Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
The hilarious bit is that many of the people I know who believe that tap water is toxic, buy water in cheap plastic containers that fairly scream "leaching chemicals".
They are often astonished when you ask them if their re-usable water bottles are off Amazon, and are lined with the finest toxic Chinese plastic. If not actually made out of it. To many, the idea of using an unlined stainless steel bottle is something they've never come across....
I like the bottles which say something like 'Filtered for 100,000,000 years in the Vosges mountains and bottled by jolly peasants in the village of Merde. Use by 9/9/21'
If you're going to Waitrose then forget the water, they currently have Laurent Perrier at £30 down from £40. That's what you want to be taking home from there, not some plastic-shrouded water.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
(I would point out that British Gas was also a big, state owned, beneficiary of the North Sea.)
I think it's very easy to be wise after the event. One only has to glance around the world to see that the number of promising petroleum basins, and the number of profitable, producing petroleum basins are very different. The British Government neither had the technical experience or the money to take on the gigantic risks of developing the North Sea on their own.
One also should look at Mexico and Venezuela: in both cases, laws were passed that stopped rapacious foreigners from exploiting vast hydrocarbon reserves. In both cases, this was a disaster for oil production.
Now, could we have done better. Yes, sure, of course we could. But this is based on knowledge that was only available after the event.
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
I hot like on this but I will say I am sorely tempted at times. Leave a glass of tapwater on the side for an hour at my Mum's place in Newark and you are kind of overwhelmed by the chemical smell from it - chlorine? Fluorine? I have no idea.
The answer of course is to run the tap for 30 seconds before you fill your glass and then drink it straight away. Oh and you have to empty and refill your kettle between each boiling or the tea tastes like shit. But I do wonder why it is like that these days as it certainly wasn't when I was a kid.
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
I think it is simply volume, which makes their supply chain a little more vulnerable than some of the larger chains that can spread shortages/surpluses over a greater number of stores .
That makes sense. And is also a rather more reassuring than just bad management. I do like Waitrose in many ways but it has always been the case that if we are shopping there we are already accepting a further trip to one of the other supermarkets to get what they were missing.
Mrs C consistently reports that our local store, a Co-op, either has empty shelves or has them only partly filled. Tesco, a bit further away, isn't quite as bad, but there are still gaps.
The son of a friend who is a Regional manager for one of the others says he's never known supplies as difficult.
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
I hot like on this but I will say I am sorely tempted at times. Leave a glass of tapwater on the side for an hour at my Mum's place in Newark and you are kind of overwhelmed by the chemical smell from it - chlorine? Fluorine? I have no idea.
The answer of course is to run the tap for 30 seconds before you fill your glass and then drink it straight away. Oh and you have to empty and refill your kettle between each boiling or the tea tastes like shit. But I do wonder why it is like that these days as it certainly wasn't when I was a kid.
A filter would get rid of a lot of that but yes I always run the water and refill the kettle each time.
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
There was an interesting documentary done on this many years ago by C4. They did blind tastings with chilled tap water v chilled bottled water and the result was no-one could consistently tell the difference, including those folk like TSE who said their tap water was "minging". They also carried out microbial and mineral analysis and concluded tap water is considerably safer. The best/safest water to drink anywhere in the UK is through a filter from you tap and refrigerate. If you want it sparkling get a sodastream.
You point "why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery" is not entirely true. The answer is the same as to why some people believe Boris Johnson is a good PM. Gullibility.
There are post Covid labour shortages across the developed world. It's nothing to do with Brexit, and everything to do with economic activity rebounding, with firms understaffed. When I was in Napa, we were in a full hotel, and the bar was shut four days of the week, because they couldn't find people to staff it. They were literally throwing away thousands of dollars per night, because of staff shortages.
There are some road haulage issues exacerbated by Brexit. Not solely caused by Brexit, but a consequence of the fact that (a) we're not part of the EEA road haulage network anymore, and (b) the DVLA has not been issuing new HGV licenses due to Covid. I suspect that a smaller version of this has happened elsewhere, but it's been a little worse for us. This will sort itself out over the next 18 months, as people enter the HGV driving market, attracted by higher wages.
