So by my calculation low income households will have a unit price cap that translates to ~£1300 per year, everyone else £1950 per year?
Or is that low income additional support cancelled?
If these are the numbers then I think it will just about work and it incentives every saving. I've been looking up individual room control for the heating, we need the baby room to be warm overnight but the rest of the house doesn't matter as much, being able to set our room to 18 degrees and Jen's room to 22 degrees and downstairs to 15 degrees overnight will save a lot of energy.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
I haven't watched PMQs (even the snippets on the news). I suspect, as others have said, the initial civility won't last and we'll be back to the usual slanging match.
I'd have thought your first PMQs would be the easiest for any Prime Minister as you have the advantages of time and novelty. Starmer will no doubt have learned plenty from the initial skirmishes and we'll see how his approach varies from that he came to apply to Johnson in the coming weeks.
So, on to the great Energy Price Freeze - any hope I had the Truss administration might have been worth supporting is immediately blown apart by this piece of stupidity in extremis.
Having read yesterday there was a notion of recouping some of the loan by defraying future price reductions it now seems Truss and Kwarteng haven't got the cojones to even do that. Instead, in pure Sunak style (the irony not lost on me), the whole lot (£100 billion, £200 billion, take your pick) is going to be met by borrowing so future generations will be paying for this nonsense which means they won't be able to do the things they want because they'll be paying billions in debt interest we will have passed on as our legacy.
It is short-termist, a panicked solution predicated on 3-4 months of a zombie Government which did nothing and prepared for nothing. Ideologically, even a windfall tax on the energy companies isn't on the table so they will make grotesque profits and pay their CEOs grotesque salaries which will regularly be pointed out.
There's little or no incentive to use less gas or electricity - why bother? The Government's going to pay the bill - more accurately, our children and grandchildren will end up paying.
It's simple - there's no time or thought to see if those who can afford to pay the increased energy bills could actually do so - the billionaire in his mansion, the poor man at his gate - all will be treated the same. It's equality, Jim, but not as we know it.
To add to this legacy, we'll have Ben Wallace taking more money for Defence (you do know there's a war on?) and Truss angling for her tax cut. It's obvious the public sector is going to be looking at some very tough decisions this year complicated further by the cost of the changes to the social care legislation.
“Having read yesterday there was a notion of recouping some of the loan by defraying future price reductions it now seems Truss and Kwarteng haven't got the cojones to even do that. Instead, in pure Sunak style (the irony not lost on me), the whole lot (£100 billion, £200 billion, take your pick) is going to be met by borrowing so future generations will be paying for this nonsense which means they won't be able to do the things they want because they'll be paying billions in debt interest we will have passed on as our legacy.”
I think the irony is lost on you actually, you do need to watch PMQs.
The irony not just of a politician presiding over the biggest tax take since the war, who has been in government the last 10 years, ticking off the opposition for a windfall tax proposal, but her own solution to the crisis now means working family’s paying the £200B back in TAX and on BILLS for decades.
I was left open mouthed. The irony is just INSANE.
Yet everyone parrots, didn’t she do well, what a great day she had.
It was surreal. She was like some Spike Milligan sketch - Maggie Thatcher in a Dalek.
“I. Am. A. Dalek. Thatcher. You - will - be - disgraced.”
The alternative is a million freeze to death this winter? The ridiculous windfall tax extension will raise, according to Labour perhaps 8 billion quid. Enough for a couple hundred in handouts to each family or a monthish of cap freeze. The fact they are obsessed with it suggests they have nothing to offer as a solution to the massive shit we are in. Its a massive, massive distraction
It will not even raise 8 billion as the windfall tax has already been used by Sunak in the 37 billion including the £400 October grant
Also where has 200 billion borrowing come from paying it back v the bills which has been ruled out
I expect tomorrow business will receive similar support but directed at small businesses with different schemes for large companies, whose shareholders will be required to take the hit before intervention
It is true the public want a windfall tax but Truss needs to stick to her guns as the windfall tax is a political ruse which raises very little compared to the message it sends to these companies that we need their investments in billions into the North Sea
I thought Truss response to Blackford was excellent saying he wants a windfall tax on profits from the companies he wants to stop producing oil and gas in the North Sea
But Woolie, Big G my debating society friends, you have to ask why previous Tory governments have used windfall taxes. Including Lady Thatchers. In 1981 Thatcher’s chancellor Howe accused high street banks of escaping a recession so he took equivalent to around a fifth of their profits from those 12 months of hardship for families. 1982 the Thatcher government did the same when when oil prices soared, and imposed a windfall tax. North Sea oil firms argued extra taxes would limit investment, but the industry flourished.
So like I said, why do you think the Thatcher government did this, was it just for a bit of money? Or was it important to them to position themselves as being on the side of working people of this country.
I’m not painting as standing beside Truss on this your politics is to the right of Margaret Thatcher, though some will put you on the spot with that. I think I am flagging up the difference of really rubbish politics from you and Truss, instead of what was very smart politics from Thatcher and her team. But this point sadly seems lost on you and many other Truss rampers. I’m sorry, I can’t explain it any better. 🤷♀️
Unfortunately you have not explained how you would deal with mitigating peoples energy bills over the next 18 months and certainly have not provided an explanation of just how much windfall tax you would raise
To assist, and in Starmers own words, Labour would cap the rise until April at a cost of 29 billion made up of a 8 billion windfall tax, 14 billion by cancelling the £400 grant in October and 7 billion by lower inflation and borrowing costs
Now this is just until April when the cap is due to raise to £6,000 so to retain the cap where is the money coming from, as the windfall tax has already been used as has the 14 billion saving of the £400
The truth is Labour would have no choice but borrow
As I feared, you didn’t understand the point I was making at all. 🙇♀️
Margaret Thatchers governments used to take about a fifth in their windfall taxes. If Lady Thatcher and Lord Howe were in power today, without a shred of doubt in my mind they would take about a fifth of these profits, that still leaves 4/5ths of pretty astronomical windfall profits, so maybe Lady Thatcher would have taken even more in this particular circumstance.
Firstly where are you on the maths. Where are you getting £8B from? Just A fifth of £170B is over £30B.
Secondly the politics. The Thatcher government did not do windfall tax’s wholly for the money but to ensure working people felt their government was on their side in hard times - or at the very least stop the opposition painting them as putting all the payback pain on working families, whilst those rolling in windfall profits did not contribute during hard times.
I agree with you, opposition parties do try to get away on detail when in opposition hence they only talked six months, and yes, the Libdem and Labour proposal also involves borrowing, also involves higher taxes and higher energy bills in future for everybody as the Truss plan does, but, crucially, by not the same or as much as the Truss plan does. The trap Truss fell in with her dozy performance today is to allow her government to be painted as not on the side of hard working people - whilst the smart and clever Thatcher governments took their one fifth from those making windfall during times working families struggled, to ensure their government could not be painted anti worker like the Truss government will now be painted… despite your best efforts.
