One thing to pick up on from the last thread about fuel shortages - is it just my imagination, or are the roads a lot quieter in the last couple of weeks?
I've heard similar from other people, though I haven't been on the roads enough to judge. I can tell that people are driving more slowly though.
It's quieter here. It'll may be a bad summer for domestic tourism and leisure.
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
As various commentators have pointed out, the Iran war is a catastrofuck for the global economy, and we are in a worse place than most developed countries.
If the war ended definitively tomorrow the disruption would last well into the summer - but with an upward slope to offset the low stocks and high prices. But it rumbles on and the stand off continues to get worse. So the disruption will turn into outright shortages with all that entails.
Chatting with my brother last night about this and he said "you're driving to Spain [this summer] aren't you?" True - but taking the ship on the way south. Already contemplating a late switch to driving due to a lack of fuel...
Ship to Santander? Santander bars and restaurants are good and very good value compared to San Sebastian, it also has lovely swimming beaches inside the inlet and surfing on the ocean beaches.
Brittany Ferries run sleeper ferry routes to Santander and Bilbao. Which would you say is the nicer town for a week's holiday
My wife went to uni in Bilbao for a year on her undergrad... We went for a week as part of our Honeymoon trip. I didn't expect much after the prior stops being Biarritz then San Seb, but I was pleasantly surprised. Much more industrial but had a great buzz about the place.
Security vetting apparently considered Mandelson a "borderline" case, and concluded that risks could be managed. Their judgment did not relate to anything Epstein.
In his opinion, No10 having already announced the appointment (and the King approved having it) effectively "resulted in a dismissive approach to security vetting" - it would be more accurate, IMO, to say "strongly implied", but YMMV.
Goes on to say that "despite this atmosphere of pressure" the department did the job to "a high standard".
Note that vetting (according to him) isn't pass/fail - it's more of a risk judgment ("this is especially true the more senior a candidate is"). That implies all manner of potential problems, IMO.
Ed is a dick. Possibly a helpful dick on this occasion but a dick nonetheless. When I heard he was Environment Secretary I was worried. Rightly, as it turned out.
He stabbed his brother in the back, stabbing Starmer in the back is no biggie.
He didn't stab his brither in the back, merely ran against him and beat him.
David M showed his complacency and arrogance. I do not think there is a place for primogeniture in democratic politics.
DOI: I am not the oldest brother.
Both OGH and myself have heard independently from people at the top of Labour that this is what happened.
June 2009 - David Miliband was about to resign and challenge Gordon Brown, Ed persuaded him not to, and told him, I will make sure you succeed Brown after the election.
May 2010 Ed Miliband decides to run as Labour leader, not to become leader, but to do well and get a senior shadow cabinet job without it looking as nepotism
Summer of 2010 - Ed decides to run a strong campaign as not to finish second from last.
September 2010 - Wins
David Miliband felt betrayed.
If that is the whole truth then Ed was in the wrong imo.
Both were, if that is correct.
What did David do wrong? Betrayal is perhaps too strong and charged, let down is more balanced, but the definition of betrayal includes let down and people feel what they feel.
Betrayal presumes David was entitled to the leadership and Ed wasn't. Actually Ed is the more competent one.
No it is based on a promise, that was not followed through, and arguably actively opposed. Nothing to do with entitlement.
Ed is a dick. Possibly a helpful dick on this occasion but a dick nonetheless. When I heard he was Environment Secretary I was worried. Rightly, as it turned out.
He stabbed his brother in the back, stabbing Starmer in the back is no biggie.
As subtle as a brick in going about it. Maybe that appeals to the Labour selectorate ?
One thing to pick up on from the last thread about fuel shortages - is it just my imagination, or are the roads a lot quieter in the last couple of weeks?
I've heard similar from other people, though I haven't been on the roads enough to judge. I can tell that people are driving more slowly though.
It's quieter here. It'll may be a bad summer for domestic tourism and leisure.
Or a good one if flights are disrupted but trains are not? I realise many of them run on diesel!
Security vetting apparently considered Mandelson a "borderline" case, and concluded that risks could be managed. Their judgment did not relate to anything Epstein.
In his opinion, No10 having already announced the appointment (and the King approved having it) effectively "resulted in a dismissive approach to security vetting" - it would be more accurate, IMO, to say "strongly implied", but YMMV.
Goes on to say that "despite this atmosphere of pressure" the department did the job to "a high standard".
Note that vetting (according to him) isn't pass/fail - it's more of a risk judgment ("this is especially true the more senior a candidate is"). That implies all manner of potential problems, IMO.
No-one is calling for people who fail vetting to be barred from being PM. Not many, if any are calling for them to be barred from being Foreign Secretary or Defence Secretary. Why is a political appointment to US ambassadorship different?
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
That sounds about right, with the addition that the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible.
The first big problem is likely to be fertiliser for farming, which is needed soon and is unlikely to turn up.
Aviation fuel can be tankered on the plane in extremis, so for example Emirates can fly an A380 from Dubai to London, and back to Dubai without refuelling. Not all routes and planes can do that though, and it adds a fair bit of cost to the trip.
Diesel shortages are the big one as so much logistics relies on it, apart from a few electric vans doing the last mile. A fleet of Tesla Semi trucks pretty much needs its own power station to charge at night.
"the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible"
Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream? That's going to go well...
It just means we will be expected to pay through the nose even more than we do now. How is that going to stack up with South Korea's nuclear power being 1/5th the cost of ours? We are simply not competitive on energy against competitors.
Not cutting corners. Cutting the red tape, which in the case of UK nuclear is absurd.
There's a reason our nuclear costs 4x what it does in S Korea.
We are not going to get anywhere here, this is all Yes Minister stuff.
I don't know, it's clear the vetting was basically a kangaroo court setup from this extraction via the BBC updates:
"He says Starmer had already announced Mandelson as his nominee, the King had been informed, and a due diligence report was already being undertaken by the Cabinet Office.
He says Mandelson already had access to the building and to some IT classifications.
Robbins says there was "already a very very strong expectation" from No 10 that Mandelson "needed to be in post and in America as quickly as possible"."
Off topic, I have just spent the last two weeks in Albania, and have just crossed over into Greece. As some appear to appreciate my occasional observations from my travels, I thought I'd note down a few for your information and entertainment:
- the standard of English is much higher than it was a decade ago when I was last there, and the tourist infrastructure is much more developed - EU flags are everywhere, and the car licence plates look like those EU ones, even down to having a blue circle on the right hand side, over which a sticker of twelve yellow starts can be easily placed once they join. Though given how their negotiations have gone to date, that's clearly the triumph of hope over experience - despite that, there are Russians everywhere and you overhear Russian a lot in the beach towns like Sarande and Durres - many of the young men you talk to have either worked in the UK for their English or would love advice on how to get a visa - the bizarre small concrete bunkers that the Communist regime famously built everywhere and which were totally useless for anything except giving privacy to young couples and growing mushrooms still blot the landscape - they wear their Islam pretty lightly - more so than Turkey these days. Women are almost entirely unveiled, homosexuality is legal and you rarely hear the call to prayer compared with Gulf countries. - there are abandoned houses everywhere, especially in rural areas, symptomatic of a country whose population has fallen from 3.2 million in 1990 to 2.3 million now - the general infrastructure has improved beyond all measure since I was last there, when it was positively African. The traffic is much worse though, especialy in Tirana, where about a third of the population lives - it is still vaguely surreal to see that their Parliament is located on George W Bush street (a legacy of the Kosovo war, which was mostly under Clinton anyway). Foreigners generally name streets after Democratic Presidents (apart from Lincoln) - the people are friendly, the sand is powdery, the historic towns (mostly Turkish) are beautiful, prices are pretty low (I got an extremely satisfactory room in Vlore for €10/night for instance, compared to €50 here in Greece) and the weather is good, so I think it should get rather more tourists than it does
Overall, Albania isn't the most wildly exciting of countries, but I can recommend it for a relaxing beach and mountain fortnight.
One thing to pick up on from the last thread about fuel shortages - is it just my imagination, or are the roads a lot quieter in the last couple of weeks?
