not nationalisation
None of this is what the Red Wall wants. And I am not sure it is what the Blue Wall now wants either.
I simply cannot see how she wins a majority on this platform.
It's utterly insane unless she plans to cut things immediately (she can't changing NI rates during a tax year is such a mare it's only been done once before) and calls an election.
Because what any politician will know is that voters are unappreciative - and will quickly forget the pressies if things go bad.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
Don't be horrible. Too large for one don't mean huge, most people at 80 simply don't have it in them to move house of their own volition, and the helpful neighbours are a knockdown argument. You can't move house and build a brand new support group just like that.
Yep - she would need to buy in the support and that could easily cost more than the energy...
Boris Johnson is taking legal advice over a privileges committee investigation as those close to him accept it is a “foregone conclusion” that he will be found in contempt of parliament.
The prime minister is fighting to save his seat by arguing for a lenient punishment that would avoid a recall petition. A petition could result in his leaving the Commons only weeks after being pushed out of Downing Street.
Some of Johnson’s senior team have all but given up hope of escaping censure after the committee of MPs who will decide his fate concluded that he did not have to have knowingly misled the Commons to be found in contempt.
Allies of the prime minister have attempted to argue that this means the process is “rigged”, with loyalists such as Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, condemning the investigation as a “witch-hunt”.
The committee hit back yesterday, criticising attempts to “undermine” and “subvert” the process and “intimidate” members. Harriet Harman, the Labour MP who is chairing the committee during the inquiry, and the Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin wrote in The Times Red Box: “There have been unfounded allegations about ‘goalposts being moved’ and ‘rules changed’. But this is inaccurate.
The MP's can't really come to any other conclusion.
The drinking at 10 Downing Street doesn't bother me much. The endless lying does.
I'm not sure the Committee is heading for a decisive endgame. He obviously misled Parliament, and has I think conceded as much, but said it was unintentional. Harman and Jenkin in turn concede that if they find lack of intention that will be relevant to the more serious issues. They may end up simply saying he should formally apologise.
Quite so, though his apologies are always phony (his initial reactions and now defences are telling of his real view) and one extracted would be more so. He won't accept wrongdoing even if he uses words which imply it.
But in terms of censure it may not be as clear cut as people think.
Just because she said "here in Derbyshire" it doesn't necessarily mean the "here" referred to Derbyshire. "Here" could be the UK, "in Derbyshire" narrowing it down
She probably did forget where she was, but those three words don't prove it.
Whether or not there is a comma to be understood, it's still very ambiguous, and if this were Mr Biden the PB conservatives would be all over him.
"Truss said something ambiguous that might have been a mistake" is rather weak sauce.
.
Politicians get very uppity about people 'misrepresenting' them even when they are directly quoted, calling it slurs even, Truss has done so in effect, so they get less sympathy from me about people making use of potential errors of ambiguity.
Well sure, but this isn't a policy "misunderstanding"
I really don't see how "You might have claimed to be in Derbyshire" is in any way an effective attack on her.
No one can prove that she actually made a mistake. And even if she did, so what?
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
I have quite a lot of sympathy with the poor lady. Being a house in which she brought up the children, lived mostly happily with her husband for many years and wants to leave something to her grandchildren. And worse, probably has no one with whom she can discuss things sensibly!
To win over the Mail Truss has said she will scrap Sunak's NI rise. She will stick to her low tax, economically Thatcherite agenda by not putting a windfall tax on the energy companies and pushing tax cuts to keep bills down rather than the subsidies Sunak prefers.
Expect a Truss government to be the most economically rightwing and Thatcherite government we have had since Thatcher herself. A government committed to low tax and privatisation not nationalisation
I thought that you might come round to Truss!
Borrowing to fund tax cuts is not Thatcherite though. Thatcher is a blank canvas for people to project their right wing fantasies on, but she initially put up taxes (VAT from 8% to 15% for example) to squeeze inflation before tax cuts followed.
She also had two windfalls not available to Truss in North Sea Oil and Privatisation, and far lower pensions and health costs.
Cutting pensions and the NHS is unlikely to be a vote winner with the Tory voting demographic.
Boris Johnson is taking legal advice over a privileges committee investigation as those close to him accept it is a “foregone conclusion” that he will be found in contempt of parliament.
The prime minister is fighting to save his seat by arguing for a lenient punishment that would avoid a recall petition. A petition could result in his leaving the Commons only weeks after being pushed out of Downing Street.
Some of Johnson’s senior team have all but given up hope of escaping censure after the committee of MPs who will decide his fate concluded that he did not have to have knowingly misled the Commons to be found in contempt.
Allies of the prime minister have attempted to argue that this means the process is “rigged”, with loyalists such as Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, condemning the investigation as a “witch-hunt”.
The committee hit back yesterday, criticising attempts to “undermine” and “subvert” the process and “intimidate” members. Harriet Harman, the Labour MP who is chairing the committee during the inquiry, and the Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin wrote in The Times Red Box: “There have been unfounded allegations about ‘goalposts being moved’ and ‘rules changed’. But this is inaccurate.
The MP's can't really come to any other conclusion.
The drinking at 10 Downing Street doesn't bother me much. The endless lying does.