It is possible that it has longer term consequences. We don't know whether firms considering investment decisions in Europe will take into account current logistical difficulties and prices. If they regard them as temporary, the effect will likely be minimal. If they are concerned they are longer lasting, then we may lose out on some opportunities. But we simply don't know yet, and this will only be a part of why firms make decisions.
It leads to some very simple but imo unanswered questions.
Why were HGV driving tests suspended for so long? If Ubers were allowed throughout why couldnt we do an HGV test? What plans were put in place to catch up on their resumption? Why do we not allow temporary 1-2 year visas for HGV drivers? Why do we not pay for free tuition for HGV drivers?
Simply saying it is due to covid is a complete abdication of govt responsibility and capability.
I agree, this is a classic example of an area where the government (not being particularly detail focused) took their eye off the ball.
Why did no-one think about the consequences of suspending tests at the same time that the flow of drivers from the EU dried up?
There could have been ways of maintaining tests throughout the pandemic: we could have had testers vaccinated first, we could have had mandated PCR tests. etc. There are lots of things we could have done, but didn't.
And, yes, that happed on Boris Johnson's government's watch, and they should be held responsible.
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
I hot like on this but I will say I am sorely tempted at times. Leave a glass of tapwater on the side for an hour at my Mum's place in Newark and you are kind of overwhelmed by the chemical smell from it - chlorine? Fluorine? I have no idea.
The answer of course is to run the tap for 30 seconds before you fill your glass and then drink it straight away. Oh and you have to empty and refill your kettle between each boiling or the tea tastes like shit. But I do wonder why it is like that these days as it certainly wasn't when I was a kid.
A filter would get rid of a lot of that but yes I always run the water and refill the kettle each time.
Oh I agree. I am not using it as an excuse to be expensive river water. But my point is more a question of what has changed over the last 4 decades or so. As a kid I would always have a glass of water by the bed and it was just as good the next morning as it was the night before. Now after half an hour straight from the tap you really wouldn't want to drink it. I don't for a moment think it is unsafe but it is certainly unpleasant.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
I hot like on this but I will say I am sorely tempted at times. Leave a glass of tapwater on the side for an hour at my Mum's place in Newark and you are kind of overwhelmed by the chemical smell from it - chlorine? Fluorine? I have no idea.
The answer of course is to run the tap for 30 seconds before you fill your glass and then drink it straight away. Oh and you have to empty and refill your kettle between each boiling or the tea tastes like shit. But I do wonder why it is like that these days as it certainly wasn't when I was a kid.
A filter would get rid of a lot of that but yes I always run the water and refill the kettle each time.
Oh I agree. I am not using it as an excuse to be expensive river water. But my point is more a question of what has changed over the last 4 decades or so. As a kid I would always have a glass of water by the bed and it was just as good the next morning as it was the night before. Now after half an hour straight from the tap you really wouldn't want to drink it. I don't for a moment think it is unsafe but it is certainly unpleasant.
I had always thought that overnight the water accumulates something or other, drawn in from the air. Could be an old wives' tale/childhood myth.
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
I think it is simply volume, which makes their supply chain a little more vulnerable than some of the larger chains that can spread shortages/surpluses over a greater number of stores .
That makes sense. And is also a rather more reassuring than just bad management. I do like Waitrose in many ways but it has always been the case that if we are shopping there we are already accepting a further trip to one of the other supermarkets to get what they were missing.
Mrs C consistently reports that our local store, a Co-op, either has empty shelves or has them only partly filled. Tesco, a bit further away, isn't quite as bad, but there are still gaps.
The son of a friend who is a Regional manager for one of the others says he's never known supplies as difficult.
Yep I was referring more to the specific long term problems that seem to afflict Waitrose.
