Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
Presumably you’d be equally happy with Biden taking control of gas produced in the USA, for domestic energy generation rather than export to Europe?
(A significant amount of UK “exports” were previously imported from the US, because the UK invested in import terminals).
If the threat is that we will have blackouts, companies will go bust and people will die because of lack of available energy then yes I think it is absolutely reasonable for the Government to put a temporary ban on exports.
If we have enough gas or we cannot physically use the gas we have at the rates it is being produced then of course export it. But if there is the sorts of shortages that you and Bart are talking about then exporting it to third countries whilst failing to supply the home market is suicidally stupid.
Again, the market in its purest form is not always right.
But we don't physically produce enough gas. Export figures run at less than 1/6th of what import figures do.
Exporting when we have a surplus (eg summer) then importing 6x that amount when we have a deficit (eg winter) makes sense, both strategically and economically.
The last thing we should surely want, as a significant net importer of gas, is to insist that exports are a bad thing. We need other nations to export to us, or will face far worse than a mere gas price rise.
An entirely valid point. We rely on imported energy - both in terms of gas and refined road fuels and electricity itself. We are in no position to start a we hold all the cards posturing over exports. We are the supplicant in this situation.
I suspect that that is from a somewhat lower base but still. People are being overly alarmist about various aspects of this crisis which is bad enough without the hysteria.
You know what is odd about that NASA Youtube feed? Right now there is a chat running and some people are actually giving small amounts of money to NASA. Not only will the American government not notice the odd £5, $10 or 15 Norweigan krone, they will not even receive all of it because (aiui) Youtube rakes off a third for itself.
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
I think the problem is lack of storage for gas, so exporting it is the only alternative.
Germany has 2 months of storage, 85% full, and only 9% of current gas consumption comes from Russia.
This is fairly silly. Firstly, we still supply 40-50% of our own gas consumption from the North sea which puts us in a better position than any of those countries other than Norway. Secondly, unlike Germany we have ports capable of offloading LNG facilitating imports. The policy options undertaken make reasonable sense in that context. Of course if we had stored a winter's gas we would have paid less for it than we will now but that is the only issue.
The Ancien Régime will simply carry on as before, only with the court fool having been replaced at its pinnacle by Marie Antoinette. This is not a particular cause for celebration.
You're telling us the secret plan for keeping warm this Winter will be "Let them wear mink"?
I shall probably get put on a hate list now but you have just reminded me that in storage I have a mink coat inherited from my mother and grandmother. Italian ladies of a certain age are fond of fur coats. This may be the winter to get it out of storage and use it.
Chopping up wood in a fur coat on a remote Cumbrian hillside to keep warm has a certain Chekhovian feel to it, grimly appropriate to our times.
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
Presumably you’d be equally happy with Biden taking control of gas produced in the USA, for domestic energy generation rather than export to Europe?
(A significant amount of UK “exports” were previously imported from the US, because the UK invested in import terminals).
If the threat is that we will have blackouts, companies will go bust and people will die because of lack of available energy then yes I think it is absolutely reasonable for the Government to put a temporary ban on exports.
If we have enough gas or we cannot physically use the gas we have at the rates it is being produced then of course export it. But if there is the sorts of shortages that you and Bart are talking about then exporting it to third countries whilst failing to supply the home market is suicidally stupid.
Again, the market in its purest form is not always right.
But we don't physically produce enough gas. Export figures run at roughly 1/6th of what import figures do.
Exporting when we have a surplus (eg summer) then importing 6x that amount when we have a deficit (eg winter) makes sense, both strategically and economically.
The last thing we should surely want, as a significant net importer of gas, is to insist that exports are a bad thing. We need other nations to export to us, or will face far worse than a mere gas price rise.
At one time we imported gas from Algeria. Does that still happen, or are the North African fields empty?
I suspect that that is from a somewhat lower base but still. People are being overly alarmist about various aspects of this crisis which is bad enough without the hysteria.
That's up to June this year. I can think of several establishments (including my local butchers) that have closed in August.
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
Odd that you quoted only one half of the paragraph that sentence came from. Adding in the missing first sentence rather changes the interpretation of it.
The UK imported £19.6 billion of gas in 2021; a notable increase of 312% from £4.8 billion in 2020. The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020
£19.6 bn of imports and £3.4 bn of exports. You tell me, do you think when there's a global energy shortage, does that mean we face a shortage or not?
One thing this isn't is a GLOBAL energy shortage. It's local to Europe.
No, the LNG market is global, as are the current nosebleed prices.
Trump was claiming that a President could declare any documents as unclassified, yet the Democrats deny this. Who is telling porkies?
IIUC that's strictly correct. However:
1) A *former* president has no such rights, and there seem to be lots of documents Trump took that he *didn't* declare unclassified, which is why his people have had to come up with this idea that he had a standing order, shared with nobody and written down nowhere, that once he took something to his golf club he was automatically declassifying it. I'd be surprised if he'd be able to convince a jury of that, but who knows.
2) Some of the relevant laws are about government property, and he seems to be breaking those even if none of the material is classified.
Typical business meeting about the energy crisis as imagined by @RochdalePioneers:
- So we're going to turn the heating down in our German offices by 3 degrees. What about the UK? - We're still waiting for instructions from Liz Truss so I'm afraid it's anyone's guess what we'll have to do.
You really do give me some belly laughs - thanks.
The Spanish example was restricting the use of air conditioning. Which makes places uncomfortably warm. Ours will be restricting the use of heating. To make a factory or office uncomfortably cold.
Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.
But the bosses just turning heating down by themselves? Some will, but most won't.
Please keep posting the cabaret responses! I love a good comedy turn!
I really find this extraordinary
'Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.'
I ran two very successful businesses over 45 years and simply never looked at government to make decisions for me, or to take action and forward planning to address crisis that were looming
It is an extraordinary business person who waits to be told what to do by a government, any government
I would gently suggest this does provide an insight into your attitudes to government
I agree. I have run several businesses, including my own. I have also been involved in a couple of aborted startups. In every case I have found that Government involvement is nearly always negative. Just as @ydoethur wants to get rid of the DfE I want to get rid of DBIS (or whatever they are called these days). They invariable tell you the bleeding obvious, get in the way and often offer grant schemes that are only ever useful to businesses that will obviously fail.
The aborted schemes were ones where we just gave up because of officials who have never run a business in their lives telling us what we should do as opposed to what we wanted to do. I have never ever taken advantage of a grant in my life. They were always useless to a viable business.
The Tories set up the TECs (under Heseltine). They were a massive waste of money. The positive side to me was that two business I ran sold stuff to them (which was all dumped when they were wound up).
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
I think the problem is lack of storage for gas, so exporting it is the only alternative.
Germany has 2 months of storage, 85% full, and only 9% of current gas consumption comes from Russia.
This is fairly silly. Firstly, we still supply 40-50% of our own gas consumption from the North sea which puts us in a better position than any of those countries other than Norway. Secondly, unlike Germany we have ports capable of offloading LNG facilitating imports. The policy options undertaken make reasonable sense in that context. Of course if we had stored a winter's gas we would have paid less for it than we will now but that is the only issue.
She needs to then translate that into voteshare in No 10 and sustain it. If she did then even if she still lost the Tory majority she could still win most seats
She needs the conservative party to get behind her 100% once elected otherwise the party faces extinction in 2024
Will you come on bord and accept Johnson is over and the party needs to move on
Regarding the party, you’re in and out like a fiddler’s elbow. You’re a long-standing critic of Johnson. Do you seriously expect to be happy in the party under Truss? If she builds an ERG-friendly Cabinet full of the swivel-eyed do you think the remaining sensible Tories - which you seem to be - will be able support them for anything more than a few months?
We’re grinding inexorably towards a horror show this winter and the government is more concerned about corporate profit than people’s lives. They appear to be happy to allow rationing by wealth. I assume the calculation is that hard-working aspirational Tory supporters will probably be ok (though this may be ‘brave’); the feckless and workshy can be left to freeze. It will be character building, teach them thrift. Maybe they’ll work harder, graft more.
I think you’re going to struggle to support the party over the coming months. The lunatics have taken over the asylum. It’s tragic for all of us.
The gas market in Europe is international. The gas price cannot differ significantly between countries. Arbitrage ensures that. Our gas and gas from other countries goes into the same pool and on the demand side it is total European demand that determines the price. No country in Europe wants to be a gas autarky. To coin a phrase, we are all in this together. What must not happen is that no country should institute a policy that distorts the the price locally and encourages users to burn more gas than the market price warrants.
I suspect that that is from a somewhat lower base but still. People are being overly alarmist about various aspects of this crisis which is bad enough without the hysteria.
People are being alarmist? You mean most of the business groups. And they are saying what their members are saying. This isn't pointless alarmism, its an existential crisis for many of them.
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
Presumably you’d be equally happy with Biden taking control of gas produced in the USA, for domestic energy generation rather than export to Europe?
(A significant amount of UK “exports” were previously imported from the US, because the UK invested in import terminals).
If the threat is that we will have blackouts, companies will go bust and people will die because of lack of available energy then yes I think it is absolutely reasonable for the Government to put a temporary ban on exports.
If we have enough gas or we cannot physically use the gas we have at the rates it is being produced then of course export it. But if there is the sorts of shortages that you and Bart are talking about then exporting it to third countries whilst failing to supply the home market is suicidally stupid.
Again, the market in its purest form is not always right.
But we don't physically produce enough gas. Export figures run at roughly 1/6th of what import figures do.
Exporting when we have a surplus (eg summer) then importing 6x that amount when we have a deficit (eg winter) makes sense, both strategically and economically.
The last thing we should surely want, as a significant net importer of gas, is to insist that exports are a bad thing. We need other nations to export to us, or will face far worse than a mere gas price rise.
At one time we imported gas from Algeria. Does that still happen, or are the North African fields empty?
Aiui President Macron is currently schmoozing Algeria to get more gas.
Typical business meeting about the energy crisis as imagined by @RochdalePioneers:
- So we're going to turn the heating down in our German offices by 3 degrees. What about the UK? - We're still waiting for instructions from Liz Truss so I'm afraid it's anyone's guess what we'll have to do.
You really do give me some belly laughs - thanks.
The Spanish example was restricting the use of air conditioning. Which makes places uncomfortably warm. Ours will be restricting the use of heating. To make a factory or office uncomfortably cold.
Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.
But the bosses just turning heating down by themselves? Some will, but most won't.
Please keep posting the cabaret responses! I love a good comedy turn!
I really find this extraordinary
'Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.'
I ran two very successful businesses over 45 years and simply never looked at government to make decisions for me, or to take action and forward planning to address crisis that were looming
It is an extraordinary business person who waits to be told what to do by a government, any government
I would gently suggest this does provide an insight into your attitudes to government
We're not talking about normal business decisions. We are talking about abnormal. Were businesses voluntarily going to a three day week before Heath instructed them to do so? Did your business?
No - Our business remained open 7 days a week throughout
Did your business face a 6x rise in energy costs ?
No and to be fair it was not a high energy user anyway
My argument is that any business affected with crisis will be taking mitigating action but of course financial help at this time is needed, 37 billion has been provided so far, and Truss/Kwarteng will announce their plans in the next two weeks
Nobody has ben more critical of the conservative party going awol and navel gazing through the summer, it is shocking and may be terminal for their 24 election prospects
Trump was claiming that a President could declare any documents as unclassified, yet the Democrats deny this. Who is telling porkies?
One, there's a procedure for declassifying documents - for obvious reasons, government has to keep tack of what is and what isn't classified. And there's zero evidence that Trump actually declassified any particular document.
Two, there are documents which can't by law be declassified purely on Presidential authority (eg classified nuclear material).
Third, military documents don't have to be classified to be restricted and protected by law.
Fourth, ex-Presidents don't have executive power.
And lastly, who the f@ck thinks Trump tells the truth, ever ?
I suspect that that is from a somewhat lower base but still. People are being overly alarmist about various aspects of this crisis which is bad enough without the hysteria.
People are being alarmist? You mean most of the business groups. And they are saying what their members are saying. This isn't pointless alarmism, its an existential crisis for many of them.
Presumably it's no longer an existential crisis that we aren't importing enough labour?
She needs to then translate that into voteshare in No 10 and sustain it. If she did then even if she still lost the Tory majority she could still win most seats
She needs the conservative party to get behind her 100% once elected otherwise the party faces extinction in 2024
Will you come on bord and accept Johnson is over and the party needs to move on
Well I will come 100% behind her if she is elected leader despite voting for Sunak as I have every other Tory leader since I joined the party in 1998. However if she is trailing well behind in the polls this time next year whether the party will do so is another matter.
As for extinction the party is still far better placed than in Spring 2019 when it not only trailed Labour but had been overtaken by the Brexit Party as the main party of the right too
Although not impossible (look what happened to the Liberals) I tend to agree that under FPTP it is extremely unlikely that the Tories will face extinction. At worse they will go into opposition as they did before and come back stronger. As before they may go through a few leaders before reinventing themselves.