Any part of where I am coming from you don’t understand or is wrong factually or in supposition?
Your next problem - Truss government is not turning up in parliament on Thursday afternoon with a detailed plan they can share for proper scrutiny, they are not ready yet - they have tabled it not as ministerial statement, just “a statement” they can make and then bugger off, without having to answer questions on the detail. Yes it will still be interesting to hear, but it’s another week goes by without a working plan, that you did promise me we would get sometime this week.
A good analysis MoonRabbit.
Except the last para is wrong. It is down as a general debate
I still think the Tories are not ready to unveil the detail of their plan, discuss and defend the detail publicly, in Parliament and beyond. I think it’s a media trap to talk it up as grand unveiling when government business managers have down played the event and haven’t listed it as Ministerial Statement on order paper, so certain parts of media can then scream it’s thin on detail half baked and not ready., despite fact government is already indicating this.
But let’s see how much detail we do get today. And how long Liz Truss hangs around in the commons after statement.
The opposition do have the power to call it to a proper debate where government have to explain the detail, but I don’t think the opposition should, it would just be playing politics and not being constructive opposition if obvious the government isn’t ready yet.
In my opinion it’s effectively two plans not one, the difference between for households and for business - the complication for business is where so many have already gone on contract for much higher costs?
Well, I am not very good on procedure, but a general debate appears to allow more time than a ministerial statement (where the minister just takes questions for 1 hour)
What often seems to be forgotten about the Thatcher tax cuts is that they were delivered on the back of growing revenues from North Sea oil and huge privatisation programmes. I’d argue that both windfalls were wasted in that way, but they were windfalls nevertheless. Today’s Tories have nothing like that to fall back on. The risk they are taking is huge. Markets will inevitably notice that. That will make borrowing more expensive and so increase the risk. It’s right wing Corbynism, pure and simple. Maybe even worse as a lot of Corbynista borrowing would have been focused on improving the public realm and general infrastructure.
How would Corbynista borrowing in order to buy shares in water companies etc "improve" the public realm and general infrastructure? Not a penny of that would improve anything, it would be a purely negative windfall.
Having people keep more of their own income when they work improves the realm by itself and reduces the deadweight welfare loss on the economy that taxation causes so there's a huge difference between the two.
The way Truss talks about tax cuts one wonders why we dont just have zero taxes.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
If we reduce consumption as much as we need to, then there will be a huge excess of production. New extraction developments will be economically unviable, in the North Sea, in Russia or in Qatar.
We'll just have to introduce aluminium smelting to use up all that lovely power. Just rejoice at that news.
We should install wind and tidal with a peak generation capacity many times our needs.
In light winds our needs are still covered; when the wind blows hard use it to create (net zero) hydrocarbons:
The UK is enormously rich in wind and tidal capacity.
Tidal I agree with. If wind is many times our needs, who is going to pay for all those turbines to idle? Companies have invested to build those turbines; if they're not being paid to generate power, do they still get paid not to generate it? That's the regime at the moment. In fact they get paid more than double not to provide energy than they get to provide it. That would be a vast bill for consumers (added on to energy bills). We could cancel constraint payments (that's what I would do), forcing wind owners to find their own solutions to store power, but I am realistic that that would dampen the 'gold rush' of building wind that we have at the moment.
Duh! You have answered you own question.
The lasted offshore wind electricity contracts are being won by generating companies committing to 4.8p per kWh.
What often seems to be forgotten about the Thatcher tax cuts is that they were delivered on the back of growing revenues from North Sea oil and huge privatisation programmes. I’d argue that both windfalls were wasted in that way, but they were windfalls nevertheless. Today’s Tories have nothing like that to fall back on. The risk they are taking is huge. Markets will inevitably notice that. That will make borrowing more expensive and so increase the risk. It’s right wing Corbynism, pure and simple. Maybe even worse as a lot of Corbynista borrowing would have been focused on improving the public realm and general infrastructure.
The price cap side is not Corbynista or right wing, it is inevitable. There was no other way of doing it which would leave the economy still functioning. Of course it could have been set at a slightly different level, or delivered slightly differently, but if we had let average bills get to £5k per year the economy would collapse on a scale not seen in our lifetimes.
My concern is that Truss knew this for the last 3 months, yet told the electorate she was campaigning to win over the direct opposite of what she ended up doing - massive state handouts funded by debt. How am I supposed to trust the Truss in 24?
The taxation side, both no additional taxes on energy extractors and the general corporation tax cut are weird and poor choices.
Except that she's not doing the direct opposite of what she said when campaigning. She literally said while campaigning, repeatedly, that support would be offered but that it should not be "just" support.
People misrepresenting her kept dropping out the bit about how support would be offered and concentrated solely on the just bit.
How many Tory hustings were there? She said the same thing at each one. If after a dozen of them she was getting regularly misrepresented on the most important issue of the day, why did she not correct anyone for the next dozen hustings? Because the interpretation of no state handouts funded by debt was the key message she wanted to deliver. And we are getting massive state handouts funded by debt.
Interesting btu sad piece on the impact of the US Supreme Court - folk having to get married in a hurry, and try and cope with the future, including obtaining added legal protection e.g. through wills and setting up PoAs, lest their marriages are dissolved or disregarded.
I'll put money down right now that there is no major shake up, just tweaks. The shires will revolt and were only 2 years from an election. Thats why it needed sorting earlier but instead they seem to have sat on it when the last approach failed.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
People keep repeating this claim about 'should have done more' but it ignores the fact that - in this country at least - we have been massively investing in wind power for the last decade and a half and, as far as offshore wind goes, we are world leaders by miles. We are building the lovely things as fast as we can and Government - of all stripes - has done very well on this in facilitating and then staying out of the way.
The problem was always going to be in creating false targets for the end of hydrocarbons which were unattainable and which have demolished the required bridge between hydrocarbons and renewables.
Here in Lombardy there's hardly a PV panel to be seen, rather bizarrely given the way the sun seems to shine every day.
Presume there was never a FIT scheme in Italy?
As the price falls for solar panels they will transform Africa. Cheap abundant electricity, with much less pressure on Forex than current oil imports.
Downside being that will merely accelerate China's takeover of the continent
I don't think selling someone a cheap solar panel gives you much leverage over them. They work for decades without any maintenance and if you try to cut off your new supply you can substitute a basically identical one made by somebody else.
So by my calculation low income households will have a unit price cap that translates to ~£1300 per year, everyone else £1950 per year?
Or is that low income additional support cancelled?
If these are the numbers then I think it will just about work and it incentives every saving. I've been looking up individual room control for the heating, we need the baby room to be warm overnight but the rest of the house doesn't matter as much, being able to set our room to 18 degrees and Jen's room to 22 degrees and downstairs to 15 degrees overnight will save a lot of energy.