Off topic, I have just spent the last two weeks in Albania, and have just crossed over into Greece. As some appear to appreciate my occasional observations from my travels, I thought I'd note down a few for your information and entertainment:
- the standard of English is much higher than it was a decade ago when I was last there, and the tourist infrastructure is much more developed - EU flags are everywhere, and the car licence plates look like those EU ones, even down to having a blue circle on the right hand side, over which a sticker of twelve yellow starts can be easily placed once they join. Though given how their negotiations have gone to date, that's clearly the triumph of hope over experience - despite that, there are Russians everywhere and you overhear Russian a lot in the beach towns like Sarande and Durres - many of the young men you talk to have either worked in the UK for their English or would love advice on how to get a visa - the bizarre small concrete bunkers that the Communist regime famously built everywhere and which were totally useless for anything except giving privacy to young couples and growing mushrooms still blot the landscape - they wear their Islam pretty lightly - more so than Turkey these days. Women are almost entirely unveiled, homosexuality is legal and you rarely hear the call to prayer compared with Gulf countries. - there are abandoned houses everywhere, especially in rural areas, symptomatic of a country whose population has fallen from 3.2 million in 1990 to 2.3 million now - the general infrastructure has improved beyond all measure since I was last there, when it was positively African. The traffic is much worse though, especialy in Tirana, where about a third of the population lives - it is still vaguely surreal to see that their Parliament is located on George W Bush street (a legacy of the Kosovo war, which was mostly under Clinton anyway). Foreigners generally name streets after Democratic Presidents (apart from Lincoln) - the people are friendly, the sand is powdery, the historic towns (mostly Turkish) are beautiful, prices are pretty low (I got an extremely satisfactory room in Vlore for €10/night for instance, compared to €50 here in Greece) and the weather is good, so I think it should get rather more tourists than it does
Overall, Albania isn't the most wildly exciting of countries, but I can recommend it for a relaxing beach and mountain fortnight.
Presumably an awful lot of doer-uppers in those rural areas....
One thing to pick up on from the last thread about fuel shortages - is it just my imagination, or are the roads a lot quieter in the last couple of weeks?
I've heard similar from other people, though I haven't been on the roads enough to judge. I can tell that people are driving more slowly though.
It's quieter here. It'll may be a bad summer for domestic tourism and leisure.
Or a good one if flights are disrupted but trains are not? I realise many of them run on diesel!
I wondered myself if this would lead to more holidays being taken in the UK, similar to what happened in 2021. Even youngsters hired camper vans and stayed in the UK. A lot will depend on how restricted aviation fuel becomes
On the roads, yes they definitely seem quieter, mind you the weather has been miserable up until the last few days
Do senior civil servants talk like this 24/7....want a pint Olly down the pub....well Francis, let me put this way, the Office for Pint Procurement doesn't work that way, so if I may, let me lay out the terms of reference for Pint Procurement. No pints were presented to me or have I previous asked to be presented with a pint. However, a member of the team in another public house may have also contact me about the possibly of pint procurement, now I didn't get into the civil service to say who the member of said team was.
One thing to pick up on from the last thread about fuel shortages - is it just my imagination, or are the roads a lot quieter in the last couple of weeks?
I've heard similar from other people, though I haven't been on the roads enough to judge. I can tell that people are driving more slowly though.
It's quieter here. It'll may be a bad summer for domestic tourism and leisure.
I don’t have the utter hatred for Ed M the way much of PB does. I think he’s basically a decent guy and beyond North Sea oil his analysis of where we need to go energy wise is correct.
But he lost an election. He can’t possibly run again.
In any case as I’ve said repeatedly, the error was appointing Mandelson. No amount of legal arguing or process stuff is going to change that error.
One thing to pick up on from the last thread about fuel shortages - is it just my imagination, or are the roads a lot quieter in the last couple of weeks?
I've heard similar from other people, though I haven't been on the roads enough to judge. I can tell that people are driving more slowly though.
It's quieter here. It'll may be a bad summer for domestic tourism and leisure.
Rather hope so, for this weekend at least. We've got a 3.5 hour round trip to a funeral on Friday, largely along the M25. At least the weather looks OK.
Labour MP Sarah Champion tells the Today programme: “I’ll be honest with you, people don’t like Keir on the door. But it’s not about this Mandelson thing, they don’t like him personally.”
One thing to pick up on from the last thread about fuel shortages - is it just my imagination, or are the roads a lot quieter in the last couple of weeks?
Roadworks round this way make it a place from which drivers are steering well clear anyway!
Labour MP Sarah Champion tells the Today programme: “I’ll be honest with you, people don’t like Keir on the door. But it’s not about this Mandelson thing, they don’t like him personally.”
He wrote to the committee that as he received his termination notice he may need to be cautious on his response
I wait to see the outcome but beyond process it is clear Starmer appointed Mandelson with a cavalier attitude to vetting
Of course! Mandelson is a wrong un. No-one would have appointed him and thought vetting important. Indeed if he passed vetting Starmer should be more concerned about what is going wrong in the vetting department.
Off topic, I have just spent the last two weeks in Albania, and have just crossed over into Greece. As some appear to appreciate my occasional observations from my travels, I thought I'd note down a few for your information and entertainment:
- the standard of English is much higher than it was a decade ago when I was last there, and the tourist infrastructure is much more developed - EU flags are everywhere, and the car licence plates look like those EU ones, even down to having a blue circle on the right hand side, over which a sticker of twelve yellow starts can be easily placed once they join. Though given how their negotiations have gone to date, that's clearly the triumph of hope over experience - despite that, there are Russians everywhere and you overhear Russian a lot in the beach towns like Sarande and Durres - many of the young men you talk to have either worked in the UK for their English or would love advice on how to get a visa - the bizarre small concrete bunkers that the Communist regime famously built everywhere and which were totally useless for anything except giving privacy to young couples and growing mushrooms still blot the landscape - they wear their Islam pretty lightly - more so than Turkey these days. Women are almost entirely unveiled, homosexuality is legal and you rarely hear the call to prayer compared with Gulf countries. - there are abandoned houses everywhere, especially in rural areas, symptomatic of a country whose population has fallen from 3.2 million in 1990 to 2.3 million now - the general infrastructure has improved beyond all measure since I was last there, when it was positively African. The traffic is much worse though, especialy in Tirana, where about a third of the population lives - it is still vaguely surreal to see that their Parliament is located on George W Bush street (a legacy of the Kosovo war, which was mostly under Clinton anyway). Foreigners generally name streets after Democratic Presidents (apart from Lincoln) - the people are friendly, the sand is powdery, the historic towns (mostly Turkish) are beautiful, prices are pretty low (I got an extremely satisfactory room in Vlore for €10/night for instance, compared to €50 here in Greece) and the weather is good, so I think it should get rather more tourists than it does
Overall, Albania isn't the most wildly exciting of countries, but I can recommend it for a relaxing beach and mountain fortnight.
We went to Albania a few years ago to attend a friend's wedding and have a beach holiday and we absolutely loved it. We were travelling with small children and I don't think I've ever been anywhere more warm and welcoming to children and families.
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
That sounds about right, with the addition that the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible.
The first big problem is likely to be fertiliser for farming, which is needed soon and is unlikely to turn up.
Aviation fuel can be tankered on the plane in extremis, so for example Emirates can fly an A380 from Dubai to London, and back to Dubai without refuelling. Not all routes and planes can do that though, and it adds a fair bit of cost to the trip.
Diesel shortages are the big one as so much logistics relies on it, apart from a few electric vans doing the last mile. A fleet of Tesla Semi trucks pretty much needs its own power station to charge at night.
"the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible"
Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream? That's going to go well...
It just means we will be expected to pay through the nose even more than we do now. How is that going to stack up with South Korea's nuclear power being 1/5th the cost of ours? We are simply not competitive on energy against competitors.
Not cutting corners. Cutting the red tape, which in the case of UK nuclear is absurd.
There's a reason our nuclear costs 4x what it does in S Korea.
Of all industries, I am most releaxed about nuclear having "absurd" levels of red tape. How many million people have to be evacuated if even a mini-nuke goes wayward? The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history, and one of the worst in the world. There's a reason we need that red tape.