Typical business meeting about the energy crisis as imagined by @RochdalePioneers:
- So we're going to turn the heating down in our German offices by 3 degrees. What about the UK? - We're still waiting for instructions from Liz Truss so I'm afraid it's anyone's guess what we'll have to do.
You really do give me some belly laughs - thanks.
The Spanish example was restricting the use of air conditioning. Which makes places uncomfortably warm. Ours will be restricting the use of heating. To make a factory or office uncomfortably cold.
Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.
But the bosses just turning heating down by themselves? Some will, but most won't.
Please keep posting the cabaret responses! I love a good comedy turn!
I really find this extraordinary
'Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.'
I ran two very successful businesses over 45 years and simply never looked at government to make decisions for me, or to take action and forward planning to address crisis that were looming
It is an extraordinary business person who waits to be told what to do by a government, any government
I would gently suggest this does provide an insight into your attitudes to government
We're not talking about normal business decisions. We are talking about abnormal. Were businesses voluntarily going to a three day week before Heath instructed them to do so? Did your business?
No - Our business remained open 7 days a week throughout
Did your business face a 6x rise in energy costs ?
No and to be fair it was not a high energy user anyway
My argument is that any business affected with crisis will be taking mitigating action but of course financial help at this time is needed, 37 billion has been provided so far, and Truss/Kwarteng will announce their plans in the next two weeks
Nobody has ben more critical of the conservative party going awol and navel gazing through the summer, it is shocking and may be terminal for their 24 election prospects
You know what is odd about that NASA Youtube feed? Right now there is a chat running and some people are actually giving small amounts of money to NASA. Not only will the American government not notice the odd £5, $10 or 15 Norweigan krone, they will not even receive all of it because (aiui) Youtube rakes off a third for itself.
That’s not a NASA account, it’s a group of space ‘fans’ producing a crowdfunded broadcast.
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
I think the problem is lack of storage for gas, so exporting it is the only alternative.
Germany has 2 months of storage, 85% full, and only 9% of current gas consumption comes from Russia.
This is fairly silly. Firstly, we still supply 40-50% of our own gas consumption from the North sea which puts us in a better position than any of those countries other than Norway. Secondly, unlike Germany we have ports capable of offloading LNG facilitating imports. The policy options undertaken make reasonable sense in that context. Of course if we had stored a winter's gas we would have paid less for it than we will now but that is the only issue.
We used to have gas storage.
Yes, before LNG became such a thing and we had ports capable of importing it. After that it was deemed a waste of time.
Typical business meeting about the energy crisis as imagined by @RochdalePioneers:
- So we're going to turn the heating down in our German offices by 3 degrees. What about the UK? - We're still waiting for instructions from Liz Truss so I'm afraid it's anyone's guess what we'll have to do.
You really do give me some belly laughs - thanks.
The Spanish example was restricting the use of air conditioning. Which makes places uncomfortably warm. Ours will be restricting the use of heating. To make a factory or office uncomfortably cold.
Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.
But the bosses just turning heating down by themselves? Some will, but most won't.
Please keep posting the cabaret responses! I love a good comedy turn!
I really find this extraordinary
'Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.'
I ran two very successful businesses over 45 years and simply never looked at government to make decisions for me, or to take action and forward planning to address crisis that were looming
It is an extraordinary business person who waits to be told what to do by a government, any government
I would gently suggest this does provide an insight into your attitudes to government
I agree. I have run several businesses, including my own. I have also been involved in a couple of aborted startups. In every case I have found that Government involvement is nearly always negative. Just as @ydoethur wants to get rid of the DfE I want to get rid of DBIS (or whatever they are called these days). They invariable tell you the bleeding obvious, get in the way and often offer grant schemes that are only ever useful to businesses that will obviously fail.
The aborted schemes were ones where we just gave up because of officials who have never run a business in their lives telling us what we should do as opposed to what we wanted to do. I have never ever taken advantage of a grant in my life. They were always useless to a viable business.
The Tories set up the TECs (under Heseltine). They were a massive waste of money. The positive side to me was that two business I ran sold stuff to them (which was all dumped when they were wound up).
Indeed.
There's a phrase that's come up here before, I can't recall its name, about people being able to recognise flaws in the reporting in the media of an area of their own expertise but that they then take on faith what is reported in other areas without thinking it will be equally flawed.
There must be a similar concept with government. People who recognise that the government in their own area (DfE for instance) are counterproductive but then think that other areas could be solved by more government action rather than less.
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
I think the problem is lack of storage for gas, so exporting it is the only alternative.
Germany has 2 months of storage, 85% full, and only 9% of current gas consumption comes from Russia.
This is fairly silly. Firstly, we still supply 40-50% of our own gas consumption from the North sea which puts us in a better position than any of those countries other than Norway. Secondly, unlike Germany we have ports capable of offloading LNG facilitating imports. The policy options undertaken make reasonable sense in that context. Of course if we had stored a winter's gas we would have paid less for it than we will now but that is the only issue.
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
Odd that you quoted only one half of the paragraph that sentence came from. Adding in the missing first sentence rather changes the interpretation of it.
The UK imported £19.6 billion of gas in 2021; a notable increase of 312% from £4.8 billion in 2020. The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020
£19.6 bn of imports and £3.4 bn of exports. You tell me, do you think when there's a global energy shortage, does that mean we face a shortage or not?
One thing this isn't is a GLOBAL energy shortage. It's local to Europe.
More specifically, it's a shortage in LNG capacity. So there are countries outside of Europe, also dependent on LNG imports, who are being hammered.
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
I think the problem is lack of storage for gas, so exporting it is the only alternative.
Germany has 2 months of storage, 85% full, and only 9% of current gas consumption comes from Russia.
This is fairly silly. Firstly, we still supply 40-50% of our own gas consumption from the North sea which puts us in a better position than any of those countries other than Norway. Secondly, unlike Germany we have ports capable of offloading LNG facilitating imports. The policy options undertaken make reasonable sense in that context. Of course if we had stored a winter's gas we would have paid less for it than we will now but that is the only issue.
Too late to make any difference this winter (and it's still insignificant compared to continental storage facilities).
Though if it had been reopened a year ago, the gas stored would have paid for a decade or two's operation already...
The continental storage facilities are because they lack our LNG import sites and domestic production though.
The Germans have more storage, yes, but they have much fewer LNG import sites and much lower domestic production, which means they're in more difficulty than we are, not less.
It'd be better in hindsight to have more storage, but to make comparisons on storage without also taking into account import facilities and domestic production is to only tell less than half the story.
PM Truss - Sorry Mike but I have written her off and I don't think I am making a mistake. The Cons are out at the GE imo and my advice is to get in now with this before it becomes obvious to everyone and the value goes.
What about a Johnsonian renaissance? Truss hasn't started and she appears unhinged and chaotic. If a successful challenge were to come to pass the voter relief will reward Johnson with another five years, even if said voters are by then living in a cardboard box on the motorway.
I do admire the unsullied bleakness of the vision but, no, that's a step too far into dystopian absurdity for me. The line is being drawn now imo. At least here and in the US. Workmanlike social democracy under Starmer to beat more of this national populist monkey business (or poundland retread Thatcherism if Truss goes that way) and Trump to come a cropper and either not run or - more likely - run and lose.
She needs to then translate that into voteshare in No 10 and sustain it. If she did then even if she still lost the Tory majority she could still win most seats
She needs the conservative party to get behind her 100% once elected otherwise the party faces extinction in 2024
Will you come on bord and accept Johnson is over and the party needs to move on
Regarding the party, you’re in and out like a fiddler’s elbow. You’re a long-standing critic of Johnson. Do you seriously expect to be happy in the party under Truss? If she builds an ERG-friendly Cabinet full of the swivel-eyed do you think the remaining sensible Tories - which you seem to be - will be able support them for anything more than a few months?
We’re grinding inexorably towards a horror show this winter and the government is more concerned about corporate profit than people’s lives. They appear to be happy to allow rationing by wealth. I assume the calculation is that hard-working aspirational Tory supporters will probably be ok (though this may be ‘brave’); the feckless and workshy can be left to freeze. It will be character building, teach them thrift. Maybe they’ll work harder, graft more.
I think you’re going to struggle to support the party over the coming months. The lunatics have taken over the asylum. It’s tragic for all of us.
I will give you a answer once I have heard the plans from Truss/Kwarteng in September
I am not in and out of the conservative party as I am not a member and have not re-joined yet, but I absolutely endorse Johnson going and I would agree that some of the names suggested for her cabinet would not be my choice
Unfortunately I live in a constituency that is only between conservative and labour and no matter what happens I cannot vote for Starmer as I did for Blair as I do not see him remotely in the same league
It is true to say at present I do feel politically indifferent
You know what is odd about that NASA Youtube feed? Right now there is a chat running and some people are actually giving small amounts of money to NASA. Not only will the American government not notice the odd £5, $10 or 15 Norweigan krone, they will not even receive all of it because (aiui) Youtube rakes off a third for itself.
Ah! Amateur mistake. That's not NASA despite having NASA in its name. The point remains that Youtube chat donations are a shockingly inefficient way to give money to anyone because of Youtube's commission.
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
Presumably you’d be equally happy with Biden taking control of gas produced in the USA, for domestic energy generation rather than export to Europe?
(A significant amount of UK “exports” were previously imported from the US, because the UK invested in import terminals).
If the threat is that we will have blackouts, companies will go bust and people will die because of lack of available energy then yes I think it is absolutely reasonable for the Government to put a temporary ban on exports.
If we have enough gas or we cannot physically use the gas we have at the rates it is being produced then of course export it. But if there is the sorts of shortages that you and Bart are talking about then exporting it to third countries whilst failing to supply the home market is suicidally stupid.
Again, the market in its purest form is not always right.
But we don't physically produce enough gas. Export figures run at roughly 1/6th of what import figures do.
Exporting when we have a surplus (eg summer) then importing 6x that amount when we have a deficit (eg winter) makes sense, both strategically and economically.
The last thing we should surely want, as a significant net importer of gas, is to insist that exports are a bad thing. We need other nations to export to us, or will face far worse than a mere gas price rise.
All you are doing is repeating what I said. I agreed there is no point banning the export of gas when we can't use it. But it is dumb to continue exporting it when we can. And it is not quite the circular system that you describe. The countries we export to are not the same as the ones we import from. So your argument is fallacious.
You know what is odd about that NASA Youtube feed? Right now there is a chat running and some people are actually giving small amounts of money to NASA. Not only will the American government not notice the odd £5, $10 or 15 Norweigan krone, they will not even receive all of it because (aiui) Youtube rakes off a third for itself.
Ah! Amateur mistake. That's not NASA despite having NASA in its name. The point remains that Youtube chat donations are a shockingly inefficient way to give money to anyone because of Youtube's commission.
Yes, Youtube takes a commission on Superchat - but Patreon and OnlyFans also take similar commissions, and introduce more friction into the process from the point of view of the donor, who needs to create an account with a third party site.
Typical business meeting about the energy crisis as imagined by @RochdalePioneers:
- So we're going to turn the heating down in our German offices by 3 degrees. What about the UK? - We're still waiting for instructions from Liz Truss so I'm afraid it's anyone's guess what we'll have to do.
You really do give me some belly laughs - thanks.
The Spanish example was restricting the use of air conditioning. Which makes places uncomfortably warm. Ours will be restricting the use of heating. To make a factory or office uncomfortably cold.
Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.
But the bosses just turning heating down by themselves? Some will, but most won't.
Please keep posting the cabaret responses! I love a good comedy turn!
I really find this extraordinary
'Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.'
I ran two very successful businesses over 45 years and simply never looked at government to make decisions for me, or to take action and forward planning to address crisis that were looming
It is an extraordinary business person who waits to be told what to do by a government, any government
I would gently suggest this does provide an insight into your attitudes to government
We're not talking about normal business decisions. We are talking about abnormal. Were businesses voluntarily going to a three day week before Heath instructed them to do so? Did your business?
No - Our business remained open 7 days a week throughout
Did your business face a 6x rise in energy costs ?
No and to be fair it was not a high energy user anyway
My argument is that any business affected with crisis will be taking mitigating action but of course financial help at this time is needed, 37 billion has been provided so far, and Truss/Kwarteng will announce their plans in the next two weeks
Nobody has ben more critical of the conservative party going awol and navel gazing through the summer, it is shocking and may be terminal for their 24 election prospects
29 and 34 as well!
Possibly though whoever wins in 24 may well have a torrid time if as the report from Europe this morning suggests the next 5 to 10 years of winters are gong to be a very scary
She needs to then translate that into voteshare in No 10 and sustain it. If she did then even if she still lost the Tory majority she could still win most seats
She needs the conservative party to get behind her 100% once elected otherwise the party faces extinction in 2024
Will you come on bord and accept Johnson is over and the party needs to move on
Well I will come 100% behind her if she is elected leader despite voting for Sunak as I have every other Tory leader since I joined the party in 1998. However if she is trailing well behind in the polls this time next year whether the party will do so is another matter.