I just installed a Tado system this weekend and can recommend it. Not sure if the deal is still on but I got the wireless starter kit and four connected radiator valves from Screwfix for £275. It’s genuinely great. I can control the heating in every room of the house separately apart from the bathroom (which is next to the hallway). Took two hours to install and 20 minutes of that was me working out I’d tripped half the other RCDs when I put the mains off. Very easy to DIY if you have an existing controller and thermostatic valves. It uses geofencing to turn off the heating if you go out and can detect open windows. Admittedly it’s struggled this week because Scotland has been like a swamp for two weeks and the RH outside is worse than inside. It gives you temperature graphs too so you can see how temp decays in each room. Fascinating stuff.
On another topic, one wonders if some journalist should FOI this
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
No because Qatari hydrocarbons have many other problems associated with them, not east the issue of energy security. Plus, as I have repeated many times in the past, we will still need hydrocarbons for many other vital non-energy uses and again it is far better to be self sufficient in those as much as possible.
So by my calculation low income households will have a unit price cap that translates to ~£1300 per year, everyone else £1950 per year?
Or is that low income additional support cancelled?
If these are the numbers then I think it will just about work and it incentives every saving. I've been looking up individual room control for the heating, we need the baby room to be warm overnight but the rest of the house doesn't matter as much, being able to set our room to 18 degrees and Jen's room to 22 degrees and downstairs to 15 degrees overnight will save a lot of energy.
I always find the average UK gas consumption fascinatingly high given how pokey the average UK property is.
What often seems to be forgotten about the Thatcher tax cuts is that they were delivered on the back of growing revenues from North Sea oil and huge privatisation programmes. I’d argue that both windfalls were wasted in that way, but they were windfalls nevertheless. Today’s Tories have nothing like that to fall back on. The risk they are taking is huge. Markets will inevitably notice that. That will make borrowing more expensive and so increase the risk. It’s right wing Corbynism, pure and simple. Maybe even worse as a lot of Corbynista borrowing would have been focused on improving the public realm and general infrastructure.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
People keep repeating this claim about 'should have done more' but it ignores the fact that - in this country at least - we have been massively investing in wind power for the last decade and a half and, as far as offshore wind goes, we are world leaders by miles. We are building the lovely things as fast as we can and Government - of all stripes - has done very well on this in facilitating and then staying out of the way.
The problem was always going to be in creating false targets for the end of hydrocarbons which were unattainable and which have demolished the required bridge between hydrocarbons and renewables.
The weasel word is "offshore". Most northern European countries have a higher share of renewables in their power mix than we do because their governments didn't insist that wind turbines be built in the sea.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
Your base load needs to be something reliable, and not something weather dependent such as wind. If it’s not gas or coal, it needs to be nuclear or tidal.
Good morning one and all. Fine bright morning here. And the forecast is excellent for Canterbury, where it looks like the Essex cricketers are going to roll over those of Kent! So things aren't all bad.
So by my calculation low income households will have a unit price cap that translates to ~£1300 per year, everyone else £1950 per year?
Or is that low income additional support cancelled?
If these are the numbers then I think it will just about work and it incentives every saving. I've been looking up individual room control for the heating, we need the baby room to be warm overnight but the rest of the house doesn't matter as much, being able to set our room to 18 degrees and Jen's room to 22 degrees and downstairs to 15 degrees overnight will save a lot of energy.
I always find the average UK gas consumption fascinatingly high given how pokey the average UK property is.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
People keep repeating this claim about 'should have done more' but it ignores the fact that - in this country at least - we have been massively investing in wind power for the last decade and a half and, as far as offshore wind goes, we are world leaders by miles. We are building the lovely things as fast as we can and Government - of all stripes - has done very well on this in facilitating and then staying out of the way.
The problem was always going to be in creating false targets for the end of hydrocarbons which were unattainable and which have demolished the required bridge between hydrocarbons and renewables.
If we're looking for things that we should have done more of, we should have done more to improve insulation and switch to heat pumps. Improving household insulation is a big win during winter, and it's an area where the UK is behind the rest of northern Europe. Heat pumps are more efficient than gas boilers, such that burning the same gas in a power station would create more heat via a heat pump than burning it in a gas boiler would.
If we wanted a bridge from hydrocarbons to renewables then we should have built more nuclear. The clip doing the rounds a few weeks ago of Clegg circa 2010 saying that the problem with building nuclear is that it would be expensive and would only be coming online by 2022 does show a failure of long-term thinking.
I haven't watched PMQs (even the snippets on the news). I suspect, as others have said, the initial civility won't last and we'll be back to the usual slanging match.
I'd have thought your first PMQs would be the easiest for any Prime Minister as you have the advantages of time and novelty. Starmer will no doubt have learned plenty from the initial skirmishes and we'll see how his approach varies from that he came to apply to Johnson in the coming weeks.
So, on to the great Energy Price Freeze - any hope I had the Truss administration might have been worth supporting is immediately blown apart by this piece of stupidity in extremis.
Having read yesterday there was a notion of recouping some of the loan by defraying future price reductions it now seems Truss and Kwarteng haven't got the cojones to even do that. Instead, in pure Sunak style (the irony not lost on me), the whole lot (£100 billion, £200 billion, take your pick) is going to be met by borrowing so future generations will be paying for this nonsense which means they won't be able to do the things they want because they'll be paying billions in debt interest we will have passed on as our legacy.
It is short-termist, a panicked solution predicated on 3-4 months of a zombie Government which did nothing and prepared for nothing. Ideologically, even a windfall tax on the energy companies isn't on the table so they will make grotesque profits and pay their CEOs grotesque salaries which will regularly be pointed out.
There's little or no incentive to use less gas or electricity - why bother? The Government's going to pay the bill - more accurately, our children and grandchildren will end up paying.
It's simple - there's no time or thought to see if those who can afford to pay the increased energy bills could actually do so - the billionaire in his mansion, the poor man at his gate - all will be treated the same. It's equality, Jim, but not as we know it.
To add to this legacy, we'll have Ben Wallace taking more money for Defence (you do know there's a war on?) and Truss angling for her tax cut. It's obvious the public sector is going to be looking at some very tough decisions this year complicated further by the cost of the changes to the social care legislation.
Unilateral nuclear disarmament would save a shedload of cash, and be hugely popular with (most of) the armed forces.
Maybe Truss has been a CND sleeper after all.
HMQ better survive her premiership, as King Charlie will be easy meat.
He also said ‘no amount of shale gas from 100s of wells dotted across rural England would be enough to lower the European price any time soon. & with the best will in the world, private companies are not going to sell the shale gas they produce to UK consumers below market price’ https://twitter.com/huffpostuk/status/1567762218913087491
I haven't watched PMQs (even the snippets on the news). I suspect, as others have said, the initial civility won't last and we'll be back to the usual slanging match.
I'd have thought your first PMQs would be the easiest for any Prime Minister as you have the advantages of time and novelty. Starmer will no doubt have learned plenty from the initial skirmishes and we'll see how his approach varies from that he came to apply to Johnson in the coming weeks.
