"Mr Cuddles, 4. "This is very much a Labour household. I vote Labour, my eight brothers and sisters vote Labour and my mum votes Labour. I don't know how my dad votes because mum only met him once in an alley in Romford. It's not something I feel comfortable talking about."
What would be an example of a left wing populist policy?
A cap on energy prices is a great example. You've got a benefit for working, at the expense of an (imagined) set of oligarchs taking advantage their customers.
I suppose you could say things like taxes on bankers' bonuses also fit the model, in which case there was a little bit at the end of the Gordon Brown administration.
>For one that is illegal. But Miliband has said it will be a genuine freeze.Meaning if the companies try to profit-take before the freeze,he will drag to price to 2014 levels.
So if the companies want to put in place, in advance, a differing percentage price rise to protect what they project as their future capital requirements, Miliband is going to over-rule that is he?
Capped at an above inflation rate rise (not a freeze) and rail companies aren't having to make investment decisions that require huge capital outlays that are repaid over the course of 30 years. Also there is a small difference between your train being a few minutes late and the power going off.
The key point is that there is no rubicon about capping prices or intervening in markets. The Tories do it already.
Not sure commuters or rail franchise holders would agree with you.
Since all energy companies already offer long fixed price tariffs, they can't be that opposed to it. The idea of the lights going out because of this policy is absurd.
I wish it was absurd, but it isn't. Do you agree that energy supply and generation in this country is rather fragile in terms of capacity, or do you think everything's fine? How much of a shock can the system withstand before there is a failure, however temporary?
The long-term tariffs the energy companies give are done on their terms, according to the long-term energy supply deals they've been able to negotiate.
Say you run a company selling widget that requires lots of steel, which is your highest cost. Today you arrange a deal with a steel supplier, where there is a set price for two years. You can then pass a two-year price-stabilisation deal onto your customers.
But this is different. The price the government sets will have to be set at a level that will be met by all players in the market. It's like the government telling you the price you would sell your widget for, regardless of the long-term deals you have set out or be able to get.
Thinking a little more about it, any energy price rise before the election might not be the fault of the UK energy companies. Now this has been announced, *their* suppliers could put up their prices ahead of the election, knowing that Miliband will set the price near the higher level.
>For one that is illegal. But Miliband has said it will be a genuine freeze.Meaning if the companies try to profit-take before the freeze,he will drag to price to 2014 levels.
So if the companies want to put in place, in advance, a differing percentage price rise to protect what they project as their future capital requirements, Miliband is going to over-rule that is he?
This state planning just gets better and better.
Admit it, it's a dog.
It`s essentially a bribe to vote Tory and I don`t think Ofgem or the Election commission would take kindly toit.
One possible outcome of Ed's energy freeze hasn't been discussed. He has used it as a naked bribe to voters. But it could yet backfire.
What if, spring 2015, the energy companies say "to ensure we have requisite capital requirements through the period of uncertainty covered by the possibility of the Labour's price freeze, we are going to put up prices on 1st April by 20%. However, if Labour is not elected, we will have greater flexibility - and so will reduce them by 15%."
Vote Tory for a 15% cut in your energy bills....
For one that is illegal.
But Miliband has said it will be a genuine freeze.Meaning if the companies try to profit-take before the freeze,he will drag to price to 2014 levels.
If the wholesale price in 2015 is higher than the sale price in 2014, tell me why energy companies would bother supplying gas and electricity? It's an absolute fiction that these companies would sell their goods at below cost.
He answered all this and many more on `Today`.Perhaps you should listen to it.
The only worries for environmentalists are going to be whether they are dolphin and whale friendly.
I'm sure there will be other environmental concerns.
What i'm still unclear on with all of these renewables (with the exception of Solar - just), is that they are being sold as 100% renewable/sustainable, but this is a zero sum game. You take the energy out of the system and convert it to lovely electricity, then what happens to the environment as a result of removing this energy? Not an issue if it;s on the tiny scale it is now, but what about if we ramp it up to ~100% of supply?
>For one that is illegal. But Miliband has said it will be a genuine freeze.Meaning if the companies try to profit-take before the freeze,he will drag to price to 2014 levels.
So if the companies want to put in place, in advance, a differing percentage price rise to protect what they project as their future capital requirements, Miliband is going to over-rule that is he?
This state planning just gets better and better.
Admit it, it's a dog.
It`s essentially a bribe to vote Tory and I don`t think Ofgem or the Election commission would take kindly to it.
So now Ofgem and the Election Commission will have to be hauled out to save Ed's sorry plan? Risible.
It is called the market. It is called reality. Labour seems not to be on speaking terms with either. They better hope the voters aren't either.
>For one that is illegal. But Miliband has said it will be a genuine freeze.Meaning if the companies try to profit-take before the freeze,he will drag to price to 2014 levels.
So if the companies want to put in place, in advance, a differing percentage price rise to protect what they project as their future capital requirements, Miliband is going to over-rule that is he?
This state planning just gets better and better.
Admit it, it's a dog.
It`s essentially a bribe to vote Tory and I don`t think Ofgem or the Election commission would take kindly to it.
So now Ofgem and the Election Commission will have to be hauled out to save Ed's sorry plan? Risible.
It is called the market. It is called reality. Labour seems not to be on speaking terms with either. They better hope the voters aren't either.
Are you crazy?Where do you stop?
Can the NHS then warn patients that they will only be treated if they vote Labour?
Or that sandals will only be sold to people who vote Lib Dem?
"The next election is going to be the big, post-crash debate that the country didn’t have in 2010. Ed Miliband, as his speech yesterday demonstrated, believes that radical state intervention is needed to deal with the ‘living standards crisis’. His answer to the fact that there’s no money left is to get companies to pick up the tab for redistribution.