As for extinction the party is still far better placed than in Spring 2019 when it not only trailed Labour but had been overtaken by the Brexit Party as the main party of the right too
Although not impossible (look what happened to the Liberals) I tend to agree that under FPTP it is extremely unlikely that the Tories will face extinction. At worse they will go into opposition as they did before and come back stronger. As before they may go through a few leaders before reinventing themselves.
True but then of course the main reason the Liberals were overtaken was the fact that all working class male voters over 21 gained the vote by 1918, joined by all working class women by 1928 and those working class voters mostly voted Labour so Labour overtook the Liberals as the Tories main opponents. Whereas in the 19th century the electorate were mostly middle class and voted Tory or Liberal
27% of parents with children under 18 saying they plan to leave their heating off. And this was done BEFORE the price cap was announced. Some of the alt-right "well we froze when I was a kid and it never did me any harm" comments on Twitter are saying "kids will freeze so what". Not a good advert for the government whether they disagree on not.
I remain clear that Truss will not be slamming the £100bn or so on the table that is needed. Whatever she announces will be too little, and its already too late. That government spokespeople are even today repeating the "we have already been very generous" spin beggars belief - are they mad?
Being cruel and uncaring and incompetent is not an election-winning platform. Truss may be the first PM in history to have destroyed her reputation before even taking office.
Good morning
It is a fact that the government have spent 37 billion so far, yes 37 billion, and many billions are coming in the next fortnight
I fully accept the conservative party has gone awol this summer which is shocking, but the extent of this economic crisis is overwhelming governments and the idea we can just freeze the price for 6 months is simply not addressing how it is mitigated over the next 12 to 24 months or helping businesses at all
The left think this magic money tree of a windfall tax is the answer to everything when in practice it is not, and unless undertaken carefully will scare of investment in the energy solutions we need
The idea whatever is announced is too late is strange as the cap does not come in until October at which time everyone will receive the £400 over 6 months as already announced including further payments and a winter fuel payment of upto £600
It does seem ironic that a report yesterday expects electric cars will be paying considerably more than petrol or diesel
The BBC is leading with a report from Europe that frankly frightening and lays out just how bad things may be over the next 5 to 10 years, yes 5 to 10 years
A few responses: 1. It is already *politically* too late. They have indeed gone AWOL, the country has noticed that, the party would have to work very very hard to make up for their introspective summer. 2. "We are giving people £400 over the next few months" is already the excuse being used - doesn't cut it as like the mealy-mouthed 5p off petrol it gets swallowed whole immediately. Needs to be a lot lot more. 3. I'm selling my Outlander PHEV and getting a Tesla model Y next month. Energy cost per mile drops from 15p to 4p. 4. Other governments show signs of actually caring. And are acting. Ours does not, and is not.
27% of families say they plan to keep the heating off. You think that kind of calamity can be spun by "get a better job" or "you've had £400 you should be thanking us"?
There is another, possibly even more serious problem - what to do about small businesses.
And they need certainty now or they'll just be shutting up shop in advance of the winter.
I can easily envisage many shops and businesses moving to a 3 or 4 day week over the winter as opposed to the normal 6 day week. Which is going to do Government revenues no good at all.
But it will reduce the amount of fuel consumed, thus ensuring that we don't have blackouts due to a lack of energy.
There's a shortage of supply in the market. That is driving the price rise. We need a shrinkage of demand to cope, which the price rise will encourage, or we won't have enough supplies - nobody on the continent will. The entire continent is trying to eliminate 1/6th of all consumption in the space of a year.
We aren't. Has our government even advised business that it needs to restrict things? That we should be switching lighting off and having heating turned down?
This is a completely incoherent criticism. You think that people are worried sick about energy bills but need the government to tell them to cut back on consumption?
"Has our government even advised business"
Businesses are run by people.
You have to wonder what kind of businesses exist in Rochdale's mind that the people running them are so utterly incompetent they won't think to reduce consumption unless the Government tell them what to do.
And why they should be in business.
Even in the best of times no business uses more electricity than it has to. Businesses are shutting down because they simply cannot afford the energy to keep themselves going. Right now these are mostly hospitality - chip shops are particularly vulnerable as an example but it is much more than that.
But the idea that businesses can simply reduce consumption to the extent they can still afford the uncapped energy costs they are facing is just another example of how far you are divorced from reality.
Talk this morning about reforming the EU energy market. Everyone assumes that this is all about Russia. However Russia provides less than half of Europe's gas. Given the inevitable economising that will take place and alternatives sought do the current prices make sense or is there something fundamentally wrong with the energy market?
As I said last week I think that the current prices are being driven much more by speculators than by people forward buying gas that they actually need. Government intervention by those with stocks might well have a really significant impact on the futures price at this point.
So what degree of the price is speculation do you think ? How does the price of speculation be removed or reduced ?
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
I think the problem is lack of storage for gas, so exporting it is the only alternative.
Germany has 2 months of storage, 85% full, and only 9% of current gas consumption comes from Russia.
This is fairly silly. Firstly, we still supply 40-50% of our own gas consumption from the North sea which puts us in a better position than any of those countries other than Norway. Secondly, unlike Germany we have ports capable of offloading LNG facilitating imports. The policy options undertaken make reasonable sense in that context. Of course if we had stored a winter's gas we would have paid less for it than we will now but that is the only issue.
Too late to make any difference this winter (and it's still insignificant compared to continental storage facilities).
Though if it had been reopened a year ago, the gas stored would have paid for a decade or two's operation already...
The continental storage facilities are because they lack our LNG import sites and domestic production though.
The Germans have more storage, yes, but they have much fewer LNG import sites and much lower domestic production, which means they're in more difficulty than we are, not less.
It'd be better in hindsight to have more storage, but to make comparisons on storage without also taking into account import facilities and domestic production is to only tell less than half the story.
I suspect that that is from a somewhat lower base but still. People are being overly alarmist about various aspects of this crisis which is bad enough without the hysteria.
People are being alarmist? You mean most of the business groups. And they are saying what their members are saying. This isn't pointless alarmism, its an existential crisis for many of them.
Presumably it's no longer an existential crisis that we aren't importing enough labour?
Again with the comedy! Plenty of businesses can't fill vacancies. Which will be a comfort to them when they have to cut hours or close completely.
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
Presumably you’d be equally happy with Biden taking control of gas produced in the USA, for domestic energy generation rather than export to Europe?
(A significant amount of UK “exports” were previously imported from the US, because the UK invested in import terminals).
If the threat is that we will have blackouts, companies will go bust and people will die because of lack of available energy then yes I think it is absolutely reasonable for the Government to put a temporary ban on exports.
If we have enough gas or we cannot physically use the gas we have at the rates it is being produced then of course export it. But if there is the sorts of shortages that you and Bart are talking about then exporting it to third countries whilst failing to supply the home market is suicidally stupid.
Again, the market in its purest form is not always right.
But we don't physically produce enough gas. Export figures run at roughly 1/6th of what import figures do.
Exporting when we have a surplus (eg summer) then importing 6x that amount when we have a deficit (eg winter) makes sense, both strategically and economically.
The last thing we should surely want, as a significant net importer of gas, is to insist that exports are a bad thing. We need other nations to export to us, or will face far worse than a mere gas price rise.
All you are doing is repeating what I said. I agreed there is no point banning the export of gas when we can't use it. But it is dumb to continue exporting it when we can. And it is not quite the circular system that you describe. The countries we export to are not the same as the ones we import from. So your argument is fallacious.
Except its not dumb to export it when we can use it, if it makes more sense to export it and import other gas instead.
At the moment we are exporting gas to Germany. We are also importing gas from the rest of the world. We could use our own domestic gas, so not be bothering to make exports, but if we do that then the Germans won't be able to their storage facilities which will jack up demand and prices in the winter.
The Germans don't have as much import capabilities as we do, so them paying us for gas while we import LNG is a perfectly logical solution.
Entering into autarky and beggar thy neighbour will help nobody in this crisis.
PS it doesn't need to be circular as you simplistically describe, it can be more triangular or other shapes. If we export to Germany, then Germany don't need to import from Qatar, and then we can import from Qatar. Substitute Qatar for any other nation as appropriate.
Typical business meeting about the energy crisis as imagined by @RochdalePioneers:
- So we're going to turn the heating down in our German offices by 3 degrees. What about the UK? - We're still waiting for instructions from Liz Truss so I'm afraid it's anyone's guess what we'll have to do.
You really do give me some belly laughs - thanks.
The Spanish example was restricting the use of air conditioning. Which makes places uncomfortably warm. Ours will be restricting the use of heating. To make a factory or office uncomfortably cold.
Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.
But the bosses just turning heating down by themselves? Some will, but most won't.
Please keep posting the cabaret responses! I love a good comedy turn!
I really find this extraordinary
'Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.'
I ran two very successful businesses over 45 years and simply never looked at government to make decisions for me, or to take action and forward planning to address crisis that were looming
It is an extraordinary business person who waits to be told what to do by a government, any government
I would gently suggest this does provide an insight into your attitudes to government
I agree. I have run several businesses, including my own. I have also been involved in a couple of aborted startups. In every case I have found that Government involvement is nearly always negative. Just as @ydoethur wants to get rid of the DfE I want to get rid of DBIS (or whatever they are called these days). They invariable tell you the bleeding obvious, get in the way and often offer grant schemes that are only ever useful to businesses that will obviously fail.
The aborted schemes were ones where we just gave up because of officials who have never run a business in their lives telling us what we should do as opposed to what we wanted to do. I have never ever taken advantage of a grant in my life. They were always useless to a viable business.
The Tories set up the TECs (under Heseltine). They were a massive waste of money. The positive side to me was that two business I ran sold stuff to them (which was all dumped when they were wound up).
Indeed.
There's a phrase that's come up here before, I can't recall its name, about people being able to recognise flaws in the reporting in the media of an area of their own expertise but that they then take on faith what is reported in other areas without thinking it will be equally flawed.
There must be a similar concept with government. People who recognise that the government in their own area (DfE for instance) are counterproductive but then think that other areas could be solved by more government action rather than less.
Yep. My Dad believes everything in the Daily Mail. Then one day he read a story he was involved in and told us the report was all rubbish. We just smiled at him.
As you know, although we differ in our views on several topics (Brexit/FPTP/etc) our views on small Government I think are much aligned. I know we also agree on universal income. And I would use that as a cunning plot to get rid of most of the DWP as it would remove the need for most benefits.
Dmitry Kiselyov claimed in last night's show that the Mini Cooper driven by Natalya Vovk (named by the FSB as the main suspect in Darya Dugina's murder) suggests that the UK was behind it all 🇬🇧
You know what is odd about that NASA Youtube feed? Right now there is a chat running and some people are actually giving small amounts of money to NASA. Not only will the American government not notice the odd £5, $10 or 15 Norweigan krone, they will not even receive all of it because (aiui) Youtube rakes off a third for itself.
That’s not a NASA account, it’s a group of space ‘fans’ producing a crowdfunded broadcast.
Ah yes, I see now. But it is still a very inefficient way of giving money. Aiui from other accounts, Youtube rakes off a third.
I do hope that anyone on here defending the market and insisting that price signals be allowed to suppress demand are not, themselves, on a fixed tariff.
Any truth to the rumours of the Reading festival turning into Woodstock ‘99 last night, or is it just the tabloids bigging-up a couple of minor incidents?
Typical business meeting about the energy crisis as imagined by @RochdalePioneers:
- So we're going to turn the heating down in our German offices by 3 degrees. What about the UK? - We're still waiting for instructions from Liz Truss so I'm afraid it's anyone's guess what we'll have to do.
You really do give me some belly laughs - thanks.
The Spanish example was restricting the use of air conditioning. Which makes places uncomfortably warm. Ours will be restricting the use of heating. To make a factory or office uncomfortably cold.
Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.
But the bosses just turning heating down by themselves? Some will, but most won't.
Please keep posting the cabaret responses! I love a good comedy turn!
I really find this extraordinary
'Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.'
I ran two very successful businesses over 45 years and simply never looked at government to make decisions for me, or to take action and forward planning to address crisis that were looming
It is an extraordinary business person who waits to be told what to do by a government, any government
I would gently suggest this does provide an insight into your attitudes to government
I agree. I have run several businesses, including my own. I have also been involved in a couple of aborted startups. In every case I have found that Government involvement is nearly always negative. Just as @ydoethur wants to get rid of the DfE I want to get rid of DBIS (or whatever they are called these days). They invariable tell you the bleeding obvious, get in the way and often offer grant schemes that are only ever useful to businesses that will obviously fail.
The aborted schemes were ones where we just gave up because of officials who have never run a business in their lives telling us what we should do as opposed to what we wanted to do. I have never ever taken advantage of a grant in my life. They were always useless to a viable business.
The Tories set up the TECs (under Heseltine). They were a massive waste of money. The positive side to me was that two business I ran sold stuff to them (which was all dumped when they were wound up).
Indeed.
There's a phrase that's come up here before, I can't recall its name, about people being able to recognise flaws in the reporting in the media of an area of their own expertise but that they then take on faith what is reported in other areas without thinking it will be equally flawed.
There must be a similar concept with government. People who recognise that the government in their own area (DfE for instance) are counterproductive but then think that other areas could be solved by more government action rather than less.