So, on to the great Energy Price Freeze - any hope I had the Truss administration might have been worth supporting is immediately blown apart by this piece of stupidity in extremis.
Having read yesterday there was a notion of recouping some of the loan by defraying future price reductions it now seems Truss and Kwarteng haven't got the cojones to even do that. Instead, in pure Sunak style (the irony not lost on me), the whole lot (£100 billion, £200 billion, take your pick) is going to be met by borrowing so future generations will be paying for this nonsense which means they won't be able to do the things they want because they'll be paying billions in debt interest we will have passed on as our legacy.
It is short-termist, a panicked solution predicated on 3-4 months of a zombie Government which did nothing and prepared for nothing. Ideologically, even a windfall tax on the energy companies isn't on the table so they will make grotesque profits and pay their CEOs grotesque salaries which will regularly be pointed out.
There's little or no incentive to use less gas or electricity - why bother? The Government's going to pay the bill - more accurately, our children and grandchildren will end up paying.
It's simple - there's no time or thought to see if those who can afford to pay the increased energy bills could actually do so - the billionaire in his mansion, the poor man at his gate - all will be treated the same. It's equality, Jim, but not as we know it.
To add to this legacy, we'll have Ben Wallace taking more money for Defence (you do know there's a war on?) and Truss angling for her tax cut. It's obvious the public sector is going to be looking at some very tough decisions this year complicated further by the cost of the changes to the social care legislation.
Unilateral nuclear disarmament would save a shedload of cash, and be hugely popular with (most of) the armed forces.
Maybe Truss has been a CND sleeper after all.
HMQ better survive her premiership, as King Charlie will be easy meat.
Note on the utter wrongness of what you're replying to: bills will still be double what they were last winter, so I don't know where "no incentive to use less" comes from
So by my calculation low income households will have a unit price cap that translates to ~£1300 per year, everyone else £1950 per year?
Or is that low income additional support cancelled?
If these are the numbers then I think it will just about work and it incentives every saving. I've been looking up individual room control for the heating, we need the baby room to be warm overnight but the rest of the house doesn't matter as much, being able to set our room to 18 degrees and Jen's room to 22 degrees and downstairs to 15 degrees overnight will save a lot of energy.
I just installed a Tado system this weekend and can recommend it. Not sure if the deal is still on but I got the wireless starter kit and four connected radiator valves from Screwfix for £275. It’s genuinely great. I can control the heating in every room of the house separately apart from the bathroom (which is next to the hallway). Took two hours to install and 20 minutes of that was me working out I’d tripped half the other RCDs when I put the mains off. Very easy to DIY if you have an existing controller and thermostatic valves. It uses geofencing to turn off the heating if you go out and can detect open windows. Admittedly it’s struggled this week because Scotland has been like a swamp for two weeks and the RH outside is worse than inside. It gives you temperature graphs too so you can see how temp decays in each room. Fascinating stuff.
On another topic, one wonders if some journalist should FOI this
For anyone interested in closely monitoring their electricity use I would highly recommend this system which allows you to monitor up to 16 circuits including PV generation, second by second.
I got one from Amazon for £160 and installed it at the end of August.
I can see that we have generated more than we've used so far during September, which is great. Maybe I just need to stay on holiday in Italy through the whole winter to have affordable electricity bills this winter!
So by my calculation low income households will have a unit price cap that translates to ~£1300 per year, everyone else £1950 per year?
Or is that low income additional support cancelled?
If these are the numbers then I think it will just about work and it incentives every saving. I've been looking up individual room control for the heating, we need the baby room to be warm overnight but the rest of the house doesn't matter as much, being able to set our room to 18 degrees and Jen's room to 22 degrees and downstairs to 15 degrees overnight will save a lot of energy.
I always find the average UK gas consumption fascinatingly high given how pokey the average UK property is.
We're really quite bad at insulating our buildings. Some of that is because of our very temperate climate, but also there must be something of the Anglo-Saxon short-termism going on.
Historically cheap energy doesn't help, though there's plenty of undone stuff that made sense even in the past. Add in an instinctive dislike of hair-shirtism and bossy greenery, and we have a problem. I wonder also if there's a sense of coal/oil/gas giving Proper Jobs, so consumption is good, whereas wind, solar and efficiency are somehow cheating.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
Your base load needs to be something reliable, and not something weather dependent such as wind. If it’s not gas or coal, it needs to be nuclear or tidal.
What's £89.50 at 2012 prices worth in today's money ?
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
People keep repeating this claim about 'should have done more' but it ignores the fact that - in this country at least - we have been massively investing in wind power for the last decade and a half and, as far as offshore wind goes, we are world leaders by miles. We are building the lovely things as fast as we can and Government - of all stripes - has done very well on this in facilitating and then staying out of the way.
The problem was always going to be in creating false targets for the end of hydrocarbons which were unattainable and which have demolished the required bridge between hydrocarbons and renewables.
If we're looking for things that we should have done more of, we should have done more to improve insulation and switch to heat pumps. Improving household insulation is a big win during winter, and it's an area where the UK is behind the rest of northern Europe. Heat pumps are more efficient than gas boilers, such that burning the same gas in a power station would create more heat via a heat pump than burning it in a gas boiler would.
If we wanted a bridge from hydrocarbons to renewables then we should have built more nuclear. The clip doing the rounds a few weeks ago of Clegg circa 2010 saying that the problem with building nuclear is that it would be expensive and would only be coming online by 2022 does show a failure of long-term thinking.
Heat pumps are not more effcient than a modern gas boiler on a cold day
He also said ‘no amount of shale gas from 100s of wells dotted across rural England would be enough to lower the European price any time soon. & with the best will in the world, private companies are not going to sell the shale gas they produce to UK consumers below market price’ https://twitter.com/huffpostuk/status/1567762218913087491
Naw ken.
Amazing how many PBTories have latched onto fracking onland in the UK as the great white hope. Like perpetual motion or cold fusion.
It's getting almost suspicious, this delay in the BGS report - which is, presumably, just an update in the already published one of a few years ago?
So the government gives just three hours to a debate on a massive announcement affecting the whole country today and refuses to give the opposition or other MPs any details before it starts. Pretty poor treatment of parliament yet again. Nothing changes.
Probably a bit longer for Boris “Wine List” honours, as it has to go to a committee, who will be laughing and laughing and having to pick themselves up off the floor. 🙂
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
People keep repeating this claim about 'should have done more' but it ignores the fact that - in this country at least - we have been massively investing in wind power for the last decade and a half and, as far as offshore wind goes, we are world leaders by miles. We are building the lovely things as fast as we can and Government - of all stripes - has done very well on this in facilitating and then staying out of the way.
The problem was always going to be in creating false targets for the end of hydrocarbons which were unattainable and which have demolished the required bridge between hydrocarbons and renewables.