He wrote to the committee that as he received his termination notice he may need to be cautious on his response
I wait to see the outcome but beyond process it is clear Starmer appointed Mandelson with a cavalier attitude to vetting
Of course! Mandelson is a wrong un. No-one would have appointed him and thought vetting important. Indeed if he passed vetting Starmer should be more concerned about what is going wrong in the vetting department.
All this is just confirming what PB said and what the media said before they changed their mind: everyone knew Mandelson was dodgy as hell and was a snake but they thought that could all be managed on the basis he’d get close to Trump.
They took a calculated risk and it failed spectacularly. A risk I don’t think they needed to take but that is what they did.
We are not going to get anywhere here, this is all Yes Minister stuff.
I don't know, it's clear the vetting was basically a kangaroo court setup from this extraction via the BBC updates:
"He says Starmer had already announced Mandelson as his nominee, the King had been informed, and a due diligence report was already being undertaken by the Cabinet Office.
He says Mandelson already had access to the building and to some IT classifications.
Robbins says there was "already a very very strong expectation" from No 10 that Mandelson "needed to be in post and in America as quickly as possible"."
It's enough for me to show Starmer should be out.
Is it ?
To me, the blackest mark against Mandelson was his relationship with Epstein (which is was forced his resignation). UKSV was apparently (according to Robbins' letter) not particularly concerned about that. Which is quite extraordinary to me.
This was the initial briefing he received: ..He was given a verbal briefing by the Foreign Office’s security team and told that UKSV considered Mandelson’s case to be “borderline”, although if the decision was UKSV’s, it was likely to oppose giving him clearance. Robbins assessed the “outstanding risks” and concluded that they could be mitigated....
I think Robbins is perhaps making more of the implied pressure from No.10, in his own interest, than is warranted by the facts.
To be clear, Starmer ought never to have appointed Mandelson in the first place. But the vetting malarkey seems a very murky sideshow to that.
Labour MP Sarah Champion tells the Today programme: “I’ll be honest with you, people don’t like Keir on the door. But it’s not about this Mandelson thing, they don’t like him personally.”
This is why I didn't vote for him as leader. I met him. He wasn't likeable! And almost all politicians you meet are likeable. This is a low bar, and he didn't meet it.
Olly R now saying "we were dealing with hundreds of cases all the time, so this one was missing focus". Does not exactly add up, when No 10 were phoning up every day.
And "no I won't tell you whether there was anything in there that was not in the public domain, because it will lead to a storm of questions" (which Emily T has said won't be asked).
He's like a greased piglet, and needs a bunsen burner on his undercarriage.
Labour MP Sarah Champion tells the Today programme: “I’ll be honest with you, people don’t like Keir on the door. But it’s not about this Mandelson thing, they don’t like him personally.”
This is why I didn't vote for him as leader. I met him. He wasn't likeable! And almost all politicians you meet are likeable. This is a low bar, and he didn't meet it.
He isn't really a politician. We talk about wanting people who have done something outside of politics but he's not a great advert for that.
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
That sounds about right, with the addition that the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible.
The first big problem is likely to be fertiliser for farming, which is needed soon and is unlikely to turn up.
Aviation fuel can be tankered on the plane in extremis, so for example Emirates can fly an A380 from Dubai to London, and back to Dubai without refuelling. Not all routes and planes can do that though, and it adds a fair bit of cost to the trip.
Diesel shortages are the big one as so much logistics relies on it, apart from a few electric vans doing the last mile. A fleet of Tesla Semi trucks pretty much needs its own power station to charge at night.
"the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible"
Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream? That's going to go well...
It just means we will be expected to pay through the nose even more than we do now. How is that going to stack up with South Korea's nuclear power being 1/5th the cost of ours? We are simply not competitive on energy against competitors.
Not cutting corners. Cutting the red tape, which in the case of UK nuclear is absurd.
There's a reason our nuclear costs 4x what it does in S Korea.
Of all industries, I am most releaxed about nuclear having "absurd" levels of red tape. How many million people have to be evacuated if even a mini-nuke goes wayward? The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history, and one of the worst in the world. There's a reason we need that red tape.
That's because you're assuming the huge planning morass around UK nuclear serves to improve safety. It really does not do that.
Rather it makes the power companies go through the same thing several times, at huge expense, with nothing added by the repetition.
Security vetting apparently considered Mandelson a "borderline" case, and concluded that risks could be managed. Their judgment did not relate to anything Epstein.
In his opinion, No10 having already announced the appointment (and the King approved having it) effectively "resulted in a dismissive approach to security vetting" - it would be more accurate, IMO, to say "strongly implied", but YMMV.
Goes on to say that "despite this atmosphere of pressure" the department did the job to "a high standard".
Note that vetting (according to him) isn't pass/fail - it's more of a risk judgment ("this is especially true the more senior a candidate is"). That implies all manner of potential problems, IMO.
If "vetting isn't...pass/fail" then it isn't vetting. It's two-handed economists again.
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
That sounds about right, with the addition that the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible.
The first big problem is likely to be fertiliser for farming, which is needed soon and is unlikely to turn up.
Aviation fuel can be tankered on the plane in extremis, so for example Emirates can fly an A380 from Dubai to London, and back to Dubai without refuelling. Not all routes and planes can do that though, and it adds a fair bit of cost to the trip.
Diesel shortages are the big one as so much logistics relies on it, apart from a few electric vans doing the last mile. A fleet of Tesla Semi trucks pretty much needs its own power station to charge at night.
"the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible"
Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream? That's going to go well...
It just means we will be expected to pay through the nose even more than we do now. How is that going to stack up with South Korea's nuclear power being 1/5th the cost of ours? We are simply not competitive on energy against competitors.
SMR I think really is industry capture. There's nothing slightly resembling a business plan behind it. Just vague suggestions you get costs down by doing lots of them and you don't need to worry about the things that make nuclear power so expensive. And so they get government to fund a pilot project presumably in the hope it will be too difficult to cancel. After which they just build a couple of them because actually solar plus battery is vastly cheaper. We will end up paying for it in our energy bills for the next forty years.
So far everyone that was at least Starmer minded says Robbins is doing badly and all those saying Starmer is terrible are saying Robbins is doing well.
One thing to pick up on from the last thread about fuel shortages - is it just my imagination, or are the roads a lot quieter in the last couple of weeks?
I've heard similar from other people, though I haven't been on the roads enough to judge. I can tell that people are driving more slowly though.
It's quieter here. It'll may be a bad summer for domestic tourism and leisure.
Or a good one if flights are disrupted but trains are not? I realise many of them run on diesel!
I wondered myself if this would lead to more holidays being taken in the UK, similar to what happened in 2021. Even youngsters hired camper vans and stayed in the UK. A lot will depend on how restricted aviation fuel becomes
On the roads, yes they definitely seem quieter, mind you the weather has been miserable up until the last few days
I drove to Oxford and back at the weekend, the roads seemed no different to usual TBH. We are having our summer holiday in the UK as we usually do. But we had a big overseas trip over Easter already, luckily booked before the current craziness.
So far everyone that was at least Starmer minded says Robbins is doing badly and all those saying Starmer is terrible are saying Robbins is doing well.
I await the verdict post the meeting but it is inescapable that Mandelson was in post before this
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
That sounds about right, with the addition that the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible.
The first big problem is likely to be fertiliser for farming, which is needed soon and is unlikely to turn up.
Aviation fuel can be tankered on the plane in extremis, so for example Emirates can fly an A380 from Dubai to London, and back to Dubai without refuelling. Not all routes and planes can do that though, and it adds a fair bit of cost to the trip.
Diesel shortages are the big one as so much logistics relies on it, apart from a few electric vans doing the last mile. A fleet of Tesla Semi trucks pretty much needs its own power station to charge at night.
"the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible"
Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream? That's going to go well...
It just means we will be expected to pay through the nose even more than we do now. How is that going to stack up with South Korea's nuclear power being 1/5th the cost of ours? We are simply not competitive on energy against competitors.