I'm not sure the Committee is heading for a decisive endgame. He obviously misled Parliament, and has I think conceded as much, but said it was unintentional. Harman and Jenkin in turn concede that if they find lack of intention that will be relevant to the more serious issues. They may end up simply saying he should formally apologise.
Perhaps so. There does seem to be a clear direction of travel though - two very senior politicians on a bipartisan platform to uphold he standards of the place they have sat in for 70 years.
The line of "he misled parliament but it was unintentional" has us believe the PM to be too stupid to understand his own rules and actions. He is many things but he is not stupid.
I can't see how Jenkin & Harman can give that credibility. As you say it is widely accepted that he misled parliament on a repeated basis, and they seem to want to hold him to account for it.
I doubt they will get the chance. He will resign his seat as soon as Mistress Truss installs her dungeon into Downing Street.
Truss must be really confident her lead is true and unassailable to defend energy company profits at this point in time.
I mean it's when they have record or near record profits at such a time that irritates people, not merely that they profit, since it looks like more then just passing on the costs of rises.
Yes, but there's also a long-game here.
BP and Shell are spearheading our ambitions for carbon capture, blue and green hydrogen, energy storage, and renewables, and have the engineering skills and financial depth to pull it off, so a knee-jerk response will have consequences.
Are they using their windfalls exclusively for reinvestment or are they rewarding the Directors and shareholders with their own unexpected and essentially unearned windfalls too?
I simply cannot see how she wins a majority on this platform.
I don't see how she makes it through the winter on this platform
Very sobering read from those notorious media lefties at... (Checks notes) Talk TV;
Some more reflections on our focus group for @TalkTV in Bury North. In all our recent discussions we've heard sobering stories about people's struggles with the cost of living. But what we heard from this group was a magnitude worse. (1/n)
But if Truss is elected next month, it's hard to see how the Conservatives get shot of her, absent a medical emergency. Changing PM mid-parliament for the third time in a row is already stretching the elastic of democracy to a dangerous degree. Raising and deposing a PM in a year with zero public input would surely be seen as taking the piss.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
That is quite difficult though. My dad is 96. Still lives alone in his house. Admittedly just a small semi detached, so fuel costs not an issue, but he shouldn't be there. Can't get him to move out. He should have been in sheltered housing a decade ago. Stubborn doesn't cover it. Doesn't eat properly, can't wash properly, stairs to negotiate. Won't move.
We're mid 40s but already have an eye on what we do when we head into can't cope territory. Our house is large and unsuitable for things like a stairlift. So we're likely to segment off the rear garden, build a retirement bungalow on it, then convert the house/bank into two houses to pay for retirement.
To win over the Mail Truss has said she will scrap Sunak's NI rise. She will stick to her low tax, economically Thatcherite agenda by not putting a windfall tax on the energy companies and pushing tax cuts to keep bills down rather than the subsidies Sunak prefers.
Expect a Truss government to be the most economically rightwing and Thatcherite government we have had since Thatcher herself. A government committed to low tax and privatisation not nationalisation
None of this is what the Red Wall wants. And I am not sure it is what the Blue Wall now wants either.
I simply cannot see how she wins a majority on this platform.
She will if it works. But I struggle to see how it will in the 2 years she will have given the massive problems coming our way.
And her being continuity Boris (in claim though not deed) will not stop his gang being unhelpful and disloyal as theyll say things were fine and not in recession when he was in office, outside Covid.
To win over the Mail Truss has said she will scrap Sunak's NI rise. She will stick to her low tax, economically Thatcherite agenda by not putting a windfall tax on the energy companies and pushing tax cuts to keep bills down rather than the subsidies Sunak prefers.
Expect a Truss government to be the most economically rightwing and Thatcherite government we have had since Thatcher herself. A government committed to low tax and privatisation not nationalisation
None of this is what the Red Wall wants. And I am not sure it is what the Blue Wall now wants either.
I simply cannot see how she wins a majority on this platform.
Whether its what the *-Wall wants or not, its the right thing to do.
Politician does right thing even when its unpopular, get criticised for not doing what people want. Politician does the wrong but popular thing, gets criticised for being populist.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
I have quite a lot of sympathy with the poor lady. Being a house in which she brought up the children, lived mostly happily with her husband for many years and wants to leave something to her grandchildren. And worse, probably has no one with whom she can discuss things sensibly!
Yes, she was clearly middle class and had financial and social assets to call on, so better off than many, but still deserves sympathy.
18 November 2015 – UK becomes first major country to announce coal phase-out
UK Energy Secretary Amber Rudd announced that the UK would close all its coal-fired power plants by 2025, with proposals to replace coal power generation with gas and nuclear plants. The announcement came less than two weeks before the start of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which negotiated the Paris Agreement.
LOL
Gas is probably the cleanest fossil fuel there is.
To be honest, I don't blame them for that - as a 15-20 year fix. I do blame them for killing all gas storage, and can-kicking on new nuclear, and assuming the gas market would always remain JIT, cheap and liquid.
Yes, the UK has got no economic resilience, which for an island nation seems a bit suicidal. Unfortunately when the healthcare service becomes a national religion governments of any stripe will cut costs to the bone elsewhere to protect the NHS and that means cutting away at economic resilience which requires state subsidies. Gas storage, energy development subsidies and even simple stuff like building more reservoirs requires state funding. It's a very easy thing to cut as well because it's £8-10bn per year for all of that which no one really notices anyway until it's too late.