If we're looking for things that we should have done more of, we should have done more to improve insulation and switch to heat pumps. Improving household insulation is a big win during winter, and it's an area where the UK is behind the rest of northern Europe. Heat pumps are more efficient than gas boilers, such that burning the same gas in a power station would create more heat via a heat pump than burning it in a gas boiler would.
If we wanted a bridge from hydrocarbons to renewables then we should have built more nuclear. The clip doing the rounds a few weeks ago of Clegg circa 2010 saying that the problem with building nuclear is that it would be expensive and would only be coming online by 2022 does show a failure of long-term thinking.
I agree about the Nuclear and insulation. Both could have been done sooner and with far more emphasis. Disagree on the heat pumps - at least the current generation. I have relatives who have installed them over the last couple of years and deeply regret it.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
Your base load needs to be something reliable, and not something weather dependent such as wind. If it’s not gas or coal, it needs to be nuclear or tidal.
The point is that there should be times, when the wind is blowing strongly, when we are using virtually no fossil fuels at all for power generation. That time isn't here yet. Instead, we are still using gas all the time, when we should be using it just to cover dips in renewable generation.
1) Not heard of her 2) Liked her speech & PMQs (after we showed them) 3) But furious at idea of energy firms not having windfall tax, with taxpayers picking up the tab instead
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
People keep repeating this claim about 'should have done more' but it ignores the fact that - in this country at least - we have been massively investing in wind power for the last decade and a half and, as far as offshore wind goes, we are world leaders by miles. We are building the lovely things as fast as we can and Government - of all stripes - has done very well on this in facilitating and then staying out of the way.
The problem was always going to be in creating false targets for the end of hydrocarbons which were unattainable and which have demolished the required bridge between hydrocarbons and renewables.
If we're looking for things that we should have done more of, we should have done more to improve insulation and switch to heat pumps. Improving household insulation is a big win during winter, and it's an area where the UK is behind the rest of northern Europe. Heat pumps are more efficient than gas boilers, such that burning the same gas in a power station would create more heat via a heat pump than burning it in a gas boiler would.
If we wanted a bridge from hydrocarbons to renewables then we should have built more nuclear. The clip doing the rounds a few weeks ago of Clegg circa 2010 saying that the problem with building nuclear is that it would be expensive and would only be coming online by 2022 does show a failure of long-term thinking.
Heat pumps are not more effcient than a modern gas boiler on a cold day
Are they more efficient over the course of the year, though? (which I guess is the relevant question unless the idea is to have both). As I understand it the problem with heat pumps is that our homes are often not well insulated enough for them to work. I've got one in our very well insulated garden room and it works a treat. In our draughty Victoria house I imagine it would struggle.
Cameron and May's took 4-6 weeks to come out. But the time of year might have affected it.
Possibly needs a bit more vetting than previous lists. Don't want too many crooks, moneylaunderers and agents of foreign regimes. We have enough already there.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
Your base load needs to be something reliable, and not something weather dependent such as wind. If it’s not gas or coal, it needs to be nuclear or tidal.
The point is that there should be times, when the wind is blowing strongly, when we are using virtually no fossil fuels at all for power generation. That time isn't here yet. Instead, we are still using gas all the time, when we should be using it just to cover dips in renewable generation.
The issue there, is needing a huge amount of excess capacity in the system, compared to using gas or nuclear for the base load. Hence my comment about storage needing to be a priority. Storage and SMR reactors.
Probably a bit longer for Boris “Wine List” honours, as it has to go to a committee, who will be laughing and laughing and having to pick themselves up off the floor. 🙂
Hope you are keeping well oldie.
I fear you may be right, Rabbit, about the honours list.
On the other point, thank you. The answer is sadly by no means as well as I'd like to be keeping! Waiting for appointment with spinal surgeons!
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
Your base load needs to be something reliable, and not something weather dependent such as wind. If it’s not gas or coal, it needs to be nuclear or tidal.
What's £89.50 at 2012 prices worth in today's money ?
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
Why not both?
If North Sea hydrocarbons can be cleaner for the greenhouse than importing them, profitable to extract (and tax, people forget the extraction is heavily taxed already), and makes us more secure in our energy supplies while we transition to cleaner alternatives then what is the downside?
1) Not heard of her 2) Liked her speech & PMQs (after we showed them) 3) But furious at idea of energy firms not having windfall tax, with taxpayers picking up the tab instead
So by my calculation low income households will have a unit price cap that translates to ~£1300 per year, everyone else £1950 per year?
Or is that low income additional support cancelled?
If these are the numbers then I think it will just about work and it incentives every saving. I've been looking up individual room control for the heating, we need the baby room to be warm overnight but the rest of the house doesn't matter as much, being able to set our room to 18 degrees and Jen's room to 22 degrees and downstairs to 15 degrees overnight will save a lot of energy.
I always find the average UK gas consumption fascinatingly high given how pokey the average UK property is.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
People keep repeating this claim about 'should have done more' but it ignores the fact that - in this country at least - we have been massively investing in wind power for the last decade and a half and, as far as offshore wind goes, we are world leaders by miles. We are building the lovely things as fast as we can and Government - of all stripes - has done very well on this in facilitating and then staying out of the way.
The problem was always going to be in creating false targets for the end of hydrocarbons which were unattainable and which have demolished the required bridge between hydrocarbons and renewables.
If we're looking for things that we should have done more of, we should have done more to improve insulation and switch to heat pumps. Improving household insulation is a big win during winter, and it's an area where the UK is behind the rest of northern Europe. Heat pumps are more efficient than gas boilers, such that burning the same gas in a power station would create more heat via a heat pump than burning it in a gas boiler would.
If we wanted a bridge from hydrocarbons to renewables then we should have built more nuclear. The clip doing the rounds a few weeks ago of Clegg circa 2010 saying that the problem with building nuclear is that it would be expensive and would only be coming online by 2022 does show a failure of long-term thinking.
Heat pumps are not more effcient than a modern gas boiler on a cold day
Nope, completely wrong. Modern heat pumps have crude efficiencies of 300-400% on cold days (-10C). In other words, every KW of electricity you use generates 3-4KW of heat.
A more reasonable and accurate complaint is that electricity is often 3-4x more expensive than gas, but you’ll have to take that up with our stupid energy pricing policy.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
On Topic. Mike Smithson has just introduced us to the Political Betting concept of a “sick bet”? 🤒
He is not down wiv da yoof, my sons would call my 100/1 Truss bet well sick.
Er... how old are your sons?
20s.
Fair enough. Forgive me for thinking they might be a fair bit older ;-)
In the flat here we use dope all the time.
How did your big meeting go? Dope.
How’s your takeaway? Dope.
Someone about 15 will probably tell me I’m passe at 26! 🤣
Radical.
Cosmic !
Groovy
BTW I have just looked to see what is in my loft, having lived here 8 years. Mineral wool nsulation is the answer. I note that that horrid spray foam stuff makes houses unmortgagable, so tip of the day: don't do it. Surprised it hasn't been banned.
