Latest Sunday Times polling shows support for Welsh Independence approaching 40%
..... amongst the English.
England would get on a lot better if her voters were pro-English rather than anti-everybody-else.
British Nationalism is damaging all the members of the Union.
Says the man who is anti-English above pro anything else. Good to see Gothenburg and PB’s resident hater of all things English up and at em this morning nevertheless.
But the current crop of Uber English Nationalists like Johnson and Truss feed Stuart and Malcolm's hatred of the English. I don't like English Nationalists either, and I am pro the Union.
What happened to Malc? He posted on 4 July that I was the most hated man ever and vanished. Hope he’s okay.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
So much bs in one comment.
"There's a problem, so I'll blame my usual suspects for the problem, and use my usual 'solutions' for it."
Where’s the BS?
Are you saying the energy market isn’t broken? Are you saying some organisations aren’t getting rich? Are you saying in wartime resources aren’t often nationalised? Are you saying the chancellor didn’t tell us to tighten our belts became of the war?
Mr Zahavi, that last? I thought that was the First Secrtary to the Treasury, ie Mr J?
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
FP spoke with a half-dozen experts to ask where the war in Ukraine is headed. Answers varied—from a complete Russian military collapse to a nuclear strike to a frozen conflict along the lines of nearby Georgia.
A bizarre mix of views there. It seems clear what Ukraine’s strategy is. Use its advantage in long range precision weapons to degrade Russian logistics and command & control, with concentrations of armour and troops if the opportunity presents. “Death by 1000 bee stings”. In the meantime focus not just on building up the complexity of arms and numbers of troops but the capability of those troops, with many thousands undergoing training from Western nations. Rather than a Blitzkrieg on Kherson, it’s instead going to be a gradual forced retreat, as we saw in the north of the country. And from Kherson, Crimea.
Meanwhile Russia’s only play seems to be to find cannon fodder wherever it can. Retired soldier associations, prisons, Syria, North Korea even! They’re not giving much by way of training. And the complexity of arms is getting worse not better. The occasional advance into a village in Donbas is being achieved by indiscriminate flattening of the territory using heavy artillery and then moving into a narrow salient. It’s not a recipe for strategic success, especially when there’s a time limit to the game, by how many shells (and barrels) you have in storage to play with.
As for the economic war, it’s true that oil sanctions have largely failed. But prices are coming down which will hurt Russian earning power. And gas to Europe has now gone for ever, no one will ever trust Russian supply again except at the margins. So it’s a one time poison pill for Europe that has already been swallowed. The only thing really that matters is whether the White House is lived in by someone who wants to keep the military aid going.
It is, as the headline says, a mix of views.
Brent crude futures have been edging up again for a while and went over $100 a barrel again yesterday. The Russians may be having to discount their prices a tad given who is willing to buy but low fuel prices are not amongst their problems.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
A better way might be to mandate - and you would have to mandate it - that a percentage of CEO / senior managements' incentive packages are tied in to the level of investment a firm makes. Creates the obvious issue of firms bending the rules to meet the target etc but, as a first step, it may concentrate some minds.
More generally, there is a wider issue here namely the mindset of U.K. asset managers - they prefer dividends over investment, short term over long term. Not a great recipe for long term investment.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Doesn't make much difference if we are importing though?
The energy market is not a free one anyway but a regulated one where govt rules set the price. We just need to change the govt rules and compensate distributors for it. A windfall tax on UK energy extraction can pay for part of that, the rest on the national credit card.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
You may not have noticed, but there is an energy crisis threatening the entire economy. Pension fund investment is of secondary importance until the energy crisis is sorted out.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
They seemed to manage ok on 2020 prices and profits. The pension funds will be fine.
FP spoke with a half-dozen experts to ask where the war in Ukraine is headed. Answers varied—from a complete Russian military collapse to a nuclear strike to a frozen conflict along the lines of nearby Georgia.
A bizarre mix of views there. It seems clear what Ukraine’s strategy is. Use its advantage in long range precision weapons to degrade Russian logistics and command & control, with concentrations of armour and troops if the opportunity presents. “Death by 1000 bee stings”. In the meantime focus not just on building up the complexity of arms and numbers of troops but the capability of those troops, with many thousands undergoing training from Western nations. Rather than a Blitzkrieg on Kherson, it’s instead going to be a gradual forced retreat, as we saw in the north of the country. And from Kherson, Crimea.
Meanwhile Russia’s only play seems to be to find cannon fodder wherever it can. Retired soldier associations, prisons, Syria, North Korea even! They’re not giving much by way of training. And the complexity of arms is getting worse not better. The occasional advance into a village in Donbas is being achieved by indiscriminate flattening of the territory using heavy artillery and then moving into a narrow salient. It’s not a recipe for strategic success, especially when there’s a time limit to the game, by how many shells (and barrels) you have in storage to play with.
As for the economic war, it’s true that oil sanctions have largely failed. But prices are coming down which will hurt Russian earning power. And gas to Europe has now gone for ever, no one will ever trust Russian supply again except at the margins. So it’s a one time poison pill for Europe that has already been swallowed. The only thing really that matters is whether the White House is lived in by someone who wants to keep the military aid going.
It is, as the headline says, a mix of views.
The aspect of the market that I would focus on if I was in government is the futures price for gas. It has been astonishingly volatile, movements of 10% or more in a day are not uncommon. This suggests to me that the price is largely being driven by speculators in the market rather than the underlying costs (which have barely changed) or demand (which has, if anything, fallen). Government intervention in the market there might have a disproportionate effect bursting the bubble and restoring prices to some level of sanity.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
One of these companies paid £700m in dividends to shareholders recently. Customers paid for those dividends. If they had a million customers that is £700 per customer per year.
Nationalised industries have no shareholders, therefore.......
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
Nothing is a bit harsh, think of all the energy saved by the multitude of strikes the government have delivered.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
How does nationalising utilities during a war with Putin appease Putin?
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
Nothing is a bit harsh, think of all the energy saved by the multitude of strikes the government have delivered.
If only there was some cost effective way of collecting the gases generated by the putrid rubbish now on the streets of Edinburgh.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
37 billion has and is already being spent and the present suggestion is 100 billion is needed for the next 12 months which effectively is the cost of the NHS in one year
This is the scale of the crisis but I do expect an announcement in the next fortnight to mitigate the damage including assistance for businesses
The government going awol is unforgivable and Truss has one opportunity to deal with this in September otherwise it is over for her
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
Yesterday you were saying it was fine for Truss to not declare her policy on support for dealing with rocketing energy bills.
Whilst the government policy is a vacuum support for other policies, like nationalisation, which is probably a distraction at best and a mistake at worst, will inevitably gather significant momentum.
She needs a policy on this, she needs people explaining why her solution is right doing media rounds now, not in a couple of weeks time.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
One of these companies paid £700m in dividends to shareholders recently. Customers paid for those dividends. If they had a million customers that is £700 per customer per year.
Nationalised industries have no shareholders, therefore.......
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
It looks like we might get rationing and power cuts anyway, but from the consumer as they have to decide whether to eat or to shiver!
On that basis, nationalisation holds little downside.
I am not sure that any of us here understand fully the true dynamics of the energy situation - a few perhaps do, but they have not as yet elucidated it in a way that I can understand.
That said, it is clear that the root of the issue is primarily political. If you read what is being said by the attendees of the World Economic Forum, in relation to 'Build back better', it reads like a manifesto for strategically shrinking the Western economies. The implications for all of us are fairly horrifying, which is why it's exciting that we're about the get a radically pro-growth PM. To want to grow Britain's economy, and grow it fast, is becoming heresy.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
Yesterday you were saying it was fine for Truss to not declare her policy on support for dealing with rocketing energy bills.