You won't get through to Philip. He is a true "Boris" believer and ludicrously believes that Johnson is the best negotiator since Henry Kissinger. Nothing you can say will divert him from that belief set.
Nah, he's just a troll
Millions of irony meters up and down the nation just exploded.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 1h The Conservatives have had 12 years to come up with a plan for social care. But so have Labour: @MrTCHarris
Labour would imo be nuts to get bogged down in floating alternative proposals. The GE is years away and the government is (barring a u turn) stuck with trying to defend the indefensible with this NI plan. It can be ripped apart on so many levels that Labour's biggest challenge is knowing where to start.
You are probably correct, but they will face a lot of "so what would labour do?" questioning. At some point they will need to front up.
I'd argue that the best solution for the country would be a cross party agreement, but sadly low political cunning will almost certainly scupper that. As a country we need to decide who should pay for social care, and whether inheritance of your parents estate is a right, or something that is conditional on other factors. One thing that people in this country do stick to - a sense of fair play.
I was once very struck by the attitude of the grandparents of a friend. They had been frugal all their lives, scrimped, saved and paid their way. They were furious that others of their age had been spendthrift throughout and were now being supported by the state, because they couldn't support themselves. I think they would say if you have assets you should pay for you own care until you can no longer do so (with a cap set at a certain point).
None of this is easy. Most young people don't think they will ever get ill, or get old, or die. But they all will eventually. For the fortunate ones they will live long, healthy lives and then get taken swiftly at the end of a heart attack in their sleep. But we won't all be lucky. We have to do better as a society than 2 to 4 short visits a day where a carer has to chose between feeding someone or washing them, or other things.
I don't know the answer, but we have a duty to try harder.
Yes, I was talking about the politics of this right now for Labour, they should do their job of ripping the plan apart and no more, but I agree with these sentiments. A 'good' solution - ie not crassly unfair and sustainable for the longer term - needs to be cross party since it's too easy to paint anything serious as being some sort of outrage, winning votes off the back of the grievance stirred. Although this effort, using NI instead of either income tax or wealth tax, IS an outrage.
I don't quite follow your anecdote though. If those grandparents were furious that others without assets were getting state aid, surely they would NOT be saying that if you do have assets (eg themselves) you should be paying for care until you can't. They'd find this galling, wouldn't they, when the 'spendthrifts' were getting their bills covered? Exactly this sentiment is very prominent in the mix of emotions that people feel about social care.
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
The hilarious bit is that many of the people I know who believe that tap water is toxic, buy water in cheap plastic containers that fairly scream "leaching chemicals".
They are often astonished when you ask them if their re-usable water bottles are off Amazon, and are lined with the finest toxic Chinese plastic. If not actually made out of it. To many, the idea of using an unlined stainless steel bottle is something they've never come across....
I like the bottles which say something like 'Filtered for 100,000,000 years in the Vosges mountains and bottled by jolly peasants in the village of Merde. Use by 9/9/21'
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
(I would point out that British Gas was also a big, state owned, beneficiary of the North Sea.)
I think it's very easy to be wise after the event. One only has to glance around the world to see that the number of promising petroleum basins, and the number of profitable, producing petroleum basins are very different. The British Government neither had the technical experience or the money to take on the gigantic risks of developing the North Sea on their own.
One also should look at Mexico and Venezuela: in both cases, laws were passed that stopped rapacious foreigners from exploiting vast hydrocarbon reserves. In both cases, this was a disaster for oil production.
Now, could we have done better. Yes, sure, of course we could. But this is based on knowledge that was only available after the event.
Venezuela is an interesting one. It is not entirely due just to kicking out the international oil companies that they had a collapse of their industry. It was far more to do with the fact that any Venezuelan who had previously worked for any of those companies was banned from working for the new state oil companies. Most of them left the country and very large numbers ended up in Aberdeen and Houston. One of them is a good friend of mine and was one of the world leading experts on steam induced heavy oil production. Venezuela lost almost all of their oil knowledge and experience overnight and it was almost entirely self inflicted.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
The UK has a tax of 70% on every barrel of oil produced. This has been the norm for most of the life of the North Sea. The operators can write off some costs against that but not a lot.