Yep. My Dad believes everything in the Daily Mail. Then one day he read a story he was involved in and told us the report was all rubbish. We just smiled at him.
As you know, although we differ in our views on several topics (Brexit/FPTP/etc) our views on small Government I think are much aligned. I know we also agree on universal income. And I would use that as a cunning plot to get rid of most of the DWP as it would remove the need for most benefits.
As solid an idea as universal income is, how does any government sell it? For decades the issue of social security has been weaponised. "Benefits" handed out to the largely undeserving. UBI hands money out to *everyone* - the people who don't like any money being handed out to Other People won't like it.
Dmitry Kiselyov claimed in last night's show that the Mini Cooper driven by Natalya Vovk (named by the FSB as the main suspect in Darya Dugina's murder) suggests that the UK was behind it all 🇬🇧
You know what is odd about that NASA Youtube feed? Right now there is a chat running and some people are actually giving small amounts of money to NASA. Not only will the American government not notice the odd £5, $10 or 15 Norweigan krone, they will not even receive all of it because (aiui) Youtube rakes off a third for itself.
That’s not a NASA account, it’s a group of space ‘fans’ producing a crowdfunded broadcast.
Ah yes, I see now. But it is still a very inefficient way of giving money. Aiui from other accounts, Youtube rakes off a third.
People pay for convenience and I'm sure they'll find 2/3rds of something is better than 95% of nothing though.
Dmitry Kiselyov claimed in last night's show that the Mini Cooper driven by Natalya Vovk (named by the FSB as the main suspect in Darya Dugina's murder) suggests that the UK was behind it all 🇬🇧
I do hope that anyone on here defending the market and insisting that price signals be allowed to suppress demand are not, themselves, on a fixed tariff.
That's an indirect ad hom. Aamof I'm not on a fixed tariff. But that is beside the point. Policies that distort market signals are patently unhelpful if we want to get through this period with the least damage.
Any truth to the rumours of the Reading festival turning into Woodstock ‘99 last night, or is it just the tabloids bigging-up a couple of minor incidents?
Revellers at this year's Reading Festival have reported leaving early after witnessing ugly scenes of tent-burning, fighting and looting on the final day of the event.
Dmitry Kiselyov claimed in last night's show that the Mini Cooper driven by Natalya Vovk (named by the FSB as the main suspect in Darya Dugina's murder) suggests that the UK was behind it all 🇬🇧
The Ancien Régime will simply carry on as before, only with the court fool having been replaced at its pinnacle by Marie Antoinette. This is not a particular cause for celebration.
You're telling us the secret plan for keeping warm this Winter will be "Let them wear mink"?
I shall probably get put on a hate list now but you have just reminded me that in storage I have a mink coat inherited from my mother and grandmother. Italian ladies of a certain age are fond of fur coats. This may be the winter to get it out of storage and use it.
Chopping up wood in a fur coat on a remote Cumbrian hillside to keep warm has a certain Chekhovian feel to it, grimly appropriate to our times.
American Mink coats should be strongly encouraged. An invasive species.
If food prices go up any further, Grey squirrels will also be in serious trouble.
Dmitry Kiselyov claimed in last night's show that the Mini Cooper driven by Natalya Vovk (named by the FSB as the main suspect in Darya Dugina's murder) suggests that the UK was behind it all 🇬🇧
I have difficulty believing that the current iteration of the British state has the competence or resolve to blow somebody up in Moscow. The glory days of killing Patrice Lumumba and deposing the Sultan of Oman are long gone.
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
Presumably you’d be equally happy with Biden taking control of gas produced in the USA, for domestic energy generation rather than export to Europe?
(A significant amount of UK “exports” were previously imported from the US, because the UK invested in import terminals).
If the threat is that we will have blackouts, companies will go bust and people will die because of lack of available energy then yes I think it is absolutely reasonable for the Government to put a temporary ban on exports.
If we have enough gas or we cannot physically use the gas we have at the rates it is being produced then of course export it. But if there is the sorts of shortages that you and Bart are talking about then exporting it to third countries whilst failing to supply the home market is suicidally stupid.
Again, the market in its purest form is not always right.
But we don't physically produce enough gas. Export figures run at roughly 1/6th of what import figures do.
Exporting when we have a surplus (eg summer) then importing 6x that amount when we have a deficit (eg winter) makes sense, both strategically and economically.
The last thing we should surely want, as a significant net importer of gas, is to insist that exports are a bad thing. We need other nations to export to us, or will face far worse than a mere gas price rise.
All you are doing is repeating what I said. I agreed there is no point banning the export of gas when we can't use it. But it is dumb to continue exporting it when we can. And it is not quite the circular system that you describe. The countries we export to are not the same as the ones we import from. So your argument is fallacious.
Except its not dumb to export it when we can use it, if it makes more sense to export it and import other gas instead.
At the moment we are exporting gas to Germany. We are also importing gas from the rest of the world. We could use our own domestic gas, so not be bothering to make exports, but if we do that then the Germans won't be able to their storage facilities which will jack up demand and prices in the winter.
The Germans don't have as much import capabilities as we do, so them paying us for gas while we import LNG is a perfectly logical solution.
Entering into autarky and beggar thy neighbour will help nobody in this crisis.
PS it doesn't need to be circular as you simplistically describe, it can be more triangular or other shapes. If we export to Germany, then Germany don't need to import from Qatar, and then we can import from Qatar. Substitute Qatar for any other nation as appropriate.
The object of the exercise is to make sure we have enough gas/energy, not to sustain a circular or triangular trade in gas for its own sake. If we don't export gas to Germany then we don't ned to import it from Qatar and they can sell it to Germany. Ensuring our own supply is the key here. Not least because there is no guarantee that when we have exported our gas to Germany that they won't also import from Qatar, so putting our supply at risk or making it far more expensive.
You spent lots of time the last few days arguing that there are no such things as friends in international diplomacy. A position I agree with. Now you are suggesting that we should trust that when we send another country gas that we still need, we should do so in the belief they will reciprocate even at a cost to themselves. There is no consistency in your arguments.
Dmitry Kiselyov claimed in last night's show that the Mini Cooper driven by Natalya Vovk (named by the FSB as the main suspect in Darya Dugina's murder) suggests that the UK was behind it all 🇬🇧
Any truth to the rumours of the Reading festival turning into Woodstock ‘99 last night, or is it just the tabloids bigging-up a couple of minor incidents?
Revellers at this year's Reading Festival have reported leaving early after witnessing ugly scenes of tent-burning, fighting and looting on the final day of the event.
The Ancien Régime will simply carry on as before, only with the court fool having been replaced at its pinnacle by Marie Antoinette. This is not a particular cause for celebration.
You're telling us the secret plan for keeping warm this Winter will be "Let them wear mink"?
I shall probably get put on a hate list now but you have just reminded me that in storage I have a mink coat inherited from my mother and grandmother. Italian ladies of a certain age are fond of fur coats. This may be the winter to get it out of storage and use it.
Chopping up wood in a fur coat on a remote Cumbrian hillside to keep warm has a certain Chekhovian feel to it, grimly appropriate to our times.
American Mink coats should be strongly encouraged. An invasive species.
If food prices go up any further, Grey squirrels will also be in serious trouble.
Wood pigeon is rather nice too. In abundance here as we back onto a wood and are pretty rural.
Funny story. Guess the paperwork got lost. Also, yet more people who fail to know the 'generally accepted rules' which do not in fact exist.
When will the government and the Queen accept these rules I wonder?
Gibraltar can officially call itself a city, 180 years after it was first granted the status by Queen Victoria.
The British overseas territory had bid to become a city earlier this year as part of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.
But when researchers looked through the National Archives, they found it had already been recognised as one in 1842... City status is often associated with having a cathedral, university, or large population, but there are no set rules for it being granted - it's awarded by the monarch on advice of ministers.
Saying the rules aren't clear is putting it mildly - why the hell is Port Stanley (population 2,500) a city rather than a medium-sized hamlet, while it took the murder of its MP to make Southend (population 183k) a city?
Any truth to the rumours of the Reading festival turning into Woodstock ‘99 last night, or is it just the tabloids bigging-up a couple of minor incidents?
Revellers at this year's Reading Festival have reported leaving early after witnessing ugly scenes of tent-burning, fighting and looting on the final day of the event.
Typical business meeting about the energy crisis as imagined by @RochdalePioneers:
- So we're going to turn the heating down in our German offices by 3 degrees. What about the UK? - We're still waiting for instructions from Liz Truss so I'm afraid it's anyone's guess what we'll have to do.
You really do give me some belly laughs - thanks.
The Spanish example was restricting the use of air conditioning. Which makes places uncomfortably warm. Ours will be restricting the use of heating. To make a factory or office uncomfortably cold.
Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.
But the bosses just turning heating down by themselves? Some will, but most won't.
Please keep posting the cabaret responses! I love a good comedy turn!
I really find this extraordinary
'Most businesses are not going to volunteer themselves to create grief for their staff. They need to be instructed. If its the national effort, all pull together, bulldog spirit what what then people will do it.'
I ran two very successful businesses over 45 years and simply never looked at government to make decisions for me, or to take action and forward planning to address crisis that were looming
It is an extraordinary business person who waits to be told what to do by a government, any government
I would gently suggest this does provide an insight into your attitudes to government
I agree. I have run several businesses, including my own. I have also been involved in a couple of aborted startups. In every case I have found that Government involvement is nearly always negative. Just as @ydoethur wants to get rid of the DfE I want to get rid of DBIS (or whatever they are called these days). They invariable tell you the bleeding obvious, get in the way and often offer grant schemes that are only ever useful to businesses that will obviously fail.
The aborted schemes were ones where we just gave up because of officials who have never run a business in their lives telling us what we should do as opposed to what we wanted to do. I have never ever taken advantage of a grant in my life. They were always useless to a viable business.
The Tories set up the TECs (under Heseltine). They were a massive waste of money. The positive side to me was that two business I ran sold stuff to them (which was all dumped when they were wound up).
Indeed.
There's a phrase that's come up here before, I can't recall its name, about people being able to recognise flaws in the reporting in the media of an area of their own expertise but that they then take on faith what is reported in other areas without thinking it will be equally flawed.
There must be a similar concept with government. People who recognise that the government in their own area (DfE for instance) are counterproductive but then think that other areas could be solved by more government action rather than less.
Yep. My Dad believes everything in the Daily Mail. Then one day he read a story he was involved in and told us the report was all rubbish. We just smiled at him.
As you know, although we differ in our views on several topics (Brexit/FPTP/etc) our views on small Government I think are much aligned. I know we also agree on universal income. And I would use that as a cunning plot to get rid of most of the DWP as it would remove the need for most benefits.
As solid an idea as universal income is, how does any government sell it? For decades the issue of social security has been weaponised. "Benefits" handed out to the largely undeserving. UBI hands money out to *everyone* - the people who don't like any money being handed out to Other People won't like it.
I agree. The selling of it is difficult. Money for nothing. Any Universal Income has to be fiscally neutral. So Personal Allowances go and tax on income over and above the universal income comes in straight away and is progressive.
The universal income has to be adequate but not generous. Re the argument on scroungers, well the manipulating of the system has been eliminated. True they have got some free money, but if they want more they will have to earn it and it will be taxed. There is no system to manipulate as the benefits have gone. And those who don't claim benefits through ignorance or pride will now get what they should.
But yes simplistic campaigns of free money to scroungers and who will pay for it sadly work.
The Ancien Régime will simply carry on as before, only with the court fool having been replaced at its pinnacle by Marie Antoinette. This is not a particular cause for celebration.
You're telling us the secret plan for keeping warm this Winter will be "Let them wear mink"?
I shall probably get put on a hate list now but you have just reminded me that in storage I have a mink coat inherited from my mother and grandmother. Italian ladies of a certain age are fond of fur coats. This may be the winter to get it out of storage and use it.
Chopping up wood in a fur coat on a remote Cumbrian hillside to keep warm has a certain Chekhovian feel to it, grimly appropriate to our times.
American Mink coats should be strongly encouraged. An invasive species.
If food prices go up any further, Grey squirrels will also be in serious trouble.
Wood pigeon is rather nice too. In abundance here as we back onto a wood and are pretty rural.
I'd prefer if we went for the problematic ones first. Mink, Squirrel, Knotweed, Rhododendron and Hogweed stew?
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
Presumably you’d be equally happy with Biden taking control of gas produced in the USA, for domestic energy generation rather than export to Europe?
(A significant amount of UK “exports” were previously imported from the US, because the UK invested in import terminals).
If the threat is that we will have blackouts, companies will go bust and people will die because of lack of available energy then yes I think it is absolutely reasonable for the Government to put a temporary ban on exports.
If we have enough gas or we cannot physically use the gas we have at the rates it is being produced then of course export it. But if there is the sorts of shortages that you and Bart are talking about then exporting it to third countries whilst failing to supply the home market is suicidally stupid.
Again, the market in its purest form is not always right.
But we don't physically produce enough gas. Export figures run at roughly 1/6th of what import figures do.