Whilst the government policy is a vacuum support for other policies, like nationalisation, which is probably a distraction at best and a mistake at worst, will inevitably gather significant momentum.
She needs a policy on this, she needs people explaining why her solution is right doing media rounds now, not in a couple of weeks time.
I did not say it was fine for Truss not to declare her policy, I said she could not declare a policy as she is Foreign Secretary and not PM
I have also been consistent in utterly condemning the conservative party and Brady in the absurd length of this leadership campaign
You subsidise domestic use from the excess profits from selling gas abroad.
You seem to assume that the likes of BP and Shell etc only make their money from North Sea revenues.
They are global companies where the North Sea os part of their portfolio.
If you are the head of BP and a UK gov says “we are going to nationalise you” do you 1, bend over and take it or 2, delist from London exchange and incorporate/list elsewhere?
If they exercise option 2 and the gov says “ok we are going to tax the crap out of you on North Sea revenue do you 1, bend over and take it or 2, close down your North Sea operations costing the UK hundreds of millions in potential tax and jobs with their associated tax revenues?
If you nationalise these companies it’s not some straight swap where the board is replaced by the gov and the profits go direct to the exchequer.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
Yesterday you were saying it was fine for Truss to not declare her policy on support for dealing with rocketing energy bills.
Whilst the government policy is a vacuum support for other policies, like nationalisation, which is probably a distraction at best and a mistake at worst, will inevitably gather significant momentum.
She needs a policy on this, she needs people explaining why her solution is right doing media rounds now, not in a couple of weeks time.
I did not say it was fine for Truss not to declare her policy, I said she could not declare a policy as she is Foreign Secretary and not PM
I have also been consistent in utterly condemning the conservative party and Brady in the absurd length of this leadership campaign
She has effectively won the contest already. Sunak has also given his proposals. Boris is not planning to do anything and agrees something needs to be done. No-one is going to complain that Truss gives her proposals on energy whilst she is Foreign Secretary and leadership candidate.
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
You are just making up spurious excuses for her inaction.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
Profit is a red herring. You're trying to turn a practical problem into a moral problem.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
Nothing is a bit harsh, think of all the energy saved by the multitude of strikes the government have delivered.
If only there was some cost effective way of collecting the gases generated by the putrid rubbish now on the streets of Edinburgh.
There is, it's called incineration/energy from waste. It's widely available, and does not put any more carbon in the air than letting the rubbish rot. We should be burning 100% of our non recyclable waste. We're on about 70 I believe. Lots more rubbish to burn.
One of these companies paid £700m in dividends to shareholders recently. Customers paid for those dividends. If they had a million customers that is £700 per customer per year.
Nationalised industries have no shareholders, therefore.......
they have no incentives to drive efficiencies?
Efficiency is not the issue here. The issue is out of control prices.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
It looks like we might get rationing and power cuts anyway, but from the consumer as they have to decide whether to eat or to shiver!
On that basis, nationalisation holds little downside.
Nationalising utilities in the 1980s was an ideological absurdity that former Conservative Prime Minister Harold McMillan considered tantamount to selling the family silver.
Another failure of the New Labour Government was their reluctance to renationalise.
When MPs had a free choice of several candidates, only 50 of them voted for Liz Truss as their first choice.
The latest word cloud for her has "untrustworthy" as the stand out word for her. By Tory party standards, this - presumably - is an improvement on "liar" for Johnson. It seems an odd direction of travel. But what do I know. I do not belong to the small union of elderly white Southern males which is what the Tory party now is.
Anyway, the sun is shining here, the sky is blue and it is the Millom & Broughton Agricultural Show. Husband is doing a stand for the local History Society where he is a bigwig and I must get ready to be supportive and, more importantly, look at the chickens and sheep and other agricultural implements which I am going to need if I am ever going to turn my wild rocky outcrop into something resembling a garden. Who knows? I may even have joined the WI by this afternoon!!
Incidentally, the wool sheared from sheep is largely - and stupidly - wasted. It makes fantastic wall insulation as well as rugs, blankets, knitting wool, cosy slippers, compost even, etc., and yet the price farmers are paid for it has dropped. We are so daft in this country turning our back on what we have to hand.
which is why it's exciting that we're about the get a radically pro-growth PM. To want to grow Britain's economy, and grow it fast, is fast becoming heresy.
I don't think it's heresy, I just don't believe anybody who claims to know how to do it. If it was was easy we'd already be doing it.
Exception: for the case of a country which is well behind the current standards on technology, modernisation, needs massive rebuilding, etc. There we have examples like post-war Japan and France, and 80s-90s China. Not trivial, or a lot more countries would have done it, but at least there's a roadmap. For a country like Britain in its current state? I'm very very sceptical.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
Profit is a red herring. You're trying to turn a practical problem into a moral problem.
I’ve done no such thing. This is already a moral and political problem. If people cannot‘practically’ afford to hear their homes, because prices are so high whilst because prices are high others are raking in cash that’s a moral and political problem.
The reality is that gas production from the North Sea is roughly 1/3rd of what it was as recently as 2000 and, without new fields, it is still declining rapidly with some forecasts indicating the current fields will be completely depleted by 2030.
Nationalisation therefore cannot possibly assist us because it simply cannot isolate or protect us from international prices. What we need to do is encourage further investment and exploration in the North Sea and also take steps so that we are less dependent on gas for energy production. We are doing a fair bit of the latter but we seem to think that doing the exact opposite is the answer to the first issue. It isn't.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
Yesterday you were saying it was fine for Truss to not declare her policy on support for dealing with rocketing energy bills.
Whilst the government policy is a vacuum support for other policies, like nationalisation, which is probably a distraction at best and a mistake at worst, will inevitably gather significant momentum.
She needs a policy on this, she needs people explaining why her solution is right doing media rounds now, not in a couple of weeks time.
I did not say it was fine for Truss not to declare her policy, I said she could not declare a policy as she is Foreign Secretary and not PM
I have also been consistent in utterly condemning the conservative party and Brady in the absurd length of this leadership campaign
Blaming Brady is just moving deck chairs on the Titanic. Johnson, Sunak and Truss could, as Martin Lewis has demanded put together a common policy weeks ago,
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
Yesterday you were saying it was fine for Truss to not declare her policy on support for dealing with rocketing energy bills.
Whilst the government policy is a vacuum support for other policies, like nationalisation, which is probably a distraction at best and a mistake at worst, will inevitably gather significant momentum.
She needs a policy on this, she needs people explaining why her solution is right doing media rounds now, not in a couple of weeks time.
I did not say it was fine for Truss not to declare her policy, I said she could not declare a policy as she is Foreign Secretary and not PM
I have also been consistent in utterly condemning the conservative party and Brady in the absurd length of this leadership campaign
She has effectively won the contest already. Sunak has also given his proposals. Boris is not planning to do anything and agrees something needs to be done. No-one is going to complain that Truss gives her proposals on energy whilst she is Foreign Secretary and leadership candidate.
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
You are just making up spurious excuses for her inaction.
Nothing spurious - Truss does not have a mandate to act yet and she has said help will be forthcoming
The one thing I assume each and everyone of us can agree is that this protracted leadership debate has been very damaging for the conservative party and for me extremely embarrassing
which is why it's exciting that we're about the get a radically pro-growth PM. To want to grow Britain's economy, and grow it fast, is fast becoming heresy.
I don't think it's heresy, I just don't believe anybody who claims to know how to do it. If it was was easy we'd already be doing it.