Boris Johnson is taking legal advice over a privileges committee investigation as those close to him accept it is a “foregone conclusion” that he will be found in contempt of parliament.
The prime minister is fighting to save his seat by arguing for a lenient punishment that would avoid a recall petition. A petition could result in his leaving the Commons only weeks after being pushed out of Downing Street.
Some of Johnson’s senior team have all but given up hope of escaping censure after the committee of MPs who will decide his fate concluded that he did not have to have knowingly misled the Commons to be found in contempt.
Allies of the prime minister have attempted to argue that this means the process is “rigged”, with loyalists such as Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, condemning the investigation as a “witch-hunt”.
The committee hit back yesterday, criticising attempts to “undermine” and “subvert” the process and “intimidate” members. Harriet Harman, the Labour MP who is chairing the committee during the inquiry, and the Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin wrote in The Times Red Box: “There have been unfounded allegations about ‘goalposts being moved’ and ‘rules changed’. But this is inaccurate.
The MP's can't really come to any other conclusion.
The drinking at 10 Downing Street doesn't bother me much. The endless lying does.
Boris and his supporters are acting like anyone subject to complaint who has no remorse - by slamming the process and the participants so thoroughly right from the start (and causing delays by getting lawyers involved) theyll then point to their own comments about the bias as proof of bias. From a parish councillor to John Bercow it's very transparent and cliche. Perhaps the committee will help out by foing something untoward, but that wouldn't change the accusations one iota.
For what it's worth if its misleading rather than inadvertent misleading perhaps censure will be lower than a recall. If it isnt I can see Truss doing a Paterson and seeking to get around it - her allies are already lining up to make the same ignorant criticisms about unfairness of the process, with the obvious view that any allegation and thus any process is itself a witch hunt.
Should be advertent misleading. Thanks autocorrect.
To win over the Mail Truss has said she will scrap Sunak's NI rise. She will stick to her low tax, economically Thatcherite agenda by not putting a windfall tax on the energy companies and pushing tax cuts to keep bills down rather than the subsidies Sunak prefers.
Expect a Truss government to be the most economically rightwing and Thatcherite government we have had since Thatcher herself. A government committed to low tax and privatisation not nationalisation
There is NOTHING Thatcherite about borrowing to fund tax cuts. Literally nothing. Mistress Truss may play lets pretend Thatcher when not wearing her leather catwoman dom gear, but her policies are as far removed from Thatcher as it gets.
Let's setup a state energy company which people on low incomes and those struggling to afford bills, can switch to over the winter and next few months.
We can fund it using a tax on the large energy companies.
Let's just take stuff from full-time workers and give it to non-workers. Serves them right for being stupid enough to pay tax.
To be committed to privatisation for ideology's sake at a time like this is nuts.
It's time we had a grown up discussion away from "privatisation is always the best option because efficiency" and instead had a discussion about what ought to be in public hands and what not.
Railways clearly. Privatisation has failed on its own terms - and we are now paying private companies to run things in a way we tell them to, so money leaves our country and funds the French's for no tangible benefit at all.
Energy companies are causing people to become homeless or starve. A state provider should be available that is used in times of crisis to stop this. On a purely moral level the debt involved for the government is irrelevant, this is about human lives.
Water. The water companies have done a piss poor job, they either need a massive tax placed on them or they need to be stripped. I note Scotland's water supply is not privatised and I cannot find a single thing the English companies do better.
This is not ideological, this is about what is best for us all. I am not proposing nationalising BP, or BT, or EON, or the National Grid.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
Sympathetic or not, there will be many thousands in her situation, without the practical, emotional or financial wherewithal to deal with it.
The coming energy crunch is going to create massive upheavals in the lives of millions, and government will be judged on how they deal (or don't) with it. The way you feel about their plight isn't even a secondary consideration, in terms of the politics.
“As energy prices spiral, this unfair prepayment premium must end. Labour would make sure that no-one pays over the odds for the same gas and electricity that everyone else gets, as well as taking broader action to help people manage their bills over the winter.”
She added: “We’re in the midst of an energy emergency that is only going to get worse."
It is understood Labour would eliminate the gap between the two price caps and reimburse energy companies for the difference over the winter, estimated to cost around £113 million between October and March.
This would be paid for through a strengthened windfall tax on oil and gas companies, which the opposition claims currently has a “loophole” which allows energy giants to exploit it in order to pay less tax.
Reading local election results since Johnson resigned, there has been a slight pick up and a stiffening of the Conservative vote. Lib Dems appear to have peaked and starting to slip.
Truss must be really confident her lead is true and unassailable to defend energy company profits at this point in time.
I mean it's when they have record or near record profits at such a time that irritates people, not merely that they profit, since it looks like more then just passing on the costs of rises.
Yes, but there's also a long-game here.
BP and Shell are spearheading our ambitions for carbon capture, blue and green hydrogen, energy storage, and renewables, and have the engineering skills and financial depth to pull it off, so a knee-jerk response will have consequences.
Are they using their windfalls exclusively for reinvestment or are they rewarding the Directors and shareholders with their own unexpected and essentially unearned windfalls too?
P.S. The question was rhetorical.
Didn't Rishi devise a 'clever' windfall tax that they could avoid if they spent the money on investment in new capacity and so on?