Exporting when we have a surplus (eg summer) then importing 6x that amount when we have a deficit (eg winter) makes sense, both strategically and economically.
The last thing we should surely want, as a significant net importer of gas, is to insist that exports are a bad thing. We need other nations to export to us, or will face far worse than a mere gas price rise.
All you are doing is repeating what I said. I agreed there is no point banning the export of gas when we can't use it. But it is dumb to continue exporting it when we can. And it is not quite the circular system that you describe. The countries we export to are not the same as the ones we import from. So your argument is fallacious.
Except its not dumb to export it when we can use it, if it makes more sense to export it and import other gas instead.
At the moment we are exporting gas to Germany. We are also importing gas from the rest of the world. We could use our own domestic gas, so not be bothering to make exports, but if we do that then the Germans won't be able to their storage facilities which will jack up demand and prices in the winter.
The Germans don't have as much import capabilities as we do, so them paying us for gas while we import LNG is a perfectly logical solution.
Entering into autarky and beggar thy neighbour will help nobody in this crisis.
PS it doesn't need to be circular as you simplistically describe, it can be more triangular or other shapes. If we export to Germany, then Germany don't need to import from Qatar, and then we can import from Qatar. Substitute Qatar for any other nation as appropriate.
The object of the exercise is to make sure we have enough gas/energy, not to sustain a circular or triangular trade in gas for its own sake. If we don't export gas to Germany then we don't ned to import it from Qatar and they can sell it to Germany. Ensuring our own supply is the key here. Not least because there is no guarantee that when we have exported our gas to Germany that they won't also import from Qatar, so putting our supply at risk or making it far more expensive.
You spent lots of time the last few days arguing that there are no such things as friends in international diplomacy. A position I agree with. Now you are suggesting that we should trust that when we send another country gas that we still need, we should do so in the belief they will reciprocate even at a cost to themselves. There is no consistency in your arguments.
Gas supply nationalism is a prisoners’ dilemma. It might be great for the UK if the UK does it, but it will be crap for everyone if the USA and Norway do it too.
The way forward has to be co-operation among allies, making maximum use of everyone’s production, import/export capacity, and storage, to minimise the disruption to Europe over the winter.
Except Putin of course, f**k him and f**k his gas pipeline.
She needs to then translate that into voteshare in No 10 and sustain it. If she did then even if she still lost the Tory majority she could still win most seats
She needs the conservative party to get behind her 100% once elected otherwise the party faces extinction in 2024
Will you come on bord and accept Johnson is over and the party needs to move on
Well I will come 100% behind her if she is elected leader despite voting for Sunak as I have every other Tory leader since I joined the party in 1998. However if she is trailing well behind in the polls this time next year whether the party will do so is another matter.
As for extinction the party is still far better placed than in Spring 2019 when it not only trailed Labour but had been overtaken by the Brexit Party as the main party of the right too
Although not impossible (look what happened to the Liberals) I tend to agree that under FPTP it is extremely unlikely that the Tories will face extinction. At worse they will go into opposition as they did before and come back stronger. As before they may go through a few leaders before reinventing themselves.
True but then of course the main reason the Liberals were overtaken was the fact that all working class male voters over 21 gained the vote by 1918, joined by all working class women by 1928 and those working class voters mostly voted Labour so Labour overtook the Liberals as the Tories main opponents. Whereas in the 19th century the electorate were mostly middle class and voted Tory or Liberal
I've not studied any of this. What you say makes senses, but is it as simple as that?
The Ancien Régime will simply carry on as before, only with the court fool having been replaced at its pinnacle by Marie Antoinette. This is not a particular cause for celebration.
You're telling us the secret plan for keeping warm this Winter will be "Let them wear mink"?
I shall probably get put on a hate list now but you have just reminded me that in storage I have a mink coat inherited from my mother and grandmother. Italian ladies of a certain age are fond of fur coats. This may be the winter to get it out of storage and use it.
Chopping up wood in a fur coat on a remote Cumbrian hillside to keep warm has a certain Chekhovian feel to it, grimly appropriate to our times.
American Mink coats should be strongly encouraged. An invasive species.
If food prices go up any further, Grey squirrels will also be in serious trouble.
Wood pigeon is rather nice too. In abundance here as we back onto a wood and are pretty rural.
I'd prefer if we went for the problematic ones first. Mink, Squirrel, Knotweed, Rhododendron and Hogweed stew?
Knotweed is actually pretty good for you. Full of vitamin A and C. It is somewhat akin to rhubarb.
The Ancien Régime will simply carry on as before, only with the court fool having been replaced at its pinnacle by Marie Antoinette. This is not a particular cause for celebration.
You're telling us the secret plan for keeping warm this Winter will be "Let them wear mink"?
I shall probably get put on a hate list now but you have just reminded me that in storage I have a mink coat inherited from my mother and grandmother. Italian ladies of a certain age are fond of fur coats. This may be the winter to get it out of storage and use it.
Chopping up wood in a fur coat on a remote Cumbrian hillside to keep warm has a certain Chekhovian feel to it, grimly appropriate to our times.
American Mink coats should be strongly encouraged. An invasive species.
If food prices go up any further, Grey squirrels will also be in serious trouble.
Wood pigeon is rather nice too. In abundance here as we back onto a wood and are pretty rural.
They are not nice to my bloody raspberries (unless you like raspberry flavoured pigeon).
Funny story. Guess the paperwork got lost. Also, yet more people who fail to know the 'generally accepted rules' which do not in fact exist.
When will the government and the Queen accept these rules I wonder?
Gibraltar can officially call itself a city, 180 years after it was first granted the status by Queen Victoria.
The British overseas territory had bid to become a city earlier this year as part of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.
But when researchers looked through the National Archives, they found it had already been recognised as one in 1842... City status is often associated with having a cathedral, university, or large population, but there are no set rules for it being granted - it's awarded by the monarch on advice of ministers.
Saying the rules aren't clear is putting it mildly - why the hell is Port Stanley (population 2,500) a city rather than a medium-sized hamlet, while it took the murder of its MP to make Southend (population 183k) a city?
Sunak should have proposed making Hartlepool a city. He would have romped home.
The Ancien Régime will simply carry on as before, only with the court fool having been replaced at its pinnacle by Marie Antoinette. This is not a particular cause for celebration.
You're telling us the secret plan for keeping warm this Winter will be "Let them wear mink"?
I shall probably get put on a hate list now but you have just reminded me that in storage I have a mink coat inherited from my mother and grandmother. Italian ladies of a certain age are fond of fur coats. This may be the winter to get it out of storage and use it.
Chopping up wood in a fur coat on a remote Cumbrian hillside to keep warm has a certain Chekhovian feel to it, grimly appropriate to our times.
American Mink coats should be strongly encouraged. An invasive species.
If food prices go up any further, Grey squirrels will also be in serious trouble.
Good. I have enormous walnut tree, with thousands of walnuts on it. I never get any of them. I just get an horrendous mess on the ground from thousands of bits of the green flesh around the nut.
For @Leon , who has fruitlessly been struggling for a quite while with what ‘woke’ might mean.
This is quite a good illustration. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/08/male-politicians-women-voters-abortion.html … One analysis of the Kansas’ voter registration list showed that in the week after Dobbs, more than 70 percent of newly registered voters in that state were women. Those numbers, according to an Upshot analysis of 10 states with available voter registration data, show consistently higher registration for women after the Dobbs leak in May. As Jennifer Rubin recently noted, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that, “62 percent of women registering since Dobbs registered as Democrats, 15 percent as Republicans and that 54 percent were younger than 25.” And a Pew Research Center poll indicates that “a majority of registered voters (56 percent) say the issue of abortion will be very important in their midterm vote, up from 43 percent in March.” Tom Bonier, CEO Of TargetSmart recently posted on Twitter: “We are seeing early signs of what could lead to a huge increase in women voting in November. …This surge is young and female.” Both Mitch McConnell and RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel are panicking about the GOP’s odds in Congress, directly connected to fundraising around abortion...
Talk this morning about reforming the EU energy market. Everyone assumes that this is all about Russia. However Russia provides less than half of Europe's gas. Given the inevitable economising that will take place and alternatives sought do the current prices make sense or is there something fundamentally wrong with the energy market?
As I said last week I think that the current prices are being driven much more by speculators than by people forward buying gas that they actually need. Government intervention by those with stocks might well have a really significant impact on the futures price at this point.
So what degree of the price is speculation do you think ? How does the price of speculation be removed or reduced ?
Total guess but I would suggest at least 50% of the gas price is speculation at the moment. When you look at the surplus there was before the war and the amount taken out of circulation by the Ukraine invasion the reaction in the price is extremely disproportionate.
The problem is what can be done about it. What it needs is a weight of selling in the market that causes the price to collapse which causes those on margins to panic and sell some more to close out their positions etc. Who could do that? Governments with substantial stocks could but lots of producers with deep pockets have a strong vested interest in keeping the price high becuase they are coining it in. Stopping a counter intervention by them would be the tricky part.
I remember many years ago now I was involved in a case where a farmer had lost £1m or £2m by playing the potato futures market. The expert explained that less than 5% of the contracts on that market actually involved a physical delivery of potatoes. The rest was speculators seeking to make a buck. It would not surprise me if the current market for gas was similar. Today the future price is up 7.62%. In a single day. What has changed in the supply and the demand to justify that? Nothing of note. But those who bought futures last week are doing very well.
The Ancien Régime will simply carry on as before, only with the court fool having been replaced at its pinnacle by Marie Antoinette. This is not a particular cause for celebration.
You're telling us the secret plan for keeping warm this Winter will be "Let them wear mink"?
I shall probably get put on a hate list now but you have just reminded me that in storage I have a mink coat inherited from my mother and grandmother. Italian ladies of a certain age are fond of fur coats. This may be the winter to get it out of storage and use it.
Chopping up wood in a fur coat on a remote Cumbrian hillside to keep warm has a certain Chekhovian feel to it, grimly appropriate to our times.
American Mink coats should be strongly encouraged. An invasive species.
If food prices go up any further, Grey squirrels will also be in serious trouble.
Wood pigeon is rather nice too. In abundance here as we back onto a wood and are pretty rural.
They are not nice to my bloody raspberries (unless you like raspberry flavoured pigeon).
They are costing me a lot of money to get them out from under my solar panels so I can apply mesh to prevent them nesting there in the first place.
Do you know they nest all year round and can have up to 6 broods of 2 eggs per year, i.e. 12 new pigeons per pair per year
OT lots of claims on the twitters about the Ukrainian Kherson offensive finally happening.
We shall see. I've never understood the assumption of stalemate. The Russian forces were all along the border months before the war started. No one assumed the invasion wouldn't happen because they didn't go in straight away. However the Russians have obviously increased their troop numbers in Kherson in the last month and some in Ukraine were saying that they would need to wait for further American kit to arrive in the Autumn.
She needs to then translate that into voteshare in No 10 and sustain it. If she did then even if she still lost the Tory majority she could still win most seats
She needs the conservative party to get behind her 100% once elected otherwise the party faces extinction in 2024
Will you come on bord and accept Johnson is over and the party needs to move on
Well I will come 100% behind her if she is elected leader despite voting for Sunak as I have every other Tory leader since I joined the party in 1998. However if she is trailing well behind in the polls this time next year whether the party will do so is another matter.
As for extinction the party is still far better placed than in Spring 2019 when it not only trailed Labour but had been overtaken by the Brexit Party as the main party of the right too
Although not impossible (look what happened to the Liberals) I tend to agree that under FPTP it is extremely unlikely that the Tories will face extinction. At worse they will go into opposition as they did before and come back stronger. As before they may go through a few leaders before reinventing themselves.
True but then of course the main reason the Liberals were overtaken was the fact that all working class male voters over 21 gained the vote by 1918, joined by all working class women by 1928 and those working class voters mostly voted Labour so Labour overtook the Liberals as the Tories main opponents. Whereas in the 19th century the electorate were mostly middle class and voted Tory or Liberal
I've not studied any of this. What you say makes senses, but is it as simple as that?
In large part. It was the widening of the franchise and the growth of trade unions as the economy industrialised and moved to the cities that was pivotal to the growth of Labour and the relative decline of the Liberals.
If the Tories however were overtaken as the main party off the right it would mainly be on ideological grounds, hence Farage's Brexit Party briefly overtook May's Tories in the polls in Spring 2019 after she failed to deliver Brexit
The Ancien Régime will simply carry on as before, only with the court fool having been replaced at its pinnacle by Marie Antoinette. This is not a particular cause for celebration.
You're telling us the secret plan for keeping warm this Winter will be "Let them wear mink"?
I shall probably get put on a hate list now but you have just reminded me that in storage I have a mink coat inherited from my mother and grandmother. Italian ladies of a certain age are fond of fur coats. This may be the winter to get it out of storage and use it.
Chopping up wood in a fur coat on a remote Cumbrian hillside to keep warm has a certain Chekhovian feel to it, grimly appropriate to our times.
American Mink coats should be strongly encouraged. An invasive species.