Exception: for the case of a country which is well behind the current standards on technology, modernisation, needs massive rebuilding, etc. There we have examples like post-war Japan and France, and 80s-90s China. Not trivial, or a lot more countries would have done it, but at least there's a roadmap. For a country like Britain in its current state? I'm very very sceptical.
'Peace, easy taxes, tolerable administration of justice' seems like a good place to start.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
It looks like we might get rationing and power cuts anyway, but from the consumer as they have to decide whether to eat or to shiver!
On that basis, nationalisation holds little downside.
Nationalising utilities in the 1980s was an ideological absurdity that former Conservative Prime Minister Harold McMillan considered tantamount to selling the family silver.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
Yesterday you were saying it was fine for Truss to not declare her policy on support for dealing with rocketing energy bills.
Whilst the government policy is a vacuum support for other policies, like nationalisation, which is probably a distraction at best and a mistake at worst, will inevitably gather significant momentum.
She needs a policy on this, she needs people explaining why her solution is right doing media rounds now, not in a couple of weeks time.
I did not say it was fine for Truss not to declare her policy, I said she could not declare a policy as she is Foreign Secretary and not PM
I have also been consistent in utterly condemning the conservative party and Brady in the absurd length of this leadership campaign
She has effectively won the contest already. Sunak has also given his proposals. Boris is not planning to do anything and agrees something needs to be done. No-one is going to complain that Truss gives her proposals on energy whilst she is Foreign Secretary and leadership candidate.
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
You are just making up spurious excuses for her inaction.
Nothing spurious - Truss does not have a mandate to act yet and she has said help will be forthcoming
The one thing I assume each and everyone of us can agree is that this protracted leadership debate has been very damaging for the conservative party and for me extremely embarrassing
If not spurious, then please address this:
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
The Telegraph is also not too keen on the career prospects of Grant Shapps, Mark Spencer, Greg Clark, George Eustice, Steve Barclay, Nigel Adams, Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Alok Sharma and Rishi Sunak.
There is no betting on the next Home Secretary that I can see, though I've not checked everywhere.
Gove and Sunak have already said they won't serve under Truss. Raab is likely to be a third as he's a close ally of both although I haven't seen him say it aloud.
Shapps is utterly unfit to be a minister: incompetent, arrogant and dishonest, including misleading the House. So I'm surprised Truss wouldn't want him. He might make her look almost up to the job.
Patel should have gone long ago for similar reasons (for 'misleading the House' read 'bullying her staff').
Barclay, Sharma and Spencer are hardly 'big beasts.'
I am surprised about Eustice, even allowing for Truss' appalling lack of judgment. I think it unlikely she will find anyone better suited to his current role where as far as I can judge he's been quietly effective, and given the shitstorm about to engulf agriculture through enormous fuel and fertiliser bills coupled to the ongoing disruption of the new trading reality it really isn't a good moment for a change there. Perhaps he just dared to tell her to her face once that she was talking nonsense.
JRM ought to be among those culled. He's a poor man's idea of what an aristocrat is (assuming the poor man has never met any aristocrats).
JRM is not in any sense an aristocrat. A parody of an extra in Brideshead Revisited, maybe.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
It looks like we might get rationing and power cuts anyway, but from the consumer as they have to decide whether to eat or to shiver!
On that basis, nationalisation holds little downside.
Nationalising utilities in the 1980s was an ideological absurdity that former Conservative Prime Minister Harold McMillan considered tantamount to selling the family silver.
You mean privatising.
De nationalising was what I meant to say, but thanks.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
Yesterday you were saying it was fine for Truss to not declare her policy on support for dealing with rocketing energy bills.
Whilst the government policy is a vacuum support for other policies, like nationalisation, which is probably a distraction at best and a mistake at worst, will inevitably gather significant momentum.
She needs a policy on this, she needs people explaining why her solution is right doing media rounds now, not in a couple of weeks time.
I did not say it was fine for Truss not to declare her policy, I said she could not declare a policy as she is Foreign Secretary and not PM
I have also been consistent in utterly condemning the conservative party and Brady in the absurd length of this leadership campaign
Blaming Brady is just moving deck chairs on the Titanic. Johnson, Sunak and Truss could, as Martin Lewis has demanded put together a common policy weeks ago,
You know that is impossible as Truss ad Sunak have very different proposals
When MPs had a free choice of several candidates, only 50 of them voted for Liz Truss as their first choice.
The latest word cloud for her has "untrustworthy" as the stand out word for her. By Tory party standards, this - presumably - is an improvement on "liar" for Johnson. It seems an odd direction of travel. But what do I know. I do not belong to the small union of elderly white Southern males which is what the Tory party now is.
Anyway, the sun is shining here, the sky is blue and it is the Millom & Broughton Agricultural Show. Husband is doing a stand for the local History Society where he is a bigwig and I must get ready to be supportive and, more importantly, look at the chickens and sheep and other agricultural implements which I am going to need if I am ever going to turn my wild rocky outcrop into something resembling a garden. Who knows? I may even have joined the WI by this afternoon!!
Incidentally, the wool sheared from sheep is largely - and stupidly - wasted. It makes fantastic wall insulation as well as rugs, blankets, knitting wool, cosy slippers, compost even, etc., and yet the price farmers are paid for it has dropped. We are so daft in this country turning our back on what we have to hand.
I have insulated outer walls in my Victorian stone built property with sheep's wool insulation. I am fully on board with you on this, but I'm not sure what policy makers can do to help sheep's wool insulation become more widespread - I did it myself and it's a lovely non itchy product to work with, and has made a huge difference.
which is why it's exciting that we're about the get a radically pro-growth PM. To want to grow Britain's economy, and grow it fast, is fast becoming heresy.
I don't think it's heresy, I just don't believe anybody who claims to know how to do it. If it was was easy we'd already be doing it.
'Peace, easy taxes, tolerable administration of justice' seems like a good place to start.
Those are all good things. I have zero expectation that they will result in fast economic growth from our current starting point and am suspicious of anybody who believes they will.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
While I’m unconvinced that nationalisation is the solution, you at least point out the scale of the problem.
Profits are a secondary concern (and might in any event be addressed by temporary windfall taxes).
Of far greater concern is that the market has for now ceased to function in any rational manner, and will on the one hand likely bankrupt many companies and individuals and impose immense hardship on many more, while on the other hand providing no incentive to reduce usage for those with contracts in place at lower prices.
Government has at best a month to come up with emergency measures to address that - having apparently not given it much thought up until now.
FP spoke with a half-dozen experts to ask where the war in Ukraine is headed. Answers varied—from a complete Russian military collapse to a nuclear strike to a frozen conflict along the lines of nearby Georgia.
A bizarre mix of views there. It seems clear what Ukraine’s strategy is. Use its advantage in long range precision weapons to degrade Russian logistics and command & control, with concentrations of armour and troops if the opportunity presents. “Death by 1000 bee stings”. In the meantime focus not just on building up the complexity of arms and numbers of troops but the capability of those troops, with many thousands undergoing training from Western nations. Rather than a Blitzkrieg on Kherson, it’s instead going to be a gradual forced retreat, as we saw in the north of the country. And from Kherson, Crimea.
Meanwhile Russia’s only play seems to be to find cannon fodder wherever it can. Retired soldier associations, prisons, Syria, North Korea even! They’re not giving much by way of training. And the complexity of arms is getting worse not better. The occasional advance into a village in Donbas is being achieved by indiscriminate flattening of the territory using heavy artillery and then moving into a narrow salient. It’s not a recipe for strategic success, especially when there’s a time limit to the game, by how many shells (and barrels) you have in storage to play with.