SMR I think really is industry capture. There's nothing slightly resembling a business plan behind it. Just vague suggestions you get costs down by doing lots of them and you don't need to worry about the things that make nuclear power so expensive. And so they get government to fund a pilot project presumably in the hope it will be too difficult to cancel. After which they just build a couple of them because actually solar plus battery is vastly cheaper. We will end up paying for it in our energy bills for the next forty years.
Trump's Labor Secretary has been "resigned". Lori Chavez-Deremer has been the subject of some fantastic "office gossip"...as have her husband and, er, father:
Using resources for personal travel, drinking, having an affair, sexual harassment (by her husband and her father of her staff), general incompetence. So, pretty much standard for a member of Trump's Cabinet?
The fundamental problem for Starmer is that he didn't have the guts to stand by Mandelson.
In all honesty that’s my biggest disappointment with him in general.
I never really foresaw him as being quite as weak as he’s ended up being. I’ve mentioned before I know family of his (not super close but close enough) and that was very much NOT the opinion I got of him from them.
As I said at the time, winter fuel was clearly an error politically (although one I backed and still back) but the U-turn was very stupid. Ditto for welfare.
The only thing he’s stood firm on, Iran, has been successful.
I don’t have the utter hatred for Ed M the way much of PB does. I think he’s basically a decent guy and beyond North Sea oil his analysis of where we need to go energy wise is correct.
But he lost an election. He can’t possibly run again.
In any case as I’ve said repeatedly, the error was appointing Mandelson. No amount of legal arguing or process stuff is going to change that error.
Leaving aside having run and lost in 2015, and the high probability that he would send the British right into complete meltdown... He is from the political generation that has passed- the ones who were in Gordon Brown's cabinet. Same is true of Cooper and Burnham, for sure. One of Labour's problems right now is that the two jobs that are normally the places to look for an emergency PM- Foreign Secretary and Chancellor- are occupied by people who, for different reasons, aren't really seen as viable candidates.
Maybe we would all be in a better place if UK politics didn't turn people over so quickly, but the zeitgeist is what it is.
One thing to pick up on from the last thread about fuel shortages - is it just my imagination, or are the roads a lot quieter in the last couple of weeks?
I don't think that will be the case today (in London).
Security vetting apparently considered Mandelson a "borderline" case, and concluded that risks could be managed. Their judgment did not relate to anything Epstein.
In his opinion, No10 having already announced the appointment (and the King approved having it) effectively "resulted in a dismissive approach to security vetting" - it would be more accurate, IMO, to say "strongly implied", but YMMV.
Goes on to say that "despite this atmosphere of pressure" the department did the job to "a high standard".
Note that vetting (according to him) isn't pass/fail - it's more of a risk judgment ("this is especially true the more senior a candidate is"). That implies all manner of potential problems, IMO.
If "vetting isn't...pass/fail" then it isn't vetting. It's two-handed economists again.
I don’t think that’s true. AFAIK, vetting for the military etc is often about ensuring people are honest about past drug use, prostitutes, gambling, sexuality etc so as to avoid blackmail and conflict risk.
So you could get “dodgy past but up front about it, your call if you want to put in command of frigate”
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
As various commentators have pointed out, the Iran war is a catastrofuck for the global economy, and we are in a worse place than most developed countries.
If the war ended definitively tomorrow the disruption would last well into the summer - but with an upward slope to offset the low stocks and high prices. But it rumbles on and the stand off continues to get worse. So the disruption will turn into outright shortages with all that entails.
Chatting with my brother last night about this and he said "you're driving to Spain [this summer] aren't you?" True - but taking the ship on the way south. Already contemplating a late switch to driving due to a lack of fuel...
Ship to Santander? Santander bars and restaurants are good and very good value compared to San Sebastian, it also has lovely swimming beaches inside the inlet and surfing on the ocean beaches.
Brittany Ferries run sleeper ferry routes to Santander and Bilbao. Which would you say is the nicer town for a week's holiday
I've only stayed in Santander, it has nice beaches and good food, there are cultural sites nearby but the caves need to be booked well in advance as visitor numbers are very limited.
Bilbao has the Guggenheim Europe, which would cause me to go there first.
I'd say Bilbao for culture and modern architecture, Santander for beach-bumming and older architecture. In brief.
Instead of getting more clarity things seem to be getting more confused .
Now it seems Mandelson didn’t actually fail but was borderline . How can you give the sign off with mitigations if you apparently don’t know what you’re mitigating against !
Olly R now saying "we were dealing with hundreds of cases all the time, so this one was missing focus". Does not exactly add up, when No 10 were phoning up every day.
And "no I won't tell you whether there was anything in there that was not in the public domain, because it will lead to a storm of questions" (which Emily T has said won't be asked).
He's like a greased piglet, and needs a bunsen burner on his undercarriage.
Are we going to get FO reform out of this?
Fat chance of that Matt, the greased pig(let)s will remain at the trough
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
That sounds about right, with the addition that the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible.
The first big problem is likely to be fertiliser for farming, which is needed soon and is unlikely to turn up.
Aviation fuel can be tankered on the plane in extremis, so for example Emirates can fly an A380 from Dubai to London, and back to Dubai without refuelling. Not all routes and planes can do that though, and it adds a fair bit of cost to the trip.
Diesel shortages are the big one as so much logistics relies on it, apart from a few electric vans doing the last mile. A fleet of Tesla Semi trucks pretty much needs its own power station to charge at night.
"the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible"
Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream? That's going to go well...
It just means we will be expected to pay through the nose even more than we do now. How is that going to stack up with South Korea's nuclear power being 1/5th the cost of ours? We are simply not competitive on energy against competitors.
Not cutting corners. Cutting the red tape, which in the case of UK nuclear is absurd.
There's a reason our nuclear costs 4x what it does in S Korea.
Of all industries, I am most releaxed about nuclear having "absurd" levels of red tape. How many million people have to be evacuated if even a mini-nuke goes wayward? The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history, and one of the worst in the world. There's a reason we need that red tape.
That's because you're assuming the huge planning morass around UK nuclear serves to improve safety. It really does not do that.
Rather it makes the power companies go through the same thing several times, at huge expense, with nothing added by the repetition.
True about pretty much everything planning-related in this country.
A Government that had the guts to slash and burn planning regulations across the board would unleash huge economic potential in this country.
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
That sounds about right, with the addition that the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible.
The first big problem is likely to be fertiliser for farming, which is needed soon and is unlikely to turn up.
Aviation fuel can be tankered on the plane in extremis, so for example Emirates can fly an A380 from Dubai to London, and back to Dubai without refuelling. Not all routes and planes can do that though, and it adds a fair bit of cost to the trip.
Diesel shortages are the big one as so much logistics relies on it, apart from a few electric vans doing the last mile. A fleet of Tesla Semi trucks pretty much needs its own power station to charge at night.
"the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible"
Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream? That's going to go well...
It just means we will be expected to pay through the nose even more than we do now. How is that going to stack up with South Korea's nuclear power being 1/5th the cost of ours? We are simply not competitive on energy against competitors.
Not cutting corners. Cutting the red tape, which in the case of UK nuclear is absurd.
There's a reason our nuclear costs 4x what it does in S Korea.
Of all industries, I am most releaxed about nuclear having "absurd" levels of red tape. How many million people have to be evacuated if even a mini-nuke goes wayward? The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history, and one of the worst in the world. There's a reason we need that red tape.
That's because you're assuming the huge planning morass around UK nuclear serves to improve safety. It really does not do that.
Rather it makes the power companies go through the same thing several times, at huge expense, with nothing added by the repetition.
Check. Then double-check. Because there isn't basic confidence in the initial checks not picking up a problem that means we all have to go live in Canada for 500 years.
Security vetting apparently considered Mandelson a "borderline" case, and concluded that risks could be managed. Their judgment did not relate to anything Epstein.
In his opinion, No10 having already announced the appointment (and the King approved having it) effectively "resulted in a dismissive approach to security vetting" - it would be more accurate, IMO, to say "strongly implied", but YMMV.
Goes on to say that "despite this atmosphere of pressure" the department did the job to "a high standard".
Note that vetting (according to him) isn't pass/fail - it's more of a risk judgment ("this is especially true the more senior a candidate is"). That implies all manner of potential problems, IMO.
