Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
The coking coal mine you are talking about is only economic because of the requirement for the chemistry of coking coal.
No one is going to pay that much to burn it in a power station. You can get far cheaper coal for that.
The reserves they are mining are also tiny compared to the energy requirements of the country.
Well if he holds his seat, which is a big if given the LDs are targeting it, the newly 'protect our greenbelt' John McDonnell now has more chance of being next Tory leader than Hunt if he takes that attitude. Pushing for more migrants might go down well with the CBI but will go down like a lead balloon in the Shires
I think Sunak and Hunt's mission is a kamikaze one. Pretty sure neither is planning a political career in Britain after 2024.
If as seems likely Sunak and Hunt lead the party to a heavy defeat next year, their wing of the Tories will be out of control of the leadership for at least a decade in my view. The right will take over in opposition.
Much as Brown's defeat in 2010 saw the end of New Labour with the left taking control of the Labour party leadership until Starmer's win in 2020
Ed M wasn't the Hard Left's candidate. That was Abbott in 2010.
Sunak is the Con Right. He is likely to be replaced by a Hard Right candidate who will have the strengths and all the weaknesses of the Hard Left. Talking only to themselves (as over the weekend) and never listening to anybody
Steve Barclay, likely next Tory Leader in Opposition in my view, would be right of centre not hard right. It would take Jacob Rees Mogg for instance or Suella Braverman to be elected Tory Leader for a proper Hard Right Leader of the Tories as Corbyn took over Labour from the Hard Left
I think a lot depends on how many Conservative MPs will be in the new Parliament.
The likes of Barclay, Badenoch, Braverman and Dowden would survive all but the most unlikely extinction scenarios. Add Coffey and perhaps Shapps to that and there's quite a crowded race as indeed it was in 1997 when Hague won. Given a heavy defeat would suggest ten years in Opposition, it's likely the youngest candidate would have a chance .
Barclay is 51 - Badenoch and Braverman both 43 and Dowden 44 - I suspect the younger candidates will be at an advantage.
How long the Tories face in opposition, regardless of the new leader (unless an ultra like Braverman) likely depends on how a new Starmer government handles the economy.
If Starmer and Reeves get inflation and the cost of living down, don't raise taxes too high and control strikes then the new Labour government may well be in power a decade or more. If they don't the Tory Opposition will see a quick revival, even more so if Starmer tries imposing development targets all over the greenbelt
I have been a Man U supporter since I was 6 or 7, watching Best, Law and Charlton but I confess I have rarely seen a better club side than the side Pep has built. They are incredible.
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
Disney’s new version of The Little Mermaid features a scene that appears to mock the Princess of Wales.
The film, released in cinemas next week, stars newcomer Halle Bailey as the mermaid Ariel, who falls for a handsome prince and gives up her voice in order to be with him.
In the first meeting between Ariel and Prince Eric, he tries to guess her name. His first guess is “Diana”. His second guess is “Catherine”, the first name of the Princess of Wales.
At the mention of the latter, Ariel screws up her face. “OK, definitely not Catherine,” Eric says.
The film already has a royal connection: the Duchess of Sussex drew parallels between herself and Ariel in her 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
The coking coal mine you are talking about is only economic because of the requirement for the chemistry of coking coal.
No one is going to pay that much to burn it in a power station. You can get far cheaper coal for that.
The reserves they are mining are also tiny compared to the energy requirements of the country.
Quite so, but any excess can burn, and burn well, in a coal power station, so why limit the amount mined? Sell the excess at a lower price for energy generation, displacing an import and contributing more tax revenue. And I never said that the Cumbria mine could power the whole country, or even suggested that it was desirable that it should do.
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
And the equivalent costs for offshore wind in the UK are much lower thanks to shallow seas, shorter transmission lines and economies of scale.
Hardly anyone, whatever their politics, in this country has even heard of Chomsky, let alone regards him as a hero. Even on an esteemed know-it-all forum like pb, Chomsky had to be explained recently.
I think you under-estimate his name. 'Manufacturing Consent' is quite "current" in young "alt-right" circles in my experience. Which is a depressingly large % of the politically aware of that generation.
The problem is that is what is current is a very facile interpretation of his views.
This is a large part of the problem of our current culture, on both the left and right ; at times quite sophisticated critiques, dating from earlier periods, such as some of the Chomsy's ideas rooted in the new 1960's wariness of institutions, because of the commercialisation and twitterification of public debate, are only shared and communicated as facile conspiracy gibberish.
This also applies to parts of the left drawing on similar resources, I hasten to add, too.
There's been not too much new in the way of substantial left or right thought, since the turn of the century, so people are often just drawing one simplified and half-digested versions of twentieth century thought, at the moment.
It doesn't help that Chomsky's own contemporary views have degenerated into facile conspiracy gibberish.
It's true that he has become quite a bit more unsubtle, in the last ten years or so.
On the other hand that's also coincided with his becoming very old. Isn't he about 95 ?
Well if he holds his seat, which is a big if given the LDs are targeting it, the newly 'protect our greenbelt' John McDonnell now has more chance of being next Tory leader than Hunt if he takes that attitude. Pushing for more migrants might go down well with the CBI but will go down like a lead balloon in the Shires
I think Sunak and Hunt's mission is a kamikaze one. Pretty sure neither is planning a political career in Britain after 2024.
If as seems likely Sunak and Hunt lead the party to a heavy defeat next year, their wing of the Tories will be out of control of the leadership for at least a decade in my view. The right will take over in opposition.
Much as Brown's defeat in 2010 saw the end of New Labour with the left taking control of the Labour party leadership until Starmer's win in 2020
Ed M wasn't the Hard Left's candidate. That was Abbott in 2010.
Sunak is the Con Right. He is likely to be replaced by a Hard Right candidate who will have the strengths and all the weaknesses of the Hard Left. Talking only to themselves (as over the weekend) and never listening to anybody
Steve Barclay, likely next Tory Leader in Opposition in my view, would be right of centre not hard right. It would take Jacob Rees Mogg for instance or Suella Braverman to be elected Tory Leader for a proper Hard Right Leader of the Tories as Corbyn took over Labour from the Hard Left
I think a lot depends on how many Conservative MPs will be in the new Parliament.
The likes of Barclay, Badenoch, Braverman and Dowden would survive all but the most unlikely extinction scenarios. Add Coffey and perhaps Shapps to that and there's quite a crowded race as indeed it was in 1997 when Hague won. Given a heavy defeat would suggest ten years in Opposition, it's likely the youngest candidate would have a chance .
Barclay is 51 - Badenoch and Braverman both 43 and Dowden 44 - I suspect the younger candidates will be at an advantage.
How long the Tories face in opposition, regardless of the new leader (unless an ultra like Braverman) likely depends on how a new Starmer government handles the economy.
If Starmer and Reeves get inflation and the cost of living down, don't raise taxes too high and control strikes then the new Labour government may well be in power a decade or more. If they don't the Tory Opposition will see a quick revival, even more so if Starmer tries imposing development targets all over the greenbelt
That's pretty much the same dilemma the opposition Conservatives faced after 1997. Thanks to the policies of Ken Clarke, Labour inherited a strong economy and with Brown committing to Clarke's spending targets for the first two years there wasn't much the Conservatives could say or do in opposition.
Were Hunt to bequeath Reeves an improving economy and were she not to make a horlicks of it (not guaranteed by any stretch), the Shadow Chancellor would have a tough life.
It took a long time after 1997 for the Conservatives to develop a credible alternative approach.
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
The coking coal mine you are talking about is only economic because of the requirement for the chemistry of coking coal.
No one is going to pay that much to burn it in a power station. You can get far cheaper coal for that.
The reserves they are mining are also tiny compared to the energy requirements of the country.
Quite so, but any excess can burn, and burn well, in a coal power station, so why limit the amount mined? Sell the excess at a lower price for energy generation, displacing an import and contributing more tax revenue. And I never said that the Cumbria mine could power the whole country, or even suggested that it was desirable that it should do.
That's not actually true.
You can't just put any coal in any coal fired power station, because different coals burn at different temperatures, and need to be setup to deal with the amount of sulfur/etc.
Hardly anyone, whatever their politics, in this country has even heard of Chomsky, let alone regards him as a hero. Even on an esteemed know-it-all forum like pb, Chomsky had to be explained recently.
I think you under-estimate his name. 'Manufacturing Consent' is quite "current" in young "alt-right" circles in my experience. Which is a depressingly large % of the politically aware of that generation.
The problem is that is what is current is a very facile interpretation of his views.
This is a large part of the problem of our current culture, on both the left and right ; at times quite sophisticated critiques, dating from earlier periods, such as some of the Chomsy's ideas rooted in the new 1960's wariness of institutions, because of the commercialisation and twitterification of public debate, are only shared and communicated as facile conspiracy gibberish.
This also applies to parts of the left drawing on similar resources, I hasten to add, too.
There's been not too much new in the way of substantial left or right thought, since the turn of the century, so people are often just drawing one simplified and half-digested versions of twentieth century thought, at the moment.
It doesn't help that Chomsky's own contemporary views have degenerated into facile conspiracy gibberish.
When a man is lionised (by some) as a titan of intellectual thought but argues with a straight face repeatedly Jeremy Corbyn won the 2017 election it's not very surprising a casual observer might be skeptical of what good work might have been done in the past.
He should probably retire, he is 94. But his political work is worth reading because there is some truth in it - he was good at demonstrating that our government were not benevolent in a way that we used to believe. Where I departed from him was that he was too benevolent and sympathetic towards other governments like China, Iran, Russia etc and was willing to just give them a free pass and regard their atrocities as someone else's problem.
On topic: It's a weird chart though. Each generation is being measured relative to the other generations, so the properly weighted average of silent@85yrs + boomer@70 + x@55 + millennial@40 (+ a few z, if you will) will always be 0.
The millennials staying relatively left is as much a product of the necessary statistical counterbalancing to a rapid lurch rightwards of the boomers as it is a leftward trend in the millennials themselves
Well if he holds his seat, which is a big if given the LDs are targeting it, the newly 'protect our greenbelt' John McDonnell now has more chance of being next Tory leader than Hunt if he takes that attitude. Pushing for more migrants might go down well with the CBI but will go down like a lead balloon in the Shires
I think Sunak and Hunt's mission is a kamikaze one. Pretty sure neither is planning a political career in Britain after 2024.
If as seems likely Sunak and Hunt lead the party to a heavy defeat next year, their wing of the Tories will be out of control of the leadership for at least a decade in my view. The right will take over in opposition.
Much as Brown's defeat in 2010 saw the end of New Labour with the left taking control of the Labour party leadership until Starmer's win in 2020
Ed M wasn't the Hard Left's candidate. That was Abbott in 2010.
Sunak is the Con Right. He is likely to be replaced by a Hard Right candidate who will have the strengths and all the weaknesses of the Hard Left. Talking only to themselves (as over the weekend) and never listening to anybody
Steve Barclay, likely next Tory Leader in Opposition in my view, would be right of centre not hard right. It would take Jacob Rees Mogg for instance or Suella Braverman to be elected Tory Leader for a proper Hard Right Leader of the Tories as Corbyn took over Labour from the Hard Left
I think a lot depends on how many Conservative MPs will be in the new Parliament.
The likes of Barclay, Badenoch, Braverman and Dowden would survive all but the most unlikely extinction scenarios. Add Coffey and perhaps Shapps to that and there's quite a crowded race as indeed it was in 1997 when Hague won. Given a heavy defeat would suggest ten years in Opposition, it's likely the youngest candidate would have a chance .
Barclay is 51 - Badenoch and Braverman both 43 and Dowden 44 - I suspect the younger candidates will be at an advantage.
How long the Tories face in opposition, regardless of the new leader (unless an ultra like Braverman) likely depends on how a new Starmer government handles the economy.
If Starmer and Reeves get inflation and the cost of living down, don't raise taxes too high and control strikes then the new Labour government may well be in power a decade or more. If they don't the Tory Opposition will see a quick revival, even more so if Starmer tries imposing development targets all over the greenbelt
That's pretty much the same dilemma the opposition Conservatives faced after 1997. Thanks to the policies of Ken Clarke, Labour inherited a strong economy and with Brown committing to Clarke's spending targets for the first two years there wasn't much the Conservatives could say or do in opposition.
Were Hunt to bequeath Reeves an improving economy and were she not to make a horlicks of it (not guaranteed by any stretch), the Shadow Chancellor would have a tough life.
It took a long time after 1997 for the Conservatives to develop a credible alternative approach.
Yep. Brown talked a pile of shite but my goodness he did it well. The constant re announcements of the same spending, the addition of years together to make larger sums, the skilful use of fiscal drag, he was a master and various shadows struggled to cope.
Hardly anyone, whatever their politics, in this country has even heard of Chomsky, let alone regards him as a hero. Even on an esteemed know-it-all forum like pb, Chomsky had to be explained recently.
I think you under-estimate his name. 'Manufacturing Consent' is quite "current" in young "alt-right" circles in my experience. Which is a depressingly large % of the politically aware of that generation.
The problem is that is what is current is a very facile interpretation of his views.
This is a large part of the problem of our current culture, on both the left and right ; at times quite sophisticated critiques, dating from earlier periods, such as some of the Chomsy's ideas rooted in the new 1960's wariness of institutions, because of the commercialisation and twitterification of public debate, are only shared and communicated as facile conspiracy gibberish.
This also applies to parts of the left drawing on similar resources, I hasten to add, too.
There's been not too much new in the way of substantial left or right thought, since the turn of the century, so people are often just drawing one simplified and half-digested versions of twentieth century thought, at the moment.
It doesn't help that Chomsky's own contemporary views have degenerated into facile conspiracy gibberish.
When a man is lionised (by some) as a titan of intellectual thought but argues with a straight face repeatedly Jeremy Corbyn won the 2017 election it's not very surprising a casual observer might be skeptical of what good work might have been done in the past.
He should probably retire, he is 94. But his political work is worth reading because there is some truth in it - he was good at demonstrating that our government were not benevolent in a way that we used to believe. Where I departed from him was that he was too benevolent and sympathetic towards other governments like China, Iran, Russia etc and was willing to just give them a free pass and regard their atrocities as someone else's problem.
I agree with quite a lot of this, although he was always, overall, anti-Soviet and anti-Chinese government.
A libertarian socialist, or peaceful anarchist, as he always calls himself.
Jeremy Hunt has signalled that immigration controls will be eased to plug labour shortages in the short term before inactive Britons fill gaps in future.
The chancellor told business leaders at a British Chambers of Commerce conference that the government would always be “sensible and pragmatic” about using immigration to fill vacancies in the economy.
He said he was open to adding more jobs to the shortage occupation list, which makes it easier for companies to recruit from abroad, amid pressure from industries such as hospitality.
It really is pathetic . And as for short term we all know that’s nonsense .
The best analogy I’ve seen for Brexit is like trying to get dog shit out of the cracks in your shoe !
Apart for the cheap gotcha about people voting for less immigration and getting more of it, Brexit is completely irrelevant.