There’ll now be clear red water between Labour and the two other main parties at the next election. This raises the question of how the Lib Dems fit into all this. Miliband barely mentioned them in his speech yesterday and has steered clear of attacks on them this conference season. There’s been much chatter in Brighton that this is deliberate, the Labour leader keeping his options open in case of another hung parliament. But there’s genuine concern in Clegg’s circle about the contents and policy implications of Miliband’s speech. After yesterday, it is even harder to see how a Clegg Miliband coalition would work." http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/09/ed-miliband-has-done-politics-a-favour-he-has-guaranteed-a-proper-choice-between-competing-philosophies/
Tidal power is the way to go for an island nation. We should be going pell-mell to have massively lucrative prizes for people who can develop this.
Tidal power in the UK seems like more of a political problem than a technical problem. We need massively lucrative prizes for people who can create advertising campaigns that persuade people not to give a shit about endangered wading birds or whatever.
Not really. In the long term, presumably yes, hence expensive feed-in tariffs for tidal to encourage R&D and not for more developed techs. But at present it's seriously less cost-efficient than wind. Richard Tyndall makes the obvious point that wind power only works when it's windy. But what tends to be overlooked is that it's then remarkably profitable, so much so that it is almost competitive without subsidy despite the downtime when it's calm (or a gale, when wind doesn't work either). As it's intermittent (though usefully more online in winter when demand rises), one needs a baseload (hello nuclear) as well, but it still makes sense as a top-up, as part of a European grid.
But the baseload's the problem. At the moment, electricity cannot be stored in any meaningful quantities (pump-storage reservoirs aside). The baseload costs money, whether it's operating or not.
We really need to invest in the pan-European HVDC network, where each country produces what power they can, when they can. Say solar in Spain, Italy and Northern Africa, wind in Germany, tidal and wave (if feasible) in Scotland, with nuclear baseload in France, and every country having their own baseload.
But the HVDC grid is *seriously* expensive and politically difficult. It makes HS2 look cheap and easy.
The only worries for environmentalists are going to be whether they are dolphin and whale friendly.
I'm sure there will be other environmental concerns.
What i'm still unclear on with all of these renewables (with the exception of Solar - just), is that they are being sold as 100% renewable/sustainable, but this is a zero sum game. You take the energy out of the system and convert it to lovely electricity, then what happens to the environment as a result of removing this energy? Not an issue if it;s on the tiny scale it is now, but what about if we ramp it up to ~100% of supply?
What i'm still unclear on with all of these renewables (with the exception of Solar - just), is that they are being sold as 100% renewable/sustainable, but this is a zero sum game. You take the energy out of the system and convert it to lovely electricity, then what happens to the environment as a result of removing this energy? Not an issue if it;s on the tiny scale it is now, but what about if we ramp it up to ~100% of supply?
At the risk of somebody who understands physically properly laughing at me: After you generate the electricity you end up using it, which (pretty much) involves turning it into heat, which is (more or less) the same that would have eventually happened if you'd just left the wind to blow into things instead of slowing it down early with a turbine to grab the energy out of it and use it for your own purposes.
One possible outcome of Ed's energy freeze hasn't been discussed. He has used it as a naked bribe to voters. But it could yet backfire.
What if, spring 2015, the energy companies say "to ensure we have requisite capital requirements through the period of uncertainty covered by the possibility of the Labour's price freeze, we are going to put up prices on 1st April by 20%. However, if Labour is not elected, we will have greater flexibility - and so will reduce them by 15%."
Vote Tory for a 15% cut in your energy bills....
For one that is illegal.
But Miliband has said it will be a genuine freeze.Meaning if the companies try to profit-take before the freeze,he will drag to price to 2014 levels.
If the wholesale price in 2015 is higher than the sale price in 2014, tell me why energy companies would bother supplying gas and electricity? It's an absolute fiction that these companies would sell their goods at below cost.
He answered all this and many more on `Today`.Perhaps you should listen to it.
So subsidies for energy companies? Surely that would violate EU state aid rules.
Can the NHS then warn patients that they will only be treated if they vote Labour?
Or that sandals will only be sold to people who vote Lib Dem?
On energy, you are dealing with massive commercial entities who are building multi-year, multi-billion pound projects tasked with supplying the national need for energy. Their forward financial planning is immense. You are now saying that the steps they might put in place to mitigate risk and secure their commercial interests in future years - which is what they do as a matter of course - will be torn up by an incoming Labour Govt.
The fact that their planning might have a political aspect would undoubtedly be inconvenient for Ed Miliband. But then he should have thought about that, shouldn't he, before he left the JCR to deliver his conference speech.
What i'm still unclear on with all of these renewables (with the exception of Solar - just), is that they are being sold as 100% renewable/sustainable, but this is a zero sum game. You take the energy out of the system and convert it to lovely electricity, then what happens to the environment as a result of removing this energy? Not an issue if it;s on the tiny scale it is now, but what about if we ramp it up to ~100% of supply?
At the risk of somebody who understands physically properly laughing at me: After you generate the electricity you end up using it, which (pretty much) involves turning it into heat, which is (more or less) the same that would have eventually happened if you'd just left the wind to blow into things instead of slowing it down early with a turbine to grab the energy out of it and use it for your own purposes.
I don't think it matters either way, the earth is dosed in probably million of times more energy than we use by that massive nuclear reactor known as the sun.
An easy way to lower energy bills just before the election would be to move green subsidies from energy bills to general taxation. That would lower the average bill by over £200. Just before an election.