The British sash window must cost the country many megawatt hours of heating every year. On the continent the equivalent windows are levered "French windows" which are far easier to make airtight, far easier to double glaze and besides much more user friendly to open and close.
No doubt there is some old story dating back to the 16th century that would explain why we have our leaky slidy sashes and they have hinged ones.
Silly thing to say. The FT is a business intelligence paper and is very good at it. It’s about the only decent paper periodical left.
I remember reading that US newspapers won't treat anything from a British paper as fact without a corroboration from a second independent source. The FT is the only exception. I also recall reading about a communist who read it religiously, on the basis that the bosses wouldn't lie to themselves. On the subject of being anti-business, wasn't there a chap who said "fuck business"? Can't have been the leader of the Conservative party, surely?
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
If we reduce consumption as much as we need to, then there will be a huge excess of production. New extraction developments will be economically unviable, in the North Sea, in Russia or in Qatar.
We'll just have to introduce aluminium smelting to use up all that lovely power. Just rejoice at that news.
We should install wind and tidal with a peak generation capacity many times our needs.
In light winds our needs are still covered; when the wind blows hard use it to create (net zero) hydrocarbons:
The UK is enormously rich in wind and tidal capacity.
I 100% completely agree with you.
But it can't be done overnight. We can and should invest in North Sea hydrocarbons alongside developing wind and tidal as fast as is economically possible.
If revenues from hydrocarbon investments go to the UK instead of Qatar and make it easier to develop wind faster not slower then all the better too.
Too many people see this as an either/or solution. North Sea hydrocarbons are the appetiser while renewables are the main course, but there's no reason not to make both courses ourselves.
With those Russian troop / equipment losses, you’d have to imagine troop morale is at an all time low.
The Ukrainians have something to fight for - the Russians seemingly have no real idea what they’re there for. And winter approaches..
The Russians are fighting for something - avoiding prison or a bullet to their head if they desert.....
Strangely, it does seem that if they can get back to Russia, they can terminate their military contract without much consequence.
Putin has few options left, but one of the remaining options is a formal mobilisation and call up. The volunteer, mercenary and regular forces seem to be scraping the barrel. Might not be popular in Moscow and St Petersburg, and probably little heavy equipment for them.
So by my calculation low income households will have a unit price cap that translates to ~£1300 per year, everyone else £1950 per year?
Or is that low income additional support cancelled?
If these are the numbers then I think it will just about work and it incentives every saving. I've been looking up individual room control for the heating, we need the baby room to be warm overnight but the rest of the house doesn't matter as much, being able to set our room to 18 degrees and Jen's room to 22 degrees and downstairs to 15 degrees overnight will save a lot of energy.
I always find the average UK gas consumption fascinatingly high given how pokey the average UK property is.
1) Not heard of her 2) Liked her speech & PMQs (after we showed them) 3) But furious at idea of energy firms not having windfall tax, with taxpayers picking up the tab instead
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
The British sash window must cost the country many megawatt hours of heating every year. On the continent the equivalent windows are levered "French windows" which are far easier to make airtight, far easier to double glaze and besides much more user friendly to open and close.
No doubt there is some old story dating back to the 16th century that would explain why we have our leaky slidy sashes and they have hinged ones.
Maybe sash windows were to reminiscent of the guillotine?
What often seems to be forgotten about the Thatcher tax cuts is that they were delivered on the back of growing revenues from North Sea oil and huge privatisation programmes. I’d argue that both windfalls were wasted in that way, but they were windfalls nevertheless. Today’s Tories have nothing like that to fall back on. The risk they are taking is huge. Markets will inevitably notice that. That will make borrowing more expensive and so increase the risk. It’s right wing Corbynism, pure and simple. Maybe even worse as a lot of Corbynista borrowing would have been focused on improving the public realm and general infrastructure.
How would Corbynista borrowing in order to buy shares in water companies etc "improve" the public realm and general infrastructure? Not a penny of that would improve anything, it would be a purely negative windfall.
Having people keep more of their own income when they work improves the realm by itself and reduces the deadweight welfare loss on the economy that taxation causes so there's a huge difference between the two.
The way Truss talks about tax cuts one wonders why we dont just have zero taxes.
There needs to be some taxes, but taxes at a 75 year high are too high.
Silly thing to say. The FT is a business intelligence paper and is very good at it. It’s about the only decent paper periodical left.
I remember reading that US newspapers won't treat anything from a British paper as fact without a corroboration from a second independent source. The FT is the only exception. I also recall reading about a communist who read it religiously, on the basis that the bosses wouldn't lie to themselves. On the subject of being anti-business, wasn't there a chap who said "fuck business"? Can't have been the leader of the Conservative party, surely?
That “America-checking-British journalism” story sounds like a piece of quasi-apocrypha from about 40 years ago. So it probably wasn’t true even in the days when American papers could all afford fact checkers
In the post-truth Age of Fox, Trump and Woke it is risible. Otherwise the NYT would have been unable to publish its last 3,892 stories about the UK
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Probably a bit longer for Boris “Wine List” honours, as it has to go to a committee, who will be laughing and laughing and having to pick themselves up off the floor. 🙂
Hope you are keeping well oldie.
If Johnson is rewarding loyalty, our own HYUFD should be the first name on the list for a peerage.
The British sash window must cost the country many megawatt hours of heating every year. On the continent the equivalent windows are levered "French windows" which are far easier to make airtight, far easier to double glaze and besides much more user friendly to open and close.
No doubt there is some old story dating back to the 16th century that would explain why we have our leaky slidy sashes and they have hinged ones.
Not sure if it explains anything but aren’t sash windows a very clever bit of design where by opening the top and bottom halves equally creates an airflow effect which doesn’t happen with hinged windows.
However the sash style would probably have been more helpful in warmer climes and the hinged in our delightful damp and windy country.
This £170bn figure is incredibly misleading as 1) ~55% of it relates to the profits of foreign companies selling gas to the UK (I.e. Norway), which the UK obviously cannot tax and 2) the profits of UK oil and gas operators are already taxed at 65%.
So by my calculation low income households will have a unit price cap that translates to ~£1300 per year, everyone else £1950 per year?
Or is that low income additional support cancelled?
If these are the numbers then I think it will just about work and it incentives every saving. I've been looking up individual room control for the heating, we need the baby room to be warm overnight but the rest of the house doesn't matter as much, being able to set our room to 18 degrees and Jen's room to 22 degrees and downstairs to 15 degrees overnight will save a lot of energy.
I always find the average UK gas consumption fascinatingly high given how pokey the average UK property is.
Appalling insulation.
Plus people who like to be at 25 deg C in winter.
Visiting my grandparents home has always been like stepping into a sauna. Though since my grandad is in his 90s everyone's too polite to say anything.
We visited my grandparents recently and they were talking about the impact of the energy cost. My nan's preferred solution is can't the SAS just "take out" Putin so this could all go back to normal?