The rapid growth in Eastern European economies meant that even without Brexit, the EU would not have continued to be a limitless source of cheap labour.
So immigration from the EU would have dropped anyway and the UK could still have got more workers from non EU countries . Effectively Brits lose their FOM rights and for what . How on earth can you say Brexit was irrelevant . It’s totally relevant that what drove the Leave vote was the constant anti immigration bile from the right wing . Now Remainers are told you know all that so called concern about migration , we didn’t really mean it and don’t care now that they’ve fucked the country .
Fecking stupid idea. All green spaces should be preserved, whether designated "Green Belt" or not.
Brownfield development only. And somebody's big garden is not brownfield. That's another case of idiocy.
I'm very, very sceptical there is enough brownfield land in the UK for 500,000 new homes a year. Which is what we need. I'm even more sceptical that a brownfield-only policy will do wonders for the affordability crisis in housing. You're adding, what, 20% to build costs.
Too many people, not too few homes.
And plenty of empty and under-occupied homes too.
Rather than how many dwellings, how many bed spaces are there in the UK? Probably more than enough.
You want to force every bedroom full all the time? I rent a 3 bedroom, one is my office as I work from home. One is for friends and family visiting and is occuppied about 10 weeks a year. The governement tell me I need to take in a lodger I will knock 2 bedrooms into 1 so I have no spare rooms for a lodger and improvise a room divider for use when visitors come
Normal person: "There might be ways to use space more efficiently" You, picking up a sledge hammer: "I swear to God, I'll smash my walls down"
Because I like most people dont want to share my living space with random strangers because we would like to keep a room spare for visitors. I don't want to have to say to friends and family fuck off and get a hotel if you want to visit. One of the advantages of growing up is you get your own front door and can isolate yourself from random strangers. I did bedsits and shared houses in my twenties I have no wish to share space with fuckwits now
You might but I suggest I represent the normal person in this not you
Your reaction would be entirely understandable if someone was telling you you must take in a lodger. But there are gentler ways of incentivising change than mandating you share your bathroom with a stranger. I don't quite know why you leapt straight to the idea of enforced billeting.
How else do you interpret a comment that bedspace is important not houses
The same way I interpret a comment that Brits should on average get more exercise. Not that you're going to woken at 5am for a 10 mile run at gunpoint.
If the point is there are enough bedrooms for everyone so we don't need to build so much housing the only way to make that true is to make people let people use that bedspace. The two things are not in anyway similar. The difference is the only way the bedspace thing work is to make people let others use them.
Have you ever heard of incentives, nudges? There are ways to encourage outcomes without forcing people. Surely you know this by now? Have you ever had any hand in raising any children? Have you ever been involved in any kind of negotiation? Do you know the first thing about anything?
Don't you know there's a whole continent of possibilities between "this is a worthwhile goal" and "WE MUST COMPEL EVERYONE BY LAW TO DO THIS RIGHT NOW"
A nudge you mean making it too expensive for me to keep a bedroom for friends and family by taxing me to the point I give in. That is still a compulsion though you call it a nudge. And yes I do have a child....strangely I like him to be able to visit and stay with me when he wants because I have a spare room he and his wife can stay in where I haven't been taxed into living into a one bedroom flat.
Disincentives are not the only incentives. For example, you could think about tax breaks for people who do decide to downsize or take in lodgers.
I mean, all I'm saying is you don't have to assume that a worthy goal will automatically mean you personally will have to do something you don't want to do. If you value the spare room I don't see why anyone should compel you to give it up, but that doesn't mean we can't find ways to increase occupancy. A policy can be put forward without it meaning its proponents want to create a nightmare tyranny to achieve it at all costs.
When has any government whether red or blue not used the cosh of disincentives rather than incentives are politicians only believe in the stick, carrots are like unicorns to them
I mean, one example off the top of my head is tax breaks on electric cars. There are countless examples of carrots being used; it takes a special kind of blindness to not be aware of any at all.
Electric cars = cars for rich people.
The associated tax breaks are for the companies that buy them.
All new technologies are for rich people. Then they aren’t.
Hardly anyone, whatever their politics, in this country has even heard of Chomsky, let alone regards him as a hero. Even on an esteemed know-it-all forum like pb, Chomsky had to be explained recently.
I think you under-estimate his name. 'Manufacturing Consent' is quite "current" in young "alt-right" circles in my experience. Which is a depressingly large % of the politically aware of that generation.
The problem is that is what is current is a very facile interpretation of his views.
This is a large part of the problem of our current culture, on both the left and right ; at times quite sophisticated critiques, dating from earlier periods, such as some of the Chomsy's ideas rooted in the new 1960's wariness of institutions, because of the commercialisation and twitterification of public debate, are only shared and communicated as facile conspiracy gibberish.
This also applies to parts of the left drawing on similar resources, I hasten to add, too.
There's been not too much new in the way of substantial left or right thought, since the turn of the century, so people are often just drawing one simplified and half-digested versions of twentieth century thought, at the moment.
It doesn't help that Chomsky's own contemporary views have degenerated into facile conspiracy gibberish.
When a man is lionised (by some) as a titan of intellectual thought but argues with a straight face repeatedly Jeremy Corbyn won the 2017 election it's not very surprising a casual observer might be skeptical of what good work might have been done in the past.
He should probably retire, he is 94. But his political work is worth reading because there is some truth in it - he was good at demonstrating that our government were not benevolent in a way that we used to believe. Where I departed from him was that he was too benevolent and sympathetic towards other governments like China, Iran, Russia etc and was willing to just give them a free pass and regard their atrocities as someone else's problem.
I watched him give a talk on the Eve of the Iraq war at Harvard (I was visiting a friend there). Outside the protesters were making lots of noise and there was a sense the US was about to do something very stupid.
So I was expecting a polemical tour de force from Chomsky. And sure enough he gave a good ten minutes to talking about the iniquities of US policy on Iraq.
But then he changed topic on to what seemed his much more favoured topic. The iniquities of western policy towards Serbia. That poor misunderstood Balkan country, all they did was a bit of anti imperialist ethnic cleansing to defend themselves and now the West had Serbian blood on their hands. And how Russia would always stick up for Serbia. Russia which the West just misunderstood and underestimated.
I raised an objection muttering some question about war crimes and was waved away dismissively and a little patronisingly. Poor young Englishman, I’d been drinking too much BBC propaganda.
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
And the equivalent costs for offshore wind in the UK are much lower thanks to shallow seas, shorter transmission lines and economies of scale.
Offshore wind isn't really economic anywhere right now. That will change as costs come down, but just look at the Operations and Maintenance line for the US - that $30 per MWh of O&M alone.
Now, the hope is that a few subsidies right now will lead to lower long-term prices (and that's probably right), but right now, it isn't really economic.
If the minimum wage is now £20k per year (for a 37.5 hour week) and rent starts at £400 per month , bills included for a furnished room in the South East, then you would have take home pay of £1500 per month, £1100 after rent and bills are paid. This seems to me like a lot of money.
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
And the equivalent costs for offshore wind in the UK are much lower thanks to shallow seas, shorter transmission lines and economies of scale.
Offshore wind isn't really economic anywhere right now. That will change as costs come down, but just look at the Operations and Maintenance line for the US - that $30 per MWh of O&M alone.
Now, the hope is that a few subsidies right now will lead to lower long-term prices (and that's probably right), but right now, it isn't really economic.
It is subsidised to the tune of tens of billions by billpayers, that's how it continues. Same with UK onshore wind and solar.
Where in your table is the required back up generation and storage taken into account in the case of the weather dependent renewables?
Well if he holds his seat, which is a big if given the LDs are targeting it, the newly 'protect our greenbelt' John McDonnell now has more chance of being next Tory leader than Hunt if he takes that attitude. Pushing for more migrants might go down well with the CBI but will go down like a lead balloon in the Shires
I think Sunak and Hunt's mission is a kamikaze one. Pretty sure neither is planning a political career in Britain after 2024.
If as seems likely Sunak and Hunt lead the party to a heavy defeat next year, their wing of the Tories will be out of control of the leadership for at least a decade in my view. The right will take over in opposition.
Much as Brown's defeat in 2010 saw the end of New Labour with the left taking control of the Labour party leadership until Starmer's win in 2020
Ed M wasn't the Hard Left's candidate. That was Abbott in 2010.
Sunak is the Con Right. He is likely to be replaced by a Hard Right candidate who will have the strengths and all the weaknesses of the Hard Left. Talking only to themselves (as over the weekend) and never listening to anybody
Steve Barclay, likely next Tory Leader in Opposition in my view, would be right of centre not hard right. It would take Jacob Rees Mogg for instance or Suella Braverman to be elected Tory Leader for a proper Hard Right Leader of the Tories as Corbyn took over Labour from the Hard Left
I think a lot depends on how many Conservative MPs will be in the new Parliament.
The likes of Barclay, Badenoch, Braverman and Dowden would survive all but the most unlikely extinction scenarios. Add Coffey and perhaps Shapps to that and there's quite a crowded race as indeed it was in 1997 when Hague won. Given a heavy defeat would suggest ten years in Opposition, it's likely the youngest candidate would have a chance .
Barclay is 51 - Badenoch and Braverman both 43 and Dowden 44 - I suspect the younger candidates will be at an advantage.
How long the Tories face in opposition, regardless of the new leader (unless an ultra like Braverman) likely depends on how a new Starmer government handles the economy.
If Starmer and Reeves get inflation and the cost of living down, don't raise taxes too high and control strikes then the new Labour government may well be in power a decade or more. If they don't the Tory Opposition will see a quick revival, even more so if Starmer tries imposing development targets all over the greenbelt
That's pretty much the same dilemma the opposition Conservatives faced after 1997. Thanks to the policies of Ken Clarke, Labour inherited a strong economy and with Brown committing to Clarke's spending targets for the first two years there wasn't much the Conservatives could say or do in opposition.
Were Hunt to bequeath Reeves an improving economy and were she not to make a horlicks of it (not guaranteed by any stretch), the Shadow Chancellor would have a tough life.
It took a long time after 1997 for the Conservatives to develop a credible alternative approach.
Yep. Brown talked a pile of shite but my goodness he did it well. The constant re announcements of the same spending, the addition of years together to make larger sums, the skilful use of fiscal drag, he was a master and various shadows struggled to cope.
Also now the stock in trade of every Tory chancellor.
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
But they are just Gay Trans Woke Leftist Evil Energy Corporations.
Hardly anyone, whatever their politics, in this country has even heard of Chomsky, let alone regards him as a hero. Even on an esteemed know-it-all forum like pb, Chomsky had to be explained recently.
I think you under-estimate his name. 'Manufacturing Consent' is quite "current" in young "alt-right" circles in my experience. Which is a depressingly large % of the politically aware of that generation.
The problem is that is what is current is a very facile interpretation of his views.
This is a large part of the problem of our current culture, on both the left and right ; at times quite sophisticated critiques, dating from earlier periods, such as some of the Chomsy's ideas rooted in the new 1960's wariness of institutions, because of the commercialisation and twitterification of public debate, are only shared and communicated as facile conspiracy gibberish.
This also applies to parts of the left drawing on similar resources, I hasten to add, too.
There's been not too much new in the way of substantial left or right thought, since the turn of the century, so people are often just drawing one simplified and half-digested versions of twentieth century thought, at the moment.
It doesn't help that Chomsky's own contemporary views have degenerated into facile conspiracy gibberish.
When a man is lionised (by some) as a titan of intellectual thought but argues with a straight face repeatedly Jeremy Corbyn won the 2017 election it's not very surprising a casual observer might be skeptical of what good work might have been done in the past.
He should probably retire, he is 94. But his political work is worth reading because there is some truth in it - he was good at demonstrating that our government were not benevolent in a way that we used to believe. Where I departed from him was that he was too benevolent and sympathetic towards other governments like China, Iran, Russia etc and was willing to just give them a free pass and regard their atrocities as someone else's problem.
I watched him give a talk on the Eve of the Iraq war at Harvard (I was visiting a friend there). Outside the protesters were making lots of noise and there was a sense the US was about to do something very stupid.
So I was expecting a polemical tour de force from Chomsky. And sure enough he gave a good ten minutes to talking about the iniquities of US policy on Iraq.
But then he changed topic on to what seemed his much more favoured topic. The iniquities of western policy towards Serbia. That poor misunderstood Balkan country, all they did was a bit of anti imperialist ethnic cleansing to defend themselves and now the West had Serbian blood on their hands. And how Russia would always stick up for Serbia. Russia which the West just misunderstood and underestimated.
I raised an objection muttering some question about war crimes and was waved away dismissively and a little patronisingly. Poor young Englishman, I’d been drinking too much BBC propaganda.
Revealed his true colours that night, our Noam.
He got the Bosnian War badly wrong.
Not so much the Kosovan war, though, I would say. The upcoming trial of the former President of Kosovo, former head of the KLA, pillar of Western policy and former friend of Blair, is receiving almost no coverage in the European press, as I've pointed out many times here on PB.
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
And the equivalent costs for offshore wind in the UK are much lower thanks to shallow seas, shorter transmission lines and economies of scale.
Offshore wind isn't really economic anywhere right now. That will change as costs come down, but just look at the Operations and Maintenance line for the US - that $30 per MWh of O&M alone.
Now, the hope is that a few subsidies right now will lead to lower long-term prices (and that's probably right), but right now, it isn't really economic.
So have we overdone it? The UK has gone large on offshore wind. Almost more than anyone else. Have we made a major step in improving our balance of payments or have we screwed our remaining manufacturing base ?
If the minimum wage is now £20k per year (for a 37.5 hour week) and rent starts at £400 per month , bills included for a furnished room in the South East, then you would have take home pay of £1500 per month, £1100 after rent and bills are paid. This seems to me like a lot of money.
I don't know where you can rent for £400 per month in the south east. In East London, rent for a one room flat starts at £1000 per month and points upward so your £1500 wage doesn't go as far as you might think.
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
And the equivalent costs for offshore wind in the UK are much lower thanks to shallow seas, shorter transmission lines and economies of scale.
Offshore wind isn't really economic anywhere right now. That will change as costs come down, but just look at the Operations and Maintenance line for the US - that $30 per MWh of O&M alone.
Now, the hope is that a few subsidies right now will lead to lower long-term prices (and that's probably right), but right now, it isn't really economic.
It is subsidised to the tune of tens of billions by billpayers, that's how it continues. Same with UK onshore wind and solar.
Where in your table is the required back up generation and storage taken into account in the case of the weather dependent renewables?
Look at the capital cost of natural gas: it's bugger all, less than $10 per MWh.
That's your backup.
You can build more than *five* new gas plants for the price of one new coal plant. And your operating costs are dramatically lower for the gas plant too, because you don't have to deal with disposing of ash, or maintaining those conveyer belts. You can also can turn the things on and off without it dramatically shortening their life spans. (Thanks thermal expansion and contraction!)
If you look at the UK, you can take those US numbers, and you can treble or quadruple the fuel cost. That's why I (and anyone else who has ever financed a power plant) stays well away from coal.