As for the economic war, it’s true that oil sanctions have largely failed. But prices are coming down which will hurt Russian earning power. And gas to Europe has now gone for ever, no one will ever trust Russian supply again except at the margins. So it’s a one time poison pill for Europe that has already been swallowed. The only thing really that matters is whether the White House is lived in by someone who wants to keep the military aid going.
So longs as the US and Poland are fully committed it should be possible. I know Americans have been understandably annoyed at shouldering the burden of keeping the peace in Europe but if the argument could be made that defeating Russia in Ukraine would allow the US to focus much more of its military capability in Asia that might work.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
Yesterday you were saying it was fine for Truss to not declare her policy on support for dealing with rocketing energy bills.
Whilst the government policy is a vacuum support for other policies, like nationalisation, which is probably a distraction at best and a mistake at worst, will inevitably gather significant momentum.
She needs a policy on this, she needs people explaining why her solution is right doing media rounds now, not in a couple of weeks time.
I did not say it was fine for Truss not to declare her policy, I said she could not declare a policy as she is Foreign Secretary and not PM
I have also been consistent in utterly condemning the conservative party and Brady in the absurd length of this leadership campaign
Blaming Brady is just moving deck chairs on the Titanic. Johnson, Sunak and Truss could, as Martin Lewis has demanded put together a common policy weeks ago,
You know that is impossible as Truss ad Sunak have very different proposals
Of course it is. Compromise could be reached. Truss, as far as I can see has projected no proposal, save for scrapping the NI increase, removing green levies and promising tax cuts for client voters.
The Telegraph is also not too keen on the career prospects of Grant Shapps, Mark Spencer, Greg Clark, George Eustice, Steve Barclay, Nigel Adams, Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Alok Sharma and Rishi Sunak.
There is no betting on the next Home Secretary that I can see, though I've not checked everywhere.
Gove and Sunak have already said they won't serve under Truss. Raab is likely to be a third as he's a close ally of both although I haven't seen him say it aloud.
Shapps is utterly unfit to be a minister: incompetent, arrogant and dishonest, including misleading the House. So I'm surprised Truss wouldn't want him. He might make her look almost up to the job.
Patel should have gone long ago for similar reasons (for 'misleading the House' read 'bullying her staff').
Barclay, Sharma and Spencer are hardly 'big beasts.'
I am surprised about Eustice, even allowing for Truss' appalling lack of judgment. I think it unlikely she will find anyone better suited to his current role where as far as I can judge he's been quietly effective, and given the shitstorm about to engulf agriculture through enormous fuel and fertiliser bills coupled to the ongoing disruption of the new trading reality it really isn't a good moment for a change there. Perhaps he just dared to tell her to her face once that she was talking nonsense.
JRM ought to be among those culled. He's a poor man's idea of what an aristocrat is (assuming the poor man has never met any aristocrats).
JRM is not in any sense an aristocrat. A parody of an extra in Brideshead Revisited, maybe.
He is a complete ar*e because the only thing that comes out of him is loads of shi......
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
Yesterday you were saying it was fine for Truss to not declare her policy on support for dealing with rocketing energy bills.
Whilst the government policy is a vacuum support for other policies, like nationalisation, which is probably a distraction at best and a mistake at worst, will inevitably gather significant momentum.
She needs a policy on this, she needs people explaining why her solution is right doing media rounds now, not in a couple of weeks time.
I did not say it was fine for Truss not to declare her policy, I said she could not declare a policy as she is Foreign Secretary and not PM
I have also been consistent in utterly condemning the conservative party and Brady in the absurd length of this leadership campaign
She has effectively won the contest already. Sunak has also given his proposals. Boris is not planning to do anything and agrees something needs to be done. No-one is going to complain that Truss gives her proposals on energy whilst she is Foreign Secretary and leadership candidate.
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
You are just making up spurious excuses for her inaction.
Nothing spurious - Truss does not have a mandate to act yet and she has said help will be forthcoming
The one thing I assume each and everyone of us can agree is that this protracted leadership debate has been very damaging for the conservative party and for me extremely embarrassing
If not spurious, then please address this:
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
That is a specific policy she has always supported
The present crisis requires a policy of huge magnitude that requires a PM and cabinet to agree and announce to the HOC
That will happen shortly and when it does, it will define whether Truss has a future
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
Profit is a red herring. You're trying to turn a practical problem into a moral problem.
I’ve done no such thing. This is already a moral and political problem. If people cannot‘practically’ afford to hear their homes, because prices are so high whilst because prices are high others are raking in cash that’s a moral and political problem.
So you would ration supply and force people not to heat their homes?
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
While I’m unconvinced that nationalisation is the solution, you at least point out the scale of the problem.
Profits are a secondary concern (and might in any event be addressed by temporary windfall taxes).
Of far greater concern is that the market has for now ceased to function in any rational manner, and will on the one hand likely bankrupt many companies and individuals and impose immense hardship on many more, while on the other hand providing no incentive to reduce usage for those with contracts in place at lower prices.
Government has at best a month to come up with emergency measures to address that - having apparently not given it much thought up until now.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
While I’m unconvinced that nationalisation is the solution, you at least point out the scale of the problem.
Profits are a secondary concern (and might in any event be addressed by temporary windfall taxes).
Of far greater concern is that the market has for now ceased to function in any rational manner, and will on the one hand likely bankrupt many companies and individuals and impose immense hardship on many more, while on the other hand providing no incentive to reduce usage for those with contracts in place at lower prices.
Government has at best a month to come up with emergency measures to address that - having apparently not given it much thought up until now.
Good post. If a market fails, it is the role of government to act. That also needs to be done in such a way that avoids a massive transfer of funds from the taxpayer into the producer. If that can be done without nationalisation that’s great.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
Yesterday you were saying it was fine for Truss to not declare her policy on support for dealing with rocketing energy bills.
Whilst the government policy is a vacuum support for other policies, like nationalisation, which is probably a distraction at best and a mistake at worst, will inevitably gather significant momentum.
She needs a policy on this, she needs people explaining why her solution is right doing media rounds now, not in a couple of weeks time.
I did not say it was fine for Truss not to declare her policy, I said she could not declare a policy as she is Foreign Secretary and not PM
I have also been consistent in utterly condemning the conservative party and Brady in the absurd length of this leadership campaign
She has effectively won the contest already. Sunak has also given his proposals. Boris is not planning to do anything and agrees something needs to be done. No-one is going to complain that Truss gives her proposals on energy whilst she is Foreign Secretary and leadership candidate.
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
You are just making up spurious excuses for her inaction.
Nothing spurious - Truss does not have a mandate to act yet and she has said help will be forthcoming
The one thing I assume each and everyone of us can agree is that this protracted leadership debate has been very damaging for the conservative party and for me extremely embarrassing
If not spurious, then please address this:
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
That is a specific policy she has always supported
The present crisis requires a policy of huge magnitude that requires a PM and cabinet to agree and announce to the HOC
That will happen shortly and when it does, it will define whether Truss has a future
When MPs had a free choice of several candidates, only 50 of them voted for Liz Truss as their first choice.
The latest word cloud for her has "untrustworthy" as the stand out word for her. By Tory party standards, this - presumably - is an improvement on "liar" for Johnson. It seems an odd direction of travel. But what do I know. I do not belong to the small union of elderly white Southern males which is what the Tory party now is.
Anyway, the sun is shining here, the sky is blue and it is the Millom & Broughton Agricultural Show. Husband is doing a stand for the local History Society where he is a bigwig and I must get ready to be supportive and, more importantly, look at the chickens and sheep and other agricultural implements which I am going to need if I am ever going to turn my wild rocky outcrop into something resembling a garden. Who knows? I may even have joined the WI by this afternoon!!