If "vetting isn't...pass/fail" then it isn't vetting. It's two-handed economists again.
I don’t think that’s true. AFAIK, vetting for the military etc is often about ensuring people are honest about past drug use, prostitutes, gambling, sexuality etc so as to avoid blackmail and conflict risk.
So you could get “dodgy past but up front about it, your call if you want to put in command of frigate”
Yeah isn’t the whole thing about risk management?
I’ve never done government stuff but I had to do some fairly intense security bits for a previous company and it was always about what can you be blackmailed with or that’s how I read it.
Instead of getting more clarity things seem to be getting more confused .
Now it seems Mandelson didn’t actually fail but was borderline . How can you give the sign off with mitigations if you apparently don’t know what you’re mitigating against !
When its been made clear by the boss you will make the process a formality i guess you make it a formality
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
That sounds about right, with the addition that the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible.
The first big problem is likely to be fertiliser for farming, which is needed soon and is unlikely to turn up.
Aviation fuel can be tankered on the plane in extremis, so for example Emirates can fly an A380 from Dubai to London, and back to Dubai without refuelling. Not all routes and planes can do that though, and it adds a fair bit of cost to the trip.
Diesel shortages are the big one as so much logistics relies on it, apart from a few electric vans doing the last mile. A fleet of Tesla Semi trucks pretty much needs its own power station to charge at night.
"the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible"
Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream? That's going to go well...
It just means we will be expected to pay through the nose even more than we do now. How is that going to stack up with South Korea's nuclear power being 1/5th the cost of ours? We are simply not competitive on energy against competitors.
The reason we are slow and expensive on nuclear isn’t about nuclear safety.
Read some of the comic paperwork... Its Bike Shedding made manifest.
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
That sounds about right, with the addition that the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible.
The first big problem is likely to be fertiliser for farming, which is needed soon and is unlikely to turn up.
Aviation fuel can be tankered on the plane in extremis, so for example Emirates can fly an A380 from Dubai to London, and back to Dubai without refuelling. Not all routes and planes can do that though, and it adds a fair bit of cost to the trip.
Diesel shortages are the big one as so much logistics relies on it, apart from a few electric vans doing the last mile. A fleet of Tesla Semi trucks pretty much needs its own power station to charge at night.
"the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible"
Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream? That's going to go well...
It just means we will be expected to pay through the nose even more than we do now. How is that going to stack up with South Korea's nuclear power being 1/5th the cost of ours? We are simply not competitive on energy against competitors.
Not cutting corners. Cutting the red tape, which in the case of UK nuclear is absurd.
There's a reason our nuclear costs 4x what it does in S Korea.
Of all industries, I am most releaxed about nuclear having "absurd" levels of red tape. How many million people have to be evacuated if even a mini-nuke goes wayward? The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history, and one of the worst in the world. There's a reason we need that red tape.
That's because you're assuming the huge planning morass around UK nuclear serves to improve safety. It really does not do that.
Rather it makes the power companies go through the same thing several times, at huge expense, with nothing added by the repetition.
True about pretty much everything planning-related in this country.
A Government that had the guts to slash and burn planning regulations across the board would unleash huge economic potential in this country.
Another huge disappointment. Comms for phone masts remains in “discussion” when it could be changed overnight.
“Leaning” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Recommendations, not decision about learning into / out of....no wonder the system is a shit show...is he a wrong un or not, well we are breaking down the leaning of the recommednations of a report that i never saw....is he a wrong'un and failed...we never make decisions such as if they are passed or failed or put ticks in red boxes.
Robbins' position is also that Mandelson didn't in fact fail his vetting. Rather, there was provisional advice to him that there was an inclination towards rejection but there was scope for mitigation, & after mitigation Robbins' decision was to pass Mandelson.
I’m mostly opposed to everything Lilico says (although I enjoy his Tweets) so if this is conclusion I’m minded to go along with it at this stage.
Labour MP Sarah Champion tells the Today programme: “I’ll be honest with you, people don’t like Keir on the door. But it’s not about this Mandelson thing, they don’t like him personally.”
This is why I didn't vote for him as leader. I met him. He wasn't likeable! And almost all politicians you meet are likeable. This is a low bar, and he didn't meet it.
He struck me as unlikeable and insincere very quickly upon seeing him on tv. I suppose he was effective as an antidote to Boris in opposition, but I could never see the public warming to him. I assumed he would be a boring but competent PM, but his lack of charisma has played a role in his failure in the top job. Being uncharismatic would normally have prevented him becoming PM via a GE, but it has probably affected his relationships with staff and team members to the point that he is quite alienated now.
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
That sounds about right, with the addition that the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible.
The first big problem is likely to be fertiliser for farming, which is needed soon and is unlikely to turn up.
Aviation fuel can be tankered on the plane in extremis, so for example Emirates can fly an A380 from Dubai to London, and back to Dubai without refuelling. Not all routes and planes can do that though, and it adds a fair bit of cost to the trip.
Diesel shortages are the big one as so much logistics relies on it, apart from a few electric vans doing the last mile. A fleet of Tesla Semi trucks pretty much needs its own power station to charge at night.
"the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible"
Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream? That's going to go well...
It just means we will be expected to pay through the nose even more than we do now. How is that going to stack up with South Korea's nuclear power being 1/5th the cost of ours? We are simply not competitive on energy against competitors.
The reason we are slow and expensive on nuclear isn’t about nuclear safety.
Read some of the comic paperwork... Its Bike Shedding made manifest.
Like a lot of stuff the intentions are good but the execution is stupid.
Like giving councils the ability to reject things because they “aren’t keeping with the local area”, a sentence so general it can be used for anything.
So you end up in the insane position where EE/MBNL build a mast in 2012 and then Cornerstone try a decade later on an adjacent building and it gets rejected.
I am thinking more about Dominic Rabb's alleged behaviour. (The fake story) of throwing a tomato, I would have been doing a lot more throwing of giving evil looks and throwing tomoatoes if I had to deal with these people every day.
Olly Robbins's position is essentially that the Foreign Office was put under pressure to expedite Mandelson's clearance, but regardless of that pressure giving Mandelson the clearance was the right call.
No 10's position is the exact opposite: there was not undue pressure, but Robbins nevertheless made the wrong call at the end of the vetting process
Olly: "The US Government is very hot on security clearances people hold".
How does that work with Trump's top teams being stuffed with people who did not get security clearance, used insecure systems, were appointed as "friends of Trump" etc?
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
That sounds about right, with the addition that the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible.
The first big problem is likely to be fertiliser for farming, which is needed soon and is unlikely to turn up.
Aviation fuel can be tankered on the plane in extremis, so for example Emirates can fly an A380 from Dubai to London, and back to Dubai without refuelling. Not all routes and planes can do that though, and it adds a fair bit of cost to the trip.
Diesel shortages are the big one as so much logistics relies on it, apart from a few electric vans doing the last mile. A fleet of Tesla Semi trucks pretty much needs its own power station to charge at night.
"the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible"
Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream? That's going to go well...
It just means we will be expected to pay through the nose even more than we do now. How is that going to stack up with South Korea's nuclear power being 1/5th the cost of ours? We are simply not competitive on energy against competitors.
"the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible"
"Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream?"
One thing to pick up on from the last thread about fuel shortages - is it just my imagination, or are the roads a lot quieter in the last couple of weeks?
I'm going to say the Easter holidays. Round here they were the last two weeks.
So far everyone that was at least Starmer minded says Robbins is doing badly and all those saying Starmer is terrible are saying Robbins is doing well.
Though i am not a Starmer supporter, I have been sympathetic to the position he has found himself in. Feeling betrayed by Robbins. Listening to Robbins I see it is more complicated than that. I now think it is a tragic misunderstanding by Starmer of the DV process. It would have been better if Starmer had waited to hear Robbins side of the story before angrily sacking him.
Ed is a dick. Possibly a helpful dick on this occasion but a dick nonetheless. When I heard he was Environment Secretary I was worried. Rightly, as it turned out.
He stabbed his brother in the back, stabbing Starmer in the back is no biggie.