If the minimum wage is now £20k per year (for a 37.5 hour week) and rent starts at £400 per month , bills included for a furnished room in the South East, then you would have take home pay of £1500 per month, £1100 after rent and bills are paid. This seems to me like a lot of money.
A room in a house in multiple occupation? How nice.
Well if he holds his seat, which is a big if given the LDs are targeting it, the newly 'protect our greenbelt' John McDonnell now has more chance of being next Tory leader than Hunt if he takes that attitude. Pushing for more migrants might go down well with the CBI but will go down like a lead balloon in the Shires
I think Sunak and Hunt's mission is a kamikaze one. Pretty sure neither is planning a political career in Britain after 2024.
If as seems likely Sunak and Hunt lead the party to a heavy defeat next year, their wing of the Tories will be out of control of the leadership for at least a decade in my view. The right will take over in opposition.
Much as Brown's defeat in 2010 saw the end of New Labour with the left taking control of the Labour party leadership until Starmer's win in 2020
Ed M wasn't the Hard Left's candidate. That was Abbott in 2010.
Sunak is the Con Right. He is likely to be replaced by a Hard Right candidate who will have the strengths and all the weaknesses of the Hard Left. Talking only to themselves (as over the weekend) and never listening to anybody
Steve Barclay, likely next Tory Leader in Opposition in my view, would be right of centre not hard right. It would take Jacob Rees Mogg for instance or Suella Braverman to be elected Tory Leader for a proper Hard Right Leader of the Tories as Corbyn took over Labour from the Hard Left
I think a lot depends on how many Conservative MPs will be in the new Parliament.
The likes of Barclay, Badenoch, Braverman and Dowden would survive all but the most unlikely extinction scenarios. Add Coffey and perhaps Shapps to that and there's quite a crowded race as indeed it was in 1997 when Hague won. Given a heavy defeat would suggest ten years in Opposition, it's likely the youngest candidate would have a chance .
Barclay is 51 - Badenoch and Braverman both 43 and Dowden 44 - I suspect the younger candidates will be at an advantage.
How long the Tories face in opposition, regardless of the new leader (unless an ultra like Braverman) likely depends on how a new Starmer government handles the economy.
If Starmer and Reeves get inflation and the cost of living down, don't raise taxes too high and control strikes then the new Labour government may well be in power a decade or more. If they don't the Tory Opposition will see a quick revival, even more so if Starmer tries imposing development targets all over the greenbelt
That's pretty much the same dilemma the opposition Conservatives faced after 1997. Thanks to the policies of Ken Clarke, Labour inherited a strong economy and with Brown committing to Clarke's spending targets for the first two years there wasn't much the Conservatives could say or do in opposition.
Were Hunt to bequeath Reeves an improving economy and were she not to make a horlicks of it (not guaranteed by any stretch), the Shadow Chancellor would have a tough life.
It took a long time after 1997 for the Conservatives to develop a credible alternative approach.
Yep. Brown talked a pile of shite but my goodness he did it well. The constant re announcements of the same spending, the addition of years together to make larger sums, the skilful use of fiscal drag, he was a master and various shadows struggled to cope.
Also now the stock in trade of every Tory chancellor.
Fair. Brown rewrote the text book for Chancellors and everyone since has followed it. I am old enough to remember when listening to the Chancellor on budget day gave you some idea of what he had done.
Hardly anyone, whatever their politics, in this country has even heard of Chomsky, let alone regards him as a hero. Even on an esteemed know-it-all forum like pb, Chomsky had to be explained recently.
I think you under-estimate his name. 'Manufacturing Consent' is quite "current" in young "alt-right" circles in my experience. Which is a depressingly large % of the politically aware of that generation.
The problem is that is what is current is a very facile interpretation of his views.
This is a large part of the problem of our current culture, on both the left and right ; at times quite sophisticated critiques, dating from earlier periods, such as some of the Chomsy's ideas rooted in the new 1960's wariness of institutions, because of the commercialisation and twitterification of public debate, are only shared and communicated as facile conspiracy gibberish.
This also applies to parts of the left drawing on similar resources, I hasten to add, too.
There's been not too much new in the way of substantial left or right thought, since the turn of the century, so people are often just drawing one simplified and half-digested versions of twentieth century thought, at the moment.
It doesn't help that Chomsky's own contemporary views have degenerated into facile conspiracy gibberish.
When a man is lionised (by some) as a titan of intellectual thought but argues with a straight face repeatedly Jeremy Corbyn won the 2017 election it's not very surprising a casual observer might be skeptical of what good work might have been done in the past.
He should probably retire, he is 94. But his political work is worth reading because there is some truth in it - he was good at demonstrating that our government were not benevolent in a way that we used to believe. Where I departed from him was that he was too benevolent and sympathetic towards other governments like China, Iran, Russia etc and was willing to just give them a free pass and regard their atrocities as someone else's problem.
I watched him give a talk on the Eve of the Iraq war at Harvard (I was visiting a friend there). Outside the protesters were making lots of noise and there was a sense the US was about to do something very stupid.
So I was expecting a polemical tour de force from Chomsky. And sure enough he gave a good ten minutes to talking about the iniquities of US policy on Iraq.
But then he changed topic on to what seemed his much more favoured topic. The iniquities of western policy towards Serbia. That poor misunderstood Balkan country, all they did was a bit of anti imperialist ethnic cleansing to defend themselves and now the West had Serbian blood on their hands. And how Russia would always stick up for Serbia. Russia which the West just misunderstood and underestimated.
I raised an objection muttering some question about war crimes and was waved away dismissively and a little patronisingly. Poor young Englishman, I’d been drinking too much BBC propaganda.
Revealed his true colours that night, our Noam.
Yeah I had a revealing experience listening to him in the Institute of Education, perhaps about 15 or 16 years ago. Someone asked him about what he thought about the rise of China and he just said that the issues around the Chinese government were a matter for the Chinese people. He couldn't bring himself to say that perhaps there may be some problems with the Chinese government. In the end he has an unshakeable belief that the US is a uniquely evil actor and every other government are victims of this situation and finds ways of interpreting everything that happens in the world as confirmation of this hypothesis.
If the minimum wage is now £20k per year (for a 37.5 hour week) and rent starts at £400 per month , bills included for a furnished room in the South East, then you would have take home pay of £1500 per month, £1100 after rent and bills are paid. This seems to me like a lot of money.
400pcm inc bills in the South East will not get you much: that's nearer to a five night a week rate.
If the minimum wage is now £20k per year (for a 37.5 hour week) and rent starts at £400 per month , bills included for a furnished room in the South East, then you would have take home pay of £1500 per month, £1100 after rent and bills are paid. This seems to me like a lot of money.
I don't know where you can rent for £400 per month in the south east. In East London, rent for a one room flat starts at £1000 per month and points upward so your £1500 wage doesn't go as far as you might think.
Last I rented in slough which is cheap for the south east was paying 750 for a studio flat which was maybe 250 square feet
Hardly anyone, whatever their politics, in this country has even heard of Chomsky, let alone regards him as a hero. Even on an esteemed know-it-all forum like pb, Chomsky had to be explained recently.
I think you under-estimate his name. 'Manufacturing Consent' is quite "current" in young "alt-right" circles in my experience. Which is a depressingly large % of the politically aware of that generation.
The problem is that is what is current is a very facile interpretation of his views.
This is a large part of the problem of our current culture, on both the left and right ; at times quite sophisticated critiques, dating from earlier periods, such as some of the Chomsy's ideas rooted in the new 1960's wariness of institutions, because of the commercialisation and twitterification of public debate, are only shared and communicated as facile conspiracy gibberish.
This also applies to parts of the left drawing on similar resources, I hasten to add, too.
There's been not too much new in the way of substantial left or right thought, since the turn of the century, so people are often just drawing one simplified and half-digested versions of twentieth century thought, at the moment.
It doesn't help that Chomsky's own contemporary views have degenerated into facile conspiracy gibberish.
When a man is lionised (by some) as a titan of intellectual thought but argues with a straight face repeatedly Jeremy Corbyn won the 2017 election it's not very surprising a casual observer might be skeptical of what good work might have been done in the past.
He should probably retire, he is 94. But his political work is worth reading because there is some truth in it - he was good at demonstrating that our government were not benevolent in a way that we used to believe. Where I departed from him was that he was too benevolent and sympathetic towards other governments like China, Iran, Russia etc and was willing to just give them a free pass and regard their atrocities as someone else's problem.
I watched him give a talk on the Eve of the Iraq war at Harvard (I was visiting a friend there). Outside the protesters were making lots of noise and there was a sense the US was about to do something very stupid.
So I was expecting a polemical tour de force from Chomsky. And sure enough he gave a good ten minutes to talking about the iniquities of US policy on Iraq.
But then he changed topic on to what seemed his much more favoured topic. The iniquities of western policy towards Serbia. That poor misunderstood Balkan country, all they did was a bit of anti imperialist ethnic cleansing to defend themselves and now the West had Serbian blood on their hands. And how Russia would always stick up for Serbia. Russia which the West just misunderstood and underestimated.
I raised an objection muttering some question about war crimes and was waved away dismissively and a little patronisingly. Poor young Englishman, I’d been drinking too much BBC propaganda.
Revealed his true colours that night, our Noam.
He got the Bosnian War badly wrong.
Not so much the Kosovan war, though, I would say. The upcoming trial of the former President of Kosovo, former head of the KLA, pillar of Western policy and former friend of Blair, is receiving almost no coverage in the European press, as I've pointed out many times here on PB.
His premise (among others) that night in Cambridge Mass was that The Hague was a kangaroo court doing the bidding of the West, which I’d have thought the current trial demonstrates is not the case.
I also don’t think it means a pro-Serb take on Kosovo is remotely right. They were the ultra nationalist aggressor crushing an insurgency. It was perhaps closer to Assad vs the Syrian rebels or Israel vs the Palestinians, or indeed Britain versus the 1916 Easter uprising, but it’s still clear who the imperialists were.
If the minimum wage is now £20k per year (for a 37.5 hour week) and rent starts at £400 per month , bills included for a furnished room in the South East, then you would have take home pay of £1500 per month, £1100 after rent and bills are paid. This seems to me like a lot of money.
A room in a house in multiple occupation? How nice.
What's wrong with that? I lived in HMO's of varying quality for 10 years.
I looked at spareroom in my town because I was thinking of getting a lodger, the rooms start at £400 but most decent rooms are about £600.
If the minimum wage is now £20k per year (for a 37.5 hour week) and rent starts at £400 per month , bills included for a furnished room in the South East, then you would have take home pay of £1500 per month, £1100 after rent and bills are paid. This seems to me like a lot of money.
400pcm inc bills in the South East will not get you much: that's nearer to a five night a week rate.
It doesn’t get you a subsidised student room in halls in the West Midlands.
If the minimum wage is now £20k per year (for a 37.5 hour week) and rent starts at £400 per month , bills included for a furnished room in the South East, then you would have take home pay of £1500 per month, £1100 after rent and bills are paid. This seems to me like a lot of money.
A room in a house in multiple occupation? How nice.
you would be lucky still to get it 400 a month frankly
On topic: It's a weird chart though. Each generation is being measured relative to the other generations, so the properly weighted average of silent@85yrs + boomer@70 + x@55 + millennial@40 (+ a few z, if you will) will always be 0.
The millennials staying relatively left is as much a product of the necessary statistical counterbalancing to a rapid lurch rightwards of the boomers as it is a leftward trend in the millennials themselves
Thank you for pointing this out. That was immediately my thought too but didn't get round to posting it. What the chart really demonstrates is inter-generational polarisation - it's difficult to say whether that's because the oldsters are turning right wing more quickly or the youngsters are turning right wing more slowly or a combination of the two.
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
And the equivalent costs for offshore wind in the UK are much lower thanks to shallow seas, shorter transmission lines and economies of scale.
Offshore wind isn't really economic anywhere right now. That will change as costs come down, but just look at the Operations and Maintenance line for the US - that $30 per MWh of O&M alone.
Now, the hope is that a few subsidies right now will lead to lower long-term prices (and that's probably right), but right now, it isn't really economic.
So have we overdone it? The UK has gone large on offshore wind. Almost more than anyone else. Have we made a major step in improving our balance of payments or have we screwed our remaining manufacturing base ?
Personal view: yes.
We've spent too much money on off shore wind (because there are fewer NIMBY objections) and too much on HPC. Which means our consumers and businesses will be paying the price as far as higher electricity prices.
I have been a Man U supporter since I was 6 or 7, watching Best, Law and Charlton but I confess I have rarely seen a better club side than the side Pep has built. They are incredible.
Yes, indeed. Though the signing of Kalvin Phillips was a little puzzling.
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
And the equivalent costs for offshore wind in the UK are much lower thanks to shallow seas, shorter transmission lines and economies of scale.
Offshore wind isn't really economic anywhere right now. That will change as costs come down, but just look at the Operations and Maintenance line for the US - that $30 per MWh of O&M alone.
Now, the hope is that a few subsidies right now will lead to lower long-term prices (and that's probably right), but right now, it isn't really economic.
It is subsidised to the tune of tens of billions by billpayers, that's how it continues. Same with UK onshore wind and solar.
Where in your table is the required back up generation and storage taken into account in the case of the weather dependent renewables?
We’ve had this exact same conversation on here at least twice before where you were pointed to actual generation costs and constraint payments.
Hardly anyone, whatever their politics, in this country has even heard of Chomsky, let alone regards him as a hero. Even on an esteemed know-it-all forum like pb, Chomsky had to be explained recently.
I think you under-estimate his name. 'Manufacturing Consent' is quite "current" in young "alt-right" circles in my experience. Which is a depressingly large % of the politically aware of that generation.
The problem is that is what is current is a very facile interpretation of his views.
This is a large part of the problem of our current culture, on both the left and right ; at times quite sophisticated critiques, dating from earlier periods, such as some of the Chomsy's ideas rooted in the new 1960's wariness of institutions, because of the commercialisation and twitterification of public debate, are only shared and communicated as facile conspiracy gibberish.
This also applies to parts of the left drawing on similar resources, I hasten to add, too.
There's been not too much new in the way of substantial left or right thought, since the turn of the century, so people are often just drawing one simplified and half-digested versions of twentieth century thought, at the moment.
It doesn't help that Chomsky's own contemporary views have degenerated into facile conspiracy gibberish.
When a man is lionised (by some) as a titan of intellectual thought but argues with a straight face repeatedly Jeremy Corbyn won the 2017 election it's not very surprising a casual observer might be skeptical of what good work might have been done in the past.
He should probably retire, he is 94. But his political work is worth reading because there is some truth in it - he was good at demonstrating that our government were not benevolent in a way that we used to believe. Where I departed from him was that he was too benevolent and sympathetic towards other governments like China, Iran, Russia etc and was willing to just give them a free pass and regard their atrocities as someone else's problem.
I watched him give a talk on the Eve of the Iraq war at Harvard (I was visiting a friend there). Outside the protesters were making lots of noise and there was a sense the US was about to do something very stupid.