To win over the Mail Truss has said she will scrap Sunak's NI rise. She will stick to her low tax, economically Thatcherite agenda by not putting a windfall tax on the energy companies and pushing tax cuts to keep bills down rather than the subsidies Sunak prefers.
Expect a Truss government to be the most economically rightwing and Thatcherite government we have had since Thatcher herself. A government committed to low tax and privatisation not nationalisation
None of this is what the Red Wall wants. And I am not sure it is what the Blue Wall now wants either.
I simply cannot see how she wins a majority on this platform.
It's utterly insane unless she plans to cut things immediately (she can't changing NI rates during a tax year is such a mare it's only been done once before) and calls an election.
Because what any politician will know is that voters are unappreciative - and will quickly forget the pressies if things go bad.
Indeed. It looks like a strong bet that 2022/23 at the least is going to feel like shit for a lot of people. How can she combat that feeling?
If she seeks to distract from it with EU squabbles and culture stuff we'll know she cannot.
There’s also: 1. A £650 one-off Cost of Living Payment for around 8 million households on means tested benefits 2. A one-off £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for over 8 million pensioner households to be paid alongside the Winter Fuel Payment 3. Payment of £150 for around 6 million people across the UK who receive certain disability benefits 4. £500 million increase and extension of the Household Support Fund
In total, this is planned to cost the government £37bn.
My question is, how much publicity have these schemes been given? Has there yet been, or is there planned to be, any public information advertising - both about the scheme itself, and more generally about how to reduce usage of electricity and gas over the winter, for example by wearing more clothing and only heating occupied rooms, by moving Granny in with family etc?
As well as making sure people can pay their bills, we also need to incentivise people to use a lot less energy than normal. We know that price elasticity of demand for energy is very low, albeit not as low as for petrol, so there may need to be significant lifestyle changes to appreciably reduce demand.
Another issue, which has so far received litle publicity, is commercial users of electricity. Not just large industries, but offices and retail business that will be affected by much higher bills than expected. Will we see supermarkets turn off half their lights, or reduce the number of fridges and freezers? Will white-collar companies institute WFH over the winter, to enable them to close offices? The large users of electricity in factories etc, already have contracts with energy companies that pay them to shut down at times of peak demand, although usually only for a few hours at a time - how can this be extended to cover a period of several months over the winter, for non-essential industry?
I had an eighty something frail widow burst into tears in my clinic yesterday. Her house is 100 years old and expensive to heat, and larger than she now needs, but not only does she love it, but also gets a lot of practical support from her neighbours. Without those neighbours she couldn't live independently.
She tearfully ran through her sums in the consulting room as to the economies she would have to make, and the meagre savings that she had to run down. Every modest pleasure would be gone. I could do no more than listen sympathetically, and let the clinic fall behind.
She should move or take out an equity release loan on it. Poor old woman with a huge house that she struggles to heat. Finding it difficult to produce a tear.
I have quite a lot of sympathy with the poor lady. Being a house in which she brought up the children, lived mostly happily with her husband for many years and wants to leave something to her grandchildren. And worse, probably has no one with whom she can discuss things sensibly!
She cannot simply move because that will mean leaving behind the neighbours on whom she is already dependent. Equity release sounds promising but the fact she is discussing her plight in an outpatients clinic suggests a lack of financial sophistication. Dunno.
Let's setup a state energy company which people on low incomes and those struggling to afford bills, can switch to over the winter and next few months.
We can fund it using a tax on the large energy companies.
StateCo: Government owned, commercially funded and managed. Fulfils the state's strategic needs but is able to go out into the market. Use it to start building the UK's renewable energy platforms which it can then sell into other markets.
Basically a British EDF. We know the model works, we let other government's StateCo entities operate here, yet won't do the same because supposedly the state is incapable of doing such a thing.
We really are stupid in this country. Stubborn, blind, short-termist.
Boris Johnson is taking legal advice over a privileges committee investigation as those close to him accept it is a “foregone conclusion” that he will be found in contempt of parliament.
The prime minister is fighting to save his seat by arguing for a lenient punishment that would avoid a recall petition. A petition could result in his leaving the Commons only weeks after being pushed out of Downing Street.
Some of Johnson’s senior team have all but given up hope of escaping censure after the committee of MPs who will decide his fate concluded that he did not have to have knowingly misled the Commons to be found in contempt.
Allies of the prime minister have attempted to argue that this means the process is “rigged”, with loyalists such as Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, condemning the investigation as a “witch-hunt”.
The committee hit back yesterday, criticising attempts to “undermine” and “subvert” the process and “intimidate” members. Harriet Harman, the Labour MP who is chairing the committee during the inquiry, and the Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin wrote in The Times Red Box: “There have been unfounded allegations about ‘goalposts being moved’ and ‘rules changed’. But this is inaccurate.
The MP's can't really come to any other conclusion.
The drinking at 10 Downing Street doesn't bother me much. The endless lying does.
He'd probably still be in office were it not for the Covid parties, IMHO: people don't care too much about politicians indiscretions - they think they're all at it - but they do care about one rule applying to them and another to everyone else when they couldn't mourn their dead relatives, or see their sick loved ones.
That was the straw that broke the camel's back. The fact he still doesn't understand why that was such a massive issue, and learnt nothing from it in terms of subsequently modifying his behaviour, explains why he had to go.