What i'm still unclear on with all of these renewables (with the exception of Solar - just), is that they are being sold as 100% renewable/sustainable, but this is a zero sum game. You take the energy out of the system and convert it to lovely electricity, then what happens to the environment as a result of removing this energy? Not an issue if it;s on the tiny scale it is now, but what about if we ramp it up to ~100% of supply?
At the risk of somebody who understands physically properly laughing at me: After you generate the electricity you end up using it, which (pretty much) involves turning it into heat, which is (more or less) the same that would have eventually happened if you'd just left the wind to blow into things instead of slowing it down early with a turbine to grab the energy out of it and use it for your own purposes.
"Wind farms, especially big ones, generate turbulence that can significantly alter air temperatures near the ground, say researchers.
As turbines often stand on agricultural land, these changes could in turn affect crop productivity."
Can the NHS then warn patients that they will only be treated if they vote Labour?
Or that sandals will only be sold to people who vote Lib Dem?
On energy, you are dealing with massive commercial entities who are building multi-year, multi-billion pound projects tasked with supplying the national need for energy. Their forward financial planning is immense. You are now saying that the steps they might put in place to mitigate risk and secure their commercial interests in future years - which is what they do as a matter of course - will be torn up by an incoming Labour Govt.
The fact that their planning might have a political aspect would undoubtedly be inconvenient for Ed Miliband. But then he should have thought about that, shouldn't he, before he left the JCR to deliver his conference speech.
Such a scheme is illegal and would indicate price-fixing as alleged about the Big 6.You can dream about it if you want.
One possible outcome of Ed's energy freeze hasn't been discussed. He has used it as a naked bribe to voters. But it could yet backfire.
What if, spring 2015, the energy companies say "to ensure we have requisite capital requirements through the period of uncertainty covered by the possibility of the Labour's price freeze, we are going to put up prices on 1st April by 20%. However, if Labour is not elected, we will have greater flexibility - and so will reduce them by 15%."
Vote Tory for a 15% cut in your energy bills....
For one that is illegal.
But Miliband has said it will be a genuine freeze.Meaning if the companies try to profit-take before the freeze,he will drag to price to 2014 levels.
If the wholesale price in 2015 is higher than the sale price in 2014, tell me why energy companies would bother supplying gas and electricity? It's an absolute fiction that these companies would sell their goods at below cost.
He answered all this and many more on `Today`.Perhaps you should listen to it.
Hmm. Words came out of his mouth, but they were hardly 'answers'.
What i'm still unclear on with all of these renewables (with the exception of Solar - just), is that they are being sold as 100% renewable/sustainable, but this is a zero sum game. You take the energy out of the system and convert it to lovely electricity, then what happens to the environment as a result of removing this energy? Not an issue if it;s on the tiny scale it is now, but what about if we ramp it up to ~100% of supply?
At the risk of somebody who understands physically properly laughing at me: After you generate the electricity you end up using it, which (pretty much) involves turning it into heat, which is (more or less) the same that would have eventually happened if you'd just left the wind to blow into things instead of slowing it down early with a turbine to grab the energy out of it and use it for your own purposes.
Tidal power is the way to go for an island nation. We should be going pell-mell to have massively lucrative prizes for people who can develop this.
Tidal power in the UK seems like more of a political problem than a technical problem. We need massively lucrative prizes for people who can create advertising campaigns that persuade people not to give a shit about endangered wading birds or whatever.
Not really. In the long term, presumably yes, hence expensive feed-in tariffs for tidal to encourage R&D and not for more developed techs. But at present it's seriously less cost-efficient than wind. Richard Tyndall makes the obvious point that wind power only works when it's windy. But what tends to be overlooked is that it's then remarkably profitable, so much so that it is almost competitive without subsidy despite the downtime when it's calm (or a gale, when wind doesn't work either). As it's intermittent (though usefully more online in winter when demand rises), one needs a baseload (hello nuclear) as well, but it still makes sense as a top-up, as part of a European grid.
But the baseload's the problem. At the moment, electricity cannot be stored in any meaningful quantities (pump-storage reservoirs aside). The baseload costs money, whether it's operating or not.
We really need to invest in the pan-European HVDC network, where each country produces what power they can, when they can. Say solar in Spain, Italy and Northern Africa, wind in Germany, tidal and wave (if feasible) in Scotland, with nuclear baseload in France, and every country having their own baseload.
But the HVDC grid is *seriously* expensive and politically difficult. It makes HS2 look cheap and easy.
Yes, I was involved in the Eurogrid stuff at the tail-end of my 2010. It's obviously a good idea, though very very expensive. The Commission is going about it reasonably, trying to get developments that are happening anyway to dovetail into it.
How do I get back to latest message first, I forget?
But the baseload's the problem. At the moment, electricity cannot be stored in any meaningful quantities (pump-storage reservoirs aside). The baseload costs money, whether it's operating or not.
We really need to invest in the pan-European HVDC network, where each country produces what power they can, when they can. Say solar in Spain, Italy and Northern Africa, wind in Germany, tidal and wave (if feasible) in Scotland, with nuclear baseload in France, and every country having their own baseload.
But the HVDC grid is *seriously* expensive and politically difficult. It makes HS2 look cheap and easy.
Yes, I was involved in the Eurogrid stuff at the tail-end of my 2010. It's obviously a good idea, though very very expensive. The Commission is going about it reasonably, trying to get developments that are happening anyway to dovetail into it.
How do I get back to latest message first, I forget?
That's the way it should be done - it's the sort of thing Europe does really well. Governments or extra-governmental organisations specify protocols and interfaces, and let the markets develop solutions within those specifications. It's the reason why Europe's mobile phone network and companies have been so successful compared to the US's.
It's what should have been done with the NHS IT project, and several others.