So I was expecting a polemical tour de force from Chomsky. And sure enough he gave a good ten minutes to talking about the iniquities of US policy on Iraq.
Hardly anyone, whatever their politics, in this country has even heard of Chomsky, let alone regards him as a hero. Even on an esteemed know-it-all forum like pb, Chomsky had to be explained recently.
I think you under-estimate his name. 'Manufacturing Consent' is quite "current" in young "alt-right" circles in my experience. Which is a depressingly large % of the politically aware of that generation.
The problem is that is what is current is a very facile interpretation of his views.
This is a large part of the problem of our current culture, on both the left and right ; at times quite sophisticated critiques, dating from earlier periods, such as some of the Chomsy's ideas rooted in the new 1960's wariness of institutions, because of the commercialisation and twitterification of public debate, are only shared and communicated as facile conspiracy gibberish.
This also applies to parts of the left drawing on similar resources, I hasten to add, too.
There's been not too much new in the way of substantial left or right thought, since the turn of the century, so people are often just drawing one simplified and half-digested versions of twentieth century thought, at the moment.
It doesn't help that Chomsky's own contemporary views have degenerated into facile conspiracy gibberish.
When a man is lionised (by some) as a titan of intellectual thought but argues with a straight face repeatedly Jeremy Corbyn won the 2017 election it's not very surprising a casual observer might be skeptical of what good work might have been done in the past.
He should probably retire, he is 94. But his political work is worth reading because there is some truth in it - he was good at demonstrating that our government were not benevolent in a way that we used to believe. Where I departed from him was that he was too benevolent and sympathetic towards other governments like China, Iran, Russia etc and was willing to just give them a free pass and regard their atrocities as someone else's problem.
I watched him give a talk on the Eve of the Iraq war at Harvard (I was visiting a friend there). Outside the protesters were making lots of noise and there was a sense the US was about to do something very stupid.
So I was expecting a polemical tour de force from Chomsky. And sure enough he gave a good ten minutes to talking about the iniquities of US policy on Iraq.
But then he changed topic on to what seemed his much more favoured topic. The iniquities of western policy towards Serbia. That poor misunderstood Balkan country, all they did was a bit of anti imperialist ethnic cleansing to defend themselves and now the West had Serbian blood on their hands. And how Russia would always stick up for Serbia. Russia which the West just misunderstood and underestimated.
I raised an objection muttering some question about war crimes and was waved away dismissively and a little patronisingly. Poor young Englishman, I’d been drinking too much BBC propaganda.
Revealed his true colours that night, our Noam.
He got the Bosnian War badly wrong.
Not so much the Kosovan war, though, I would say. The upcoming trial of the former President of Kosovo, former head of the KLA, pillar of Western policy and former friend of Blair, is receiving almost no coverage in the European press, as I've pointed out many times here on PB.
His premise (among others) that night in Cambridge Mass was that The Hague was a kangaroo court doing the bidding of the West, which I’d have thought the current trial demonstrates is not the case.
I also don’t think it means a pro-Serb take on Kosovo is remotely right. They were the ultra nationalist aggressor crushing an insurgency. It was perhaps closer to Assad vs the Syrian rebels or Israel vs the Palestinians, or indeed Britain versus the 1916 Easter uprising, but it’s still clear who the imperialists were.
I wouldn't really take a pro-Serb view on Kosovo, but I personally would say that I think that second war has been wrongly simplified in the Western mind into as extremely as clear a case as that first war.
There's quite a curious book that Chomsky endorsed on that second war, by Diana Johnstone, which at that time made him even more persona non grata. The only problem is that some of its central claims, combined unfortunately will the reprehensible relative turning of a blind eye to atrocities from the Serb side in it, have turned out to be correct. Thaci was the leader, essentially of the entire KLA movement, and is shortly to go on trial for mass murder and harvesting the organs of Serb prisoners.
Fecking stupid idea. All green spaces should be preserved, whether designated "Green Belt" or not.
Brownfield development only. And somebody's big garden is not brownfield. That's another case of idiocy.
I'm very, very sceptical there is enough brownfield land in the UK for 500,000 new homes a year. Which is what we need. I'm even more sceptical that a brownfield-only policy will do wonders for the affordability crisis in housing. You're adding, what, 20% to build costs.
Too many people, not too few homes.
And plenty of empty and under-occupied homes too.
Rather than how many dwellings, how many bed spaces are there in the UK? Probably more than enough.
You want to force every bedroom full all the time? I rent a 3 bedroom, one is my office as I work from home. One is for friends and family visiting and is occuppied about 10 weeks a year. The governement tell me I need to take in a lodger I will knock 2 bedrooms into 1 so I have no spare rooms for a lodger and improvise a room divider for use when visitors come
Normal person: "There might be ways to use space more efficiently" You, picking up a sledge hammer: "I swear to God, I'll smash my walls down"
Because I like most people dont want to share my living space with random strangers because we would like to keep a room spare for visitors. I don't want to have to say to friends and family fuck off and get a hotel if you want to visit. One of the advantages of growing up is you get your own front door and can isolate yourself from random strangers. I did bedsits and shared houses in my twenties I have no wish to share space with fuckwits now
You might but I suggest I represent the normal person in this not you
Your reaction would be entirely understandable if someone was telling you you must take in a lodger. But there are gentler ways of incentivising change than mandating you share your bathroom with a stranger. I don't quite know why you leapt straight to the idea of enforced billeting.
How else do you interpret a comment that bedspace is important not houses
The same way I interpret a comment that Brits should on average get more exercise. Not that you're going to woken at 5am for a 10 mile run at gunpoint.
If the point is there are enough bedrooms for everyone so we don't need to build so much housing the only way to make that true is to make people let people use that bedspace. The two things are not in anyway similar. The difference is the only way the bedspace thing work is to make people let others use them.
Have you ever heard of incentives, nudges? There are ways to encourage outcomes without forcing people. Surely you know this by now? Have you ever had any hand in raising any children? Have you ever been involved in any kind of negotiation? Do you know the first thing about anything?
Don't you know there's a whole continent of possibilities between "this is a worthwhile goal" and "WE MUST COMPEL EVERYONE BY LAW TO DO THIS RIGHT NOW"
A nudge you mean making it too expensive for me to keep a bedroom for friends and family by taxing me to the point I give in. That is still a compulsion though you call it a nudge. And yes I do have a child....strangely I like him to be able to visit and stay with me when he wants because I have a spare room he and his wife can stay in where I haven't been taxed into living into a one bedroom flat.
Disincentives are not the only incentives. For example, you could think about tax breaks for people who do decide to downsize or take in lodgers.
I mean, all I'm saying is you don't have to assume that a worthy goal will automatically mean you personally will have to do something you don't want to do. If you value the spare room I don't see why anyone should compel you to give it up, but that doesn't mean we can't find ways to increase occupancy. A policy can be put forward without it meaning its proponents want to create a nightmare tyranny to achieve it at all costs.
When has any government whether red or blue not used the cosh of disincentives rather than incentives are politicians only believe in the stick, carrots are like unicorns to them
I mean, one example off the top of my head is tax breaks on electric cars. There are countless examples of carrots being used; it takes a special kind of blindness to not be aware of any at all.
Electric cars = cars for rich people.
The associated tax breaks are for the companies that buy them.
Well, even if that's the case it's still a carrot designed to encourage outcomes. Whether or not you support the means or the end isn't the point. It's a tax break to encourage a particular outcome that the government deems to be a good thing, which is all I was after. You know that there are many examples, some of which you may like and some of which you may not.
The prices of some electric cars have begun to fall below the average car price in a number of markets.
As batteries keep getting cheaper, electric cars could end up as the cheapest car for the less well off.
Interesting, but strictly irrelevant. The government might well choose to continue to give tax breaks to electric cars to drive home the switchover. Or not, it's all besides the point. I'm not defending or attacking this particular policy, just using it as an example.
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
And the equivalent costs for offshore wind in the UK are much lower thanks to shallow seas, shorter transmission lines and economies of scale.
Offshore wind isn't really economic anywhere right now. That will change as costs come down, but just look at the Operations and Maintenance line for the US - that $30 per MWh of O&M alone.
Now, the hope is that a few subsidies right now will lead to lower long-term prices (and that's probably right), but right now, it isn't really economic.
It is subsidised to the tune of tens of billions by billpayers, that's how it continues. Same with UK onshore wind and solar.
Where in your table is the required back up generation and storage taken into account in the case of the weather dependent renewables?
Look at the capital cost of natural gas: it's bugger all, less than $10 per MWh.
That's your backup.
You can build more than *five* new gas plants for the price of one new coal plant. And your operating costs are dramatically lower for the gas plant too, because you don't have to deal with disposing of ash, or maintaining those conveyer belts. You can also can turn the things on and off without it dramatically shortening their life spans. (Thanks thermal expansion and contraction!)
If you look at the UK, you can take those US numbers, and you can treble or quadruple the fuel cost. That's why I (and anyone else who has ever financed a power plant) stays well away from coal.
I am afraid I don't take the US numbers. They're predictions for 4 years hence - current verified numbers would be of more interest, and even then I would need to understand the figures presented to a far greater degree than I do.
You have no argument at all from me on gas being way better and cheaper than coal - but Farooq and I were talking about wind vs. coal.
I also don't really take your point about not burning metallurgical coal in a coal-fired station. Metallurgical coal is a high quality product that burns hotter and with less ash than thermal coal. There is no theoretical impediment; it's not usually done because it's underselling the coal. Drax has adjusted to a lot of things - it's burning US wood pellets currently.
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
Flippantly: imagine if you'd been Black on top of all that.
Sensibly: privilege means having a right, advantage, or benefit that isn't available to others. It doesn't mean you're better off than most people, because the same person can have both privilege and disadvantage. White people are privileged because there is more racism against non-Whites. Men are privileged because there is more sexism against women.
In some circumstances, you can find female privilege. In others, male privilege. Circumstances matter too.
So that's the concept.
You're right to feel angry at the idea that you are "privileged" because you can list a whole swathe of disadvantages. But you shouldn't feel angry at the concept of privilege because it is real and it applies in complex ways. Most people benefit from a privilege and suffer disadvantage at the same time. And too often privilege as a concept is used to minimise or ignore disadvantage. People should stop doing that, but the concept has its uses when not abused in that way.
But you and your lefty cohort keep telling me I was privileged somehow because I am white....where is this privilege you speak of for me...why should I feel guilty for being white and privileged?
I didn't say you should feel guilty. I'm not a lefty. I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
If the minimum wage is now £20k per year (for a 37.5 hour week) and rent starts at £400 per month , bills included for a furnished room in the South East, then you would have take home pay of £1500 per month, £1100 after rent and bills are paid. This seems to me like a lot of money.
A room in a house in multiple occupation? How nice.
you would be lucky still to get it 400 a month frankly
Have a look at Spareroom. Lots of ok looking HMO rooms at around this price.
Possibly a case of too many amateur property developers going in to HMO's ?
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
And the equivalent costs for offshore wind in the UK are much lower thanks to shallow seas, shorter transmission lines and economies of scale.
Offshore wind isn't really economic anywhere right now. That will change as costs come down, but just look at the Operations and Maintenance line for the US - that $30 per MWh of O&M alone.
Now, the hope is that a few subsidies right now will lead to lower long-term prices (and that's probably right), but right now, it isn't really economic.
So have we overdone it? The UK has gone large on offshore wind. Almost more than anyone else. Have we made a major step in improving our balance of payments or have we screwed our remaining manufacturing base ?
The LCOE for offshore wind that I’ve seen recently seems to be around $80 (vs say $35 for onshore) but that looks to be in the pack with other sources and cheaper than some including nuclear and coal. But I’m not working in the industry so perhaps those LCOEs aren’t the whole story.
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
And the equivalent costs for offshore wind in the UK are much lower thanks to shallow seas, shorter transmission lines and economies of scale.
Offshore wind isn't really economic anywhere right now. That will change as costs come down, but just look at the Operations and Maintenance line for the US - that $30 per MWh of O&M alone.
Now, the hope is that a few subsidies right now will lead to lower long-term prices (and that's probably right), but right now, it isn't really economic.
So have we overdone it? The UK has gone large on offshore wind. Almost more than anyone else. Have we made a major step in improving our balance of payments or have we screwed our remaining manufacturing base ?
Personal view: yes.
We've spent too much money on off shore wind (because there are fewer NIMBY objections) and too much on HPC. Which means our consumers and businesses will be paying the price as far as higher electricity prices.
Well that’s depressing. We so need to address our balance of payments that generating our own energy seems a no brainer. But I have been worrying that only the extreme effects of the Ukraine war have made wind look cost effective.
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
And the equivalent costs for offshore wind in the UK are much lower thanks to shallow seas, shorter transmission lines and economies of scale.
Offshore wind isn't really economic anywhere right now. That will change as costs come down, but just look at the Operations and Maintenance line for the US - that $30 per MWh of O&M alone.
Now, the hope is that a few subsidies right now will lead to lower long-term prices (and that's probably right), but right now, it isn't really economic.
It is subsidised to the tune of tens of billions by billpayers, that's how it continues. Same with UK onshore wind and solar.
Where in your table is the required back up generation and storage taken into account in the case of the weather dependent renewables?
We’ve had this exact same conversation on here at least twice before where you were pointed to actual generation costs and constraint payments.
We had a conversation where you (or someone on the same side of the debate) asked me for the subsidy costs, and I gave them to you (them). After which the discussion on your (their) side of the debate ended abruptly. By all means find the conversation.
On topic: It's a weird chart though. Each generation is being measured relative to the other generations, so the properly weighted average of silent@85yrs + boomer@70 + x@55 + millennial@40 (+ a few z, if you will) will always be 0.
The millennials staying relatively left is as much a product of the necessary statistical counterbalancing to a rapid lurch rightwards of the boomers as it is a leftward trend in the millennials themselves
Thank you for pointing this out. That was immediately my thought too but didn't get round to posting it. What the chart really demonstrates is inter-generational polarisation - it's difficult to say whether that's because the oldsters are turning right wing more quickly or the youngsters are turning right wing more slowly or a combination of the two.
Er... isn't the important point the direction of the curve for each generation? Older Millennials are more left-leaning than younger millennials; Boomers and Silents are consistently more right-leaning the older they are.
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
Flippantly: imagine if you'd been Black on top of all that.
Sensibly: privilege means having a right, advantage, or benefit that isn't available to others. It doesn't mean you're better off than most people, because the same person can have both privilege and disadvantage. White people are privileged because there is more racism against non-Whites. Men are privileged because there is more sexism against women.
In some circumstances, you can find female privilege. In others, male privilege. Circumstances matter too.
So that's the concept.
You're right to feel angry at the idea that you are "privileged" because you can list a whole swathe of disadvantages. But you shouldn't feel angry at the concept of privilege because it is real and it applies in complex ways. Most people benefit from a privilege and suffer disadvantage at the same time. And too often privilege as a concept is used to minimise or ignore disadvantage. People should stop doing that, but the concept has its uses when not abused in that way.