If food prices go up any further, Grey squirrels will also be in serious trouble.
Wood pigeon is rather nice too. In abundance here as we back onto a wood and are pretty rural.
They are not nice to my bloody raspberries (unless you like raspberry flavoured pigeon).
They are costing me a lot of money to get them out from under my solar panels so I can apply mesh to prevent them nesting there in the first place.
Do you know they nest all year round and can have up to 6 broods of 2 eggs per year, i.e. 12 new pigeons per pair per year
I did. I understand they can do this because they produce a type of milk (called milk crop).
Funny story. Guess the paperwork got lost. Also, yet more people who fail to know the 'generally accepted rules' which do not in fact exist.
When will the government and the Queen accept these rules I wonder?
Gibraltar can officially call itself a city, 180 years after it was first granted the status by Queen Victoria.
The British overseas territory had bid to become a city earlier this year as part of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.
But when researchers looked through the National Archives, they found it had already been recognised as one in 1842... City status is often associated with having a cathedral, university, or large population, but there are no set rules for it being granted - it's awarded by the monarch on advice of ministers.
Saying the rules aren't clear is putting it mildly - why the hell is Port Stanley (population 2,500) a city rather than a medium-sized hamlet, while it took the murder of its MP to make Southend (population 183k) a city?
I agree. Making Port Stanley a city was on sentimental grounds nothing more. It is a village or small town at most in reality and there is nothing wrong with being either and having pride in that status.
Really city status should only be granted to areas with a population over 100 000 and ideally with a cathedral and university too
Are you sure that there is a shortage of Gas in the UK: "The UK exported £3.4 billion of gas in 2021, increasing by 167% from £1.3 billion in 2020. The trade in gas has been consistently high since the latter half of 2021, as global gas demand increased following the conclusion of many of the strictest coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions."
UK government needs to take control of gas produced in the UK . The gas could be used for electrictity generation or as is happening already coal fired stations such as Radcliffe (Junction 24 of the M!) should be kept in service until on-shore renewables (solar and wind) come on line.
Presumably you’d be equally happy with Biden taking control of gas produced in the USA, for domestic energy generation rather than export to Europe?
(A significant amount of UK “exports” were previously imported from the US, because the UK invested in import terminals).
If the threat is that we will have blackouts, companies will go bust and people will die because of lack of available energy then yes I think it is absolutely reasonable for the Government to put a temporary ban on exports.
If we have enough gas or we cannot physically use the gas we have at the rates it is being produced then of course export it. But if there is the sorts of shortages that you and Bart are talking about then exporting it to third countries whilst failing to supply the home market is suicidally stupid.
Again, the market in its purest form is not always right.
But we don't physically produce enough gas. Export figures run at roughly 1/6th of what import figures do.
Exporting when we have a surplus (eg summer) then importing 6x that amount when we have a deficit (eg winter) makes sense, both strategically and economically.
The last thing we should surely want, as a significant net importer of gas, is to insist that exports are a bad thing. We need other nations to export to us, or will face far worse than a mere gas price rise.
All you are doing is repeating what I said. I agreed there is no point banning the export of gas when we can't use it. But it is dumb to continue exporting it when we can. And it is not quite the circular system that you describe. The countries we export to are not the same as the ones we import from. So your argument is fallacious.
Except its not dumb to export it when we can use it, if it makes more sense to export it and import other gas instead.
At the moment we are exporting gas to Germany. We are also importing gas from the rest of the world. We could use our own domestic gas, so not be bothering to make exports, but if we do that then the Germans won't be able to their storage facilities which will jack up demand and prices in the winter.
The Germans don't have as much import capabilities as we do, so them paying us for gas while we import LNG is a perfectly logical solution.
Entering into autarky and beggar thy neighbour will help nobody in this crisis.
PS it doesn't need to be circular as you simplistically describe, it can be more triangular or other shapes. If we export to Germany, then Germany don't need to import from Qatar, and then we can import from Qatar. Substitute Qatar for any other nation as appropriate.
The object of the exercise is to make sure we have enough gas/energy, not to sustain a circular or triangular trade in gas for its own sake. If we don't export gas to Germany then we don't ned to import it from Qatar and they can sell it to Germany. Ensuring our own supply is the key here. Not least because there is no guarantee that when we have exported our gas to Germany that they won't also import from Qatar, so putting our supply at risk or making it far more expensive.
You spent lots of time the last few days arguing that there are no such things as friends in international diplomacy. A position I agree with. Now you are suggesting that we should trust that when we send another country gas that we still need, we should do so in the belief they will reciprocate even at a cost to themselves. There is no consistency in your arguments.
Except as I and others too have repeatedly pointed out, Germany lacks the LNG supply terminals that we have. What they do have amongst other things is a gas connector with the UK though.
So we can import LNG, export gas to Germany. We have the supplies we need, Germany has the supplies they need, everybody wins.
Exporting gas to the continent in the summer, even if we could have used that ourselves, means that continental storage facilities can be full heading into the winter. Ensuring that continental gas storage facilities are full rather than empty in the winter makes our winter imports that we're relying upon more secure, not less.
We should not ensure that Germany's storage facilities are full heading into winter as an act of generosity or kindness. We should ensure it as its in our own, cold, self-interest. A functioning continental energy market this winter that means we can import the energy we require when we require it, which is in our own self-interest.
Doing a re-read of Space Launch Systems stuff. Amazing that NASA are still using a fully disposable system when SpaceX have everything reusable.
Worse than that; in the case of the engines, they're disposing of items that were reusable. As to why, it's a combination of factors:
*) The SLS project started in 2911, when SpaceX had only launched the initial version of Falcon 9 twice, before SpaceX had decided on propulsive landing, and ?four? years before a F9 successfully landed.
*) The SLS is *very* large compared to the F9. The issues of recovery are so much greater, especially as the first stage will be travelling *much* faster than the F9 first stage does (in the case of F9, they stage early - and have a larger second stage, to keep speeds down and to make recovery easier).
*) Economics. The flight rate of SLS is too low to make reusability economical. Back in the 1960s, von Braun estimated over 100 flights would have to be manifested to make Saturn V reuse economic to develop.
*) Politics. The SLS uses ex-Shuttle parts to keep politicians happy - they did not want ex-Shuttle factories to close.
All in all, it made sense back in 2011. *If* SpaceX's SH/SS combo actually works, it won't have many flights. *If*.
There's also Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, which will have a reusable first stage, and potentially a reusable second stage as well. And ULA are going for some form of SMART reuse with Vulcan - though they have the same problem of high-altitude, high-speed staging.
She needs to then translate that into voteshare in No 10 and sustain it. If she did then even if she still lost the Tory majority she could still win most seats
She needs the conservative party to get behind her 100% once elected otherwise the party faces extinction in 2024
Will you come on bord and accept Johnson is over and the party needs to move on
Well I will come 100% behind her if she is elected leader despite voting for Sunak as I have every other Tory leader since I joined the party in 1998. However if she is trailing well behind in the polls this time next year whether the party will do so is another matter.
As for extinction the party is still far better placed than in Spring 2019 when it not only trailed Labour but had been overtaken by the Brexit Party as the main party of the right too
Although not impossible (look what happened to the Liberals) I tend to agree that under FPTP it is extremely unlikely that the Tories will face extinction. At worse they will go into opposition as they did before and come back stronger. As before they may go through a few leaders before reinventing themselves.
True but then of course the main reason the Liberals were overtaken was the fact that all working class male voters over 21 gained the vote by 1918, joined by all working class women by 1928 and those working class voters mostly voted Labour so Labour overtook the Liberals as the Tories main opponents. Whereas in the 19th century the electorate were mostly middle class and voted Tory or Liberal
I've not studied any of this. What you say makes senses, but is it as simple as that?
In large part. It was the widening of the franchise and the growth of trade unions as the economy industrialised and moved to the cities that was pivotal to the growth of Labour and the relative decline of the Liberals.
If the Tories however were overtaken as the main party off the right it would mainly be on ideological grounds, hence Farage's Brexit Party briefly overtook May's Tories in the polls in Spring 2019 after she failed to deliver Brexit
I wish it was only 'relative decline'. I fully accept I am in a minority as a Liberal. Even when we are doing well it is important to note our core vote is still very low indeed (4 - 5%) and much of the rest is due to protest against Tory/Labour.
Talk this morning about reforming the EU energy market. Everyone assumes that this is all about Russia. However Russia provides less than half of Europe's gas. Given the inevitable economising that will take place and alternatives sought do the current prices make sense or is there something fundamentally wrong with the energy market?
As I said last week I think that the current prices are being driven much more by speculators than by people forward buying gas that they actually need. Government intervention by those with stocks might well have a really significant impact on the futures price at this point.
So what degree of the price is speculation do you think ? How does the price of speculation be removed or reduced ?
Total guess but I would suggest at least 50% of the gas price is speculation at the moment. When you look at the surplus there was before the war and the amount taken out of circulation by the Ukraine invasion the reaction in the price is extremely disproportionate.
The problem is what can be done about it. What it needs is a weight of selling in the market that causes the price to collapse which causes those on margins to panic and sell some more to close out their positions etc. Who could do that? Governments with substantial stocks could but lots of producers with deep pockets have a strong vested interest in keeping the price high becuase they are coining it in. Stopping a counter intervention by them would be the tricky part.
I remember many years ago now I was involved in a case where a farmer had lost £1m or £2m by playing the potato futures market. The expert explained that less than 5% of the contracts on that market actually involved a physical delivery of potatoes. The rest was speculators seeking to make a buck. It would not surprise me if the current market for gas was similar. Today the future price is up 7.62%. In a single day. What has changed in the supply and the demand to justify that? Nothing of note. But those who bought futures last week are doing very well.
Anyone actually know about the gas futures market ? @rcs1000 ?
As far as I know (which is not that much) prices are being determined by purchases of physical gas cargoes in the scrabble to get sufficient supplies for this winter. The supply into Europe has from Russia been tightly restricted (and much of that gas can’t physically be shipped elsewhere), and the market represents the price of diverting LNG cargoes which in more normal times would be heading to Asia, by outbidding what’s being paid there.
Of course it could turn quite sharply. For example…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62710522 …Germany - the largest importer of Russian gas in 2020 - has been racing to bolster its gas reserves before winter despite Russia cutting deliveries. Its aim is to fill its gas capacity to 85% by October. It has implemented energy-saving measures to do so. Economy Minister Robert Habeck said such measures - along with buying gas from alternative suppliers - had enabled Germany to fulfil its goal sooner than anticipated. He estimated that the 85% target could be reached by the start of September…
She needs to then translate that into voteshare in No 10 and sustain it. If she did then even if she still lost the Tory majority she could still win most seats
She needs the conservative party to get behind her 100% once elected otherwise the party faces extinction in 2024
Will you come on bord and accept Johnson is over and the party needs to move on
Well I will come 100% behind her if she is elected leader despite voting for Sunak as I have every other Tory leader since I joined the party in 1998. However if she is trailing well behind in the polls this time next year whether the party will do so is another matter.
As for extinction the party is still far better placed than in Spring 2019 when it not only trailed Labour but had been overtaken by the Brexit Party as the main party of the right too
Although not impossible (look what happened to the Liberals) I tend to agree that under FPTP it is extremely unlikely that the Tories will face extinction. At worse they will go into opposition as they did before and come back stronger. As before they may go through a few leaders before reinventing themselves.
True but then of course the main reason the Liberals were overtaken was the fact that all working class male voters over 21 gained the vote by 1918, joined by all working class women by 1928 and those working class voters mostly voted Labour so Labour overtook the Liberals as the Tories main opponents. Whereas in the 19th century the electorate were mostly middle class and voted Tory or Liberal
I've not studied any of this. What you say makes senses, but is it as simple as that?
In large part. It was the widening of the franchise and the growth of trade unions as the economy industrialised and moved to the cities that was pivotal to the growth of Labour and the relative decline of the Liberals.
If the Tories however were overtaken as the main party off the right it would mainly be on ideological grounds, hence Farage's Brexit Party briefly overtook May's Tories in the polls in Spring 2019 after she failed to deliver Brexit
I wish it was only 'relative decline'. I fully accept I am in a minority as a Liberal. Even when we are doing well it is important to note our core vote is still very low indeed (4 - 5%) and much of the rest is due to protest against Tory/Labour.
Indeed although the LD core vote would likely be a bit higher under PR. The LD core vote is economically and socially liberal and anti Brexit now. Davey is more likely to pick up Remain voting Tories at the next general election who dislike Truss than any votes from Labour in my view. Labour voters who liked Corbyn but dislike Starmer are more likely to go Green than LD
OT lots of claims on the twitters about the Ukrainian Kherson offensive finally happening.
We shall see. I've never understood the assumption of stalemate. The Russian forces were all along the border months before the war started. No one assumed the invasion wouldn't happen because they didn't go in straight away. However the Russians have obviously increased their troop numbers in Kherson in the last month and some in Ukraine were saying that they would need to wait for further American kit to arrive in the Autumn.
People *were* saying that because Russian troops had been there for so long, they would not invade. Including (from memory) one poster on here.