He didn't stab his brither in the back, merely ran against him and beat him.
David M showed his complacency and arrogance. I do not think there is a place for primogeniture in democratic politics.
DOI: I am not the oldest brother.
Am I the only person who still thinks Ed Miliband was a better choice than David would have been? He's cleverer and has an active imagination. He's also a better speaker. He even came up with ideas that the Tories nicked for good or for ill (fuel price cap).
David was very good at the admin side of government but he never came across as a leader.
Ed was and is a disaster. The media hate him, and if the media hate a politician the politician is wasting their time.
I am fast coming to the conclusion that because the media only like right wingers the nation is only governable by right wing governments. That is a shame, but it is what it is.
The print media matter less and less, as so many people don't read them. It's a real problem for politicians that there isn't a clear handful of media who need to be influenced, but rather an amorphous legion of websites and posters, even including this one. The generally negative tone of political coverage adds to the problem, as it makes lots of people turn off most of the time. That doesn't stop them having a view - it's just based on casual impressions. For example, I saw a poll saying that most people think that Starmer has lied about Mandelson (though I suspect that most people don't especially care as they expect politicians to lie).
What is missing is a clear positive narrative from any direction. Reform do quite well from their Mr Grumpy stance. I've little idea what Labour, Tories or LibDems consistently stand for. I'm attracted to the Greens because they appear to have a positive agenda, but their odd policy-making system (anything has to be approved by conference or it's not party policy) means that they float lots of general ideas without being definitely committed to them.
Though it's a big political story, in reality it's not a big deal. Storm in a teacup.
I mean it’s a massive deal. And shows that Starmer should have quit as soon as Mandelson went. That was a risk he took and it backfired. He should have carried the can.
But the stuff that’s come since Mandelson resigned, I’m not as convinced about that.
Olly Robbins's position is essentially that the Foreign Office was put under pressure to expedite Mandelson's clearance, but regardless of that pressure giving Mandelson the clearance was the right call.
No 10's position is the exact opposite: there was not undue pressure, but Robbins nevertheless made the wrong call at the end of the vetting process
What a mess.
Both are lying because the truth doesn't suit. The whole vetting thing was a charade. In future either ban political appointees or exempt them from vetting.
Ed is a dick. Possibly a helpful dick on this occasion but a dick nonetheless. When I heard he was Environment Secretary I was worried. Rightly, as it turned out.
He stabbed his brother in the back, stabbing Starmer in the back is no biggie.
He didn't stab his brither in the back, merely ran against him and beat him.
David M showed his complacency and arrogance. I do not think there is a place for primogeniture in democratic politics.
DOI: I am not the oldest brother.
Both OGH and myself have heard independently from people at the top of Labour that this is what happened.
June 2009 - David Miliband was about to resign and challenge Gordon Brown, Ed persuaded him not to, and told him, I will make sure you succeed Brown after the election.
May 2010 Ed Miliband decides to run as Labour leader, not to become leader, but to do well and get a senior shadow cabinet job without it looking as nepotism
Summer of 2010 - Ed decides to run a strong campaign as not to finish second from last.
September 2010 - Wins
David Miliband felt betrayed.
If that is the whole truth then Ed was in the wrong imo.
Both were, if that is correct.
What did David do wrong? Betrayal is perhaps too strong and charged, let down is more balanced, but the definition of betrayal includes let down and people feel what they feel.
Betrayal presumes David was entitled to the leadership and Ed wasn't. Actually Ed is the more competent one.
No it is based on a promise, that was not followed through, and arguably actively opposed. Nothing to do with entitlement.
That's David Miliband's take. He expected his brother to give way but Ed won because he was the better candidate fundamentally - my view as well as of that particular selectorate. I accept there's no easy way to accommodate two members of the same family in politics and there is genuine bad blood between the two brothers.
Meanwhile, Freedman's analysis and predictions for the London local elections, done in conjunction with London Centric, is in.
The only piece of potential good news he can see for Labour is that they *just* might come through the middle and win the Croydon mayoralty, given the abject state of the council and the split between the Tories and Reform. The Council itself staying NOC.
He thinks the Tories will lose Bromley to NOC, but Reform has decent chances of control in Barking, Bexley and Havering, the water muddied in the latter by the myriad independents that more likely will deliver an NOC.
He thinks the Greens will win a decent seat haul, but only have a shot at control of Hackney, and push Labour to lose Waltham Forest to NOC.
He predicts the LibDems are secure in their three SW councils and will also push Labour to lose Merton to NOC. The Tories to hold Kensington, and regain Westminster and Wandsworth, with Hammersmith staying Labour.
He suggests the Tories will retain Harrow, gain Barnet from Labour, and push Enfield to NOC, but that Labour will do better in West London and probably hold Ealing and Hounslow with the Greens depriving Labour of a majority in Brent. Hillingdon he predicts the Tories will lose seats to Reform and control to NOC.
In north London he suggests all of Islington, Camden and Haringey will be lost by Labour to NOC, with a mix of Green and some LibDem gains. Further east, Tower Hamlets to be held by Aspire, Newham lost to the Indys and Redbridge to NOC. South of the river, he sees Labour holding Greenwich, the Greens taking Lewisham, and Lambeth and Southwark going to NOC with both Green and LD seat gains.
Altogether that would make for only four London Boroughs remaining Labour - an appalling result for them - with the Tories on five, the LibDems on three, the Greens on two, Reform on two, one Aspire and one NIP, with all the rest - fourteen if I count correctly - being balanced councils.
That would be very poor for Labour in the capital.
In Newham, allI can report is the Newham Independents (NIP) seem to be a well-funded, well-organised and well-resourced group and are taking the fight to Labour in every Ward (with decent leaflets). As to actual campaigning, they seem to be very active outside the traditional Muslim areas and are challenging even the Greens in Forest Gate.
The Greens themselves are working three or four Wards including Royal Victoria which I think they will win.
The Mayoral contest looks very close between the Labour and NIP candidates but whatever it's the most exciting politics has been in my part ofthe worldin the past 20 years.
Olly Robbins's position is essentially that the Foreign Office was put under pressure to expedite Mandelson's clearance, but regardless of that pressure giving Mandelson the clearance was the right call.
No 10's position is the exact opposite: there was not undue pressure, but Robbins nevertheless made the wrong call at the end of the vetting process
What a mess.
How on earth do they expect the idea that there was no "undue" pressure from No 10 to appoint Mandelson? Just beyond incredible. They - Starmer and McSweeny - had decides ages ago that it had to be Mandelson and they already announced it.
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
That sounds about right, with the addition that the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible.
The first big problem is likely to be fertiliser for farming, which is needed soon and is unlikely to turn up.
Aviation fuel can be tankered on the plane in extremis, so for example Emirates can fly an A380 from Dubai to London, and back to Dubai without refuelling. Not all routes and planes can do that though, and it adds a fair bit of cost to the trip.
Diesel shortages are the big one as so much logistics relies on it, apart from a few electric vans doing the last mile. A fleet of Tesla Semi trucks pretty much needs its own power station to charge at night.
"the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible"
Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream? That's going to go well...
It just means we will be expected to pay through the nose even more than we do now. How is that going to stack up with South Korea's nuclear power being 1/5th the cost of ours? We are simply not competitive on energy against competitors.
SMR I think really is industry capture. There's nothing slightly resembling a business plan behind it. Just vague suggestions you get costs down by doing lots of them and you don't need to worry about the things that make nuclear power so expensive. And so they get government to fund a pilot project presumably in the hope it will be too difficult to cancel. After which they just build a couple of them because actually solar plus battery is vastly cheaper. We will end up paying for it in our energy bills for the next forty years.
China is effectively doing SMR with full scale nuclear plants.
The UK plan isn't entirely daft. 450MW isn't exactly small, and if you co-locate several on one site you have a new nuclear plant.
On this display, I am genuinely shocked anything ever gets done in the higher ranks of the civil service. The meetings about meetings about meetings with discussions like this going around and around and around without ever saying anything.
One thing to pick up on from the last thread about fuel shortages - is it just my imagination, or are the roads a lot quieter in the last couple of weeks?