But you and your lefty cohort keep telling me I was privileged somehow because I am white....where is this privilege you speak of for me...why should I feel guilty for being white and privileged?
I didn't say you should feel guilty. I'm not a lefty. I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
How aboutthe white people whi are denied the chance to interview for jobs because panels need at least one ethnic minority, for example?
It's not obvious that, when controlled for wealth, your life chances are impacted by being non-white. Certainly starting out poor, or the child of a single parent, is a far greater disadvantage.
On topic: It's a weird chart though. Each generation is being measured relative to the other generations, so the properly weighted average of silent@85yrs + boomer@70 + x@55 + millennial@40 (+ a few z, if you will) will always be 0.
The millennials staying relatively left is as much a product of the necessary statistical counterbalancing to a rapid lurch rightwards of the boomers as it is a leftward trend in the millennials themselves
Thank you for pointing this out. That was immediately my thought too but didn't get round to posting it. What the chart really demonstrates is inter-generational polarisation - it's difficult to say whether that's because the oldsters are turning right wing more quickly or the youngsters are turning right wing more slowly or a combination of the two.
Er... isn't the important point the direction of the curve for each generation? Older Millennials are more left-leaning than younger millennials; Boomers and Silents are consistently more right-leaning the older they are.
A link to the data would be useful though.
Everything is measured relative to the national average at the time. So millenials have become more left leaning than the average over time, but that may be because the boomers have got more and more right wing, pulling the average rightwards. It doesn't necessarily mean that millenials have got more left wing over time in absolute terms (although it may do). What the chart does demonstrate is relative position, ie how much political position differs across age groups.
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
One thing I find mysterious is why there has never been any effective political push back from the white working class against 'woke' . Where were the patriotic masses to defend Churchill against the hordes of BLM protesters?
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
And the equivalent costs for offshore wind in the UK are much lower thanks to shallow seas, shorter transmission lines and economies of scale.
Offshore wind isn't really economic anywhere right now. That will change as costs come down, but just look at the Operations and Maintenance line for the US - that $30 per MWh of O&M alone.
Now, the hope is that a few subsidies right now will lead to lower long-term prices (and that's probably right), but right now, it isn't really economic.
It is subsidised to the tune of tens of billions by billpayers, that's how it continues. Same with UK onshore wind and solar.
Where in your table is the required back up generation and storage taken into account in the case of the weather dependent renewables?
We’ve had this exact same conversation on here at least twice before where you were pointed to actual generation costs and constraint payments.
We had a conversation where you (or someone on the same side of the debate) asked me for the subsidy costs, and I gave them to you (them). After which the discussion on your (their) side of the debate ended abruptly. By all means find the conversation.
9th of Jan, “something doesn’t add up” thread page 3. I wasn’t a participant in that one but the abrupt end described doesn’t occur. The last substantive comment is from Nigel B, after which it tails off.
On topic: It's a weird chart though. Each generation is being measured relative to the other generations, so the properly weighted average of silent@85yrs + boomer@70 + x@55 + millennial@40 (+ a few z, if you will) will always be 0.
The millennials staying relatively left is as much a product of the necessary statistical counterbalancing to a rapid lurch rightwards of the boomers as it is a leftward trend in the millennials themselves
Thank you for pointing this out. That was immediately my thought too but didn't get round to posting it. What the chart really demonstrates is inter-generational polarisation - it's difficult to say whether that's because the oldsters are turning right wing more quickly or the youngsters are turning right wing more slowly or a combination of the two.
Er... isn't the important point the direction of the curve for each generation? Older Millennials are more left-leaning than younger millennials; Boomers and Silents are consistently more right-leaning the older they are.
A link to the data would be useful though.
This is the jburnmurdoch thread on it (pink charts - giveaway). There are links back to research, but I can't see a direct link to any academic analysis underpinning this study, looks like it might be his own work
The privilege word is another very clear example of a term not translating from American (where it has a very specific meaning that has nothing to do with class) to British English where it means posh.
Who needs the Champions League Semi-Final when you have the entertainment that is the live podcast of the Cherwell District Council Annual meeting.
The line from the Conservative leader and his deputy seems to be "there are 22 of us, there are 23 of you but we should be in charge". Almost National Conservative in its thinking.
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
Flippantly: imagine if you'd been Black on top of all that.
Sensibly: privilege means having a right, advantage, or benefit that isn't available to others. It doesn't mean you're better off than most people, because the same person can have both privilege and disadvantage. White people are privileged because there is more racism against non-Whites. Men are privileged because there is more sexism against women.
In some circumstances, you can find female privilege. In others, male privilege. Circumstances matter too.
So that's the concept.
You're right to feel angry at the idea that you are "privileged" because you can list a whole swathe of disadvantages. But you shouldn't feel angry at the concept of privilege because it is real and it applies in complex ways. Most people benefit from a privilege and suffer disadvantage at the same time. And too often privilege as a concept is used to minimise or ignore disadvantage. People should stop doing that, but the concept has its uses when not abused in that way.
But you and your lefty cohort keep telling me I was privileged somehow because I am white....where is this privilege you speak of for me...why should I feel guilty for being white and privileged?
I didn't say you should feel guilty. I'm not a lefty. I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
How aboutthe white people whi are denied the chance to interview for jobs because panels need at least one ethnic minority, for example?
It's not obvious that, when controlled for wealth, your life chances are impacted by being non-white. Certainly starting out poor, or the child of a single parent, is a far greater disadvantage.
"White people face less racial prejudice"
I did not say White people face no racial prejudice.
Other factors like family background, wealth may well be sources of profound privilege or disadvantage, yes, of course.
We need to be honest about the advantages and disadvantages we have faced in our lives, but the human brain plays this little trick where it diminishes advantages and magnifies disadvantages. This is a classic in the psychology canon and if you have time look into it because it's fascinating. But what it means is we find it very difficult to admit privilege, and much easier to admit hardships (especially if we feel we've overcome them).
That's why thinking in terms of privilege is important and valuable. It gives us a framework to overcome that psychological flaw that we (mostly? all?) have. It helps remind us to be honest with ourselves about our advantages and disadvantages. Done well, it's about building empathy. Done badly, it's just another stick to beat someone else down.
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
One thing I find mysterious is why there has never been any effective political push back from the white working class against 'woke' . Where were the patriotic masses to defend Churchill against the hordes of BLM protesters?
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
One thing I find mysterious is why there has never been any effective political push back from the white working class against 'woke' . Where were the patriotic masses to defend Churchill against the hordes of BLM protesters?
The white working class, those shop workers, cleaners etc are too busy trying to put food on the table to have time to go protesting which is why most of the blm/jso/xr protesters are either retired or trust fund crusties
Ok, it's only a MoU, but at least they're on speaking terms.
Don't tell @Luckyguy1983, but Sunak has done a terrific job in building relationships with the EU.
Building relationships with the EU when caving into their demands for little more than Scotch Mist in return is quite easy. See also Tony Blair. They will give you handshakes and smiles aplenty whilst you're doing as they wish. Having a relationship based on mutual respect with the EU is a lot more difficult. Only Margaret Thatcher managed it, and then only to a certain extent.
There are two possible explanations for this: 1. we are a much weaker country than you suppose and getting more is not possible 2. our political system is completely broken and doesn't allow the people who are capable of doing better to rise to the top
I assume you think 2. is closer to the mark in which case what do you think we should do about it?
I think it's far too simplistic to narrow the answer down to two reasons, let alone choose one. In Tony Blair's case I think he was just stupid and naive, surrendering part of the rebate for a vague 'intention' on the part of the French to reform the CAP that never materialised. In Sunak's case I think he is genuinely on board with a grand scheme to reconnect us to the EU, and I am growingly concerned that the strategy includes wrecking the UK economy to such an extent that we need IMF or other help and are forced to accept a package of terms with it that involve reaccession.
Ok, we can add in a third explanation: your policy of ruthlessly squeezing our European frenemies is just not that popular with the electorate. I mean, Blair won all his elections, didn't he? Perhaps you're just a bit out of step with the British public and most people don't care that much?
I would agree there, but this is an attitude that will need to change for national survival of any kind. It is an odd phenomenon of Britain that the general public is so unconnected with their own commercial good, in the sense of 'buying British' for example - even those words sound stupidly gauche, and evoke images of teapots shaped like thatched cottages etc. We're completely disconnected from the national implications of foreign takeovers, British companies losing out on contracts, 'made in China', importing a huge chunk of our energy, in a way that France, Germany, Spain, America, Japan, Australia, just aren't. I hope we don't have to become very poor before we realise that the flow of where money is coming from and going to is important and has real world consequences.
And I don't believe in 'ruthlessly squeezing' anyone - I believe in setting out ones stall clearly and firmly from the beginning, which I think is where respect comes from. The same goes for our dealings with China.
And as Just Stop Oil, XR and all the rest of them are showing us, the general public largely couldn't give a hoot about whether we hit the fabled 1.5C by 2027 or not.
They will give a hoot about the implications though, as food prices shoot up and famines and wars drive even greater waves of migration.
And here we get to the point. When we govern through optics and only choose to do things we think will win us the next election, we are no longer really governing.
I think we can address a changing climate without the catastrophising. Is the Maldives still afloat? And what was that white stuff I saw a few months ago falling from the heavens.
Come on, surely you’re better than the ‘it still snows sometimes therefore climate change is wrong’ nonsense?
He didn't say climate change is wrong he merely told the truth, no one really cares that much except crustie activists
… and my point is that ‘no one really cares about it’ =/= ‘not important’ or ‘not worth doing anything about’.
It’s the inside out of the logic that kept Spaffer going so long; ‘people don’t mind me acting illegally or unprofessionally, therefore it’s fine for me to do’
When I say no one really cares...what I mean is no one really objects to more wind/solar/etc
however they aren't going to stop consuming, they aren't going to eat no meat, they realise other countries are going to want to catch up to our consumption. They are not going to back the we should all be subsistence farmers eating tofu cant of the extremists. They are instead going to assume we will muddle through with technical improvements because they know damn well most of the world is going to say the same
Sadly, some people do object to wind farms, and vociferously too.
There is a lot to object to, as anyone who's given more than a passing thought to the issue is well aware.
Well, if you say so. I'd sooner live near a wind farm than a coal plant.
I'd sooner depend on getting my energy from a coal plant than a wind farm.
Even if it meant paying a lot more for the energy?
I don't see that it would mean that, but reliability is a very valuable attribute.
You do know that even in the US, where Powder River Basin coal is just $15/tonne, and where subsidies for wind in many states are completely unknown, that coal plants are being shut down left right and center?
These are relatively modern plants, with cheap locally produced coal. There's no capital cost to build them.
And yet they simply can't compete.
Why? Because natural gas and wind are dramatically cheaper.
And we have no advantage in terms of cheap local coal. We're not Germany with the ability to strip mine lignite at very low cost. We need to buy coal from Colombia, South Africa or Australia (where we're competing with other buyers). We need to ship that coal around the world (have you seen where the Baltic Dry Index is these days?) And then we need to get the coal from port to the power station.
This isn't rampant greenery, this is market economics.
The USA also has elephant graveyard wind farms that stopped when subsidies stopped. You appear to be falsely lumping wind (not cheap, or reliable) in with gas (cheap and reliable).
Besides which, the proposed new UK coal mine (approved by Gove, who knows when they will break ground) can yield a vast amount of coal - they have even afaicr had to agree to only mine so much, as part of their planning permission. An agreement that I heartily hope will be incinerated in a coal fired power station in due course.
(1) Is wind capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (2) Is coal capacity in the US increasing or decreasing? (3) Will the UK coal plant be allowed to sell its coal at prevailing market prices?
1. It will increase or decrease in line with the subsidies available to those with the money to take advantage of them. 2. I suspect it is decreasing, but, as you hint, due to gas, not wind, replacing it as a practicable source of energy, which wind just isn't. 3. I have no idea. All I know is that the UK is sitting on an absolute fuckton of coal, I acknowledge that it might be less easy to get to than some overseas mines, but I don't think it's going to be a huge deal.
Can I suggest you read through the Annual Reports of the big US Electricity Generators? Companies like Duke Energy or Exelon. These are firms with massive existing generating assets. They discuss in their earnings calls and presentations the relative cost of power production, because they are in the business of making money by generating it as cheaply as possible, and selling it to consumers.
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
And the equivalent costs for offshore wind in the UK are much lower thanks to shallow seas, shorter transmission lines and economies of scale.
Offshore wind isn't really economic anywhere right now. That will change as costs come down, but just look at the Operations and Maintenance line for the US - that $30 per MWh of O&M alone.
Now, the hope is that a few subsidies right now will lead to lower long-term prices (and that's probably right), but right now, it isn't really economic.
It is subsidised to the tune of tens of billions by billpayers, that's how it continues. Same with UK onshore wind and solar.
Where in your table is the required back up generation and storage taken into account in the case of the weather dependent renewables?
We’ve had this exact same conversation on here at least twice before where you were pointed to actual generation costs and constraint payments.
We had a conversation where you (or someone on the same side of the debate) asked me for the subsidy costs, and I gave them to you (them). After which the discussion on your (their) side of the debate ended abruptly. By all means find the conversation.
9th of Jan, “something doesn’t add up” thread page 3. I wasn’t a participant in that one but the abrupt end described doesn’t occur. The last substantive comment is from Nigel B, after which it tails off.
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
Flippantly: imagine if you'd been Black on top of all that.
Sensibly: privilege means having a right, advantage, or benefit that isn't available to others. It doesn't mean you're better off than most people, because the same person can have both privilege and disadvantage. White people are privileged because there is more racism against non-Whites. Men are privileged because there is more sexism against women.
In some circumstances, you can find female privilege. In others, male privilege. Circumstances matter too.
So that's the concept.
You're right to feel angry at the idea that you are "privileged" because you can list a whole swathe of disadvantages. But you shouldn't feel angry at the concept of privilege because it is real and it applies in complex ways. Most people benefit from a privilege and suffer disadvantage at the same time. And too often privilege as a concept is used to minimise or ignore disadvantage. People should stop doing that, but the concept has its uses when not abused in that way.
But you and your lefty cohort keep telling me I was privileged somehow because I am white....where is this privilege you speak of for me...why should I feel guilty for being white and privileged?
I didn't say you should feel guilty. I'm not a lefty. I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
How aboutthe white people whi are denied the chance to interview for jobs because panels need at least one ethnic minority, for example?
It's not obvious that, when controlled for wealth, your life chances are impacted by being non-white. Certainly starting out poor, or the child of a single parent, is a far greater disadvantage.
"White people face less racial prejudice"
I did not say White people face no racial prejudice.
Other factors like family background, wealth may well be sources of profound privilege or disadvantage, yes, of course.
We need to be honest about the advantages and disadvantages we have faced in our lives, but the human brain plays this little trick where it diminishes advantages and magnifies disadvantages. This is a classic in the psychology canon and if you have time look into it because it's fascinating. But what it means is we find it very difficult to admit privilege, and much easier to admit hardships (especially if we feel we've overcome them).