Incidentally, the wool sheared from sheep is largely - and stupidly - wasted. It makes fantastic wall insulation as well as rugs, blankets, knitting wool, cosy slippers, compost even, etc., and yet the price farmers are paid for it has dropped. We are so daft in this country turning our back on what we have to hand.
A lot of wool is wasted, as you say. However it’s a market, and there is no market value in a lot of it. Not all will make good knitting wool or blankets, and all needs processing. There are projects looking at insulation but there are other products, and again market forces. Sadly, a lot of wool will remain an unwanted byproduct, and a farmer will get pennies if anything from the wool board.
The Telegraph is also not too keen on the career prospects of Grant Shapps, Mark Spencer, Greg Clark, George Eustice, Steve Barclay, Nigel Adams, Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Alok Sharma and Rishi Sunak.
There is no betting on the next Home Secretary that I can see, though I've not checked everywhere.
Gove and Sunak have already said they won't serve under Truss. Raab is likely to be a third as he's a close ally of both although I haven't seen him say it aloud.
Shapps is utterly unfit to be a minister: incompetent, arrogant and dishonest, including misleading the House. So I'm surprised Truss wouldn't want him. He might make her look almost up to the job.
Patel should have gone long ago for similar reasons (for 'misleading the House' read 'bullying her staff').
Barclay, Sharma and Spencer are hardly 'big beasts.'
I am surprised about Eustice, even allowing for Truss' appalling lack of judgment. I think it unlikely she will find anyone better suited to his current role where as far as I can judge he's been quietly effective, and given the shitstorm about to engulf agriculture through enormous fuel and fertiliser bills coupled to the ongoing disruption of the new trading reality it really isn't a good moment for a change there. Perhaps he just dared to tell her to her face once that she was talking nonsense.
JRM ought to be among those culled. He's a poor man's idea of what an aristocrat is (assuming the poor man has never met any aristocrats).
JRM is not in any sense an aristocrat. A parody of an extra in Brideshead Revisited, maybe.
He’s a very wealthy man whom Boris is quite likely to enoble. So quite a lot in common with the antecedents of those whom you would recognise as aristos.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
While I’m unconvinced that nationalisation is the solution, you at least point out the scale of the problem.
Profits are a secondary concern (and might in any event be addressed by temporary windfall taxes).
Of far greater concern is that the market has for now ceased to function in any rational manner, and will on the one hand likely bankrupt many companies and individuals and impose immense hardship on many more, while on the other hand providing no incentive to reduce usage for those with contracts in place at lower prices.
Government has at best a month to come up with emergency measures to address that - having apparently not given it much thought up until now.
Good post. If a market fails, it is the role of government to act. That also needs to be done in such a way that avoids a massive transfer of funds from the taxpayer into the producer. If that can be done without nationalisation that’s great.
Can I just say that if I misjudged your comments this morning then I would like to apologise to you
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
Profit is a red herring. You're trying to turn a practical problem into a moral problem.
I’ve done no such thing. This is already a moral and political problem. If people cannot‘practically’ afford to hear their homes, because prices are so high whilst because prices are high others are raking in cash that’s a moral and political problem.
So you would ration supply and force people not to heat their homes?
If we have harsh winter and there is not enough gas to go around, you might prioritise essential services and domestic U.K. needs. You do not prioritise by pure ability to pay.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
Yesterday you were saying it was fine for Truss to not declare her policy on support for dealing with rocketing energy bills.
Whilst the government policy is a vacuum support for other policies, like nationalisation, which is probably a distraction at best and a mistake at worst, will inevitably gather significant momentum.
She needs a policy on this, she needs people explaining why her solution is right doing media rounds now, not in a couple of weeks time.
I did not say it was fine for Truss not to declare her policy, I said she could not declare a policy as she is Foreign Secretary and not PM
I have also been consistent in utterly condemning the conservative party and Brady in the absurd length of this leadership campaign
She has effectively won the contest already. Sunak has also given his proposals. Boris is not planning to do anything and agrees something needs to be done. No-one is going to complain that Truss gives her proposals on energy whilst she is Foreign Secretary and leadership candidate.
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
You are just making up spurious excuses for her inaction.
Nothing spurious - Truss does not have a mandate to act yet and she has said help will be forthcoming
The one thing I assume each and everyone of us can agree is that this protracted leadership debate has been very damaging for the conservative party and for me extremely embarrassing
If not spurious, then please address this:
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
That is a specific policy she has always supported
The present crisis requires a policy of huge magnitude that requires a PM and cabinet to agree and announce to the HOC
That will happen shortly and when it does, it will define whether Truss has a future
That is an HYUFD-esque response unfortunately.
I suppose there is always a first but I have never been accused of being @HYUFD -esque before
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
Profit is a red herring. You're trying to turn a practical problem into a moral problem.
I’ve done no such thing. This is already a moral and political problem. If people cannot‘practically’ afford to hear their homes, because prices are so high whilst because prices are high others are raking in cash that’s a moral and political problem.
So you would ration supply and force people not to heat their homes?
If we have harsh winter and there is not enough gas to go around, you might prioritise essential services and domestic U.K. needs. You do not prioritise by pure ability to pay.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
While I’m unconvinced that nationalisation is the solution, you at least point out the scale of the problem.
Profits are a secondary concern (and might in any event be addressed by temporary windfall taxes).
Of far greater concern is that the market has for now ceased to function in any rational manner, and will on the one hand likely bankrupt many companies and individuals and impose immense hardship on many more, while on the other hand providing no incentive to reduce usage for those with contracts in place at lower prices.
Government has at best a month to come up with emergency measures to address that - having apparently not given it much thought up until now.
Good post. If a market fails, it is the role of government to act. That also needs to be done in such a way that avoids a massive transfer of funds from the taxpayer into the producer. If that can be done without nationalisation that’s great.
Can I just say that if I misjudged your comments this morning then I would like to apologise to you
I am sure you are not wanting to appease Putin
Thanks Big G. I know your a good egg. It looks like we have a tough few months ahead. We must stick together to defeat Putin and in a democracy that also means the freedom to argue things out.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
So much bs in one comment.
"There's a problem, so I'll blame my usual suspects for the problem, and use my usual 'solutions' for it."
Where’s the BS?
Are you saying the energy market isn’t broken? Are you saying some organisations aren’t getting rich? Are you saying in wartime resources aren’t often nationalised? Are you saying the chancellor didn’t tell us to tighten our belts became of the war?
*) The energy market is currently broken, due to some rather unexpected events.
*) I don't know if some organisations are getting 'rich' or not. You need to define what 'rich' means, why it is a bad thing for them to be 'rich' to that level, how they're getting 'rich', and why nationalisation is the answer.
*) In wartime *some* resources are *sometimes* nationalised. Not always. More often, they're kept private but work under much more central control. And we're not yet fully invested in this war. Are you calling for us to get more invested in the war, so some nationalisations are required?
*) The chancellor did tell us to tighten our belts. But what is the relevance?
Most of all: what parts of the energy industry are you thinking of nationalising, and would would be the short-, medium- and long-term effects of nationalisation?
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
Profit is a red herring. You're trying to turn a practical problem into a moral problem.
I’ve done no such thing. This is already a moral and political problem. If people cannot‘practically’ afford to hear their homes, because prices are so high whilst because prices are high others are raking in cash that’s a moral and political problem.
So you would ration supply and force people not to heat their homes?