Have 56% of Britons noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets or have they just noticed 56% of people talking about food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets?
I've noticed precisely nothing, and had no trouble getting anything at all.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
(I would point out that British Gas was also a big, state owned, beneficiary of the North Sea.)
I think it's very easy to be wise after the event. One only has to glance around the world to see that the number of promising petroleum basins, and the number of profitable, producing petroleum basins are very different. The British Government neither had the technical experience or the money to take on the gigantic risks of developing the North Sea on their own.
One also should look at Mexico and Venezuela: in both cases, laws were passed that stopped rapacious foreigners from exploiting vast hydrocarbon reserves. In both cases, this was a disaster for oil production.
Now, could we have done better. Yes, sure, of course we could. But this is based on knowledge that was only available after the event.
It's not hindsight when the Cabinet Office are warning in 1980 this is a bad idea, when having a national oil company was part of Labour's 1983 manifesto and when the Norwegians made a different decision at the time.
I'm not saying the UK should have taken on all of the risk. But a balanced approach would have been to share risk with private companies, and have a share of the upside when oil was found.
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
The hilarious bit is that many of the people I know who believe that tap water is toxic, buy water in cheap plastic containers that fairly scream "leaching chemicals".
They are often astonished when you ask them if their re-usable water bottles are off Amazon, and are lined with the finest toxic Chinese plastic. If not actually made out of it. To many, the idea of using an unlined stainless steel bottle is something they've never come across....
I like the bottles which say something like 'Filtered for 100,000,000 years in the Vosges mountains and bottled by jolly peasants in the village of Merde. Use by 9/9/21'
Thank goodness they bottled it just in time.
The bottles of water that say "suitable for vegetarians" are my favourite.
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
I hot like on this but I will say I am sorely tempted at times. Leave a glass of tapwater on the side for an hour at my Mum's place in Newark and you are kind of overwhelmed by the chemical smell from it - chlorine? Fluorine? I have no idea.
The answer of course is to run the tap for 30 seconds before you fill your glass and then drink it straight away. Oh and you have to empty and refill your kettle between each boiling or the tea tastes like shit. But I do wonder why it is like that these days as it certainly wasn't when I was a kid.
A filter would get rid of a lot of that but yes I always run the water and refill the kettle each time.
Oh I agree. I am not using it as an excuse to be expensive river water. But my point is more a question of what has changed over the last 4 decades or so. As a kid I would always have a glass of water by the bed and it was just as good the next morning as it was the night before. Now after half an hour straight from the tap you really wouldn't want to drink it. I don't for a moment think it is unsafe but it is certainly unpleasant.
Is it a old house with old lead pipes?
A few years ago we hired some professionals to see what is up with our water and they said that is a common cause.
As the pipes get older they leave more lead in the tap water, not harmful, but definitely messes up smell and taste.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
And it is one of the most inhospitable places in the world (or was a t the time) to drill for oil.
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
The hilarious bit is that many of the people I know who believe that tap water is toxic, buy water in cheap plastic containers that fairly scream "leaching chemicals".
They are often astonished when you ask them if their re-usable water bottles are off Amazon, and are lined with the finest toxic Chinese plastic. If not actually made out of it. To many, the idea of using an unlined stainless steel bottle is something they've never come across....
I like the bottles which say something like 'Filtered for 100,000,000 years in the Vosges mountains and bottled by jolly peasants in the village of Merde. Use by 9/9/21'
Thank goodness they bottled it just in time.
The bottles of water that say "suitable for vegetarians" are my favourite.
Similar to peanuts that say "may contain traces of nuts"
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
I never have any problems at my local Waitrose unless I go in at 9pm in the evening.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
b).... we have the example across the sea where the Norwegians got about three times as much per barrel!
Have 56% of Britons noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets or have they just noticed 56% of people talking about food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets?