That's why thinking in terms of privilege is important and valuable. It gives us a framework to overcome that psychological flaw that we (mostly? all?) have. It helps remind us to be honest with ourselves about our advantages and disadvantages. Done well, it's about building empathy. Done badly, it's just another stick to beat someone else down.
Listen to your own words....you are automatically calling me privileged because I am white....do you think when fighting my way out I didn't for example face prejudice for having a thick cornish accent or people interviewing me picking up I failed all my exams first time round where being academic got you a playground beating every fucking day.
Who needs the Champions League Semi-Final when you have the entertainment that is the live podcast of the Cherwell District Council Annual meeting.
The line from the Conservative leader and his deputy seems to be "there are 22 of us, there are 23 of you but we should be in charge". Almost National Conservative in its thinking.
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
Flippantly: imagine if you'd been Black on top of all that.
Sensibly: privilege means having a right, advantage, or benefit that isn't available to others. It doesn't mean you're better off than most people, because the same person can have both privilege and disadvantage. White people are privileged because there is more racism against non-Whites. Men are privileged because there is more sexism against women.
In some circumstances, you can find female privilege. In others, male privilege. Circumstances matter too.
So that's the concept.
You're right to feel angry at the idea that you are "privileged" because you can list a whole swathe of disadvantages. But you shouldn't feel angry at the concept of privilege because it is real and it applies in complex ways. Most people benefit from a privilege and suffer disadvantage at the same time. And too often privilege as a concept is used to minimise or ignore disadvantage. People should stop doing that, but the concept has its uses when not abused in that way.
But you and your lefty cohort keep telling me I was privileged somehow because I am white....where is this privilege you speak of for me...why should I feel guilty for being white and privileged?
I didn't say you should feel guilty. I'm not a lefty. I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
How aboutthe white people whi are denied the chance to interview for jobs because panels need at least one ethnic minority, for example?
It's not obvious that, when controlled for wealth, your life chances are impacted by being non-white. Certainly starting out poor, or the child of a single parent, is a far greater disadvantage.
"White people face less racial prejudice"
I did not say White people face no racial prejudice.
Other factors like family background, wealth may well be sources of profound privilege or disadvantage, yes, of course.
We need to be honest about the advantages and disadvantages we have faced in our lives, but the human brain plays this little trick where it diminishes advantages and magnifies disadvantages. This is a classic in the psychology canon and if you have time look into it because it's fascinating. But what it means is we find it very difficult to admit privilege, and much easier to admit hardships (especially if we feel we've overcome them).
That's why thinking in terms of privilege is important and valuable. It gives us a framework to overcome that psychological flaw that we (mostly? all?) have. It helps remind us to be honest with ourselves about our advantages and disadvantages. Done well, it's about building empathy. Done badly, it's just another stick to beat someone else down.
Listen to your own words....you are automatically calling me privileged because I am white....do you think when fighting my way out I didn't for example face prejudice for having a thick cornish accent or people interviewing me picking up I failed all my exams first time round where being academic got you a playground beating every fucking day.
So you have privileges and disadvantages. Just like most people. You might find your disadvantages outweigh your privilege and that's your call to make, not mine.
More seriously, we do need to decide as a country what we want our future to look like.
We have an ageing population, which is a drag on productivity. The answers to this are either: 1) increase birth rates - which is incredibly hard and slow to reap reward, 2) retain high levels of net migration, or 3) choose the Japanese model of managed decline.
Inertia will mean we end up choosing option 2. Lots of people want to come to live here to work or study. And we have lots of gaps in our jobs market, both skilled and unskilled. And it's a lot easier for politicians than saying companies can go bust if they can't hire domestically, or in the NHS's case just fail to deliver, which is the alternative.
There's many advantages of stopping your population pyramid from inverting too much, as many other countries will struggle under option 3. In practice, if not in rhetoric, this is the way forward chosen by all major parties. But if we are going to do this - we need to build a lot more houses, infrastructure etc to support it. An expansion of London - both proper and the commuter belt towns - is the most economically efficient way to do this. Other areas of the country should of course also be offered the same flexibility (and infrastructure investment).
Encouraging more construction also has the benefit of boosting economic growth and being privately financed. It really is a no-brainer one you get past the Nimby coalition.
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
Flippantly: imagine if you'd been Black on top of all that.
Sensibly: privilege means having a right, advantage, or benefit that isn't available to others. It doesn't mean you're better off than most people, because the same person can have both privilege and disadvantage. White people are privileged because there is more racism against non-Whites. Men are privileged because there is more sexism against women.
In some circumstances, you can find female privilege. In others, male privilege. Circumstances matter too.
So that's the concept.
You're right to feel angry at the idea that you are "privileged" because you can list a whole swathe of disadvantages. But you shouldn't feel angry at the concept of privilege because it is real and it applies in complex ways. Most people benefit from a privilege and suffer disadvantage at the same time. And too often privilege as a concept is used to minimise or ignore disadvantage. People should stop doing that, but the concept has its uses when not abused in that way.
But you and your lefty cohort keep telling me I was privileged somehow because I am white....where is this privilege you speak of for me...why should I feel guilty for being white and privileged?
I didn't say you should feel guilty. I'm not a lefty. I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
How aboutthe white people whi are denied the chance to interview for jobs because panels need at least one ethnic minority, for example?
It's not obvious that, when controlled for wealth, your life chances are impacted by being non-white. Certainly starting out poor, or the child of a single parent, is a far greater disadvantage.
"White people face less racial prejudice"
I did not say White people face no racial prejudice.
Other factors like family background, wealth may well be sources of profound privilege or disadvantage, yes, of course.
We need to be honest about the advantages and disadvantages we have faced in our lives, but the human brain plays this little trick where it diminishes advantages and magnifies disadvantages. This is a classic in the psychology canon and if you have time look into it because it's fascinating. But what it means is we find it very difficult to admit privilege, and much easier to admit hardships (especially if we feel we've overcome them).
That's why thinking in terms of privilege is important and valuable. It gives us a framework to overcome that psychological flaw that we (mostly? all?) have. It helps remind us to be honest with ourselves about our advantages and disadvantages. Done well, it's about building empathy. Done badly, it's just another stick to beat someone else down.
Listen to your own words....you are automatically calling me privileged because I am white....do you think when fighting my way out I didn't for example face prejudice for having a thick cornish accent or people interviewing me picking up I failed all my exams first time round where being academic got you a playground beating every fucking day.
So you have privileges and disadvantages. Just like most people. You might find your disadvantages outweigh your privilege and that's your call to make, not mine.
It is my call, I dont regard myself as either disadvantaged or privileged however. It is fuckwits like you I object to calling me privileged. Just like I am sure their are many poc's also thinking people like you calling them disadvantaged.
We can all sit and whine and say its not my fault. I fought my way up so did many poc people. We got where we are by trying to be better, not because we were privileged or disadvantaged but because we tried.
Is there privilege....certainly there are people that get a free ride.....however that is neither the vast majority of white people. It is the people who have parents with contacts....you find it a lot in for example the charity sector where people have moved from uni to a charity job to a management position in a charity or quango with no real work ever done....guess what they are mostly left leaning
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
Flippantly: imagine if you'd been Black on top of all that.
Sensibly: privilege means having a right, advantage, or benefit that isn't available to others. It doesn't mean you're better off than most people, because the same person can have both privilege and disadvantage. White people are privileged because there is more racism against non-Whites. Men are privileged because there is more sexism against women.
In some circumstances, you can find female privilege. In others, male privilege. Circumstances matter too.
So that's the concept.
You're right to feel angry at the idea that you are "privileged" because you can list a whole swathe of disadvantages. But you shouldn't feel angry at the concept of privilege because it is real and it applies in complex ways. Most people benefit from a privilege and suffer disadvantage at the same time. And too often privilege as a concept is used to minimise or ignore disadvantage. People should stop doing that, but the concept has its uses when not abused in that way.
But you and your lefty cohort keep telling me I was privileged somehow because I am white....where is this privilege you speak of for me...why should I feel guilty for being white and privileged?
I didn't say you should feel guilty. I'm not a lefty. I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
How aboutthe white people whi are denied the chance to interview for jobs because panels need at least one ethnic minority, for example?
It's not obvious that, when controlled for wealth, your life chances are impacted by being non-white. Certainly starting out poor, or the child of a single parent, is a far greater disadvantage.
"White people face less racial prejudice"
I did not say White people face no racial prejudice.
Other factors like family background, wealth may well be sources of profound privilege or disadvantage, yes, of course.
We need to be honest about the advantages and disadvantages we have faced in our lives, but the human brain plays this little trick where it diminishes advantages and magnifies disadvantages. This is a classic in the psychology canon and if you have time look into it because it's fascinating. But what it means is we find it very difficult to admit privilege, and much easier to admit hardships (especially if we feel we've overcome them).
That's why thinking in terms of privilege is important and valuable. It gives us a framework to overcome that psychological flaw that we (mostly? all?) have. It helps remind us to be honest with ourselves about our advantages and disadvantages. Done well, it's about building empathy. Done badly, it's just another stick to beat someone else down.
Listen to your own words....you are automatically calling me privileged because I am white....do you think when fighting my way out I didn't for example face prejudice for having a thick cornish accent or people interviewing me picking up I failed all my exams first time round where being academic got you a playground beating every fucking day.
My suspicion is that many people would privately agree with you but have realised that a revolt against these cultural changes will never happen; so decided that it is better to be on the side of the winners rather than the losers and ostensibly join in, rather than being consumed by bitterness about things that you cannot change. It isn't fair but lots of things in life aren't fair.
If the minimum wage is now £20k per year (for a 37.5 hour week) and rent starts at £400 per month , bills included for a furnished room in the South East, then you would have take home pay of £1500 per month, £1100 after rent and bills are paid. This seems to me like a lot of money.
A room in a house in multiple occupation? How nice.
you would be lucky still to get it 400 a month frankly
Have a look at Spareroom. Lots of ok looking HMO rooms at around this price.
Possibly a case of too many amateur property developers going in to HMO's ?
Lots of? In an absolute sense, yes. Near where the work is - not usually. And if it isn't where the work is, now you have commuting costs. Employers do let you work from home, but not five days a week, so there'll be at least one or two days a week when Iypu have to commute, and that costs. Cars are expensive, buses are unreliable, and trains are... well, see previous posts. There are always more costs than you think... 😀
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
Flippantly: imagine if you'd been Black on top of all that.
Sensibly: privilege means having a right, advantage, or benefit that isn't available to others. It doesn't mean you're better off than most people, because the same person can have both privilege and disadvantage. White people are privileged because there is more racism against non-Whites. Men are privileged because there is more sexism against women.
In some circumstances, you can find female privilege. In others, male privilege. Circumstances matter too.
So that's the concept.
You're right to feel angry at the idea that you are "privileged" because you can list a whole swathe of disadvantages. But you shouldn't feel angry at the concept of privilege because it is real and it applies in complex ways. Most people benefit from a privilege and suffer disadvantage at the same time. And too often privilege as a concept is used to minimise or ignore disadvantage. People should stop doing that, but the concept has its uses when not abused in that way.
But you and your lefty cohort keep telling me I was privileged somehow because I am white....where is this privilege you speak of for me...why should I feel guilty for being white and privileged?
I didn't say you should feel guilty. I'm not a lefty. I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
How aboutthe white people whi are denied the chance to interview for jobs because panels need at least one ethnic minority, for example?
It's not obvious that, when controlled for wealth, your life chances are impacted by being non-white. Certainly starting out poor, or the child of a single parent, is a far greater disadvantage.
"White people face less racial prejudice"
I did not say White people face no racial prejudice.
Other factors like family background, wealth may well be sources of profound privilege or disadvantage, yes, of course.
We need to be honest about the advantages and disadvantages we have faced in our lives, but the human brain plays this little trick where it diminishes advantages and magnifies disadvantages. This is a classic in the psychology canon and if you have time look into it because it's fascinating. But what it means is we find it very difficult to admit privilege, and much easier to admit hardships (especially if we feel we've overcome them).
That's why thinking in terms of privilege is important and valuable. It gives us a framework to overcome that psychological flaw that we (mostly? all?) have. It helps remind us to be honest with ourselves about our advantages and disadvantages. Done well, it's about building empathy. Done badly, it's just another stick to beat someone else down.
Listen to your own words....you are automatically calling me privileged because I am white....do you think when fighting my way out I didn't for example face prejudice for having a thick cornish accent or people interviewing me picking up I failed all my exams first time round where being academic got you a playground beating every fucking day.
So you have privileges and disadvantages. Just like most people. You might find your disadvantages outweigh your privilege and that's your call to make, not mine.
It is my call, I dont regard myself as either disadvantaged or privileged however. It is fuckwits like you I object to calling me privileged. Just like I am sure their are many poc's also thinking people like you calling them disadvantaged.
We can all sit and whine and say its not my fault. I fought my way up so did many poc people. We got where we are by trying to be better, not because we were privileged or disadvantaged but because we tried.
Is there privilege....certainly there are people that get a free ride.....however that is neither the vast majority of white people. It is the people who have parents with contacts....you find it a lot in for example the charity sector where people have moved from uni to a charity job to a management position in a charity or quango with no real work ever done....guess what they are mostly left leaning
So you want to emphasise other people's privilege and not your own. And you want to emphasise your disadvantages and not other people's.
All these folk renting. They've got a home. They don't need another one to be built for them.
Certainly not an Executive Home on a farmer's field.
Sorry but all I'm seeing from your "argument" if I'm generous to call it an argument is a completely callous nimby....
Cheap houses generates cash that would result in productive spending that would create actual growth.
Given the correct dataset I reckon it would be very easy to mathmatically prove that our dire growth is due to stupidly high house prices destroying any opportunity for people to take risks...
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
Flippantly: imagine if you'd been Black on top of all that.
Sensibly: privilege means having a right, advantage, or benefit that isn't available to others. It doesn't mean you're better off than most people, because the same person can have both privilege and disadvantage. White people are privileged because there is more racism against non-Whites. Men are privileged because there is more sexism against women.
In some circumstances, you can find female privilege. In others, male privilege. Circumstances matter too.
So that's the concept.
You're right to feel angry at the idea that you are "privileged" because you can list a whole swathe of disadvantages. But you shouldn't feel angry at the concept of privilege because it is real and it applies in complex ways. Most people benefit from a privilege and suffer disadvantage at the same time. And too often privilege as a concept is used to minimise or ignore disadvantage. People should stop doing that, but the concept has its uses when not abused in that way.
But you and your lefty cohort keep telling me I was privileged somehow because I am white....where is this privilege you speak of for me...why should I feel guilty for being white and privileged?
I didn't say you should feel guilty. I'm not a lefty. I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
How aboutthe white people whi are denied the chance to interview for jobs because panels need at least one ethnic minority, for example?
It's not obvious that, when controlled for wealth, your life chances are impacted by being non-white. Certainly starting out poor, or the child of a single parent, is a far greater disadvantage.