Interestingly (for me at least) ISTR it's being done with railways as well, with signalling and other systems being defined to allow trains to eventually operate throughout most of Europe with minimal alterations.
It's also why the Internet and WWW has been so successful. The protocols were defined to a suitable standard, and anyone could develop solutions for those protocols. If it had been more closed (as MS and others wanted), the Internet wouldn't have taken off in the same way or, worse, we'd have several different incompatible Internets, as the US has with phone networks.
You see, it's possible for even a PB Tory to praise Europe. ;-)
So this is how I see it, Ed and Labour see the 2015 election as a foregone conclusion that they will either be the largest party in Parliament or they will have a slim outright majority and are using that to push through the socialist agenda they failed to achieve throughout the 80's when Maggie beat them to a pulp.
As for energy price controls, it seems absolutely insane. What happens when the wholesale price of energy goes above the price ceiling imposed by the government, does the government intervene and (illegally) subsidise energy companies or do the lights go out because energy companies have nothing to gain from selling at below cost (see California). Will the government then choose to nationalise the whole energy sector? Which is what I think is the endgame here, nationalisation of utility companies, and rolling back the private sector to return to the 80's. This policy is Ed reintroducing Clause IV by the back door.
George Osborne caps rail fares quite happily. They're equally dependent on wholesale energy prices.
And our railways are a great example of investment and businesses being run well?
Ironically they're an excellent example of privatising utilities leading to poor customer experience.
Nonsense! Passenger satisfaction surveys show very high satisfaction - fewer delays and better trains and stations for a start.
Two major complaints - over-crowding on commuter services and inflation-busting fare increases (the latter a natural consequence of the former!)
Doesn't alter the fact that, though many more people now use the railways, that still only amounts to 7% of the population.
Rail matters greatly to a relative few, and not one jot to most. hence HS2's unpopularity - vast debts for all for the benefit of a few hundred passengers a day - AND that assumes that time spent on a train is 'wasted' AND assumes that PC/internet technology will not make 3D web conferencing the norm by 2030 - or whenever the £80+ billion white elephant is due to be completed.
George Osborne caps rail fares quite happily. They're equally dependent on wholesale energy prices.
And our railways are a great example of investment and businesses being run well?
Ironically they're an excellent example of privatising utilities leading to poor customer experience.
Nonsense! Passenger satisfaction surveys show very high satisfaction - fewer delays and better trains and stations for a start.
Two major complaints - over-crowding on commuter services and inflation-busting fare increases (the latter a natural consequence of the former!)
Doesn't alter the fact that, though many more people now use the railways, that still only amounts to 7% of the population.
Rail matters greatly to a relative few, and not one jot to most. hence HS2's unpopularity - vast debts for all for the benefit of a few hundred passengers a day - AND that assumes that time spent on a train is 'wasted' AND assumes that PC/internet technology will not make 3D web conferencing the norm by 2030 - or whenever the £80+ billion white elephant is due to be completed.
Don't want to get into this again, so I'll keep it short.
You're wrong.
May I suggest you check your assumptions, for instance the 'few hundred passengers a day' claim might be a good start, as would learning how rail use has changed over time. As for your cost - it's a ridiculous overestimate.
...the UK to be able to supply electricity in quantities that diffuse renewable supplies will never meet. You'd need to cover the whole UK landscape (plus alot of Africa) with windfarms or solar arrays (and hope every day is sunny and windy). Sure renewables can contribute but can never become baseload supply..
Early on Tuesday morning Ireland was generating more electricity from wind turbines than the UK. That is a country with a population smaller than Yorkshire was generating more electricity from wind turbines than the UK.
Don't you find that just a little bit embarrassing?
That is the position anti-wind rhetoric has put us in, and it's pathetic.
Electricity is more expensive in Ireland than the UK.
Capped at an above inflation rate rise (not a freeze) and rail companies aren't having to make investment decisions that require huge capital outlays that are repaid over the course of 30 years. Also there is a small difference between your train being a few minutes late and the power going off.
The key point is that there is no rubicon about capping prices or intervening in markets. The Tories do it already.
Not sure commuters or rail franchise holders would agree with you.
Since all energy companies already offer long fixed price tariffs, they can't be that opposed to it. The idea of the lights going out because of this policy is absurd.
I wish it was absurd, but it isn't. Do you agree that energy supply and generation in this country is rather fragile in terms of capacity, or do you think everything's fine? How much of a shock can the system withstand before there is a failure, however temporary?
The long-term tariffs the energy companies give are done on their terms, according to the long-term energy supply deals they've been able to negotiate.
Say you run a company selling widget that requires lots of steel, which is your highest cost. Today you arrange a deal with a steel supplier, where there is a set price for two years. You can then pass a two-year price-stabilisation deal onto your customers.
But this is different. The price the government sets will have to be set at a level that will be met by all players in the market. It's like the government telling you the price you would sell your widget for, regardless of the long-term deals you have set out or be able to get.
Thinking a little more about it, any energy price rise before the election might not be the fault of the UK energy companies. Now this has been announced, *their* suppliers could put up their prices ahead of the election, knowing that Miliband will set the price near the higher level.
It's crazy. Absolutely insane.
Josias – I like your posts on rail etc etc, but you are forever forecasting blackouts on here – and were before Miliband came up with this plan.
If the tories have any sense they won;t play miliband's game.
They will allow people to pay for their energy bills by giving them their own money back.
It is now inconceivable the tories will not offer tax cuts before the election. Not if they want to win.
Another excellent post from the thinking man's Tory.
You mean Taffys you would avoid spending the next 18 months defending energy companies who have been overcharging the public to the tune of billions over the last few years?