The MPs really tried to help him. Gave him a warning and expected (for some reason) he'd learn from it. Then the next cock up hit and he behaved the same as ever.
I'm not going to vote Tory so my view is irrelevant, but she sounds more interesting than I thought - quite Govian in her enthusiasm for thinking the unthinkable, with the upsides and downsides of that approach.
The article reminds me of the classification of army officers by Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord.
I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage.
To win over the Mail Truss has said she will scrap Sunak's NI rise. She will stick to her low tax, economically Thatcherite agenda by not putting a windfall tax on the energy companies and pushing tax cuts to keep bills down rather than the subsidies Sunak prefers.
Expect a Truss government to be the most economically rightwing and Thatcherite government we have had since Thatcher herself. A government committed to low tax and privatisation not nationalisation
None of this is what the Red Wall wants. And I am not sure it is what the Blue Wall now wants either.
I simply cannot see how she wins a majority on this platform.
It's utterly insane unless she plans to cut things immediately (she can't changing NI rates during a tax year is such a mare it's only been done once before) and calls an election.
Because what any politician will know is that voters are unappreciative - and will quickly forget the pressies if things go bad.
Indeed. It looks like a strong bet that 2022/23 at the least is going to feel like shit for a lot of people. How can she combat that feeling?
If she seeks to distract from it with EU squabbles and culture stuff we'll know she cannot.
Yet again I say, if they want to go down the culture war hole they're welcome to it. People will say "I can't afford to eat, why are you bothering me about this". Labour will not believe their luck.
The next election will be about the economy. And the Tories will have 12 years of failure to defend, an uphill struggle just as Labour had to do in 2010.
I am developing a deep hatred of the Met Office and BBC Weather apps. They continuously forecast rain in a few days time, get me really excited, then as the forecast wet days get closer the symbol changes to bright sunshine. Why do they do this? It’s cruel.
Yesterday evening, BBC Weather was forecasting at least three rainy days in the next fortnight for Sidmouth. This morning, we’re back to bone dry sunshine for as far as the eye can see. What has changed in the last 12 hours?
It feels like it is never going to rain again. What if this is it? The start of a new, much drier, status quo? One day there was no beginning of the Ice Age, the next day there was. Why not the same now with permanent drought? One thing is sure. If it’s happening, we’re done for.
Bad sleep last night!
One would have a lot more respect for weather forecasters if their daily reports mentioned how well they did yesterday. They are like tipsters who don't publish their results.
If you do some digging around you will find their accuracy is about 80/85% which sounds ok until you realise that if you or I guessed the weather daily using common sense and the windows in our house we'd probably be right about 70/75% of the time.
Is the extra ten percent or so worth all the expense and science that goes into forecasting? For some, yes, and it's a difficult area well worth investigating, but some honesty from the forecasters is long overdue.
That is both sort of true and really unfair.
It's sort of true because a persistence forecast - the weather tomorrow will be the same as the weather today - is mathematically surprisingly accurate, and mathematically the models only surpassed such a forecast embarrassingly recently.
It's really unfair because it's the changes in the weather that are most consequential, and the models are now able to forecast, with amazing accuracy, the impact of storms before they are even a ripple in the jet stream, or record-breaking heatwaves a week in advance.
This is of huge benefit to society, even if it only looks like a small mathematical advantage over a persistence forecast.
Why do I know this? Because of publicly available information from the Met Office. Bit unfair to call them dishonest.
To be committed to privatisation for ideology's sake at a time like this is nuts.
It's time we had a grown up discussion away from "privatisation is always the best option because efficiency" and instead had a discussion about what ought to be in public hands and what not.
Railways clearly. Privatisation has failed on its own terms - and we are now paying private companies to run things in a way we tell them to, so money leaves our country and funds the French's for no tangible benefit at all.
Energy companies are causing people to become homeless or starve. A state provider should be available that is used in times of crisis to stop this. On a purely moral level the debt involved for the government is irrelevant, this is about human lives.
Water. The water companies have done a piss poor job, they either need a massive tax placed on them or they need to be stripped. I note Scotland's water supply is not privatised and I cannot find a single thing the English companies do better.
This is not ideological, this is about what is best for us all. I am not proposing nationalising BP, or BT, or EON, or the National Grid.
I thought that the French owning everything was one of the benefits of the Single Market
Let's setup a state energy company which people on low incomes and those struggling to afford bills, can switch to over the winter and next few months.
We can fund it using a tax on the large energy companies.
Many local authorities tried that over the past few years - it didn't work out well for them....
Truss must be really confident her lead is true and unassailable to defend energy company profits at this point in time.
I mean it's when they have record or near record profits at such a time that irritates people, not merely that they profit, since it looks like more then just passing on the costs of rises.
Yes, but there's also a long-game here.
BP and Shell are spearheading our ambitions for carbon capture, blue and green hydrogen, energy storage, and renewables, and have the engineering skills and financial depth to pull it off, so a knee-jerk response will have consequences.
Are they using their windfalls exclusively for reinvestment or are they rewarding the Directors and shareholders with their own unexpected and essentially unearned windfalls too?
P.S. The question was rhetorical.
Didn't Rishi devise a 'clever' windfall tax that they could avoid if they spent the money on investment in new capacity and so on?