"White people face less racial prejudice"
I did not say White people face no racial prejudice.
Other factors like family background, wealth may well be sources of profound privilege or disadvantage, yes, of course.
We need to be honest about the advantages and disadvantages we have faced in our lives, but the human brain plays this little trick where it diminishes advantages and magnifies disadvantages. This is a classic in the psychology canon and if you have time look into it because it's fascinating. But what it means is we find it very difficult to admit privilege, and much easier to admit hardships (especially if we feel we've overcome them).
That's why thinking in terms of privilege is important and valuable. It gives us a framework to overcome that psychological flaw that we (mostly? all?) have. It helps remind us to be honest with ourselves about our advantages and disadvantages. Done well, it's about building empathy. Done badly, it's just another stick to beat someone else down.
Listen to your own words....you are automatically calling me privileged because I am white....do you think when fighting my way out I didn't for example face prejudice for having a thick cornish accent or people interviewing me picking up I failed all my exams first time round where being academic got you a playground beating every fucking day.
So you have privileges and disadvantages. Just like most people. You might find your disadvantages outweigh your privilege and that's your call to make, not mine.
It is my call, I dont regard myself as either disadvantaged or privileged however. It is fuckwits like you I object to calling me privileged. Just like I am sure their are many poc's also thinking people like you calling them disadvantaged.
We can all sit and whine and say its not my fault. I fought my way up so did many poc people. We got where we are by trying to be better, not because we were privileged or disadvantaged but because we tried.
Is there privilege....certainly there are people that get a free ride.....however that is neither the vast majority of white people. It is the people who have parents with contacts....you find it a lot in for example the charity sector where people have moved from uni to a charity job to a management position in a charity or quango with no real work ever done....guess what they are mostly left leaning
I mean, you have a spent an awful lot of time over several posts listing out the things that held you back (at least for a while; you now seem to be a thriving and well-adjusted person), so it's a little surprising to hear you say you don't feel disadvantaged by these disadvantages. I do wonder why you spent so long talking about them then.
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
Flippantly: imagine if you'd been Black on top of all that.
Sensibly: privilege means having a right, advantage, or benefit that isn't available to others. It doesn't mean you're better off than most people, because the same person can have both privilege and disadvantage. White people are privileged because there is more racism against non-Whites. Men are privileged because there is more sexism against women.
In some circumstances, you can find female privilege. In others, male privilege. Circumstances matter too.
So that's the concept.
You're right to feel angry at the idea that you are "privileged" because you can list a whole swathe of disadvantages. But you shouldn't feel angry at the concept of privilege because it is real and it applies in complex ways. Most people benefit from a privilege and suffer disadvantage at the same time. And too often privilege as a concept is used to minimise or ignore disadvantage. People should stop doing that, but the concept has its uses when not abused in that way.
But you and your lefty cohort keep telling me I was privileged somehow because I am white....where is this privilege you speak of for me...why should I feel guilty for being white and privileged?
I didn't say you should feel guilty. I'm not a lefty. I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
How aboutthe white people whi are denied the chance to interview for jobs because panels need at least one ethnic minority, for example?
It's not obvious that, when controlled for wealth, your life chances are impacted by being non-white. Certainly starting out poor, or the child of a single parent, is a far greater disadvantage.
"White people face less racial prejudice"
I did not say White people face no racial prejudice.
Other factors like family background, wealth may well be sources of profound privilege or disadvantage, yes, of course.
We need to be honest about the advantages and disadvantages we have faced in our lives, but the human brain plays this little trick where it diminishes advantages and magnifies disadvantages. This is a classic in the psychology canon and if you have time look into it because it's fascinating. But what it means is we find it very difficult to admit privilege, and much easier to admit hardships (especially if we feel we've overcome them).
That's why thinking in terms of privilege is important and valuable. It gives us a framework to overcome that psychological flaw that we (mostly? all?) have. It helps remind us to be honest with ourselves about our advantages and disadvantages. Done well, it's about building empathy. Done badly, it's just another stick to beat someone else down.
Listen to your own words....you are automatically calling me privileged because I am white....do you think when fighting my way out I didn't for example face prejudice for having a thick cornish accent or people interviewing me picking up I failed all my exams first time round where being academic got you a playground beating every fucking day.
My suspicion is that many people would privately agree with you but have realised that a revolt against these cultural changes will never happen; so decided that it is better to be on the side of the winners rather than the losers and ostensibly join in, rather than being consumed by bitterness about things that you cannot change. It isn't fair but lots of things in life aren't fair.
Life has never been fair and I am not despite what some think consumed with bitterness. I have worked my way up and am generally happy with my lot. I get angry with those that dismiss people that didn't through no real fault of their own because not everyone can do a top paid job....the country would grind to a halt without the lower paid. Most on here are in the top 10% of earners....they blithely toss off a a percent extra tax here and there and it wont be life changing for them paying an extra percent here or there...however to make enough extra tax income that 1 or 2 percent has to be on basic rate tax and many who hardly make the pay last to the end of the month will find that 1 or 2 percent crippling.
I am no longer in the jam class....many of my friends however still are. I know how much these tiny changes (to people who post here) affect them
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
Flippantly: imagine if you'd been Black on top of all that.
Sensibly: privilege means having a right, advantage, or benefit that isn't available to others. It doesn't mean you're better off than most people, because the same person can have both privilege and disadvantage. White people are privileged because there is more racism against non-Whites. Men are privileged because there is more sexism against women.
In some circumstances, you can find female privilege. In others, male privilege. Circumstances matter too.
So that's the concept.
You're right to feel angry at the idea that you are "privileged" because you can list a whole swathe of disadvantages. But you shouldn't feel angry at the concept of privilege because it is real and it applies in complex ways. Most people benefit from a privilege and suffer disadvantage at the same time. And too often privilege as a concept is used to minimise or ignore disadvantage. People should stop doing that, but the concept has its uses when not abused in that way.
But you and your lefty cohort keep telling me I was privileged somehow because I am white....where is this privilege you speak of for me...why should I feel guilty for being white and privileged?
I didn't say you should feel guilty. I'm not a lefty. I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
How aboutthe white people whi are denied the chance to interview for jobs because panels need at least one ethnic minority, for example?
It's not obvious that, when controlled for wealth, your life chances are impacted by being non-white. Certainly starting out poor, or the child of a single parent, is a far greater disadvantage.
"White people face less racial prejudice"
I did not say White people face no racial prejudice.
Other factors like family background, wealth may well be sources of profound privilege or disadvantage, yes, of course.
We need to be honest about the advantages and disadvantages we have faced in our lives, but the human brain plays this little trick where it diminishes advantages and magnifies disadvantages. This is a classic in the psychology canon and if you have time look into it because it's fascinating. But what it means is we find it very difficult to admit privilege, and much easier to admit hardships (especially if we feel we've overcome them).
That's why thinking in terms of privilege is important and valuable. It gives us a framework to overcome that psychological flaw that we (mostly? all?) have. It helps remind us to be honest with ourselves about our advantages and disadvantages. Done well, it's about building empathy. Done badly, it's just another stick to beat someone else down.
Listen to your own words....you are automatically calling me privileged because I am white....do you think when fighting my way out I didn't for example face prejudice for having a thick cornish accent or people interviewing me picking up I failed all my exams first time round where being academic got you a playground beating every fucking day.
So you have privileges and disadvantages. Just like most people. You might find your disadvantages outweigh your privilege and that's your call to make, not mine.
It is my call, I dont regard myself as either disadvantaged or privileged however. It is fuckwits like you I object to calling me privileged. Just like I am sure their are many poc's also thinking people like you calling them disadvantaged.
We can all sit and whine and say its not my fault. I fought my way up so did many poc people. We got where we are by trying to be better, not because we were privileged or disadvantaged but because we tried.
Is there privilege....certainly there are people that get a free ride.....however that is neither the vast majority of white people. It is the people who have parents with contacts....you find it a lot in for example the charity sector where people have moved from uni to a charity job to a management position in a charity or quango with no real work ever done....guess what they are mostly left leaning
So you want to emphasise other people's privilege and not your own. And you want to emphasise your disadvantages and not other people's.
This is all very normal.
It is normal ; I personally think the periodic over simplification of privilege as always tending to be focused further away from white working-class conditions has been quite damaging for the twentieth-century left.
It just always leaves an open door, and an open goal, for the more noxious and toxic strands of the populist right to make hay with.
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
Flippantly: imagine if you'd been Black on top of all that.
Sensibly: privilege means having a right, advantage, or benefit that isn't available to others. It doesn't mean you're better off than most people, because the same person can have both privilege and disadvantage. White people are privileged because there is more racism against non-Whites. Men are privileged because there is more sexism against women.
In some circumstances, you can find female privilege. In others, male privilege. Circumstances matter too.
So that's the concept.
You're right to feel angry at the idea that you are "privileged" because you can list a whole swathe of disadvantages. But you shouldn't feel angry at the concept of privilege because it is real and it applies in complex ways. Most people benefit from a privilege and suffer disadvantage at the same time. And too often privilege as a concept is used to minimise or ignore disadvantage. People should stop doing that, but the concept has its uses when not abused in that way.
But you and your lefty cohort keep telling me I was privileged somehow because I am white....where is this privilege you speak of for me...why should I feel guilty for being white and privileged?
I didn't say you should feel guilty. I'm not a lefty. I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
How aboutthe white people whi are denied the chance to interview for jobs because panels need at least one ethnic minority, for example?
It's not obvious that, when controlled for wealth, your life chances are impacted by being non-white. Certainly starting out poor, or the child of a single parent, is a far greater disadvantage.
"White people face less racial prejudice"
I did not say White people face no racial prejudice.
Other factors like family background, wealth may well be sources of profound privilege or disadvantage, yes, of course.
We need to be honest about the advantages and disadvantages we have faced in our lives, but the human brain plays this little trick where it diminishes advantages and magnifies disadvantages. This is a classic in the psychology canon and if you have time look into it because it's fascinating. But what it means is we find it very difficult to admit privilege, and much easier to admit hardships (especially if we feel we've overcome them).
That's why thinking in terms of privilege is important and valuable. It gives us a framework to overcome that psychological flaw that we (mostly? all?) have. It helps remind us to be honest with ourselves about our advantages and disadvantages. Done well, it's about building empathy. Done badly, it's just another stick to beat someone else down.
Listen to your own words....you are automatically calling me privileged because I am white....do you think when fighting my way out I didn't for example face prejudice for having a thick cornish accent or people interviewing me picking up I failed all my exams first time round where being academic got you a playground beating every fucking day.
So you have privileges and disadvantages. Just like most people. You might find your disadvantages outweigh your privilege and that's your call to make, not mine.
It is my call, I dont regard myself as either disadvantaged or privileged however. It is fuckwits like you I object to calling me privileged. Just like I am sure their are many poc's also thinking people like you calling them disadvantaged.
We can all sit and whine and say its not my fault. I fought my way up so did many poc people. We got where we are by trying to be better, not because we were privileged or disadvantaged but because we tried.
Is there privilege....certainly there are people that get a free ride.....however that is neither the vast majority of white people. It is the people who have parents with contacts....you find it a lot in for example the charity sector where people have moved from uni to a charity job to a management position in a charity or quango with no real work ever done....guess what they are mostly left leaning
So you want to emphasise other people's privilege and not your own. And you want to emphasise your disadvantages and not other people's.
This is all very normal.
Where have I said I want to do either, I have merely said there are definitely people privileged.....it it just not all white people. It is people who's parents are in the top 10% who know people and can get their children into high powered jobs. Plenty of them these days are not white.
Privilege is not a colour issue it is a who your parents know issue
Offshore wind isn't really economic anywhere right now. That will change as costs come down, but just look at the Operations and Maintenance line for the US - that $30 per MWh of O&M alone.
Now, the hope is that a few subsidies right now will lead to lower long-term prices (and that's probably right), but right now, it isn't really economic.
If the minimum wage is now £20k per year (for a 37.5 hour week) and rent starts at £400 per month , bills included for a furnished room in the South East, then you would have take home pay of £1500 per month, £1100 after rent and bills are paid. This seems to me like a lot of money.
A room in a house in multiple occupation? How nice.
you would be lucky still to get it 400 a month frankly
Have a look at Spareroom. Lots of ok looking HMO rooms at around this price.
Possibly a case of too many amateur property developers going in to HMO's ?
Lots of? In an absolute sense, yes. Near where the work is - not usually. And if it isn't where the work is, now you have commuting costs. Employers do let you work from home, but not five days a week, so there'll be at least one or two days a week when Iypu have to commute, and that costs. Cars are expensive, buses are unreliable, and trains are... well, see previous posts. There are always more costs than you think... 😀
But the £20k figure I was quoting was minimum wage. I could work at the local cornershop for that amount.
20 years ago I was earning £790 a month as an office temp (after tax etc) and spending £280 on rent before bills, and commuting to work every day by bus. It is hard to conclude that things have got much worse objectively.
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
Flippantly: imagine if you'd been Black on top of all that.
Sensibly: privilege means having a right, advantage, or benefit that isn't available to others. It doesn't mean you're better off than most people, because the same person can have both privilege and disadvantage. White people are privileged because there is more racism against non-Whites. Men are privileged because there is more sexism against women.
In some circumstances, you can find female privilege. In others, male privilege. Circumstances matter too.
So that's the concept.
You're right to feel angry at the idea that you are "privileged" because you can list a whole swathe of disadvantages. But you shouldn't feel angry at the concept of privilege because it is real and it applies in complex ways. Most people benefit from a privilege and suffer disadvantage at the same time. And too often privilege as a concept is used to minimise or ignore disadvantage. People should stop doing that, but the concept has its uses when not abused in that way.
But you and your lefty cohort keep telling me I was privileged somehow because I am white....where is this privilege you speak of for me...why should I feel guilty for being white and privileged?
I didn't say you should feel guilty. I'm not a lefty. I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
How aboutthe white people whi are denied the chance to interview for jobs because panels need at least one ethnic minority, for example?
It's not obvious that, when controlled for wealth, your life chances are impacted by being non-white. Certainly starting out poor, or the child of a single parent, is a far greater disadvantage.
"White people face less racial prejudice"
I did not say White people face no racial prejudice.
Other factors like family background, wealth may well be sources of profound privilege or disadvantage, yes, of course.
We need to be honest about the advantages and disadvantages we have faced in our lives, but the human brain plays this little trick where it diminishes advantages and magnifies disadvantages. This is a classic in the psychology canon and if you have time look into it because it's fascinating. But what it means is we find it very difficult to admit privilege, and much easier to admit hardships (especially if we feel we've overcome them).
That's why thinking in terms of privilege is important and valuable. It gives us a framework to overcome that psychological flaw that we (mostly? all?) have. It helps remind us to be honest with ourselves about our advantages and disadvantages. Done well, it's about building empathy. Done badly, it's just another stick to beat someone else down.
Listen to your own words....you are automatically calling me privileged because I am white....do you think when fighting my way out I didn't for example face prejudice for having a thick cornish accent or people interviewing me picking up I failed all my exams first time round where being academic got you a playground beating every fucking day.