If we have harsh winter and there is not enough gas to go around, you might prioritise essential services and domestic U.K. needs. You do not prioritise by pure ability to pay.
Does the same argument not apply at any time?
Not really, normally supply outstrips demand, choices are less stark and those in need can be supported through other means.
Right now we have millions at homes at risk and millions of firms at risk of going bust.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
Yesterday you were saying it was fine for Truss to not declare her policy on support for dealing with rocketing energy bills.
Whilst the government policy is a vacuum support for other policies, like nationalisation, which is probably a distraction at best and a mistake at worst, will inevitably gather significant momentum.
She needs a policy on this, she needs people explaining why her solution is right doing media rounds now, not in a couple of weeks time.
I did not say it was fine for Truss not to declare her policy, I said she could not declare a policy as she is Foreign Secretary and not PM
I have also been consistent in utterly condemning the conservative party and Brady in the absurd length of this leadership campaign
She has effectively won the contest already. Sunak has also given his proposals. Boris is not planning to do anything and agrees something needs to be done. No-one is going to complain that Truss gives her proposals on energy whilst she is Foreign Secretary and leadership candidate.
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
You are just making up spurious excuses for her inaction.
Nothing spurious - Truss does not have a mandate to act yet and she has said help will be forthcoming
The one thing I assume each and everyone of us can agree is that this protracted leadership debate has been very damaging for the conservative party and for me extremely embarrassing
If not spurious, then please address this:
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
That is a specific policy she has always supported
The present crisis requires a policy of huge magnitude that requires a PM and cabinet to agree and announce to the HOC
That will happen shortly and when it does, it will define whether Truss has a future
Two important caveats though.
There is an election going on right now. It's a bit limited, but in months to come, it's going to be the only mandate Truss can point to.
What is stopping Truss saying "if elected, this would be my direction of travel"? Doesn't keeping sthum on the big issue of the day kind of make the election a bit phoney? You know, in a democracy shouldn't we talk about things a bit?
More importantly, the government has apparently done nothing about the other things that will keep us warmish and solventish this winter. I don't know how much energy saving can happen in the next few months, but I'm hearing nothing. And trying to do anything in starting September will be even harder than had we started in June. Or better still, March.
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
While I’m unconvinced that nationalisation is the solution, you at least point out the scale of the problem.
Profits are a secondary concern (and might in any event be addressed by temporary windfall taxes).
Of far greater concern is that the market has for now ceased to function in any rational manner, and will on the one hand likely bankrupt many companies and individuals and impose immense hardship on many more, while on the other hand providing no incentive to reduce usage for those with contracts in place at lower prices.
Government has at best a month to come up with emergency measures to address that - having apparently not given it much thought up until now.
Good post. If a market fails, it is the role of government to act. That also needs to be done in such a way that avoids a massive transfer of funds from the taxpayer into the producer. If that can be done without nationalisation that’s great.
Can I just say that if I misjudged your comments this morning then I would like to apologise to you
I am sure you are not wanting to appease Putin
Thanks Big G. I know your a good egg. It looks like we have a tough few months ahead. We must stick together to defeat Putin and in a democracy that also means the freedom to argue things out.
Indeed and the stresses on everyone at present are appalling and indeed I really do not envy any politician as the scale of this crisis is overwhelming and the solutions in the hundreds of billions eye watering
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
While I’m unconvinced that nationalisation is the solution, you at least point out the scale of the problem.
Profits are a secondary concern (and might in any event be addressed by temporary windfall taxes).
Of far greater concern is that the market has for now ceased to function in any rational manner, and will on the one hand likely bankrupt many companies and individuals and impose immense hardship on many more, while on the other hand providing no incentive to reduce usage for those with contracts in place at lower prices.
Government has at best a month to come up with emergency measures to address that - having apparently not given it much thought up until now.
Good post. If a market fails, it is the role of government to act. That also needs to be done in such a way that avoids a massive transfer of funds from the taxpayer into the producer. If that can be done without nationalisation that’s great.
The second point point - achieving demand reduction over the winter - is perhaps key. Without intervention, it will happen very painfully indeed through bankrupting businesses etc. It needs to be managed, and I’m far from sure our government will be up to the task.
Outstandingly good news! Absolutely delighted to see the Welsh waking up.
I know it’s only a subsamples, and the usual caveats apply in droves, but is this a straw in the wind?
Wales:
Plaid Cymru 27% Labour 27% Conservatives 17% Welsh Greens 15% WLD 9% UKIP 4% Ref 1%
(Deltapoll; Fieldwork: 19th - 22nd August 2022)
I hadn't realised that the LDs are behind the Greens in Wales as well as Scotland, if that poll is representative (which as you say it might not).
While I would be amazed if the Greens were really in double digits in Wales they did beat the Lib Dems in the last Senedd elections (4.39% to 4.34%). Lib Dems only got a seat because of their lumpiness (6.8% in Mid and West Wales was enough for 1 MS, Green's best region was South Wales Central at 5.7%)
When MPs had a free choice of several candidates, only 50 of them voted for Liz Truss as their first choice.
The latest word cloud for her has "untrustworthy" as the stand out word for her. By Tory party standards, this - presumably - is an improvement on "liar" for Johnson. It seems an odd direction of travel. But what do I know. I do not belong to the small union of elderly white Southern males which is what the Tory party now is.
Anyway, the sun is shining here, the sky is blue and it is the Millom & Broughton Agricultural Show. Husband is doing a stand for the local History Society where he is a bigwig and I must get ready to be supportive and, more importantly, look at the chickens and sheep and other agricultural implements which I am going to need if I am ever going to turn my wild rocky outcrop into something resembling a garden. Who knows? I may even have joined the WI by this afternoon!!
Incidentally, the wool sheared from sheep is largely - and stupidly - wasted. It makes fantastic wall insulation as well as rugs, blankets, knitting wool, cosy slippers, compost even, etc., and yet the price farmers are paid for it has dropped. We are so daft in this country turning our back on what we have to hand.
Local project is having a go re wool… see this report from our excellent* village newsletter…
Morning all. I actually got the joy of practising for winter power outages last night as my power went down for 3 hours as they sorted out something in/under the road. Extremely irritating but i was delighted my emergency battery/lantern comfortably lit up the room without need for candles.
By way of distraction, this is a pretty interesting article around the legal rights of intersex individuals and gender identity in Pakistan.
https://pipewrenchmag.com/pakistans-khwaja-sira-fight-for-the-right-to-be/ … The next hurdle took longer to clear. Exactly who, officials demanded, counted as khwaja sira? The court’s sympathies were predicated on an essentialist understanding — that they are all intersex — even though the khwaja sira describe themselves in more abstract terms, as people possessing feminine souls. Paying no heed, the government announced that if affirmative action in the form of, say, public-sector jobs was to accrue to the benefit of the community, imposters had to be weeded out. It announced mandatory medical examinations.
Outraged, Bindiya and medical student Sarah Gill petitioned the high court to scrap the policy. Always game for some drama, Bindiya drove her point home by confronting officers at the head office of NADRA, the authority in charge of national identification. “A team of doctors is on its way,” she proclaimed. “I have reason to believe there is a khwaja sira among you, so you must all undergo a medical check-up.” She smirked at the recollection. “When the sword dangles over your own head, when your own clothes are taken off, then you understand what another person goes through.”
This appeal to privacy proved surprisingly effective. In 2018, when Pakistani parliament began codifying the Supreme Court’s directives into anti-discrimination legislation, the definition of gender enshrined into law was, by any standard, a radical one: “gender identity means a person’s innermost and individual sense of self as male, female, or a blend of both or neither, that can correspond or not to the sex assigned at birth.” There was no more talk of medical examinations. Now, according to the state of Pakistan, your gender was what you said it was. …
I am offended by the chancellor asking people to tighten their belts because there is a war. Normally when that happens it’s to support troops or a general war effort.