Yes, I'd do that for all of the energy companies. Face a 50% tax or invest the money in renewables generation and keep the price cap low so they can't simply recoup the costs from punters. If they don't like it they can sell up and leave. My guess is that the shareholders will decide that £4bn in annual profit is just fine and pour money into renewable energy to cut their bills.
One of my colleagues pointed out that under the current system energy companies have no incentive to invest in increasing power generation as they benefit the most from tight energy supplies (as we've seen). Requiring a fixed proportion of revenue to be invested in new renewable energy generation is the only way forwards. Labour should seize the fucking day with Liz banging on about "greed is good". I bet they won't though.
To win over the Mail Truss has said she will scrap Sunak's NI rise. She will stick to her low tax, economically Thatcherite agenda by not putting a windfall tax on the energy companies and pushing tax cuts to keep bills down rather than the subsidies Sunak prefers.
Expect a Truss government to be the most economically rightwing and Thatcherite government we have had since Thatcher herself. A government committed to low tax and privatisation not nationalisation
None of this is what the Red Wall wants. And I am not sure it is what the Blue Wall now wants either.
I simply cannot see how she wins a majority on this platform.
Whether its what the *-Wall wants or not, its the right thing to do.
Politician does right thing even when its unpopular, get criticised for not doing what people want. Politician does the wrong but popular thing, gets criticised for being populist.
Can't win, can they?
They can - they can enact policies which voters will vote for.
You say "they don't like it, its unpopular, but we do it anyway because *-Wall voters are stupid."
Which means you lose the election. And the ideas you support die for another generation. I am unsure how this strategy benefits you! "Fuck the poor" is going to absolutely brutalise the Tory vote. No matter how much you support it.
To be committed to privatisation for ideology's sake at a time like this is nuts.
It's time we had a grown up discussion away from "privatisation is always the best option because efficiency" and instead had a discussion about what ought to be in public hands and what not.
Railways clearly. Privatisation has failed on its own terms - and we are now paying private companies to run things in a way we tell them to, so money leaves our country and funds the French's for no tangible benefit at all.
Energy companies are causing people to become homeless or starve. A state provider should be available that is used in times of crisis to stop this. On a purely moral level the debt involved for the government is irrelevant, this is about human lives.
Water. The water companies have done a piss poor job, they either need a massive tax placed on them or they need to be stripped. I note Scotland's water supply is not privatised and I cannot find a single thing the English companies do better.
This is not ideological, this is about what is best for us all. I am not proposing nationalising BP, or BT, or EON, or the National Grid.
Energy companies aren't causing people to become homeless or starve, the fact energy is expensive is raising costs, not the ownership model of the companies.
A state provider would be every bit as expensive, probably more as they end up inefficient and controlled by vested interests. What difference do you think a "state provider" would make?
Why do you think "state provided" = cheap? Without subsidies the state owned firm would be every bit as expensive as any other firm as its the wholesale price of energy which is expensive not the energy providers being expensive.
Railways we've discussed to death, but privatised water firms have done a fantastic job compared to what came before too. The rivers etc are massively cleaner now than they were pre-privatisation.
Let's setup a state energy company which people on low incomes and those struggling to afford bills, can switch to over the winter and next few months.
We can fund it using a tax on the large energy companies.
Many local authorities tried that over the past few years - it didn't work out well for them....
To win over the Mail Truss has said she will scrap Sunak's NI rise. She will stick to her low tax, economically Thatcherite agenda by not putting a windfall tax on the energy companies and pushing tax cuts to keep bills down rather than the subsidies Sunak prefers.
Expect a Truss government to be the most economically rightwing and Thatcherite government we have had since Thatcher herself. A government committed to low tax and privatisation not nationalisation
None of this is what the Red Wall wants. And I am not sure it is what the Blue Wall now wants either.
I simply cannot see how she wins a majority on this platform.
It's utterly insane unless she plans to cut things immediately (she can't changing NI rates during a tax year is such a mare it's only been done once before) and calls an election.
Because what any politician will know is that voters are unappreciative - and will quickly forget the pressies if things go bad.
Indeed. It looks like a strong bet that 2022/23 at the least is going to feel like shit for a lot of people. How can she combat that feeling?
If she seeks to distract from it with EU squabbles and culture stuff we'll know she cannot.
Don't you mean When
These issues aren't fixable so all there is left is distraction
Bozo is a very, very lucky General - his only issue is that he didn't see the best time to leave (March 2022 - Brexit done, Covid fixed - I need a break)
To win over the Mail Truss has said she will scrap Sunak's NI rise. She will stick to her low tax, economically Thatcherite agenda by not putting a windfall tax on the energy companies and pushing tax cuts to keep bills down rather than the subsidies Sunak prefers.
Expect a Truss government to be the most economically rightwing and Thatcherite government we have had since Thatcher herself. A government committed to low tax and privatisation not nationalisation
None of this is what the Red Wall wants. And I am not sure it is what the Blue Wall now wants either.
I simply cannot see how she wins a majority on this platform.
Whether its what the *-Wall wants or not, its the right thing to do.
Politician does right thing even when its unpopular, get criticised for not doing what people want. Politician does the wrong but popular thing, gets criticised for being populist.
Can't win, can they?