So far everyone that was at least Starmer minded says Robbins is doing badly and all those saying Starmer is terrible are saying Robbins is doing well.
Though i am not a Starmer supporter, I have been sympathetic to the position he has found himself in. Feeling betrayed by Robbins. Listening to Robbins I see it is more complicated than that. I now think it is a tragic misunderstanding by Starmer of the DV process. It would have been better if Starmer had waited to hear Robbins side of the story before angrily sacking him.
Starmer didn't misunderstand it all imo. He thought it irrelevant so put Mandelson in place before the process. I think if he really wanted to appoint Mandelson he was correct to do so.
He has thrown Robbins under the bus as it was his only option, as Omar might say in the Wire, its all in the game.
Olly Robbins's position is essentially that the Foreign Office was put under pressure to expedite Mandelson's clearance, but regardless of that pressure giving Mandelson the clearance was the right call.
No 10's position is the exact opposite: there was not undue pressure, but Robbins nevertheless made the wrong call at the end of the vetting process
What a mess.
Both are lying because the truth doesn't suit. The whole vetting thing was a charade. In future either ban political appointees or exempt them from vetting.
Lying might be a bit strong but certainly the unvarnished truth suits neither. Starmer shouldn't have made the apointment, Robbins shouldn't have been put under such pressure, and he should not have caved in by giving Starmer the answer he wanted rather than the right answer.
Ed M on Mandelson "we believe in dignity in retirement"
He's up vs Robinson. We'll see what Robbins says / implies this morning. Robinson has moved on to attack net zero.
Some analysts are predicting that Trump's war may result in an acceleration of the green transition.
If my prognostications (and those of many others) come to pass, the big pressures (in the U.K. and Europe) will be on aviation kerosene, diesel and fertiliser.
Running nitrogen fixing off pure ‘leccy is possible - but expensive. Guano makes a comeback?
Manufacturing aviation fuel from non fossil fuel is being experimented with.
Big electric trucks (semis) exist but haven’t been rolled out in a big way. Range, charging and upfront cost, plus a conservative industry with a big investment in existing vehicles. This could be where the war gives a big shove.
Small delivery is going electric at a rate of knots, now.
That sounds about right, with the addition that the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible.
The first big problem is likely to be fertiliser for farming, which is needed soon and is unlikely to turn up.
Aviation fuel can be tankered on the plane in extremis, so for example Emirates can fly an A380 from Dubai to London, and back to Dubai without refuelling. Not all routes and planes can do that though, and it adds a fair bit of cost to the trip.
Diesel shortages are the big one as so much logistics relies on it, apart from a few electric vans doing the last mile. A fleet of Tesla Semi trucks pretty much needs its own power station to charge at night.
"the SMR nuclear needs to be done as quickly as possible"
Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream? That's going to go well...
It just means we will be expected to pay through the nose even more than we do now. How is that going to stack up with South Korea's nuclear power being 1/5th the cost of ours? We are simply not competitive on energy against competitors.
Not cutting corners. Cutting the red tape, which in the case of UK nuclear is absurd.
There's a reason our nuclear costs 4x what it does in S Korea.
Of all industries, I am most releaxed about nuclear having "absurd" levels of red tape. How many million people have to be evacuated if even a mini-nuke goes wayward? The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history, and one of the worst in the world. There's a reason we need that red tape.
That's because you're assuming the huge planning morass around UK nuclear serves to improve safety. It really does not do that.
Rather it makes the power companies go through the same thing several times, at huge expense, with nothing added by the repetition.
Check. Then double-check. Because there isn't basic confidence in the initial checks not picking up a problem that means we all have to go live in Canada for 500 years.
That simply isn't true. UK planning for nuclear is uniquely awful, and adds nothing to safety.
On this display, I am genuinely shocked anything ever gets done in the higher ranks of the civil service. The meetings about meetings about meetings with discussions like this going around and around and around without ever saying anything.
Robbins update Thornberry has opened with a bouncer "started by saying that Robbins did not tell the whole truth about this process when he gave evidence to it in November"
That is undisputably correct. The phrase 'economical with the truth' fits his responses at that time perfectly.
Though it's a big political story, in reality it's not a big deal. Storm in a teacup.
I mean it’s a massive deal. And shows that Starmer should have quit as soon as Mandelson went. That was a risk he took and it backfired. He should have carried the can.
But the stuff that’s come since Mandelson resigned, I’m not as convinced about that.
I agree the appointment of Mandelson was a disastrous error and is down to Starmer. But this stuff about the minutae of the DV process, though interesting, is not a big deal.
Ed is a dick. Possibly a helpful dick on this occasion but a dick nonetheless. When I heard he was Environment Secretary I was worried. Rightly, as it turned out.
He stabbed his brother in the back, stabbing Starmer in the back is no biggie.
He didn't stab his brither in the back, merely ran against him and beat him.
David M showed his complacency and arrogance. I do not think there is a place for primogeniture in democratic politics.
DOI: I am not the oldest brother.
Both OGH and myself have heard independently from people at the top of Labour that this is what happened.
June 2009 - David Miliband was about to resign and challenge Gordon Brown, Ed persuaded him not to, and told him, I will make sure you succeed Brown after the election.
May 2010 Ed Miliband decides to run as Labour leader, not to become leader, but to do well and get a senior shadow cabinet job without it looking as nepotism
Summer of 2010 - Ed decides to run a strong campaign as not to finish second from last.
September 2010 - Wins
David Miliband felt betrayed.
If that is the whole truth then Ed was in the wrong imo.
Both were, if that is correct.
What did David do wrong? Betrayal is perhaps too strong and charged, let down is more balanced, but the definition of betrayal includes let down and people feel what they feel.
Betrayal presumes David was entitled to the leadership and Ed wasn't. Actually Ed is the more competent one.
No it is based on a promise, that was not followed through, and arguably actively opposed. Nothing to do with entitlement.
That's David Miliband's take. He expected his brother to give way but Ed won because he was the better candidate fundamentally - my view as well as of that particular selectorate. I accept there's no easy way to accommodate two members of the same family in politics and there is genuine bad blood between the two brothers.
It depends on what was promised explicitly, especially as it was a deal with consideration. TSE's account is David gave up an earlier opportunity in exchange for a promise of support. If that is correct, who would be the better candidate is completely moot.
Olly Robbins's position is essentially that the Foreign Office was put under pressure to expedite Mandelson's clearance, but regardless of that pressure giving Mandelson the clearance was the right call.
No 10's position is the exact opposite: there was not undue pressure, but Robbins nevertheless made the wrong call at the end of the vetting process
What a mess.
Both are lying because the truth doesn't suit. The whole vetting thing was a charade. In future either ban political appointees or exempt them from vetting.
Lying might be a bit strong but certainly the unvarnished truth suits neither. Starmer shouldn't have made the apointment, Robbins shouldn't have been put under such pressure, and he should not have caved in by giving Starmer the answer he wanted rather than the right answer.
Hard to feel sorry for any of them.
They both know the game, by not asking nor going out of their way to explain things, you get the plausibility denability and liability protection.
The only outcome will be Robbins will now get a massive payout because he will be able to show he followed procedure and shouldn't have been sacked.
Comments
Security vetting apparently considered Mandelson a "borderline" case, and concluded that risks could be managed.
Their judgment did not relate to anything Epstein.
In his opinion, No10 having already announced the appointment (and the King approved having it) effectively "resulted in a dismissive approach to security vetting" - it would be more accurate, IMO, to say "strongly implied", but YMMV.
Goes on to say that "despite this atmosphere of pressure" the department did the job to "a high standard".
Note that vetting (according to him) isn't pass/fail - it's more of a risk judgment ("this is especially true the more senior a candidate is").
That implies all manner of potential problems, IMO.
Cutting the red tape, which in the case of UK nuclear is absurd.
There's a reason our nuclear costs 4x what it does in S Korea.
"He says Starmer had already announced Mandelson as his nominee, the King had been informed, and a due diligence report was already being undertaken by the Cabinet Office.
He says Mandelson already had access to the building and to some IT classifications.
Robbins says there was "already a very very strong expectation" from No 10 that Mandelson "needed to be in post and in America as quickly as possible"."