Due to the rising cost of energy they've turned the thermostat down. Its now "only" 26.5 C
The British sash window must cost the country many megawatt hours of heating every year. On the continent the equivalent windows are levered "French windows" which are far easier to make airtight, far easier to double glaze and besides much more user friendly to open and close.
No doubt there is some old story dating back to the 16th century that would explain why we have our leaky slidy sashes and they have hinged ones.
Maybe sash windows were to reminiscent of the guillotine?
I think it was simply that they were fashionable in Britain and not in France, although I could be wrong. There were more Dutch merchants in London than in Paris in the 18th Century and they may have brought the trend over with them.
The British sash window must cost the country many megawatt hours of heating every year. On the continent the equivalent windows are levered "French windows" which are far easier to make airtight, far easier to double glaze and besides much more user friendly to open and close.
No doubt there is some old story dating back to the 16th century that would explain why we have our leaky slidy sashes and they have hinged ones.
Not sure if it explains anything but aren’t sash windows a very clever bit of design where by opening the top and bottom halves equally creates an airflow effect which doesn’t happen with hinged windows.
However the sash style would probably have been more helpful in warmer climes and the hinged in our delightful damp and windy country.
And you felt it was important to post that because... ?
Topical subject discussed yesterday.
And you felt it was important to ask because…..?
The details of the person doing the protest are pretty unsavoury to my mind and not particularly important.
What is important is that potentially 5 offences were committed yesterday -
1. Indecent exposure 2. Public Order Act 1986. 3. Littering under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. 4. Possibly criminal damage 5. Intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance contrary to S. 78 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Act 2022
The police came and placed a cordon around the offices and all the piss.
Will they now take appropriate action against those committing any or all of these offences?
It would not do, would it, for the Met to create a perception that they are quick to take action against women protesting for their rights but slow to take action against men protesting against womens' rights. Nor a perception that they might be influenced by external lobby groups when making such a decision.
The British sash window must cost the country many megawatt hours of heating every year. On the continent the equivalent windows are levered "French windows" which are far easier to make airtight, far easier to double glaze and besides much more user friendly to open and close.
No doubt there is some old story dating back to the 16th century that would explain why we have our leaky slidy sashes and they have hinged ones.
Not sure if it explains anything but aren’t sash windows a very clever bit of design where by opening the top and bottom halves equally creates an airflow effect which doesn’t happen with hinged windows.
However the sash style would probably have been more helpful in warmer climes and the hinged in our delightful damp and windy country.
Indeed that is exactly the point with them.
They are also the most beautiful domestic window design ever invented. Especially in Georgian houses
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
If we reduce consumption as much as we need to, then there will be a huge excess of production. New extraction developments will be economically unviable, in the North Sea, in Russia or in Qatar.
We'll just have to introduce aluminium smelting to use up all that lovely power. Just rejoice at that news.
We should install wind and tidal with a peak generation capacity many times our needs.
In light winds our needs are still covered; when the wind blows hard use it to create (net zero) hydrocarbons:
The UK is enormously rich in wind and tidal capacity.
I 100% completely agree with you.
But it can't be done overnight. We can and should invest in North Sea hydrocarbons alongside developing wind and tidal as fast as is economically possible.
If revenues from hydrocarbon investments go to the UK instead of Qatar and make it easier to develop wind faster not slower then all the better too.
Too many people see this as an either/or solution. North Sea hydrocarbons are the appetiser while renewables are the main course, but there's no reason not to make both courses ourselves.
Very little of the North Sea revenue goes to the UK. That's why we don't have a sovereign wealth fund and Norway does. And since the offshore wind sector relies on some of the same support industry as oil and gas, ramping up fossil fuel extraction in the North Sea (which will take many years to come on line anyway) might create capacity constraints for offshore wind, slowing the rollout. We just need to ramp up our transition to renewables, including tidal for baseload and nuclear if tidal plus storage isn't sufficient.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
If we reduce consumption as much as we need to, then there will be a huge excess of production. New extraction developments will be economically unviable, in the North Sea, in Russia or in Qatar.
We'll just have to introduce aluminium smelting to use up all that lovely power. Just rejoice at that news.
We should install wind and tidal with a peak generation capacity many times our needs.
In light winds our needs are still covered; when the wind blows hard use it to create (net zero) hydrocarbons:
The UK is enormously rich in wind and tidal capacity.
I 100% completely agree with you.
But it can't be done overnight. We can and should invest in North Sea hydrocarbons alongside developing wind and tidal as fast as is economically possible.
If revenues from hydrocarbon investments go to the UK instead of Qatar and make it easier to develop wind faster not slower then all the better too.
Too many people see this as an either/or solution. North Sea hydrocarbons are the appetiser while renewables are the main course, but there's no reason not to make both courses ourselves.
Very little of the North Sea revenue goes to the UK. That's why we don't have a sovereign wealth fund and Norway does. And since the offshore wind sector relies on some of the same support industry as oil and gas, ramping up fossil fuel extraction in the North Sea (which will take many years to come on line anyway) might create capacity constraints for offshore wind, slowing the rollout. We just need to ramp up our transition to renewables, including tidal for baseload and nuclear if tidal plus storage isn't sufficient.
Its a myth that we don't have a sovereign wealth fund because we don't get any revenues and Norway does.
We don't have a sovereign wealth fund because we've spent the money, not because we didn't get the money.
Of course Norway managed to get comparable revenues gross but has less than 10% of our population to share those revenues between, so it was a lot easier to save revenue into a sovereign wealth fund rather than it all going into a pot and being gobbled up by the NHS etc
Brent Crude down at $88 this morning, lowest it’s been since January. Some good news in amongst all the gloom.
Sterling up a cent against the US$ too.
Haven't heard much about water rationing lately either, not least after the torrential rain most of this week. Is there still a hosepipe ban in the south? (Yes, I know sudden downpours just run off the dry soil, but a week or rain is different.)
Comments
Or is that low income additional support cancelled?
If these are the numbers then I think it will just about work and it incentives every saving. I've been looking up individual room control for the heating, we need the baby room to be warm overnight but the rest of the house doesn't matter as much, being able to set our room to 18 degrees and Jen's room to 22 degrees and downstairs to 15 degrees overnight will save a lot of energy.
https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/business/statements/
The lasted offshore wind electricity contracts are being won by generating companies committing to 4.8p per kWh.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-record-low-price-for-uk-offshore-wind-is-four-times-cheaper-than-gas/
(Edit: it's now actually ten times cheaper than gas)
This is only going one way.
Investing in hydrocarbons from excess electricity will be a great way to maximise the benefit of wind capacity.
Interesting btu sad piece on the impact of the US Supreme Court - folk having to get married in a hurry, and try and cope with the future, including obtaining added legal protection e.g. through wills and setting up PoAs, lest their marriages are dissolved or disregarded.
The Truss cabinet is declaring a windfall tax on energy firm profits is economically and in principle wrong…
…but the Truss cabinet is also keeping the windfall tax on energy firm profits introduced this year…
If they’re that opposed, why keep it?