When the price failed to fall yesterday afternoon was it
a) good for Ed b) bad for Ed c) a disaster for Ed
The impact on Ed is not significant, Bobajob.
What is important is the impact on the country, the energy industry and its investors, and energy consumers.
What it tells us is that:
- investors in the future development of the UK's energy infrastructure and industry have decided to sell their holdings and invest their money elsewhere;
- the energy industry will find it more difficult and costly to raise funds investment funds in future;
- the rising cost and diminishing availability of investment funds will retard the development of the UK's energy generation and distribution infrastructure thereby reducing quality of service and increasing risk of interrupted supply;
- consumers will end up paying more for energy supplies than they otherwise would have done, due to constrained supply resulting from reduced investment;
- taxpayers will end up paying more as the government is forced to step in to provide investment funds which are no longer available at acceptable costs from the financial markets;
- public sector borrowing and expenses will increase due to government interventions into the energy market.
Pleased to see you are worried about the impact on Ed though.
I wish it was absurd, but it isn't. Do you agree that energy supply and generation in this country is rather fragile in terms of capacity, or do you think everything's fine? How much of a shock can the system withstand before there is a failure, however temporary?
The long-term tariffs the energy companies give are done on their terms, according to the long-term energy supply deals they've been able to negotiate.
Say you run a company selling widget that requires lots of steel, which is your highest cost. Today you arrange a deal with a steel supplier, where there is a set price for two years. You can then pass a two-year price-stabilisation deal onto your customers.
But this is different. The price the government sets will have to be set at a level that will be met by all players in the market. It's like the government telling you the price you would sell your widget for, regardless of the long-term deals you have set out or be able to get.
Thinking a little more about it, any energy price rise before the election might not be the fault of the UK energy companies. Now this has been announced, *their* suppliers could put up their prices ahead of the election, knowing that Miliband will set the price near the higher level.
It's crazy. Absolutely insane.
Josias – I like your posts on rail etc etc, but you are forever forecasting blackouts on here – and were before Miliband came up with this plan.
The Boy Who Cried Blackout.
Thanks for the compliment (although not the last sentence), but perhaps you miss a nuance on my posts about energy. I've had (hopefully friendly) debates with RCS on this. He is bullish on the chances of avoiding blackouts or brownouts; I'm more bearish. This does not mean I'm saying it will happen, just that I think we're sailing too close to the wind in terms of generating capacity.
In other words, I think that the risks we are running are too great.
And yesterday's announcement by Miliband undoubtedly makes things worse.
This PB Tory stuff about price caps being tantamount to socialism or communism is very reminiscent of Mitt Romney/Sarah Palin's denouncing of state involvement in healthcare as being tantamount to, erm, socialism or communism.
The Tories themselves use price caps in other industries (eg transport) just as the Americans have long promoted state involvement in their other public services (fire, police, military etc).
Why is intervening in the energy and healthcare industries socialism or communism while intervening in the transport, fire, military or policing industries is not?
No wonder some of the more unkind PB Lefties call the PB Tories the PB Palins.
When the price failed to fall yesterday afternoon was it
a) good for Ed b) bad for Ed c) a disaster for Ed
The impact on Ed is not significant, Bobajob.
What is important is the impact on the country, the energy industry and its investors, and energy consumers.
What it tells us is that:
- investors in the future development of the UK's energy infrastructure and industry have decided to sell their holdings and invest their money elsewhere;
- the energy industry will find it more difficult and costly to raise funds investment funds in future;
- the rising cost and diminishing availability of investment funds will retard the development of the UK's energy generation and distribution infrastructure thereby reducing quality of service and increasing risk of interrupted supply;
- consumers will end up paying more for energy supplies than they otherwise would have done, due to constrained supply resulting from reduced investment;
- taxpayers will end up paying more as the government is forced to step in to provide investment funds which are no longer available at acceptable costs from the financial markets;
- public sector borrowing and expenses will increase due to government interventions into the energy market.
Pleased to see you are worried about the impact on Ed though.
Seems thoroughly patriotic in the circumstances.
I await the day when we find it impossible to find an energy company willing to service a market of 60m in a wealthy country. As I say, by the same token we'd have no-one running our railways as we intervene in pricing there too.
I think Eds move yesterday will be popular with a section of the public there is no doubt about that. On the other hand I think it will worry another section of the public, the fear of a left wing Labour government may be better for getting the Conservative vote out than anything Shapps could put together, may even make some UKIPers think twice. Will be good for the election for the two sides to be standing on genuinely different platforms.
On newspaper and tv sites for comments on the Mlilband plan freezing energy cost,it seems miliband is on to something,even a lot of tory supporters backing ed for what I have seen.
Can we now be seeing labour up above 40% in the next few polls and staying there ? the tories better be careful how they handle this,the british public are angry with these energy companies and for me,ed's played a blinder.
It's up to the tories to show how ed's new policy would be a disaster and have they own plans that would help the british people with the cost of energy bills and the cost of living.
I think Eds move yesterday will be popular with a section of the public there is no doubt about that. On the other hand I think it will worry another section of the public, the fear of a left wing Labour government may be better for getting the Conservative vote out than anything Shapps could put together, may even make some UKIPers think twice. Will be good for the election for the two sides to be standing on genuinely different platforms.
There will certainly be ideological ground to fight over - if nothing else Red Ed has seen to that with his speech. Times readers are almost universally against what he's said - a much more Righty view than is normally the case in the comments. Either their readership is moving rightwards or lots of more centrist posters are alienated by it.
The logical flaw in that argument is that 4 million more people voted in 1992 than in 2010 and yet in the intervening 18 years the population of the UK has increased by 5 million. Even assuming a couple of million of those are kids, that would still indicate that the number of people eligible to vote but choosing not to had increased by 6-7 million.