They can - they can enact policies which voters will vote for.
You say "they don't like it, its unpopular, but we do it anyway because *-Wall voters are stupid."
Which means you lose the election. And the ideas you support die for another generation. I am unsure how this strategy benefits you! "Fuck the poor" is going to absolutely brutalise the Tory vote. No matter how much you support it.
As I said "enact policies which voters will vote for" and you'll be slamming them for being populist.
Comments
Whether we mitigate with infrastructure or attempt to limit emissions it is going to be costly.
Probably something like the work done to turn the submarine reactor tech into the larger reactors built for the carriers, that the Americans did way back.
Come to think of it, the heavy integration between the US and U.K. on submarine reactor design - they shared the break through on natural convection at higher power levels - could this be coming from shared info on the larger reactors? If so, it would explain why RR are so confident and the apparently short timescales.
I've suddenly got a completely different attitude to the Qataris hosting the World Cup - if they keep exporting us gas, they can have it every year if they want.
Same for Norway. It should really be us sending the Christmas tree.
meanwhile..
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-orders-300-million-more-tons-of-coal-to-be-mined-a-year-qqj8h2r0t
Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield will vie to stage the event in May.
Twenty cities expressed an interest, the BBC said, and those not making the shortlist include London and Belfast.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-62496803
To be honest, I don't blame them for that - as a 15-20 year fix. I do blame them for killing all gas storage, and can-kicking on new nuclear, and assuming the gas market would always remain JIT, cheap and liquid.
The MP's can't really come to any other conclusion.
The drinking at 10 Downing Street doesn't bother me much. The endless lying does.
But, if gas dropped to 5% and then its price suddenly increased five-fold I think it would either be thrown out the market or so diluted by the 95% that overall prices barely increased.
We could reach Net Zero in 2045 and it still make jack-all difference to the climate because they are reckless, destructive, dystopian morons.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-62038190
Aren't these things going to be tied up planning appeals forever? Obviously, it's a given that they will be wildly more expensive than anticipated.
Early Blair is probably the only govt in my lifetime that did both well for a clear majority. And he became the most hated of all former PMs.
https://mobile.twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1557405932023324673
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/12/liz-truss-boris-johnson-tory-leadership-frontrunner-workaholic
I'm not going to vote Tory so my view is irrelevant, but she sounds more interesting than I thought - quite Govian in her enthusiasm for thinking the unthinkable, with the upsides and downsides of that approach.
In fact, how much electrical equipment is made in the UK? Just Brush at Loughborough?
I see you're still going for your record run of never being confused with a ray of sunshine.
I mean it's when they have record or near record profits at such a time that irritates people, not merely that they profit, since it looks like more then just passing on the costs of rises.
Eahbal's point about how it feels re losses, even if there are reasons it works out this way in timing, makes it a weird hill to climb up for her. She could have waffled it.
I could see the world throttling China with sanctions or, in-extremis even occupying/destroying coal plants for renegade states (although obvs not China)
She added: “We’re in the midst of an energy emergency that is only going to get worse."
It is understood Labour would eliminate the gap between the two price caps and reimburse energy companies for the difference over the winter, estimated to cost around £113 million between October and March.
This would be paid for through a strengthened windfall tax on oil and gas companies, which the opposition claims currently has a “loophole” which allows energy giants to exploit it in order to pay less tax.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/labour-cut-energy-bills-4million-27719334
Like everyone else they're balancing the need to reduce emissions with economic development, and as they're still in the catch-up phase they're obviously growing their economy much faster than mature western economies, so their power usage goes up every year. You can definitely criticize them for being too slow to transition, but it's not accurate to talk as if the west are doing all the work and the Chinese are doing nothing.
I can see her running quite a campaign against The Four Olds.
BP and Shell are spearheading our ambitions for carbon capture, blue and green hydrogen, energy storage, and renewables, and have the engineering skills and financial depth to pull it off, so a knee-jerk response will have consequences.
'In the next 60 seconds I'm going to raise £20bn for you.' This caller amazes Nick Ferrari with tax proposals that could be enacted 'tomorrow' to help Brits with the cost of living. @NickFerrariLBC
Get this man onto the Labour front bench.
Expect a Truss government to be the most economically rightwing and Thatcherite government we have had since Thatcher herself. A government committed to low tax and privatisation not nationalisation
Xi committed to phasing down coal from 2026 - four years time. I hope that proves to be right.
This leaves me with little confidence.
I simply cannot see how she wins a majority on this platform.
For what it's worth if its misleading rather than inadvertent misleading perhaps censure will be lower than a recall. If it isnt I can see Truss doing a Paterson and seeking to get around it - her allies are already lining up to make the same ignorant criticisms about unfairness of
the process, with the obvious view that any allegation and thus any process is itself a witch hunt.
That was the straw that broke the camel's back. The fact he still doesn't understand why that was such a massive issue, and learnt nothing from it in terms of subsequently modifying his behaviour, explains why he had to go.
They were unpopular in education before, because they're thick, arrogant, complacent and rude.
Since then, they're so hated that literally nobody has a kind word to say for them.
Well done, and welcome to Team Fizzy Lizzy.
We can fund it using a tax on the large energy companies.
Because what any politician will know is that voters are unappreciative - and will quickly forget the pressies if things go bad.