So you have privileges and disadvantages. Just like most people. You might find your disadvantages outweigh your privilege and that's your call to make, not mine.
It is my call, I dont regard myself as either disadvantaged or privileged however. It is fuckwits like you I object to calling me privileged. Just like I am sure their are many poc's also thinking people like you calling them disadvantaged.
We can all sit and whine and say its not my fault. I fought my way up so did many poc people. We got where we are by trying to be better, not because we were privileged or disadvantaged but because we tried.
Is there privilege....certainly there are people that get a free ride.....however that is neither the vast majority of white people. It is the people who have parents with contacts....you find it a lot in for example the charity sector where people have moved from uni to a charity job to a management position in a charity or quango with no real work ever done....guess what they are mostly left leaning
So you want to emphasise other people's privilege and not your own. And you want to emphasise your disadvantages and not other people's.
This is all very normal.
It is normal ; I personally think the period simplification of privilege as always from white working-class conditions has been quite damaging for the left.
Yes, I recognise my post comes across as sarcastic, but it isn't. It's exactly normal, and it's the psychological "trick" I was talking about earlier. We all have the tendency to do it, and I think it's harmful. It works against empathy and understanding. It helps us hate strangers who get in our way. We'd all be mildly better off if we learned to not do it quite so automatically.
All these folk renting. They've got a home. They don't need another one to be built for them.
Certainly not an Executive Home on a farmer's field.
Sorry but all I'm seeing from your "argument" if I'm generous to call it an argument is a completely callous nimby....
Cheap houses generates cash that would result in productive spending that would create actual growth.
Given the correct dataset I reckon it would be very easy to mathmatically prove that our dire growth is due to stupidly high house prices destroying any opportunity for people to take risks...
I'm not a NIMBY. I'm against construction on all greenfield sites. That includes those near me and those everywhere else in the country.
If we want to do anything with such locations then rewild them if they are not needed for agriculture.
This is what the war on woke does. Millennials and younger are quite woke.
It seems to me that the objective of the 'war on woke' is the protection of white and male privilege and its favoured technique is an appeal to people's baser instincts. This is why I have a dim view of it.
White, priveliged male declares war on protection of white, privileged males. And why on earth shouldn't you.
Go you.
Well not really. I'm just commenting (adversely) on the War on Woke. I leave the street fighting stuff to others. Does this delegitimise my contribution? No. You do what you can.
I am a white man, how was I privileged? I left school with no qualifications because it was a sink school, I grew up in a council house with 3 stories and one coal fire. I worked as a trawlerman till our fish quota took us down to 6 weeks fishing a year which didn't support a wage you could live on, I worked and paid my way through college to get o levels and a levels, got a job then got banned due to chemical sensitisation, worked through that with a child where I would have been 30£ a week better off on the dole to retrain to write software. All at my own cost....never got a db pension, never got any help from the state....where is my privilege please? I would like some as I keep being told I got it
Flippantly: imagine if you'd been Black on top of all that.
Sensibly: privilege means having a right, advantage, or benefit that isn't available to others. It doesn't mean you're better off than most people, because the same person can have both privilege and disadvantage. White people are privileged because there is more racism against non-Whites. Men are privileged because there is more sexism against women.
In some circumstances, you can find female privilege. In others, male privilege. Circumstances matter too.
So that's the concept.
You're right to feel angry at the idea that you are "privileged" because you can list a whole swathe of disadvantages. But you shouldn't feel angry at the concept of privilege because it is real and it applies in complex ways. Most people benefit from a privilege and suffer disadvantage at the same time. And too often privilege as a concept is used to minimise or ignore disadvantage. People should stop doing that, but the concept has its uses when not abused in that way.
But you and your lefty cohort keep telling me I was privileged somehow because I am white....where is this privilege you speak of for me...why should I feel guilty for being white and privileged?
I didn't say you should feel guilty. I'm not a lefty. I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
How aboutthe white people whi are denied the chance to interview for jobs because panels need at least one ethnic minority, for example?
It's not obvious that, when controlled for wealth, your life chances are impacted by being non-white. Certainly starting out poor, or the child of a single parent, is a far greater disadvantage.
"White people face less racial prejudice"
I did not say White people face no racial prejudice.
Other factors like family background, wealth may well be sources of profound privilege or disadvantage, yes, of course.
We need to be honest about the advantages and disadvantages we have faced in our lives, but the human brain plays this little trick where it diminishes advantages and magnifies disadvantages. This is a classic in the psychology canon and if you have time look into it because it's fascinating. But what it means is we find it very difficult to admit privilege, and much easier to admit hardships (especially if we feel we've overcome them).
That's why thinking in terms of privilege is important and valuable. It gives us a framework to overcome that psychological flaw that we (mostly? all?) have. It helps remind us to be honest with ourselves about our advantages and disadvantages. Done well, it's about building empathy. Done badly, it's just another stick to beat someone else down.
Listen to your own words....you are automatically calling me privileged because I am white....do you think when fighting my way out I didn't for example face prejudice for having a thick cornish accent or people interviewing me picking up I failed all my exams first time round where being academic got you a playground beating every fucking day.
So you have privileges and disadvantages. Just like most people. You might find your disadvantages outweigh your privilege and that's your call to make, not mine.
It is my call, I dont regard myself as either disadvantaged or privileged however. It is fuckwits like you I object to calling me privileged. Just like I am sure their are many poc's also thinking people like you calling them disadvantaged.
We can all sit and whine and say its not my fault. I fought my way up so did many poc people. We got where we are by trying to be better, not because we were privileged or disadvantaged but because we tried.
Is there privilege....certainly there are people that get a free ride.....however that is neither the vast majority of white people. It is the people who have parents with contacts....you find it a lot in for example the charity sector where people have moved from uni to a charity job to a management position in a charity or quango with no real work ever done....guess what they are mostly left leaning
I mean, you have a spent an awful lot of time over several posts listing out the things that held you back (at least for a while; you now seem to be a thriving and well-adjusted person), so it's a little surprising to hear you say you don't feel disadvantaged by these disadvantages. I do wonder why you spent so long talking about them then.
I don't feel disadvantaged because I saw those things as my problem not a society needs to fix these things for me. I fixed them for myself I worked hard to educate myself and work my way into better jobs rather than whinge about it and say society owes me because I was disadvantaged.....plenty of poc people have done the same....their reward is people like you and Rupa Huq labelling them as "well they are really white"
Comments
No one is going to pay that much to burn it in a power station. You can get far cheaper coal for that.
The reserves they are mining are also tiny compared to the energy requirements of the country.
If Starmer and Reeves get inflation and the cost of living down, don't raise taxes too high and control strikes then the new Labour government may well be in power a decade or more. If they don't the Tory Opposition will see a quick revival, even more so if Starmer tries imposing development targets all over the greenbelt
They all say the same thing: coal is the most expensive part of their generating portfolio, and they are investing in wind and natural gas. And the gap in pricing is not trivial. New coal (and bear in mind that coal in the US is dramatically cheaper than in the UK) is around $83/MWh. Onshore wind and gas are about $40 before any subsidy or tax credits.
But don't take my word for it, look at this chart produced by the US electricty companies themselves:
On the other hand that's also coincided with his becoming very old. Isn't he about 95 ?
Were Hunt to bequeath Reeves an improving economy and were she not to make a horlicks of it (not guaranteed by any stretch), the Shadow Chancellor would have a tough life.
It took a long time after 1997 for the Conservatives to develop a credible alternative approach.
You can't just put any coal in any coal fired power station, because different coals burn at different temperatures, and need to be setup to deal with the amount of sulfur/etc.
But his political work is worth reading because there is some truth in it - he was good at demonstrating that our government were not benevolent in a way that we used to believe. Where I departed from him was that he was too benevolent and sympathetic towards other governments like China, Iran, Russia etc and was willing to just give them a free pass and regard their atrocities as someone else's problem.
The millennials staying relatively left is as much a product of the necessary statistical counterbalancing to a rapid lurch rightwards of the boomers as it is a leftward trend in the millennials themselves
A libertarian socialist, or peaceful anarchist, as he always calls himself.
Then they aren’t.
So I was expecting a polemical tour de force from Chomsky. And sure enough he gave a good ten minutes to talking about the iniquities of US policy on Iraq.
But then he changed topic on to what seemed his much more favoured topic. The iniquities of western policy towards Serbia. That poor misunderstood Balkan country, all they did was a bit of anti imperialist ethnic cleansing to defend themselves and now the West had Serbian blood on their hands. And how Russia would always stick up for Serbia. Russia which the West just misunderstood and underestimated.
I raised an objection muttering some question about war crimes and was waved away dismissively and a little patronisingly. Poor young Englishman, I’d been drinking too much BBC propaganda.
Revealed his true colours that night, our Noam.
Now, the hope is that a few subsidies right now will lead to lower long-term prices (and that's probably right), but right now, it isn't really economic.
Where in your table is the required back up generation and storage taken into account in the case of the weather dependent renewables?
Not so much the Kosovan war, though, I would say. The upcoming trial of the former President of Kosovo, former head of the KLA, pillar of Western policy and former friend of Blair, is receiving almost no coverage in the European press, as I've pointed out many times here on PB.
That's your backup.
You can build more than *five* new gas plants for the price of one new coal plant. And your operating costs are dramatically lower for the gas plant too, because you don't have to deal with disposing of ash, or maintaining those conveyer belts. You can also can turn the things on and off without it dramatically shortening their life spans. (Thanks thermal expansion and contraction!)
If you look at the UK, you can take those US numbers, and you can treble or quadruple the fuel cost. That's why I (and anyone else who has ever financed a power plant) stays well away from coal.
I also don’t think it means a pro-Serb take on Kosovo is remotely right. They were the ultra nationalist aggressor crushing an insurgency. It was perhaps closer to Assad vs the Syrian rebels or Israel vs the Palestinians, or indeed Britain versus the 1916 Easter uprising, but it’s still clear who the imperialists were.
I looked at spareroom in my town because I was thinking of getting a lodger, the rooms start at £400 but most decent rooms are about £600.
We've spent too much money on off shore wind (because there are fewer NIMBY objections) and too much on HPC. Which means our consumers and businesses will be paying the price as far as higher electricity prices.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/football/65430666
There's quite a curious book that Chomsky endorsed on that second war, by Diana Johnstone, which at that time made him even more persona non grata. The only problem is that some of its central claims, combined unfortunately will the reprehensible relative turning of a blind eye to atrocities from the Serb side in it, have turned out to be correct. Thaci was the leader, essentially of the entire KLA movement, and is shortly to go on trial for mass murder and harvesting the organs of Serb prisoners.
You have no argument at all from me on gas being way better and cheaper than coal - but Farooq and I were talking about wind vs. coal.
I also don't really take your point about not burning metallurgical coal in a coal-fired station. Metallurgical coal is a high quality product that burns hotter and with less ash than thermal coal. There is no theoretical impediment; it's not usually done because it's underselling the coal. Drax has adjusted to a lot of things - it's burning US wood pellets currently.
I'm not a lefty.
I explained above where your privilege is: your life outcomes would (on average) be worse if you weren't White because White people face less racial prejudice than non-White people.
Possibly a case of too many amateur property developers going in to HMO's ?
But I have been worrying that only the extreme effects of the Ukraine war have made wind look cost effective.
A link to the data would be useful though.
It's not obvious that, when controlled for wealth, your life chances are impacted by being non-white. Certainly starting out poor, or the child of a single parent, is a far greater disadvantage.
Certainly not an Executive Home on a farmer's field.
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1608746369505976323?t=YkFuVjF2LvsRJr1GX2i1MA&s=19
The line from the Conservative leader and his deputy seems to be "there are 22 of us, there are 23 of you but we should be in charge". Almost National Conservative in its thinking.
I did not say White people face no racial prejudice.
Other factors like family background, wealth may well be sources of profound privilege or disadvantage, yes, of course.
We need to be honest about the advantages and disadvantages we have faced in our lives, but the human brain plays this little trick where it diminishes advantages and magnifies disadvantages. This is a classic in the psychology canon and if you have time look into it because it's fascinating. But what it means is we find it very difficult to admit privilege, and much easier to admit hardships (especially if we feel we've overcome them).
That's why thinking in terms of privilege is important and valuable. It gives us a framework to overcome that psychological flaw that we (mostly? all?) have. It helps remind us to be honest with ourselves about our advantages and disadvantages. Done well, it's about building empathy. Done badly, it's just another stick to beat someone else down.
We are the masses
You are a mob
They are a horde
Has anyone read it?
We have an ageing population, which is a drag on productivity. The answers to this are either: 1) increase birth rates - which is incredibly hard and slow to reap reward, 2) retain high levels of net migration, or 3) choose the Japanese model of managed decline.
Inertia will mean we end up choosing option 2. Lots of people want to come to live here to work or study. And we have lots of gaps in our jobs market, both skilled and unskilled. And it's a lot easier for politicians than saying companies can go bust if they can't hire domestically, or in the NHS's case just fail to deliver, which is the alternative.
There's many advantages of stopping your population pyramid from inverting too much, as many other countries will struggle under option 3. In practice, if not in rhetoric, this is the way forward chosen by all major parties. But if we are going to do this - we need to build a lot more houses, infrastructure etc to support it. An expansion of London - both proper and the commuter belt towns - is the most economically efficient way to do this. Other areas of the country should of course also be offered the same flexibility (and infrastructure investment).
Encouraging more construction also has the benefit of boosting economic growth and being privately financed. It really is a no-brainer one you get past the Nimby coalition.
We can all sit and whine and say its not my fault. I fought my way up so did many poc people. We got where we are by trying to be better, not because we were privileged or disadvantaged but because we tried.
Is there privilege....certainly there are people that get a free ride.....however that is neither the vast majority of white people. It is the people who have parents with contacts....you find it a lot in for example the charity sector where people have moved from uni to a charity job to a management position in a charity or quango with no real work ever done....guess what they are mostly left leaning
And you want to emphasise your disadvantages and not other people's.
This is all very normal.
Otherwise add the Capex and Opex of CCS.
Either way, coal is totally fucked, but CCGT doesn't look so great either.
Cheap houses generates cash that would result in productive spending that would create actual growth.
Given the correct dataset I reckon it would be very easy to mathmatically prove that our dire growth is due to stupidly high house prices destroying any opportunity for people to take risks...
I am no longer in the jam class....many of my friends however still are. I know how much these tiny changes (to people who post here) affect them
Congratulations @Pulpstar and good luck for the final
It just always leaves an open door, and an open goal, for the more noxious and toxic strands of the populist right to make hay with.
Privilege is not a colour issue it is a who your parents know issue
Offshore wind was £38/MWh in the last auction. Cheaper than gas.
20 years ago I was earning £790 a month as an office temp (after tax etc) and spending £280 on rent before bills, and commuting to work every day by bus. It is hard to conclude that things have got much worse objectively.
If we want to do anything with such locations then rewild them if they are not needed for agriculture.