I simply don't believe that the large drop in % turnout in the last 20 years is simply due to ghost voters who don't actually exist.
Many of the "vanished" 1992 voters (especially those who voted Conservative) were pensioners, who 20 years on are most likely pushing up daisies now. They have been replaced by sections of the population that are less likely to vote.
That's fair enough and I can see that point. My argument was against the idea that these potential voters don't exist. Clearly there is something close to 35% of the eligible population who do not chose to vote and the aim of all parties should be to try and change this, not only for the sake of the parties themselves who stand to gain support but also for the sake of our democratic system.
When the price failed to fall yesterday afternoon was it
a) good for Ed b) bad for Ed c) a disaster for Ed
The impact on Ed is not significant, Bobajob.
What is important is the impact on the country, the energy industry and its investors, and energy consumers.
What it tells us is that:
- investors in the future development of the UK's energy infrastructure and industry have decided to sell their holdings and invest their money elsewhere;
- the energy industry will find it more difficult and costly to raise funds investment funds in future;
- the rising cost and diminishing availability of investment funds will retard the development of the UK's energy generation and distribution infrastructure thereby reducing quality of service and increasing risk of interrupted supply;
- consumers will end up paying more for energy supplies than they otherwise would have done, due to constrained supply resulting from reduced investment;
- taxpayers will end up paying more as the government is forced to step in to provide investment funds which are no longer available at acceptable costs from the financial markets;
- public sector borrowing and expenses will increase due to government interventions into the energy market.
Pleased to see you are worried about the impact on Ed though.
Seems thoroughly patriotic in the circumstances.
I await the day when we find it impossible to find an energy company willing to service a market of 60m in a wealthy country. As I say, by the same token we'd have no-one running our railways as we intervene in pricing there too.
Rail intervention good Energy intervention bad
Not only is track infrastructure separate from running trains, but it all went pear-shaped and we still haven't worked out a proper way of funding long term investment.
"...Take gas and electricity bills. Yes, he’s right that we need a regulator with real teeth to curb profiteering. But a state-imposed price freeze until January 2017? No one can buck the markets – not even Ed Miliband. And not since the failed prices and incomes policies of the 1960s and 70s has any government been idiotic enough to try.
Or take business rates for small firms. True, they must come down. But why at the expense of large companies, just as the Coalition’s planned cut in corporation tax is attracting more to our shores? If Mr Miliband understood anything of the real world, he would know small businesses depend for their contracts on the big firms he plans to penalise. It’s the same with the housing crisis, where his unreconstructed Socialist answer is to confiscate land from developers who delay building until a commercially viable moment.
He doesn’t explain how driving builders out of business will help him keep his pledge of 200,000 new homes a year (the same promise made, and comprehensively broken, by Gordon Brown). As for squeezed incomes, once again his solution is childishly simple: the State should simply force companies to pay a ‘strengthened’ minimum wage. And if they can’t afford it, too bad. Like so much of his programme, this anachronistic statism is sheer, economic illiteracy.
There will certainly be ideological ground to fight over - if nothing else Red Ed has seen to that with his speech. Times readers are almost universally against what he's said - a much more Righty view than is normally the case in the comments. Either their readership is moving rightwards or lots of more centrist posters are alienated by it.
I would agree, I think it has been discussed before that Ed believes the centre ground has moved to the left, if he is right or not remains to be seen.
I await the day when we find it impossible to find an energy company willing to service a market of 60m in a wealthy country. As I say, by the same token we'd have no-one running our railways as we intervene in pricing there too.
Rail intervention good Energy intervention bad
The two are very, very different. You're comparing apples and pears.
For one thing, many - perhaps most - services get a subsidy from government, although thankfully that's slowly changing for passenger services. The government caps the amount the TOCs (*) can charge for a ticket, but allow services to continue by subsidising them, and that's excluding the massive investment the government are putting into Network Rail.
If you had price caps and no government subsidy, then the rail network may well collapse.
Also, TOCs do not invest to the same scale that energy companies have to. They do not buy trains, but instead lease them from the large ROSCOs (*) such as Angel Trains. And they have to do that, as the operating contracts are so short-term.
(*) Train Operating Companies (*) Rolling Stock Operating Companies
I think Eds move yesterday will be popular with a section of the public there is no doubt about that. On the other hand I think it will worry another section of the public, the fear of a left wing Labour government may be better for getting the Conservative vote out than anything Shapps could put together, may even make some UKIPers think twice. Will be good for the election for the two sides to be standing on genuinely different platforms.
If you want to reform and manipulate the cost of Energy to households you should start by reducing the cost of energy to the poorest.
As things stand now those who pay most per Kw are on pre paid meters. That needs to change and is an easy way to help the bottom end of the spectrum.
You have to allow the generating companies a view that any investment in new power stations will produce a long term yield for them.
Maybe you should wait and see if the much maligned Cameron scheme to simplify tariffs and make it obligatory to put consumers on the best tariff has any effect.
The scandal of prepayment charges really should be addressed pronto - you can't pay online or get a direct debit discount that better off customers can do. For a basic service, this really is unacceptable discrimination against the poorest.
I think Eds move yesterday will be popular with a section of the public there is no doubt about that. On the other hand I think it will worry another section of the public, the fear of a left wing Labour government may be better for getting the Conservative vote out than anything Shapps could put together, may even make some UKIPers think twice. Will be good for the election for the two sides to be standing on genuinely different platforms.
If you want to reform and manipulate the cost of Energy to households you should start by reducing the cost of energy to the poorest.
As things stand now those who pay most per Kw are on pre paid meters. That needs to change and is an easy way to help the bottom end of the spectrum.