Right now , we need to tighten our belts to enable fat cats to get fatter in a broken energy market.
If it’s a war, free markets cannot function properly, so you nationalise key resources.
I suspect the current lot don’t want to do that because someone is getting mind boggingly rich.
Nationalise for what purpose? Do you want rationing and power cuts?
The energy market has failed due to the war, it is currently being used by Putin as weapon against us. Nationalising is normally what happens in this situation to protect the national interest.
Not according to Labour
It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric. The point I am making , is if that is true, if we are at war, the government nationalises.
You seem to want to appease Putin and nationalisation is not a solution
On the contrary, I am sure Putin is delighted by the current chaos. He has weaponised gas prices and the government is doing nothing about it.
So you are proposing an alternative mechanism to ration supply, or do you think nationalisation is a silver bullet that makes the problem go away?
You clearly need an alternative mechanism to manage supply than charging people with nothing thousands of pounds and having them freeze. Absolutely yes. One way or another the government will intervene. It’s a broken market.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
While I’m unconvinced that nationalisation is the solution, you at least point out the scale of the problem.
Profits are a secondary concern (and might in any event be addressed by temporary windfall taxes).
Of far greater concern is that the market has for now ceased to function in any rational manner, and will on the one hand likely bankrupt many companies and individuals and impose immense hardship on many more, while on the other hand providing no incentive to reduce usage for those with contracts in place at lower prices.
Government has at best a month to come up with emergency measures to address that - having apparently not given it much thought up until now.
Good post. If a market fails, it is the role of government to act. That also needs to be done in such a way that avoids a massive transfer of funds from the taxpayer into the producer. If that can be done without nationalisation that’s great.
The second point point - achieving demand reduction over the winter - is perhaps key. Without intervention, it will happen very painfully indeed through bankrupting businesses etc. It needs to be managed, and I’m far from sure our government will be up to the task.
Worse than that, I'm not sure what it will take to make them try.
Maybe what we need is a wartime mentality against an actual foe. "Wasted energy puts pounds in Putin's pocket", that sort of thing.
It seems incredible to me that only now, more than 6 months after the war broke out, are policymakers realising the full implications of their approach towards Russia.
Of course, I was not a fan of the policy, but that is not my point here.
The point is -- once you have decided on an approach -- then you need to prepare for its full consequences.
It was obvious that the consequence of the British/European policy on Russia/Ukraine was going to be an energy crisis.
No-one seems to have thought the consequences of the policy through and prepared for them.
The entire British/European political elite is just ill-equipped to deal with the complex & inter-dependent reality of our 21st-century world.
Even at current prices most of the remaining North Sea production is pretty marginal. If we want to encourage the oil companies to invest more there to squeeze out the last bits of some pretty depleted fields some sort of windfall tax is really not the way to do it. Windfall taxes are generally a very bad idea but it is obvious that imposing something of that sort now would be to shoot ourselves in both feet, reducing production and increasing imports.
So it will probably be announced next week.
It would play better in the country if the so-called "Price cap" was applied to the energy companies as a "profit cap" limiting their profits with the excess being used to discount energy prices.
How do you expect them to invest in infrastructure if they are not allowed to cream (or rather ladel) off the profits for shareholders and Director bonuses?
The same organisations that invest the dividends in pensions?
Yes but screwing the consumer to divvy profits out to pension funds to benefit pensioners and future pensioners who are also consumers is counter intuitive.
It does not benefit pensioners but it certainly it will affect future generations of retirees
Yesterday you were saying it was fine for Truss to not declare her policy on support for dealing with rocketing energy bills.
Whilst the government policy is a vacuum support for other policies, like nationalisation, which is probably a distraction at best and a mistake at worst, will inevitably gather significant momentum.
She needs a policy on this, she needs people explaining why her solution is right doing media rounds now, not in a couple of weeks time.
I did not say it was fine for Truss not to declare her policy, I said she could not declare a policy as she is Foreign Secretary and not PM
I have also been consistent in utterly condemning the conservative party and Brady in the absurd length of this leadership campaign
She has effectively won the contest already. Sunak has also given his proposals. Boris is not planning to do anything and agrees something needs to be done. No-one is going to complain that Truss gives her proposals on energy whilst she is Foreign Secretary and leadership candidate.
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
You are just making up spurious excuses for her inaction.
Nothing spurious - Truss does not have a mandate to act yet and she has said help will be forthcoming
The one thing I assume each and everyone of us can agree is that this protracted leadership debate has been very damaging for the conservative party and for me extremely embarrassing
If not spurious, then please address this:
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
That is a specific policy she has always supported
The present crisis requires a policy of huge magnitude that requires a PM and cabinet to agree and announce to the HOC
That will happen shortly and when it does, it will define whether Truss has a future
Two important caveats though.
There is an election going on right now. It's a bit limited, but in months to come, it's going to be the only mandate Truss can point to.
What is stopping Truss saying "if elected, this would be my direction of travel"? Doesn't keeping sthum on the big issue of the day kind of make the election a bit phoney? You know, in a democracy shouldn't we talk about things a bit?
More importantly, the government has apparently done nothing about the other things that will keep us warmish and solventish this winter. I don't know how much energy saving can happen in the next few months, but I'm hearing nothing. And trying to do anything in starting September will be even harder than had we started in June. Or better still, March.
I am not defending the conservative party actions over the last couple of months but an important point to consider is that many millions of people will be taking their own actions to reduce energy bills even without government suport
The demand for contractors to install energy saving measures has gone through the roof (figuratively speaking) and I know not only my wife and I, but all our family are taking practical measures to help mitigate the problem
This does not excuse the absence of the government, nor may I say that I do not have great confidence in Truss, but it is as sure as anything that if she gets this wrong her premiership will be over
Comments
Even Labour have rejected nationalisation
You subsidise domestic use from the excess profits from selling gas abroad.
A better way might be to mandate - and you would have to mandate it - that a percentage of CEO / senior managements' incentive packages are tied in to the level of investment a firm makes. Creates the obvious issue of firms bending the rules to meet the target etc but, as a first step, it may concentrate some minds.
More generally, there is a wider issue here namely the mindset of U.K. asset managers - they prefer dividends over investment, short term over long term. Not a great recipe for long term
investment.
1 wing flap from 15 moth species
https://twitter.com/DrAdrianSmith/status/1562920211325624320
The energy market is not a free one anyway but a regulated one where govt rules set the price. We just need to change the govt rules and compensate distributors for it. A windfall tax on UK energy extraction can pay for part of that, the rest on the national credit card.
Nationalised industries have no shareholders, therefore.......
This is the scale of the crisis but I do expect an announcement in the next fortnight to mitigate the damage including assistance for businesses
The government going awol is unforgivable and Truss has one opportunity to deal with this in September otherwise it is over for her
Whilst the government policy is a vacuum support for other policies, like nationalisation, which is probably a distraction at best and a mistake at worst, will inevitably gather significant momentum.
She needs a policy on this, she needs people explaining why her solution is right doing media rounds now, not in a couple of weeks time.
On that basis, nationalisation holds little downside.
That said, it is clear that the root of the issue is primarily political. If you read what is being said by the attendees of the World Economic Forum, in relation to 'Build back better', it reads like a manifesto for strategically shrinking the Western economies. The implications for all of us are fairly horrifying, which is why it's exciting that we're about the get a radically pro-growth PM. To want to grow Britain's economy, and grow it fast, is becoming heresy.
