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Starmer’s big tent politics just keeps getting bigger and bigger – politicalbetting.com
Starmer’s big tent politics just keeps getting bigger and bigger – politicalbetting.com
?The shocking moment it's revealed Dover MP Natalie Elphicke has defected to Labour moments before #PMQs ?That's two MPs defecting to Labour in less than 2 weeks pic.twitter.com/CMBEsUOJKd
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I don't think the scope of Sir Keir Starmer's ambition has been properly appreciated. He is doing nothing to give the Tories a USP, everything to cause apathy in their base. Working backwards from his tactics, his primary goal must be to eviscerate the Tories in the next Parliament.
Me
SKS had a slight problem with small boats but the MP for the area most impacted regards him and Labour as having better solutions than the Tory party she was a member of until today
So another possible USP for the Tory party is lost
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_team#History
As posted above the whole point is to remove any reason for a Tory voter to go out and vote on a cold wet winter night
And there the Republican government has been very hands off: there's been very little economic support for solar or wind. And none at all for batteries.
But it turns out that economics trumps all. In Texas, batteries charge most of the day and night, and then discharge in the evenings. It's a more spread out chart than the California one, but they are definitely playing their role. (Fwiw, that peak 2GW of battery production at 8pm on Thursday 28th is equivalent to half of all the nuclear production in the UK.)
The UK's power mix will look more like Texas's. And - fwiw - the cost of new wind turbines, while it is falling, is coming down nowhere near as quickly as solar.
But the thing is the price of declines. Solar was wildly uneconomic in the UK when it was $1 watt for panel prices - perhaps 10x the cost of alternative generation. But we're now at $0.16. We're now only at 60% more than alternative generation sources. The price will go to $0.10. And then $0.05.
But lower panel prices are the inexorable consequence of technological progress. Solar will, eventually, be the cheapest form of electricity generation in the UK. And it will (eventually) make economic sense to have panels everywhere, and batteries to store the reserve overnight.
@Parody_PM
Very worrying to see Natalie Elphicke defect to Labour. What is to become of the Tory Party if Labour are now the natural home for morally bankrupt, immigration-hating, hard right entitled fuckwits?
#PMQs
And he's managed to get her to defect without promising her a safe seat or a peerage, so she basically disappears after fulfilling her purpose of making Sunak look weak, making Labour look moderate and disarming attacks on Labour as weak in immigration - that's now a no score draw.
What policy area should we anticipate another defection in relation to?
blue is gas, green is wind, grey is nuclear
(from https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/historical)
Now the maths just about works but it's 40% of the return on just getting batteries and buying all my energy at the offpeak EV rates (pay back point for batteries is 4 years, solar is 10).
This is the UK over the last 24 hours
If you go back to the darkest day (boom boom) of December, you would probably find UK generating around 1-1.5GW, because solar plants do work (albeit at much lower efficiency) even when the sun is occluded.
Fortunately, the times of year when the sun is shining least tend to have decent amounts of wind. And, similarly, when the sun is shining, it is likely due to a high pressure formation, and therefore wind levels are lower.
So there is some natural offsetting that takes place.
But I think the obsession with net zero is an error. We should keep gas plants for those days when the sun isn't shining and the wing isn't blowing.
We can get to net down 80% really easily, simply by continuing to build out solar and wind, and by the natural increase in the penetration of electric cars. The last 20% will be much harder.
But better to get the easy 80% done, and done without affecting living standards, than to die on the hill of net zero and end up with net nothing. Because when you demand hair shirts, you get a backlash.
Let's lock in the 80%, and then we can worry about the next 20%. And it may well come from places - like lab grown meat rather than farm reared- that we never even thought about.
And this isn't a small change, it's a massive one.
TRUSS.
https://twitter.com/NatalieElphicke/status/1556195356358180866
This is the problem the UK faces. We have a media that is so right wing and has a grasp on those >50+ that political parties feel the need to pander to it despite the fact that we are in fucking ruin because of the last decade and a half of real time cuts to services and wages.
Clever.
Plus that's why I've focused on building integrated solar: if you're building a house or shopping center or parking garage or office today, then the labour increase is negligible, given you're building a roof in the first place.
The other massive thing that's coming is solar roof tiles that are entirely compatible with existing tiles. You simply replace your slate or tiles with ones that connect to each other on the edges and generate power. There is no additional installation cost, beyond connecting them at the edge to an inverter.
Edit: and someone will now say you can by a Nissan Teeny Weeny for ten grand which fits you and your miniature Schnauzer in and that's it.
On the same day it readmits Kate Osamor (that wouldnt have happened without the NOM voteshare at LE2024)
And we also shouldn't focus just on the number of new cars being sold. The proportion of the vehicle fleet that is electric is continuing to rise.
Common Sense group have their weekly drinks tonight, so they are calling it ‘leaving drinks’ 🍹
You, the noble people of Dover, gatekeepers to our country for centuries, have been hoodwinked in a despicable Labour plot to stop us stopping the boats on your very own doorstep, selected in your own polling stations.”
Etc.
https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-jfk-airport-construction-sets-record-mwbe-participation-23-billion
Governor Kathy Hochul today announced a historic milestone in the ongoing transformation of JFK International Airport, where a record $2.3 billion in contracts have been awarded to Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises (MWBE).