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1567777633542316033
The problem was always going to be in creating false targets for the end of hydrocarbons which were unattainable and which have demolished the required bridge between hydrocarbons and renewables.
Meet biogal aka Jamie - the trans feminine piss protester covered by vice: a thread..
TRIGGER WARNING… skinny buts, some unimpressive genitals and general unhinged’ness…
https://twitter.com/TalulaThe/status/1567707680348815362
On another topic, one wonders if some journalist should FOI this
https://www.bgs.ac.uk/news/update-on-scientific-shale-gas-report/
Fine bright morning here.
And the forecast is excellent for Canterbury, where it looks like the Essex cricketers are going to roll over those of Kent! So things aren't all bad.
Lord Spencer, Tory donor and founder of ICAP, goes in studs up on the @FT.
"The FT is not a pro-business paper. It's not a pro-Tory paper. No reason it should be a pro-Tory paper but you might think it might be a pro-business paper. It's not."
https://twitter.com/theousherwood/status/1567778847214505984
If we wanted a bridge from hydrocarbons to renewables then we should have built more nuclear. The clip doing the rounds a few weeks ago of Clegg circa 2010 saying that the problem with building nuclear is that it would be expensive and would only be coming online by 2022 does show a failure of long-term thinking.
Maybe Truss has been a CND sleeper after all.
HMQ better survive her premiership, as King Charlie will be easy meat.
That's what @RichardVaughan1 is hearing, as revealed in his newsletter today (standing in for @paulwaugh): https://link.news.inews.co.uk/view/5eb3fd966833db5cdc7bf1fbh92q6.lly/58286100 https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1567628602472120320/photo/1
How did your big meeting go?
Dope.
How’s your takeaway?
Dope.
Someone about 15 will probably tell me I’m passe at 26! 🤣
https://shop.emporiaenergy.com/products/gen-2-emporia-vue-with-16-sensors-bundle
I got one from Amazon for £160 and installed it at the end of August.
I can see that we have generated more than we've used so far during September, which is great. Maybe I just need to stay on holiday in Italy through the whole winter to have affordable electricity bills this winter!
Historically cheap energy doesn't help, though there's plenty of undone stuff that made sense even in the past. Add in an instinctive dislike of hair-shirtism and bossy greenery, and we have a problem. I wonder also if there's a sense of coal/oil/gas giving Proper Jobs, so consumption is good, whereas wind, solar and efficiency are somehow cheating.
It's getting almost suspicious, this delay in the BGS report - which is, presumably, just an update in the already published one of a few years ago?
https://twitter.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1567777439518003200?s=20&t=BxJhFQVTVTaqm_qSYjfTLQ
Probably a bit longer for Boris “Wine List” honours, as it has to go to a committee, who will be laughing and laughing and having to pick themselves up off the floor. 🙂
Hope you are keeping well oldie.
The Ukrainians have something to fight for - the Russians seemingly have no real idea what they’re there for. And winter approaches..
And you felt it was important to ask because…..?
1) Not heard of her
2) Liked her speech & PMQs (after we showed them)
3) But furious at idea of energy firms not having windfall tax, with taxpayers picking up the tab instead
📻Listen 11am http://times.radio
https://twitter.com/TimesRadio/status/1567779375692521473/video/1
On the other point, thank you. The answer is sadly by no means as well as I'd like to be keeping! Waiting for appointment with spinal surgeons!
or 11.7p per Kwh
Looks like a bargain at current prices...
If North Sea hydrocarbons can be cleaner for the greenhouse than importing them, profitable to extract (and tax, people forget the extraction is heavily taxed already), and makes us more secure in our energy supplies while we transition to cleaner alternatives then what is the downside?
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c1b8ba7a-2edd-11ed-9b12-7a2e56f7aeb6?shareToken=89e50014205bf25cd1e4e04a985f50b2
He shared a tweet
A more reasonable and accurate complaint is that electricity is often 3-4x more expensive than gas, but you’ll have to take that up with our stupid energy pricing policy.
My “no Tory lead for September bet is fire”.
BTW I have just looked to see what is in my loft, having lived here 8 years. Mineral wool nsulation is the answer. I note that that horrid spray foam stuff makes houses unmortgagable, so tip of the day: don't do it. Surprised it hasn't been banned.
No doubt there is some old story dating back to the 16th century that would explain why we have our leaky slidy sashes and they have hinged ones.
On the subject of being anti-business, wasn't there a chap who said "fuck business"? Can't have been the leader of the Conservative party, surely?
But it can't be done overnight. We can and should invest in North Sea hydrocarbons alongside developing wind and tidal as fast as is economically possible.
If revenues from hydrocarbon investments go to the UK instead of Qatar and make it easier to develop wind faster not slower then all the better too.
Too many people see this as an either/or solution. North Sea hydrocarbons are the appetiser while renewables are the main course, but there's no reason not to make both courses ourselves.
Putin has few options left, but one of the remaining options is a formal mobilisation and call up. The volunteer, mercenary and regular forces seem to be scraping the barrel. Might not be popular in Moscow and St Petersburg, and probably little heavy equipment for them.
That “America-checking-British journalism” story sounds like a piece of quasi-apocrypha from about 40 years ago. So it probably wasn’t true even in the days when American papers could all afford fact checkers
In the post-truth Age of Fox, Trump and Woke it is risible. Otherwise the NYT would have been unable to publish its last 3,892 stories about the UK
However the sash style would probably have been more helpful in warmer climes and the hinged in our delightful damp and windy country.
This £170bn figure is incredibly misleading as 1) ~55% of it relates to the profits of foreign companies selling gas to the UK (I.e. Norway), which the UK obviously cannot tax and 2) the profits of UK oil and gas operators are already taxed at 65%.
https://twitter.com/joe_armitage/status/1567618429737222144
So that leaves about £27bn if you want to tax at 100%. What are Labour proposing?
We visited my grandparents recently and they were talking about the impact of the energy cost. My nan's preferred solution is can't the SAS just "take out" Putin so this could all go back to normal?
Due to the rising cost of energy they've turned the thermostat down. Its now "only" 26.5 C
What is important is that potentially 5 offences were committed yesterday -
1. Indecent exposure
2. Public Order Act 1986.
3. Littering under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
4. Possibly criminal damage
5. Intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance contrary to S. 78 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Act 2022
The police came and placed a cordon around the offices and all the piss.
Will they now take appropriate action against those committing any or all of these offences?
It would not do, would it, for the Met to create a perception that they are quick to take action against women protesting for their rights but slow to take action against men protesting against womens' rights. Nor a perception that they might be influenced by external lobby groups when making such a decision.
We don't have a sovereign wealth fund because we've spent the money, not because we didn't get the money.
Of course Norway managed to get comparable revenues gross but has less than 10% of our population to share those revenues between, so it was a lot easier to save revenue into a sovereign wealth fund rather than it all going into a pot and being gobbled up by the NHS etc