Should companies profit from a wartime lack of supply?
I have also been consistent in utterly condemning the conservative party and Brady in the absurd length of this leadership campaign
They are global companies where the North Sea os part of their portfolio.
If you are the head of BP and a UK gov says “we are going to nationalise you” do you 1, bend over and take it or 2, delist from London exchange and incorporate/list elsewhere?
If they exercise option 2 and the gov says “ok we are going to tax the crap out of you on North Sea revenue do you 1, bend over and take it or 2, close down your North Sea operations costing the UK hundreds of millions in potential tax and jobs with their associated tax revenues?
If you nationalise these companies it’s not some straight swap where the board is replaced by the gov and the profits go direct to the exchequer.
'It’s the Tories who are using the war, if not ramping the wartime situation in their rhetoric'
You may not have wanted it to look like appeasement but it does give that impression
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
You are just making up spurious excuses for her inaction.
Another failure of the New Labour Government was their reluctance to renationalise.
The latest word cloud for her has "untrustworthy" as the stand out word for her. By Tory party standards, this - presumably - is an improvement on "liar" for Johnson. It seems an odd direction of travel. But what do I know. I do not belong to the small union of elderly white Southern males which is what the Tory party now is.
Anyway, the sun is shining here, the sky is blue and it is the Millom & Broughton Agricultural Show. Husband is doing a stand for the local History Society where he is a bigwig and I must get ready to be supportive and, more importantly, look at the chickens and sheep and other agricultural implements which I am going to need if I am ever going to turn my wild rocky outcrop into something resembling a garden. Who knows? I may even have joined the WI by this afternoon!!
Incidentally, the wool sheared from sheep is largely - and stupidly - wasted. It makes fantastic wall insulation as well as rugs, blankets, knitting wool, cosy slippers, compost even, etc., and yet the price farmers are paid for it has dropped. We are so daft in this country turning our back on what we have to hand.
Exception: for the case of a country which is well behind the current standards on technology, modernisation, needs massive rebuilding, etc. There we have examples like post-war Japan and France, and 80s-90s China. Not trivial, or a lot more countries would have done it, but at least there's a roadmap. For a country like Britain in its current state? I'm very very sceptical.
Nationalisation therefore cannot possibly assist us because it simply cannot isolate or protect us from international prices. What we need to do is encourage further investment and exploration in the North Sea and also take steps so that we are less dependent on gas for energy production. We are doing a fair bit of the latter but we seem to think that doing the exact opposite is the answer to the first issue. It isn't.
The one thing I assume each and everyone of us can agree is that this protracted leadership debate has been very damaging for the conservative party and for me extremely embarrassing
1.06 Liz Truss 94%
16 Rishi Sunak 6%
Next Conservative leader
1.06 Liz Truss 94%
16.5 Rishi Sunak 6%
And why is she allowed to declare a policy on cutting NI and taxes on energy whilst Foreign Secretary but not allowed to declare a policy on other energy support?
Profits are a secondary concern (and might in any event be addressed by temporary windfall taxes).
Of far greater concern is that the market has for now ceased to function in any rational manner, and will on the one hand likely bankrupt many companies and individuals and impose immense hardship on many more, while on the other hand providing no incentive to reduce usage for those with contracts in place at lower prices.
Government has at best a month to come up with emergency measures to address that - having apparently not given it much thought up until now.
The present crisis requires a policy of huge magnitude that requires a PM and cabinet to agree and announce to the HOC
That will happen shortly and when it does, it will define whether Truss has a future
Sadly, a lot of wool will remain an unwanted byproduct, and a farmer will get pennies if anything from the wool board.
Mainly because those in power do much more stealing - and then run the interests incompetently.
So quite a lot in common with the antecedents of those whom you would recognise as aristos.
It’s not exactly a term of approbation anyway.
I am sure you are not wanting to appease Putin
*) I don't know if some organisations are getting 'rich' or not. You need to define what 'rich' means, why it is a bad thing for them to be 'rich' to that level, how they're getting 'rich', and why nationalisation is the answer.
*) In wartime *some* resources are *sometimes* nationalised. Not always. More often, they're kept private but work under much more central control. And we're not yet fully invested in this war. Are you calling for us to get more invested in the war, so some nationalisations are required?
*) The chancellor did tell us to tighten our belts. But what is the relevance?
Most of all: what parts of the energy industry are you thinking of nationalising, and would would be the short-, medium- and long-term effects of nationalisation?
Right now we have millions at homes at risk and millions of firms at risk of going bust.
There is an election going on right now. It's a bit limited, but in months to come, it's going to be the only mandate Truss can point to.
What is stopping Truss saying "if elected, this would be my direction of travel"? Doesn't keeping sthum on the big issue of the day kind of make the election a bit phoney? You know, in a democracy shouldn't we talk about things a bit?
More importantly, the government has apparently done nothing about the other things that will keep us warmish and solventish this winter. I don't know how much energy saving can happen in the next few months, but I'm hearing nothing. And trying to do anything in starting September will be even harder than had we started in June. Or better still, March.
All the best
Without intervention, it will happen very painfully indeed through bankrupting businesses etc. It needs to be managed, and I’m far from sure our government will be up to the task.
https://clapham-news.net/index.php/2021/11/30/glencrofts-clapdale-wool-project/
* edited by Mrs P
Public ownership is very much a second order effect.
https://pipewrenchmag.com/pakistans-khwaja-sira-fight-for-the-right-to-be/
… The next hurdle took longer to clear. Exactly who, officials demanded, counted as khwaja sira? The court’s sympathies were predicated on an essentialist understanding — that they are all intersex — even though the khwaja sira describe themselves in more abstract terms, as people possessing feminine souls. Paying no heed, the government announced that if affirmative action in the form of, say, public-sector jobs was to accrue to the benefit of the community, imposters had to be weeded out. It announced mandatory medical examinations.
Outraged, Bindiya and medical student Sarah Gill petitioned the high court to scrap the policy. Always game for some drama, Bindiya drove her point home by confronting officers at the head office of NADRA, the authority in charge of national identification. “A team of doctors is on its way,” she proclaimed. “I have reason to believe there is a khwaja sira among you, so you must all undergo a medical check-up.” She smirked at the recollection. “When the sword dangles over your own head, when your own clothes are taken off, then you understand what another person goes through.”
This appeal to privacy proved surprisingly effective. In 2018, when Pakistani parliament began codifying the Supreme Court’s directives into anti-discrimination legislation, the definition of gender enshrined into law was, by any standard, a radical one: “gender identity means a person’s innermost and individual sense of self as male, female, or a blend of both or neither, that can correspond or not to the sex assigned at birth.” There was no more talk of medical examinations. Now, according to the state of Pakistan, your gender was what you said it was. …
Maybe what we need is a wartime mentality against an actual foe. "Wasted energy puts pounds in Putin's pocket", that sort of thing.
Of course, I was not a fan of the policy, but that is not my point here.
The point is -- once you have decided on an approach -- then you need to prepare for its full consequences.
It was obvious that the consequence of the British/European policy on Russia/Ukraine was going to be an energy crisis.
No-one seems to have thought the consequences of the policy through and prepared for them.
The entire British/European political elite is just ill-equipped to deal with the complex & inter-dependent reality of our 21st-century world.
The demand for contractors to install energy saving measures has gone through the roof (figuratively speaking) and I know not only my wife and I, but all our family are taking practical measures to help mitigate the problem
This does not excuse the absence of the government, nor may I say that I do not have great confidence in Truss, but it is as sure as anything that if she gets this wrong her premiership will be over