It's enough for me to show Starmer should be out.
- the standard of English is much higher than it was a decade ago when I was last there, and the tourist infrastructure is much more developed
- EU flags are everywhere, and the car licence plates look like those EU ones, even down to having a blue circle on the right hand side, over which a sticker of twelve yellow starts can be easily placed once they join. Though given how their negotiations have gone to date, that's clearly the triumph of hope over experience
- despite that, there are Russians everywhere and you overhear Russian a lot in the beach towns like Sarande and Durres
- many of the young men you talk to have either worked in the UK for their English or would love advice on how to get a visa
- the bizarre small concrete bunkers that the Communist regime famously built everywhere and which were totally useless for anything except giving privacy to young couples and growing mushrooms still blot the landscape
- they wear their Islam pretty lightly - more so than Turkey these days. Women are almost entirely unveiled, homosexuality is legal and you rarely hear the call to prayer compared with Gulf countries.
- there are abandoned houses everywhere, especially in rural areas, symptomatic of a country whose population has fallen from 3.2 million in 1990 to 2.3 million now
- the general infrastructure has improved beyond all measure since I was last there, when it was positively African. The traffic is much worse though, especialy in Tirana, where about a third of the population lives
- it is still vaguely surreal to see that their Parliament is located on George W Bush street (a legacy of the Kosovo war, which was mostly under Clinton anyway). Foreigners generally name streets after Democratic Presidents (apart from Lincoln)
- the people are friendly, the sand is powdery, the historic towns (mostly Turkish) are beautiful, prices are pretty low (I got an extremely satisfactory room in Vlore for €10/night for instance, compared to €50 here in Greece) and the weather is good, so I think it should get rather more tourists than it does
Overall, Albania isn't the most wildly exciting of countries, but I can recommend it for a relaxing beach and mountain fortnight.
As a barrister, is she good at this? I have never heard her doing interrogation before.
Ollie Robbins seems from the first exchanges not to know a lot of things, and have a lot of things that were not minuted or noted; quite Sir Humphrey.
Her initial "you told us the truth before, but not the whole truth" was quite cutting.
On the roads, yes they definitely seem quieter, mind you the weather has been miserable up until the last few days
But he lost an election. He can’t possibly run again.
In any case as I’ve said repeatedly, the error was appointing Mandelson. No amount of legal arguing or process stuff is going to change that error.
And good morning everybody.
https://x.com/kevinaschofield/status/2046473920782492136?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
I wait to see the outcome but beyond process it is clear Starmer appointed Mandelson with a cavalier attitude to vetting
Labour would be best to get Burnham into Parliament. And I really don’t like him.
They took a calculated risk and it failed spectacularly. A risk I don’t think they needed to take but that is what they did.
To me, the blackest mark against Mandelson was his relationship with Epstein (which is was forced his resignation).
UKSV was apparently (according to Robbins' letter) not particularly concerned about that. Which is quite extraordinary to me.
This was the initial briefing he received:
..He was given a verbal briefing by the Foreign Office’s security team and told that UKSV considered Mandelson’s case to be “borderline”, although if the decision was UKSV’s, it was likely to oppose giving him clearance. Robbins assessed the “outstanding risks” and concluded that they could be mitigated....
I think Robbins is perhaps making more of the implied pressure from No.10, in his own interest, than is warranted by the facts.
To be clear, Starmer ought never to have appointed Mandelson in the first place.
But the vetting malarkey seems a very murky sideshow to that.
And "no I won't tell you whether there was anything in there that was not in the public domain, because it will lead to a storm of questions" (which Emily T has said won't be asked).
He's like a greased piglet, and needs a bunsen burner on his undercarriage.
Are we going to get FO reform out of this?
It really does not do that.
Rather it makes the power companies go through the same thing several times, at huge expense, with nothing added by the repetition.
I never really foresaw him as being quite as weak as he’s ended up being. I’ve mentioned before I know family of his (not super close but close enough) and that was very much NOT the opinion I got of him from them.
As I said at the time, winter fuel was clearly an error politically (although one I backed and still back) but the U-turn was very stupid. Ditto for welfare.
The only thing he’s stood firm on, Iran, has been successful.
Maybe we would all be in a better place if UK politics didn't turn people over so quickly, but the zeitgeist is what it is.
So you could get “dodgy past but up front about it, your call if you want to put in command of frigate”
I'd say Bilbao for culture and modern architecture, Santander for beach-bumming and older architecture. In brief.
Now it seems Mandelson didn’t actually fail but was borderline . How can you give the sign off with mitigations if you apparently don’t know what you’re mitigating against !
A Government that had the guts to slash and burn planning regulations across the board would unleash huge economic potential in this country.
I’ve never done government stuff but I had to do some fairly intense security bits for a previous company and it was always about what can you be blackmailed with or that’s how I read it.
When they saw my PB history though, I was in.
Read some of the comic paperwork... Its Bike Shedding made manifest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality
Robbins' position is also that Mandelson didn't in fact fail his vetting. Rather, there was provisional advice to him that there was an inclination towards rejection but there was scope for mitigation, & after mitigation Robbins' decision was to pass Mandelson.
I’m mostly opposed to everything Lilico says (although I enjoy his Tweets) so if this is conclusion I’m minded to go along with it at this stage.
Like giving councils the ability to reject things because they “aren’t keeping with the local area”, a sentence so general it can be used for anything.
So you end up in the insane position where EE/MBNL build a mast in 2012 and then Cornerstone try a decade later on an adjacent building and it gets rejected.
Olly Robbins's position is that the Foreign Office was put under pressure to expedite Mandelson's case, but giving him clearance was the right call.
No 10's position is the exact opposite: there was not undue pressure, but Robbins nevertheless made the wrong call at the end of the vetting process
Olly Robbins's position is essentially that the Foreign Office was put under pressure to expedite Mandelson's clearance, but regardless of that pressure giving Mandelson the clearance was the right call.
No 10's position is the exact opposite: there was not undue pressure, but Robbins nevertheless made the wrong call at the end of the vetting process
What a mess.
How does that work with Trump's top teams being stuffed with people who did not get security clearance, used insecure systems, were appointed as "friends of Trump" etc?
"Cutting corners on nuclear to get them onstream?"
Listening to Robbins I see it is more complicated than that.
I now think it is a tragic misunderstanding by Starmer of the DV process.
It would have been better if Starmer had waited to hear Robbins side of the story before angrily sacking him.
Robbins does at least corroborate PM's claim that no minister was told of the vetting issue with Mandelson. He confirms he did not share it with them.
Sir Keir is safe.
What is missing is a clear positive narrative from any direction. Reform do quite well from their Mr Grumpy stance. I've little idea what Labour, Tories or LibDems consistently stand for. I'm attracted to the Greens because they appear to have a positive agenda, but their odd policy-making system (anything has to be approved by conference or it's not party policy) means that they float lots of general ideas without being definitely committed to them.
But the stuff that’s come since Mandelson resigned, I’m not as convinced about that.
In Newham, allI can report is the Newham Independents (NIP) seem to be a well-funded, well-organised and well-resourced group and are taking the fight to Labour in every Ward (with decent leaflets). As to actual campaigning, they seem to be very active outside the traditional Muslim areas and are challenging even the Greens in Forest Gate.
The Greens themselves are working three or four Wards including Royal Victoria which I think they will win.
The Mayoral contest looks very close between the Labour and NIP candidates but whatever it's the most exciting politics has been in my part ofthe worldin the past 20 years.
The UK plan isn't entirely daft.
450MW isn't exactly small, and if you co-locate several on one site you have a new nuclear plant.
The devil will be in the detail.
He has thrown Robbins under the bus as it was his only option, as Omar might say in the Wire, its all in the game.
I’m not convinced by his statements and he seems to have lots of convenient memory gaps .
Hard to feel sorry for any of them.
UK planning for nuclear is uniquely awful, and adds nothing to safety.
But this stuff about the minutae of the DV process, though interesting, is not a big deal.
The only outcome will be Robbins will now get a massive payout because he will be able to show he followed procedure and shouldn't have been sacked.