One (of many) things I don't know is whether the autumn or winter weather will favour Ukraine or Russia. Both will have troops well used to the climate that helped destroy German and French armies in past centuries.
Talk this morning about reforming the EU energy market. Everyone assumes that this is all about Russia. However Russia provides less than half of Europe's gas. Given the inevitable economising that will take place and alternatives sought do the current prices make sense or is there something fundamentally wrong with the energy market?
As I said last week I think that the current prices are being driven much more by speculators than by people forward buying gas that they actually need. Government intervention by those with stocks might well have a really significant impact on the futures price at this point.
So what degree of the price is speculation do you think ? How does the price of speculation be removed or reduced ?
Total guess but I would suggest at least 50% of the gas price is speculation at the moment. When you look at the surplus there was before the war and the amount taken out of circulation by the Ukraine invasion the reaction in the price is extremely disproportionate.
The problem is what can be done about it. What it needs is a weight of selling in the market that causes the price to collapse which causes those on margins to panic and sell some more to close out their positions etc. Who could do that? Governments with substantial stocks could but lots of producers with deep pockets have a strong vested interest in keeping the price high becuase they are coining it in. Stopping a counter intervention by them would be the tricky part.
I remember many years ago now I was involved in a case where a farmer had lost £1m or £2m by playing the potato futures market. The expert explained that less than 5% of the contracts on that market actually involved a physical delivery of potatoes. The rest was speculators seeking to make a buck. It would not surprise me if the current market for gas was similar. Today the future price is up 7.62%. In a single day. What has changed in the supply and the demand to justify that? Nothing of note. But those who bought futures last week are doing very well.
Anyone actually know about the gas futures market ? @rcs1000 ?
As far as I know (which is not that much) prices are being determined by purchases of physical gas cargoes in the scrabble to get sufficient supplies for this winter. The supply into Europe has from Russia been tightly restricted (and much of that gas can’t physically be shipped elsewhere), and the market represents the price of diverting LNG cargoes which in more normal times would be heading to Asia, by outbidding what’s being paid there.
Of course it could turn quite sharply. For example…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62710522 …Germany - the largest importer of Russian gas in 2020 - has been racing to bolster its gas reserves before winter despite Russia cutting deliveries. Its aim is to fill its gas capacity to 85% by October. It has implemented energy-saving measures to do so. Economy Minister Robert Habeck said such measures - along with buying gas from alternative suppliers - had enabled Germany to fulfil its goal sooner than anticipated. He estimated that the 85% target could be reached by the start of September…
This circles back to the conversation I was having with @Richard_Tyndall
The UK has played a very significant role in ensuring that Germany's gas storage is full heading into the winter. If that helps ensure continuity of supply in the winter, when we need the imports, then that will be a very appropriate and wise decision.
We don't need an EU bureaucracy to co-ordinate the gas market. What we can use however is sensible governments co-operating on an international scale between allies to ensure that Putin's 'weapon' of gas supply is dented and that the West can all get through this winter without turning on each other with escalating autarky.
OT lots of claims on the twitters about the Ukrainian Kherson offensive finally happening.
We shall see. I've never understood the assumption of stalemate. The Russian forces were all along the border months before the war started. No one assumed the invasion wouldn't happen because they didn't go in straight away. However the Russians have obviously increased their troop numbers in Kherson in the last month and some in Ukraine were saying that they would need to wait for further American kit to arrive in the Autumn.
People *were* saying that because Russian troops had been there for so long, they would not invade. Including (from memory) one poster on here.
One (of many) things I don't know is whether the autumn or winter weather will favour Ukraine or Russia. Both will have troops well used to the climate that helped destroy German and French armies in past centuries.
It may be wishful thinking but the atrocious nature of Russian logistics, even during summer, surely does not bode well for a winter campaign.
Some interesting stuff on China’s dependence on S Korea for chips - and S Korea’s dependence on China for its exports.
'Beijing can't retaliate against Seoul for Chip 4' http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=335169 Just a few days before the preliminary meeting of a U.S.-led group of major semiconductor manufacturers that includes Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, the chairwoman of a special parliamentary committee on semiconductors said China cannot retaliate against South Korea for joining the group, widely known as the Chip 4.
Despite China's repeated complaints and expressions of dissatisfaction against the U.S.' drive to set up the Chip 4 alliance, which Beijing views as a plot by Washington to exclude China from the global semiconductor supply chains, South Korea confirmed its plans to attend the meeting, set for some time in early September.
The main purpose of the preliminary meeting is to help partner countries of the alliance decide key topics to be developed and even navigate collective action plans to counter possible chip-related issues, senior government officials said by telephone.
Naturally, the top point of concern is whether China will take any retaliatory actions against South Korean chip duo ― Samsung Electronics and SK hynix ― after South Korea announces its official participation in the alliance. Years ago, China hit back with economic retaliation after South Korea decided to deploy a U.S. anti-missile battery system, known as THAAD. At that time, despite China's denial that it ordered government agencies both directly and indirectly to embargo South Korean goods and services, the South's businesses in China suffered immensely.
But according to the head of the Semiconductor Industry Special Committee of the National Assembly, China is not in a position to directly hit South Korean companies, there, with sizable retaliatory measures…
"In semiconductors, China has a huge reliance on South Korea as mainland China and Hong Kong accounted for 60 percent of South Korea's semiconductor exports last year. This illustrates China's dependency on South Korea for semiconductors. Under this situation, if China tries to limit the quantity of semiconductor imports from South Korea, then that could create a crippling impact for China and leave the country to suffer from severe chip shortages," Yang Hyang-ja, the chief of a parliamentary committee on semiconductors, said in a recent interview with The Korea Times at her office at the National Assembly in Seoul. "China can't hit back with economic sanctions against South Korea as it did earlier at the time of Seoul's decision to deploy Washington's missile defense systems."
China is South Korea's top trade partner and the No. 1 market for South Korea's $69 billion memory chip exports in 2021, data from the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) showed….
Doing a re-read of Space Launch Systems stuff. Amazing that NASA are still using a fully disposable system when SpaceX have everything reusable.
Worse than that; in the case of the engines, they're disposing of items that were reusable. As to why, it's a combination of factors:
*) The SLS project started in 2911, when SpaceX had only launched the initial version of Falcon 9 twice, before SpaceX had decided on propulsive landing, and ?four? years before a F9 successfully landed.
*) The SLS is *very* large compared to the F9. The issues of recovery are so much greater, especially as the first stage will be travelling *much* faster than the F9 first stage does (in the case of F9, they stage early - and have a larger second stage, to keep speeds down and to make recovery easier).
*) Economics. The flight rate of SLS is too low to make reusability economical. Back in the 1960s, von Braun estimated over 100 flights would have to be manifested to make Saturn V reuse economic to develop.
*) Politics. The SLS uses ex-Shuttle parts to keep politicians happy - they did not want ex-Shuttle factories to close.
All in all, it made sense back in 2011. *If* SpaceX's SH/SS combo actually works, it won't have many flights. *If*.
There's also Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, which will have a reusable first stage, and potentially a reusable second stage as well. And ULA are going for some form of SMART reuse with Vulcan - though they have the same problem of high-altitude, high-speed staging.
The speed on reentry issue is interesting - because rocket stages are very very light for their size, big fat first stages decelerate rapidly. The only reason that SLS stages high is the bizarre 1.5 stage architecture.
This was driven by the belief that (for the Shuttle) staging is bad. And that all engines should be lit before take off. Both ideas proved to be untrue. Staging is't a major risk and lightning all the engines at take off doesn't help either - especially since you have the unstoppable solids involved.
The SLS doesn't really use shuttle parts - more shuttle derived parts. The RS-25s were rebuilt at a cost of billions to a new spec. As the engineers tried to tell them, you couldn't just use the shuttle External Tank as a core stage. So that is brand new. The solid boosters are the same, apart from the case, the joints between segments, the grain, the propellant, the nozzles, the avionics.. oh, and deleting the parachutes.
The claim that Constellation and its successors reused anything from the shuttle was about making sure the development money was channeled to the right people. ATK, for example, said that if they ddn't get a contract for all new solid boosters, they wouldn't make the old ones for NASA. And double the price of military solid rockets to make up the money.... Yes, they literally, straight up, blackmailed the government.
On Rough gas storage, what is the mechanism by which it saves us money? Wasn’t it run by a private company, which would take the difference between the cheap cost of filling it up, and the high spot prices when it was emptied? Or was just a government program, and the private company was just paid a yearly fee for running it?
Talk this morning about reforming the EU energy market. Everyone assumes that this is all about Russia. However Russia provides less than half of Europe's gas. Given the inevitable economising that will take place and alternatives sought do the current prices make sense or is there something fundamentally wrong with the energy market?
As I said last week I think that the current prices are being driven much more by speculators than by people forward buying gas that they actually need. Government intervention by those with stocks might well have a really significant impact on the futures price at this point.
So what degree of the price is speculation do you think ? How does the price of speculation be removed or reduced ?
Total guess but I would suggest at least 50% of the gas price is speculation at the moment. When you look at the surplus there was before the war and the amount taken out of circulation by the Ukraine invasion the reaction in the price is extremely disproportionate.
The problem is what can be done about it. What it needs is a weight of selling in the market that causes the price to collapse which causes those on margins to panic and sell some more to close out their positions etc. Who could do that? Governments with substantial stocks could but lots of producers with deep pockets have a strong vested interest in keeping the price high becuase they are coining it in. Stopping a counter intervention by them would be the tricky part.
I remember many years ago now I was involved in a case where a farmer had lost £1m or £2m by playing the potato futures market. The expert explained that less than 5% of the contracts on that market actually involved a physical delivery of potatoes. The rest was speculators seeking to make a buck. It would not surprise me if the current market for gas was similar. Today the future price is up 7.62%. In a single day. What has changed in the supply and the demand to justify that? Nothing of note. But those who bought futures last week are doing very well.
Anyone actually know about the gas futures market ? @rcs1000 ?
As far as I know (which is not that much) prices are being determined by purchases of physical gas cargoes in the scrabble to get sufficient supplies for this winter. The supply into Europe has from Russia been tightly restricted (and much of that gas can’t physically be shipped elsewhere), and the market represents the price of diverting LNG cargoes which in more normal times would be heading to Asia, by outbidding what’s being paid there.
Of course it could turn quite sharply. For example…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62710522 …Germany - the largest importer of Russian gas in 2020 - has been racing to bolster its gas reserves before winter despite Russia cutting deliveries. Its aim is to fill its gas capacity to 85% by October. It has implemented energy-saving measures to do so. Economy Minister Robert Habeck said such measures - along with buying gas from alternative suppliers - had enabled Germany to fulfil its goal sooner than anticipated. He estimated that the 85% target could be reached by the start of September…
This circles back to the conversation I was having with @Richard_Tyndall
The UK has played a very significant role in ensuring that Germany's gas storage is full heading into the winter. If that helps ensure continuity of supply in the winter, when we need the imports, then that will be a very appropriate and wise decision.
We don't need an EU bureaucracy to co-ordinate the gas market. What we can use however is sensible governments co-operating on an international scale between allies to ensure that Putin's 'weapon' of gas supply is dented and that the West can all get through this winter without turning on each other with escalating autarky.
With respect, that doesn’t really mean anything. Either the market operates - with the results we’re seeing - or governments take steps to cooperate and intervene directly.
Calling that ‘bureaucracy’ or something else doesn’t change what that is.
Is there any decent analysis out there explaining what is going on here. Not just describing the trend but explaining it. What's to stop it at £700, £1000, £2000 etc..
In Georgia, Republican candidate for governor Kandiss Taylor ended up losing the primary by 70 points, coming in third with less than 4 percent of the vote behind incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp and Trump-endorsed former Sen. David Perdue.
Comments
I suspect that that is from a somewhat lower base but still. People are being overly alarmist about various aspects of this crisis which is bad enough without the hysteria.
Chopping up wood in a fur coat on a remote Cumbrian hillside to keep warm has a certain Chekhovian feel to it, grimly appropriate to our times.
1) A *former* president has no such rights, and there seem to be lots of documents Trump took that he *didn't* declare unclassified, which is why his people have had to come up with this idea that he had a standing order, shared with nobody and written down nowhere, that once he took something to his golf club he was automatically declassifying it. I'd be surprised if he'd be able to convince a jury of that, but who knows.
2) Some of the relevant laws are about government property, and he seems to be breaking those even if none of the material is classified.
The aborted schemes were ones where we just gave up because of officials who have never run a business in their lives telling us what we should do as opposed to what we wanted to do. I have never ever taken advantage of a grant in my life. They were always useless to a viable business.
The Tories set up the TECs (under Heseltine). They were a massive waste of money. The positive side to me was that two business I ran sold stuff to them (which was all dumped when they were wound up).
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/uks-rough-gas-storage-site-could-reopen-this-winter-centrica-says-2022-07-28/
We’re grinding inexorably towards a horror show this winter and the government is more concerned about corporate profit than people’s lives. They appear to be happy to allow rationing by wealth. I assume the calculation is that hard-working aspirational Tory supporters will probably be ok (though this may be ‘brave’); the feckless and workshy can be left to freeze. It will be character building, teach them thrift. Maybe they’ll work harder, graft more.