I've noticed precisely nothing, and had no trouble getting anything at all.
I haven't because generally I don't do the shopping. If I were a politician and was asked the cliched question "how much is a pint of milk" I really wouldn't have a clue.
The shortages are relatively minor at present, but people are sensitised and starting to attribute any temporary lack of stock to the general narrative of HGV disruption (not so much Brexit, yet).
More or Less had a good episode on this (HGV drivers) yesterday. Their conclusion? Brexit is a contributory factor, as are other issues. This in response to a supposed shortage of HGV drivers of 100,000.
There was a shortage of 60,000 HGV drivers the year before the Brexit (2019) and 50,000 in 2015.
25,000 fewer people passed their HGV test vs the year before.
In 2019 before Brexit there were 44,000 lorry drivers from the EU and now there are around 25,000.
So 19,000 from Brexit 25,000 from fewer tests passed 60,000 residual shortage
= 100,000 shortage.
But that 100,000 is not a robust number according to MoL. No one knows how many there are to determine there is a 100,000 shortage.
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
I hot like on this but I will say I am sorely tempted at times. Leave a glass of tapwater on the side for an hour at my Mum's place in Newark and you are kind of overwhelmed by the chemical smell from it - chlorine? Fluorine? I have no idea.
The answer of course is to run the tap for 30 seconds before you fill your glass and then drink it straight away. Oh and you have to empty and refill your kettle between each boiling or the tea tastes like shit. But I do wonder why it is like that these days as it certainly wasn't when I was a kid.
A filter would get rid of a lot of that but yes I always run the water and refill the kettle each time.
Oh I agree. I am not using it as an excuse to be expensive river water. But my point is more a question of what has changed over the last 4 decades or so. As a kid I would always have a glass of water by the bed and it was just as good the next morning as it was the night before. Now after half an hour straight from the tap you really wouldn't want to drink it. I don't for a moment think it is unsafe but it is certainly unpleasant.
Is it a old house with old lead pipes?
A few years ago we hired some professionals to see what is up with our water and they said that is a common cause.
As the pipes get older they leave more lead in the tap water, not harmful, but definitely messes up smell and taste.
No, it was built by my father in 1969 and all the piping is copper. It is not just our house. All of Newark suffers the same issue and it gets into the local paper regularly (by which I mean ever few years if that). It is perfectly safe to drink. Just not very pleasant if left for any length of time.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
And it is one of the most inhospitable places in the world (or was a t the time) to drill for oil.
The Sky News 'News with no agenda' campaign would be more compelling if it were an explicit relaunch and promise to do better. As it is, they probably think they were already doing it and will carry on with the same slant.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
And it is one of the most inhospitable places in the world (or was a t the time) to drill for oil.
I would like to put up a photo of the last time I was offshore in 2013 which would illustrate this well but I lack the technical ability...
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
I hot like on this but I will say I am sorely tempted at times. Leave a glass of tapwater on the side for an hour at my Mum's place in Newark and you are kind of overwhelmed by the chemical smell from it - chlorine? Fluorine? I have no idea.
The answer of course is to run the tap for 30 seconds before you fill your glass and then drink it straight away. Oh and you have to empty and refill your kettle between each boiling or the tea tastes like shit. But I do wonder why it is like that these days as it certainly wasn't when I was a kid.
A filter would get rid of a lot of that but yes I always run the water and refill the kettle each time.
Oh I agree. I am not using it as an excuse to be expensive river water. But my point is more a question of what has changed over the last 4 decades or so. As a kid I would always have a glass of water by the bed and it was just as good the next morning as it was the night before. Now after half an hour straight from the tap you really wouldn't want to drink it. I don't for a moment think it is unsafe but it is certainly unpleasant.
Is it a old house with old lead pipes?
A few years ago we hired some professionals to see what is up with our water and they said that is a common cause.
As the pipes get older they leave more lead in the tap water, not harmful, but definitely messes up smell and taste.