To increase MWBE participation at the JFK Redevelopment Program, and across the agency, the Port Authority and its private terminal partners at JFK hosted a variety of capacity-building and technical training programs that prepared firms to be successful in navigating what can at times be complex airport-related procurements. These programs include an academy for principals at architecture and engineering firms, contractor coaching programs that train firms to apply for contracts and construction mentoring programs that recruit, train and mentor MWBE firms to bid on large public construction projects, and project readiness bootcamps. The redevelopment team has also sponsored hundreds of seminars, webinars and forums to help firms become MWBE certified, meet and network with prime contractors, and build the skill sets needed to be successful in the field.
Just as there's a curve for solar panel prices, there's a curve for EV batteries. Every year the components that make up electric cars get cheaper. That's simply not true - or at least not to the same extent - with traditional ICE cars.
That means that - sure - today *new* electric cars are not competitive for 60% of the UK market for new cars. But next year the price of a new electric car of specification x will have fallen 10%, while the equivalent petrol powered car will only be down 2%.
Every year the proportion of people for whom electric cars are appropriate rises. And eventually it will be close to 100%. Because that is the nature of technological change.
But that will change.
https://bookmygarage.com/electric-vehicles/how-much-does-an-electric-battery-cost-uk/
v interesting programme.
And as someone who has just ordered an electric mobility scooter, I’m tempted by a Leaf!
I think the problem is more that you have more or less no idea of the battery's actual health when you buy a used EV, so most people don't want to buy a used EV, lest they be lumped with an 8k bill a year into purchase. Which means resale values are through the floor, which means people aren't choosing to purchase them new.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) had forecast at the start of the year that 24 per cent of all new cars registered would be zero-emission vehicles.
The SMMT now believes less than one fifth, or 19.8 per cent, of new sales this year will be electric cars.
The zero-emission vehicle mandate has already led to some manufacturers offering discounts. Notably Stellantis, the company behind Vauxhall, Peugeot, Citroen and Fiat, slashed prices by up to 20 per cent to boost sales and hit their targets.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/uk-motor-trade-slashes-sales-forecasts-for-electric-cars-vxgz0707z
At what point in your opinion are people behaving like this merely acting as democratic politicians? Has Labour really done enough to cut this cancer out of its party and claim a changed party, merely by suspending Corbyn and Abbott to not stand for them at next General Election 🤷♀️
I’m clearly not as dopey as many other posters!
Such a strange, affected thing to say
Welcome, @NatalieElphicke, Labour’s new MP for Dover and Deal.
I am proud to lead a changed Labour Party that is back in service of working people.
https://x.com/keir_starmer/status/1788214011005182092?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
That's now started to unwind: electricity per KWh is down substantially and forecourt prices are rising.
There are also many people - myself included, with my now quite old Zoe - who are waiting for the next wave of EVs to come onstream so there's more choice and higher range.
Marr: "... you would like to see an arms embargo in due course?"
Parker: "Absolutely."
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/rafah-border-crossing-israel-richard-parker-labour/
The First Minister speaking about his cabinet outside Bute House
He’s also addressing the concerns of the LGBT community following the appointment of Kate Forbes as Deputy First Minister
I still strongly believe that Labour are the only realistic choice for the country now, and I cannot support the Tories. But in moves like the defection I do fear that Starmer is starting to look like the same boss as before, his pitch simply being that he’ll manage things a bit more competently.
Starmer is not going to be able to be all things to all people eventually. To govern is to choose. Will we get any kind of idea what choice that will be before we vote, or is that choice going to be made after the event? I do not really relish the idea of voting and not knowing what flavour of government I am going to get.
Of course, May's Conservatives still won.. sort of, and so will Starmer. Sunak's best case scenario is a small Labour majority rather than a large one.
Nevertheless, a coalition of voters this diverse will splinter at some point. May's gradually withered during the long 2017 General Election campaign, but I think Starmer's voter coalition will stay unified and strong ('strong and stable'?) at least until the votes are counted in the next General Election. There is also no guarantee that, when it eventually splinters, this is the benefit of the Conservatives over certain other parties.
That said... given we're now under £70/MWh, the electricity retailers need to start reducing their prices. They are going to be making out like total banditos this year.
A minority owned business gets the work - but all the actual work and money gets funnelled through it to the usual suspects, via contracting the actual work out.
It does help with building the pyramid of contracts that are contracted out to other contractors who contract out - which helps increase costs and reduce accountability.
The reason that the contracts go to big companies is that the preference by government for One Big Contract and needing a contractor that can survive the financial problems of dealing with government.
But at the same time, it didn't have the big advantages of an electric car. There was no additional storage space. Acceleration was meh. Maintenance costs were just as high as a petrol powered car.
We sold it, and went all electric.
Anyway, I notice that as long ago as November 2016 - 15 November to be precise - I wrote a header about robots and A* (sorry @TSE). And the implications, especially for middle class professionals.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/11/15/the-robots-are-coming/
I only mention it to tease @Leon, to boast and will now shut up about it.
The country’s problems will not be fixed overnight simply by planning reform, as good a policy as that might be. We need some more meat on the bones, but also a real understanding that we need change. It’s what the country wants and needs, it’s time to emphasise that. It’s not just about the Tories being useless at governing, it’s the fact that their policies don’t work, and won’t work.
Robert F Kennedy Jr says health issue caused by dead worm in his brain
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/08/robert-f-kennedy-jr-worm-brain
Hence US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Cancun).
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1788244974535897233?s=19
As if anyone will believe he has a brain.