I think you’re going to struggle to support the party over the coming months. The lunatics have taken over the asylum. It’s tragic for all of us.
My argument is that any business affected with crisis will be taking mitigating action but of course financial help at this time is needed, 37 billion has been provided so far, and Truss/Kwarteng will announce their plans in the next two weeks
Nobody has ben more critical of the conservative party going awol and navel gazing through the summer, it is shocking and may be terminal for their 24 election prospects
Two, there are documents which can't by law be declassified purely on Presidential authority (eg classified nuclear material).
Third, military documents don't have to be classified to be restricted and protected by law.
Fourth, ex-Presidents don't have executive power.
And lastly, who the f@ck thinks Trump tells the truth, ever ?
There's a phrase that's come up here before, I can't recall its name, about people being able to recognise flaws in the reporting in the media of an area of their own expertise but that they then take on faith what is reported in other areas without thinking it will be equally flawed.
There must be a similar concept with government. People who recognise that the government in their own area (DfE for instance) are counterproductive but then think that other areas could be solved by more government action rather than less.
Though if it had been reopened a year ago, the gas stored would have paid for a decade or two's operation already...
The Germans have more storage, yes, but they have much fewer LNG import sites and much lower domestic production, which means they're in more difficulty than we are, not less.
It'd be better in hindsight to have more storage, but to make comparisons on storage without also taking into account import facilities and domestic production is to only tell less than half the story.
I am not in and out of the conservative party as I am not a member and have not re-joined yet, but I absolutely endorse Johnson going and I would agree that some of the names suggested for her cabinet would not be my choice
Unfortunately I live in a constituency that is only between conservative and labour and no matter what happens I cannot vote for Starmer as I did for Blair as I do not see him remotely in the same league
It is true to say at present I do feel politically indifferent
Let’s hope PB don’t have coronal mass ejections to spoil the fun.
BBC News - EU faces awful winters without gas cap - minister
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62710522
But the idea that businesses can simply reduce consumption to the extent they can still afford the uncapped energy costs they are facing is just another example of how far you are divorced from reality.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/19/kwarteng-to-hold-emergency-meeting-with-gas-chiefs-over-price-crisis
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3572862/#Comment_3572862
Rough was an active topic of discussion a year ago.
At the moment we are exporting gas to Germany. We are also importing gas from the rest of the world. We could use our own domestic gas, so not be bothering to make exports, but if we do that then the Germans won't be able to their storage facilities which will jack up demand and prices in the winter.
The Germans don't have as much import capabilities as we do, so them paying us for gas while we import LNG is a perfectly logical solution.
Entering into autarky and beggar thy neighbour will help nobody in this crisis.
PS it doesn't need to be circular as you simplistically describe, it can be more triangular or other shapes. If we export to Germany, then Germany don't need to import from Qatar, and then we can import from Qatar. Substitute Qatar for any other nation as appropriate.
As you know, although we differ in our views on several topics (Brexit/FPTP/etc) our views on small Government I think are much aligned. I know we also agree on universal income. And I would use that as a cunning plot to get rid of most of the DWP as it would remove the need for most benefits.
https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1564187096407052288
Disorder among out-of-control music fans in multiple areas of the campsite began at around 4pm on Sunday afternoon, with security presence in the area suggested to be limited.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/reading-festival-chaos-tents-set-27854824
Bear it in mind when the usual suspects come on here tonight bleating about trouble at the Notting Hill Carnival.
If food prices go up any further, Grey squirrels will also be in serious trouble.
You spent lots of time the last few days arguing that there are no such things as friends in international diplomacy. A position I agree with. Now you are suggesting that we should trust that when we send another country gas that we still need, we should do so in the belief they will reciprocate even at a cost to themselves. There is no consistency in your arguments.
The universal income has to be adequate but not generous. Re the argument on scroungers, well the manipulating of the system has been eliminated. True they have got some free money, but if they want more they will have to earn it and it will be taxed. There is no system to manipulate as the benefits have gone. And those who don't claim benefits through ignorance or pride will now get what they should.
But yes simplistic campaigns of free money to scroungers and who will pay for it sadly work.
The way forward has to be co-operation among allies, making maximum use of everyone’s production, import/export capacity, and storage, to minimise the disruption to Europe over the winter.
Except Putin of course, f**k him and f**k his gas pipeline.
This is quite a good illustration.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/08/male-politicians-women-voters-abortion.html
… One analysis of the Kansas’ voter registration list showed that in the week after Dobbs, more than 70 percent of newly registered voters in that state were women. Those numbers, according to an Upshot analysis of 10 states with available voter registration data, show consistently higher registration for women after the Dobbs leak in May. As Jennifer Rubin recently noted, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that, “62 percent of women registering since Dobbs registered as Democrats, 15 percent as Republicans and that 54 percent were younger than 25.” And a Pew Research Center poll indicates that “a majority of registered voters (56 percent) say the issue of abortion will be very important in their midterm vote, up from 43 percent in March.” Tom Bonier, CEO Of TargetSmart recently posted on Twitter: “We are seeing early signs of what could lead to a huge increase in women voting in November. …This surge is young and female.” Both Mitch McConnell and RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel are panicking about the GOP’s odds in Congress, directly connected to fundraising around abortion...
The problem is what can be done about it. What it needs is a weight of selling in the market that causes the price to collapse which causes those on margins to panic and sell some more to close out their positions etc. Who could do that? Governments with substantial stocks could but lots of producers with deep pockets have a strong vested interest in keeping the price high becuase they are coining it in. Stopping a counter intervention by them would be the tricky part.
I remember many years ago now I was involved in a case where a farmer had lost £1m or £2m by playing the potato futures market. The expert explained that less than 5% of the contracts on that market actually involved a physical delivery of potatoes. The rest was speculators seeking to make a buck. It would not surprise me if the current market for gas was similar. Today the future price is up 7.62%. In a single day. What has changed in the supply and the demand to justify that? Nothing of note. But those who bought futures last week are doing very well.
Do you know they nest all year round and can have up to 6 broods of 2 eggs per year, i.e. 12 new pigeons per pair per year
If the Tories however were overtaken as the main party off the right it would mainly be on ideological grounds, hence Farage's Brexit Party briefly overtook May's Tories in the polls in Spring 2019 after she failed to deliver Brexit
Really city status should only be granted to areas with a population over 100 000 and ideally with a cathedral and university too
So we can import LNG, export gas to Germany. We have the supplies we need, Germany has the supplies they need, everybody wins.
Exporting gas to the continent in the summer, even if we could have used that ourselves, means that continental storage facilities can be full heading into the winter. Ensuring that continental gas storage facilities are full rather than empty in the winter makes our winter imports that we're relying upon more secure, not less.
We should not ensure that Germany's storage facilities are full heading into winter as an act of generosity or kindness. We should ensure it as its in our own, cold, self-interest. A functioning continental energy market this winter that means we can import the energy we require when we require it, which is in our own self-interest.
*) The SLS project started in 2911, when SpaceX had only launched the initial version of Falcon 9 twice, before SpaceX had decided on propulsive landing, and ?four? years before a F9 successfully landed.
*) The SLS is *very* large compared to the F9. The issues of recovery are so much greater, especially as the first stage will be travelling *much* faster than the F9 first stage does (in the case of F9, they stage early - and have a larger second stage, to keep speeds down and to make recovery easier).
*) Economics. The flight rate of SLS is too low to make reusability economical. Back in the 1960s, von Braun estimated over 100 flights would have to be manifested to make Saturn V reuse economic to develop.
*) Politics. The SLS uses ex-Shuttle parts to keep politicians happy - they did not want ex-Shuttle factories to close.
All in all, it made sense back in 2011. *If* SpaceX's SH/SS combo actually works, it won't have many flights. *If*.
There's also Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, which will have a reusable first stage, and potentially a reusable second stage as well. And ULA are going for some form of SMART reuse with Vulcan - though they have the same problem of high-altitude, high-speed staging.
As far as I know (which is not that much) prices are being determined by purchases of physical gas cargoes in the scrabble to get sufficient supplies for this winter. The supply into Europe has from Russia been tightly restricted (and much of that gas can’t physically be shipped elsewhere), and the market represents the price of diverting LNG cargoes which in more normal times would be heading to Asia, by outbidding what’s being paid there.
Of course it could turn quite sharply.
For example…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62710522
…Germany - the largest importer of Russian gas in 2020 - has been racing to bolster its gas reserves before winter despite Russia cutting deliveries.
Its aim is to fill its gas capacity to 85% by October. It has implemented energy-saving measures to do so.
Economy Minister Robert Habeck said such measures - along with buying gas from alternative suppliers - had enabled Germany to fulfil its goal sooner than anticipated.
He estimated that the 85% target could be reached by the start of September…
One (of many) things I don't know is whether the autumn or winter weather will favour Ukraine or Russia. Both will have troops well used to the climate that helped destroy German and French armies in past centuries.
The UK has played a very significant role in ensuring that Germany's gas storage is full heading into the winter. If that helps ensure continuity of supply in the winter, when we need the imports, then that will be a very appropriate and wise decision.
We don't need an EU bureaucracy to co-ordinate the gas market. What we can use however is sensible governments co-operating on an international scale between allies to ensure that Putin's 'weapon' of gas supply is dented and that the West can all get through this winter without turning on each other with escalating autarky.
'Beijing can't retaliate against Seoul for Chip 4'
http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=335169
Just a few days before the preliminary meeting of a U.S.-led group of major semiconductor manufacturers that includes Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, the chairwoman of a special parliamentary committee on semiconductors said China cannot retaliate against South Korea for joining the group, widely known as the Chip 4.
Despite China's repeated complaints and expressions of dissatisfaction against the U.S.' drive to set up the Chip 4 alliance, which Beijing views as a plot by Washington to exclude China from the global semiconductor supply chains, South Korea confirmed its plans to attend the meeting, set for some time in early September.
The main purpose of the preliminary meeting is to help partner countries of the alliance decide key topics to be developed and even navigate collective action plans to counter possible chip-related issues, senior government officials said by telephone.
Naturally, the top point of concern is whether China will take any retaliatory actions against South Korean chip duo ― Samsung Electronics and SK hynix ― after South Korea announces its official participation in the alliance. Years ago, China hit back with economic retaliation after South Korea decided to deploy a U.S. anti-missile battery system, known as THAAD. At that time, despite China's denial that it ordered government agencies both directly and indirectly to embargo South Korean goods and services, the South's businesses in China suffered immensely.
But according to the head of the Semiconductor Industry Special Committee of the National Assembly, China is not in a position to directly hit South Korean companies, there, with sizable retaliatory measures…
"In semiconductors, China has a huge reliance on South Korea as mainland China and Hong Kong accounted for 60 percent of South Korea's semiconductor exports last year. This illustrates China's dependency on South Korea for semiconductors. Under this situation, if China tries to limit the quantity of semiconductor imports from South Korea, then that could create a crippling impact for China and leave the country to suffer from severe chip shortages," Yang Hyang-ja, the chief of a parliamentary committee on semiconductors, said in a recent interview with The Korea Times at her office at the National Assembly in Seoul. "China can't hit back with economic sanctions against South Korea as it did earlier at the time of Seoul's decision to deploy Washington's missile defense systems."
China is South Korea's top trade partner and the No. 1 market for South Korea's $69 billion memory chip exports in 2021, data from the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) showed….
This was driven by the belief that (for the Shuttle) staging is bad. And that all engines should be lit before take off. Both ideas proved to be untrue. Staging is't a major risk and lightning all the engines at take off doesn't help either - especially since you have the unstoppable solids involved.
The SLS doesn't really use shuttle parts - more shuttle derived parts. The RS-25s were rebuilt at a cost of billions to a new spec. As the engineers tried to tell them, you couldn't just use the shuttle External Tank as a core stage. So that is brand new. The solid boosters are the same, apart from the case, the joints between segments, the grain, the propellant, the nozzles, the avionics.. oh, and deleting the parachutes.
The claim that Constellation and its successors reused anything from the shuttle was about making sure the development money was channeled to the right people. ATK, for example, said that if they ddn't get a contract for all new solid boosters, they wouldn't make the old ones for NASA. And double the price of military solid rockets to make up the money.... Yes, they literally, straight up, blackmailed the government.
#wickwick
If a SpaceX *test* launch explodes, it is Tuesday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ
Which is why their operational rocket (F9) is proving to be one of the most reliable ever built.
Either the market operates - with the results we’re seeing - or governments take steps to cooperate and intervene directly.
Calling that ‘bureaucracy’ or something else doesn’t change what that is.
Is this the biggest bubble in history?
Is there any decent analysis out there explaining what is going on here. Not just describing the trend but explaining it. What's to stop it at £700, £1000, £2000 etc..
https://twitter.com/BBCSteveR/status/1564177894573834241
Yet Taylor has refused to concede.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-denying-primary-candidates-are-crying-fraud-win-or-lose/