I think that you will find that lead in the water is extremely harmful and really should be removed.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
b).... we have the example across the sea where the Norwegians got about three times as much per barrel!
Given that the UK government took 70% of the value of each barrel in tax, I'm struggling to understand how the Norwegians could have gotten 3x as much.
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
I hot like on this but I will say I am sorely tempted at times. Leave a glass of tapwater on the side for an hour at my Mum's place in Newark and you are kind of overwhelmed by the chemical smell from it - chlorine? Fluorine? I have no idea.
The answer of course is to run the tap for 30 seconds before you fill your glass and then drink it straight away. Oh and you have to empty and refill your kettle between each boiling or the tea tastes like shit. But I do wonder why it is like that these days as it certainly wasn't when I was a kid.
A filter would get rid of a lot of that but yes I always run the water and refill the kettle each time.
Oh I agree. I am not using it as an excuse to be expensive river water. But my point is more a question of what has changed over the last 4 decades or so. As a kid I would always have a glass of water by the bed and it was just as good the next morning as it was the night before. Now after half an hour straight from the tap you really wouldn't want to drink it. I don't for a moment think it is unsafe but it is certainly unpleasant.
Is it a old house with old lead pipes?
A few years ago we hired some professionals to see what is up with our water and they said that is a common cause.
As the pipes get older they leave more lead in the tap water, not harmful, but definitely messes up smell and taste.
Lead is never not harmful, 'tis a cumulative poison.
I've noticed labour shortages more generally, even in my consultancy industry where all firms want to expand like crazy but can't find enough good staff.
Right now, this is good for me - as I've just had a fantastic job offer to become a Director with a substantial pay rise - but, it will shortly become my problem once I take the job and can't staff my teams.
The trouble is: immigration fixes it in weeks, whereas training & education take years, so firms are always going to prefer the former.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
And it is one of the most inhospitable places in the world (or was a t the time) to drill for oil.
I would like to put up a photo of the last time I was offshore in 2013 which would illustrate this well but I lack the technical ability...
You have my respect. A number of my friends worked on the rigs in the late 80s. Not for the faint hearted.
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
I hot like on this but I will say I am sorely tempted at times. Leave a glass of tapwater on the side for an hour at my Mum's place in Newark and you are kind of overwhelmed by the chemical smell from it - chlorine? Fluorine? I have no idea.
The answer of course is to run the tap for 30 seconds before you fill your glass and then drink it straight away. Oh and you have to empty and refill your kettle between each boiling or the tea tastes like shit. But I do wonder why it is like that these days as it certainly wasn't when I was a kid.
A filter would get rid of a lot of that but yes I always run the water and refill the kettle each time.
Oh I agree. I am not using it as an excuse to be expensive river water. But my point is more a question of what has changed over the last 4 decades or so. As a kid I would always have a glass of water by the bed and it was just as good the next morning as it was the night before. Now after half an hour straight from the tap you really wouldn't want to drink it. I don't for a moment think it is unsafe but it is certainly unpleasant.
Is it a old house with old lead pipes?
A few years ago we hired some professionals to see what is up with our water and they said that is a common cause.
As the pipes get older they leave more lead in the tap water, not harmful, but definitely messes up smell and taste.
I think that you will find that lead in the water is extremely harmful and really should be removed.
Turns out I slightly misremembered.
Lead is highly poisonous and may be absorbed into water from old lead piping on its route to your home. Ironically, those in soft water areas are more at risk from lead pollution as limescale build-up inside water mains acts as a barrier between the pipes and the water to protect it from contamination.
In soft water areas where there is a high risk of lead being absorbed from pipework, water companies treat the water with orthophosphate (phosphoric acid) which reduces any lead content.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
And it is one of the most inhospitable places in the world (or was a t the time) to drill for oil.
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
I hot like on this but I will say I am sorely tempted at times. Leave a glass of tapwater on the side for an hour at my Mum's place in Newark and you are kind of overwhelmed by the chemical smell from it - chlorine? Fluorine? I have no idea.