You have to allow the generating companies a view that any investment in new power stations will produce a long term yield for them.
Maybe you should wait and see if the much maligned Cameron scheme to simplify tariffs and make it obligatory to put consumers on the best tariff has any effect.
When the price failed to fall yesterday afternoon was it
a) good for Ed b) bad for Ed c) a disaster for Ed
The impact on Ed is not significant, Bobajob.
What is important is the impact on the country, the energy industry and its investors, and energy consumers.
What it tells us is that:
- investors in the future development of the UK's energy infrastructure and industry have decided to sell their holdings and invest their money elsewhere;
- the energy industry will find it more difficult and costly to raise funds investment funds in future;
- the rising cost and diminishing availability of investment funds will retard the development of the UK's energy generation and distribution infrastructure thereby reducing quality of service and increasing risk of interrupted supply;
- consumers will end up paying more for energy supplies than they otherwise would have done, due to constrained supply resulting from reduced investment;
- taxpayers will end up paying more as the government is forced to step in to provide investment funds which are no longer available at acceptable costs from the financial markets;
- public sector borrowing and expenses will increase due to government interventions into the energy market.
Pleased to see you are worried about the impact on Ed though.
Seems thoroughly patriotic in the circumstances.
I await the day when we find it impossible to find an energy company willing to service a market of 60m in a wealthy country. As I say, by the same token we'd have no-one running our railways as we intervene in pricing there too.
Rail intervention good Energy intervention bad
California, 38m people, world's ninth largest economny. Blackouts.
Thought that I'd pass on a tip for the 8.00pm at Kempton if anyone out there has any cash left. Won't be a big price though.........Cat O,Mountain.....
Comments
"Mr Cuddles, 4. "This is very much a Labour household. I vote Labour, my eight brothers and sisters vote Labour and my mum votes Labour. I don't know how my dad votes because mum only met him once in an alley in Romford. It's not something I feel comfortable talking about."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100237866/10-cats-respond-to-the-labour-party-conference/
I suppose you could say things like taxes on bankers' bonuses also fit the model, in which case there was a little bit at the end of the Gordon Brown administration.
This state planning just gets better and better.
Admit it, it's a dog.
The long-term tariffs the energy companies give are done on their terms, according to the long-term energy supply deals they've been able to negotiate.
Say you run a company selling widget that requires lots of steel, which is your highest cost. Today you arrange a deal with a steel supplier, where there is a set price for two years. You can then pass a two-year price-stabilisation deal onto your customers.
But this is different. The price the government sets will have to be set at a level that will be met by all players in the market. It's like the government telling you the price you would sell your widget for, regardless of the long-term deals you have set out or be able to get.
Thinking a little more about it, any energy price rise before the election might not be the fault of the UK energy companies. Now this has been announced, *their* suppliers could put up their prices ahead of the election, knowing that Miliband will set the price near the higher level.
It's crazy. Absolutely insane.
What i'm still unclear on with all of these renewables (with the exception of Solar - just), is that they are being sold as 100% renewable/sustainable, but this is a zero sum game. You take the energy out of the system and convert it to lovely electricity, then what happens to the environment as a result of removing this energy?
Not an issue if it;s on the tiny scale it is now, but what about if we ramp it up to ~100% of supply?
It is called the market. It is called reality. Labour seems not to be on speaking terms with either. They better hope the voters aren't either.
Can the NHS then warn patients that they will only be treated if they vote Labour?
Or that sandals will only be sold to people who vote Lib Dem?
They will allow people to pay for their energy bills by giving them their own money back.
It is now inconceivable the tories will not offer tax cuts before the election. Not if they want to win.
There’ll now be clear red water between Labour and the two other main parties at the next election. This raises the question of how the Lib Dems fit into all this. Miliband barely mentioned them in his speech yesterday and has steered clear of attacks on them this conference season. There’s been much chatter in Brighton that this is deliberate, the Labour leader keeping his options open in case of another hung parliament. But there’s genuine concern in Clegg’s circle about the contents and policy implications of Miliband’s speech. After yesterday, it is even harder to see how a Clegg Miliband coalition would work." http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/09/ed-miliband-has-done-politics-a-favour-he-has-guaranteed-a-proper-choice-between-competing-philosophies/
We really need to invest in the pan-European HVDC network, where each country produces what power they can, when they can. Say solar in Spain, Italy and Northern Africa, wind in Germany, tidal and wave (if feasible) in Scotland, with nuclear baseload in France, and every country having their own baseload.
But the HVDC grid is *seriously* expensive and politically difficult. It makes HS2 look cheap and easy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_super_grid
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BVAdwy8CcAEQHP6.jpg:large
The fact that their planning might have a political aspect would undoubtedly be inconvenient for Ed Miliband. But then he should have thought about that, shouldn't he, before he left the JCR to deliver his conference speech.
Now when he starts to give away money while the debt reaches 1.6 trillion,he`s going to become the joke chancellor.
"Wind farms, especially big ones, generate turbulence that can significantly alter air temperatures near the ground, say researchers.
As turbines often stand on agricultural land, these changes could in turn affect crop productivity."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11470261
Wind and wave farms could affect Earth's energy balance
How do I get back to latest message first, I forget?
Caroline Lucas charged with breaching public order at the Balcombe protest.
Neil, your bet with Mark Senior is at risk!
Off-topic: R5L just reporting that Caroline Lucas is going to be prosecuted after her arrest at the Balcombe protests. Hope I've go that right ...
It's what should have been done with the NHS IT project, and several others.