But in terms of censure it may not be as clear cut as people think.
I really don't see how "You might have claimed to be in Derbyshire" is in any way an effective attack on her.
No one can prove that she actually made a mistake. And even if she did, so what?
Borrowing to fund tax cuts is not Thatcherite though. Thatcher is a blank canvas for people to project their right wing fantasies on, but she initially put up taxes (VAT from 8% to 15% for example) to squeeze inflation before tax cuts followed.
She also had two windfalls not available to Truss in North Sea Oil and Privatisation, and far lower pensions and health costs.
Cutting pensions and the NHS is unlikely to be a vote winner with the Tory voting demographic.
The line of "he misled parliament but it was unintentional" has us believe the PM to be too stupid to understand his own rules and actions. He is many things but he is not stupid.
I can't see how Jenkin & Harman can give that credibility. As you say it is widely accepted that he misled parliament on a repeated basis, and they seem to want to hold him to account for it.
I doubt they will get the chance. He will resign his seat as soon as Mistress Truss installs her dungeon into Downing Street.
P.S. The question was rhetorical.
Some more reflections on our focus group for @TalkTV in Bury North. In all our recent discussions we've heard sobering stories about people's struggles with the cost of living. But what we heard from this group was a magnitude worse. (1/n)
https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1558001326491160577
But if Truss is elected next month, it's hard to see how the Conservatives get shot of her, absent a medical emergency. Changing PM mid-parliament for the third time in a row is already stretching the elastic of democracy to a dangerous degree. Raising and deposing a PM in a year with zero public input would surely be seen as taking the piss.
And her being continuity Boris (in claim though not deed) will not stop his gang being unhelpful and disloyal as theyll say things were fine and not in recession when he was in office, outside Covid.
Politician does right thing even when its unpopular, get criticised for not doing what people want.
Politician does the wrong but popular thing, gets criticised for being populist.
Can't win, can they?
It's time we had a grown up discussion away from "privatisation is always the best option because efficiency" and instead had a discussion about what ought to be in public hands and what not.
Railways clearly. Privatisation has failed on its own terms - and we are now paying private companies to run things in a way we tell them to, so money leaves our country and funds the French's for no tangible benefit at all.
Energy companies are causing people to become homeless or starve. A state provider should be available that is used in times of crisis to stop this. On a purely moral level the debt involved for the government is irrelevant, this is about human lives.
Water. The water companies have done a piss poor job, they either need a massive tax placed on them or they need to be stripped. I note Scotland's water supply is not privatised and I cannot find a single thing the English companies do better.
This is not ideological, this is about what is best for us all. I am not proposing nationalising BP, or BT, or EON, or the National Grid.
The coming energy crunch is going to create massive upheavals in the lives of millions, and government will be judged on how they deal (or don't) with it. The way you feel about their plight isn't even a secondary consideration, in terms of the politics.
If she seeks to distract from it with EU squabbles and culture stuff we'll know she cannot.
Basically a British EDF. We know the model works, we let other government's StateCo entities operate here, yet won't do the same because supposedly the state is incapable of doing such a thing.
We really are stupid in this country. Stubborn, blind, short-termist.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-state-medias-response-to-the-mar-a-lago-raid-is-a-spectacle-you-dont-want-to-miss
I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage.
Johnson was lazy, whilst Truss is hard working.
The next election will be about the economy. And the Tories will have 12 years of failure to defend, an uphill struggle just as Labour had to do in 2010.
It's sort of true because a persistence forecast - the weather tomorrow will be the same as the weather today - is mathematically surprisingly accurate, and mathematically the models only surpassed such a forecast embarrassingly recently.
It's really unfair because it's the changes in the weather that are most consequential, and the models are now able to forecast, with amazing accuracy, the impact of storms before they are even a ripple in the jet stream, or record-breaking heatwaves a week in advance.
This is of huge benefit to society, even if it only looks like a small mathematical advantage over a persistence forecast.
Why do I know this? Because of publicly available information from the Met Office. Bit unfair to call them dishonest.
Many local authorities tried that over the past few years - it didn't work out well for them....
One of my colleagues pointed out that under the current system energy companies have no incentive to invest in increasing power generation as they benefit the most from tight energy supplies (as we've seen). Requiring a fixed proportion of revenue to be invested in new renewable energy generation is the only way forwards. Labour should seize the fucking day with Liz banging on about "greed is good". I bet they won't though.
You say "they don't like it, its unpopular, but we do it anyway because *-Wall voters are stupid."
Which means you lose the election. And the ideas you support die for another generation. I am unsure how this strategy benefits you! "Fuck the poor" is going to absolutely brutalise the Tory vote. No matter how much you support it.
A state provider would be every bit as expensive, probably more as they end up inefficient and controlled by vested interests. What difference do you think a "state provider" would make?
Why do you think "state provided" = cheap? Without subsidies the state owned firm would be every bit as expensive as any other firm as its the wholesale price of energy which is expensive not the energy providers being expensive.
Railways we've discussed to death, but privatised water firms have done a fantastic job compared to what came before too. The rivers etc are massively cleaner now than they were pre-privatisation.
These issues aren't fixable so all there is left is distraction
Bozo is a very, very lucky General - his only issue is that he didn't see the best time to leave (March 2022 - Brexit done, Covid fixed - I need a break)