Interestingly (for me at least) ISTR it's being done with railways as well, with signalling and other systems being defined to allow trains to eventually operate throughout most of Europe with minimal alterations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Rail_Traffic_Management_System
It's also why the Internet and WWW has been so successful. The protocols were defined to a suitable standard, and anyone could develop solutions for those protocols. If it had been more closed (as MS and others wanted), the Internet wouldn't have taken off in the same way or, worse, we'd have several different incompatible Internets, as the US has with phone networks.
You see, it's possible for even a PB Tory to praise Europe. ;-)
Two major complaints - over-crowding on commuter services and inflation-busting fare increases (the latter a natural consequence of the former!)
Doesn't alter the fact that, though many more people now use the railways, that still only amounts to 7% of the population.
Rail matters greatly to a relative few, and not one jot to most. hence HS2's unpopularity - vast debts for all for the benefit of a few hundred passengers a day - AND that assumes that time spent on a train is 'wasted' AND assumes that PC/internet technology will not make 3D web conferencing the norm by 2030 - or whenever the £80+ billion white elephant is due to be completed.
You're wrong.
May I suggest you check your assumptions, for instance the 'few hundred passengers a day' claim might be a good start, as would learning how rail use has changed over time. As for your cost - it's a ridiculous overestimate.
a) good for Ed
b) bad for Ed
c) a disaster for Ed
When the price failed to fall yesterday afternoon was it
a) good for Ed
b) bad for Ed
c) a disaster for Ed
http://orderorder.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/energy.jpg
http://order-order.com/2013/09/25/how-do-uk-retail-energy-prices-compare-to-rest-of-europe/
The Boy Who Cried Blackout.
You mean Taffys you would avoid spending the next 18 months defending energy companies who have been overcharging the public to the tune of billions over the last few years?
A radical strategy sir, but it might just work!
What is important is the impact on the country, the energy industry and its investors, and energy consumers.
What it tells us is that:
- investors in the future development of the UK's energy infrastructure and industry have decided to sell their holdings and invest their money elsewhere;
- the energy industry will find it more difficult and costly to raise funds investment funds in future;
- the rising cost and diminishing availability of investment funds will retard the development of the UK's energy generation and distribution infrastructure thereby reducing quality of service and increasing risk of interrupted supply;
- consumers will end up paying more for energy supplies than they otherwise would have done, due to constrained supply resulting from reduced investment;
- taxpayers will end up paying more as the government is forced to step in to provide investment funds which are no longer available at acceptable costs from the financial markets;
- public sector borrowing and expenses will increase due to government interventions into the energy market.
Pleased to see you are worried about the impact on Ed though.
Seems thoroughly patriotic in the circumstances.
In other words, I think that the risks we are running are too great.
And yesterday's announcement by Miliband undoubtedly makes things worse.
(edited to add an 'avoiding'. Ahem)
The Tories themselves use price caps in other industries (eg transport) just as the Americans have long promoted state involvement in their other public services (fire, police, military etc).
Why is intervening in the energy and healthcare industries socialism or communism while intervening in the transport, fire, military or policing industries is not?
No wonder some of the more unkind PB Lefties call the PB Tories the PB Palins.
Rail intervention good
Energy intervention bad
Can we now be seeing labour up above 40% in the next few polls and staying there ? the tories better be careful how they handle this,the british public are angry with these energy companies and for me,ed's played a blinder.
It's up to the tories to show how ed's new policy would be a disaster and have they own plans that would help the british people with the cost of energy bills and the cost of living.
"...Take gas and electricity bills. Yes, he’s right that we need a regulator with real teeth to curb profiteering. But a state-imposed price freeze until January 2017? No one can buck the markets – not even Ed Miliband. And not since the failed prices and incomes policies of the 1960s and 70s has any government been idiotic enough to try.
Or take business rates for small firms. True, they must come down. But why at the expense of large companies, just as the Coalition’s planned cut in corporation tax is attracting more to our shores? If Mr Miliband understood anything of the real world, he would know small businesses depend for their contracts on the big firms he plans to penalise. It’s the same with the housing crisis, where his unreconstructed Socialist answer is to confiscate land from developers who delay building until a commercially viable moment.
He doesn’t explain how driving builders out of business will help him keep his pledge of 200,000 new homes a year (the same promise made, and comprehensively broken, by Gordon Brown). As for squeezed incomes, once again his solution is childishly simple: the State should simply force companies to pay a ‘strengthened’ minimum wage. And if they can’t afford it, too bad. Like so much of his programme, this anachronistic statism is sheer, economic illiteracy.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2431231/Labour-Party-Conference-2013-Ed-Milibands-insult-teenagers-intelligence.html#ixzz2fuU36vtW
For one thing, many - perhaps most - services get a subsidy from government, although thankfully that's slowly changing for passenger services. The government caps the amount the TOCs (*) can charge for a ticket, but allow services to continue by subsidising them, and that's excluding the massive investment the government are putting into Network Rail.
If you had price caps and no government subsidy, then the rail network may well collapse.
Also, TOCs do not invest to the same scale that energy companies have to. They do not buy trains, but instead lease them from the large ROSCOs (*) such as Angel Trains. And they have to do that, as the operating contracts are so short-term.
(*) Train Operating Companies
(*) Rolling Stock Operating Companies
As things stand now those who pay most per Kw are on pre paid meters. That needs to change and is an easy way to help the bottom end of the spectrum.
You have to allow the generating companies a view that any investment in new power stations will produce a long term yield for them.
Maybe you should wait and see if the much maligned Cameron scheme to simplify tariffs and make it obligatory to put consumers on the best tariff has any effect.
'I await the day when we find it impossible to find an energy company willing to service a market of 60m in a wealthy country.'
Like the stampede of companies that are bidding to replace our Nuclear Power Stations?
Won't be a big price though.........Cat O,Mountain.....