The answer of course is to run the tap for 30 seconds before you fill your glass and then drink it straight away. Oh and you have to empty and refill your kettle between each boiling or the tea tastes like shit. But I do wonder why it is like that these days as it certainly wasn't when I was a kid.
A filter would get rid of a lot of that but yes I always run the water and refill the kettle each time.
Oh I agree. I am not using it as an excuse to be expensive river water. But my point is more a question of what has changed over the last 4 decades or so. As a kid I would always have a glass of water by the bed and it was just as good the next morning as it was the night before. Now after half an hour straight from the tap you really wouldn't want to drink it. I don't for a moment think it is unsafe but it is certainly unpleasant.
Same here, though in our case the change might be due to using a different reservoir. I think something is oxidising but have no idea what.
This is breakdown for extra cash for NHS in England £2.8 billion for COVID-19 costs including infection control measures £600 million for day-to-day costs £478 million for enhanced hospital discharge and £1.5 billion for elective recovery, including £500 million capital funding
Announcement says Scotland, Wales and NI will receive up to another billion in 2021-22
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
And it is one of the most inhospitable places in the world (or was a t the time) to drill for oil.
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
Blimey your take makes the photo from Sainsbury’s that scaremongers keep sharing completely misleading then
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
They’re unusual in still sourcing online deliveries from the local store, rather than through a separate network of warehouses. Whether this affects things I don’t know.
That's not unusual, most Online is still store pick outside of Ocado, even if there's the odd dark-store and local fulfilment centre trialling going on.
Im not sure that's true - read up on Sainsbury's and it looks like online is mostly sourced direct from warehouses
With who though? We haven't got a good spin bowler for home test matches. Mo is the best available, it's him or Dom Bess and Bess is absolutely terrible, he'd have been going for one or two boundaries per over against this India batting line up.
Depends what you want the spinner to do: offer control or take wickets. Best control probably comes from Leach (or Root), while Mo is the most likely wicket taker. They could go with Virdi or Parkinson as wicket-taking options, but that's a hell of a tail with Mahmood and Wood likely to be in the running.
Old Trafford might be a two-spinners pitch, but Root is yet another England captain with no idea how to captain spin.
The shortages are relatively minor at present, but people are sensitised and starting to attribute any temporary lack of stock to the general narrative of HGV disruption (not so much Brexit, yet).
Anecdata - visited a friend in Brighton yesterday for a pub crawl (something I've never done in my life, you're never too old to try new things...). Masking was well down on even a crowded train (about 20%) and social distancing had been completed abandoned in the streets. Very different from cautious Godalming. Pubs were still making a bit of an effort with signs encouraging distancing and tables fairly well separated.
German update from INSA, who seem to be doing polls ever few days now: SPD 26 (+1), CDU 20.5 (+0.5), Greens 15.5 (-0.5), FDP 12.5 (-0.5), Linke 6.5 (-0.5), AfD 11(-1). SPD win nailed on, with a coalition with Green and FDP looking the only realistic option.
I'm still wearing masks when I feel it's appropriate, but wearing them has been really uncomfortable over the last couple of days, given the temperature. I'd reckon that'll put more than a few people off.
I'm a total conformist on this. I wear a mask where most are wearing a mask, and not where not. So, Waitrose = yes, Tesco = No, Dept Stores = Yes, Golf club = No, Gym = No, Pub = No, Opticians = Yes, Dentist = Yes, Houses = per host.
I was thinking about this today: if shop staff are wearing masks, it might be good to wear them as well...
The shortages are relatively minor at present, but people are sensitised and starting to attribute any temporary lack of stock to the general narrative of HGV disruption (not so much Brexit, yet).
More or Less had a good episode on this (HGV drivers) yesterday. Their conclusion? Brexit is a contributory factor, as are other issues. This in response to a supposed shortage of HGV drivers of 100,000.
There was a shortage of 60,000 HGV drivers the year before the Brexit (2019) and 50,000 in 2015.
25,000 fewer people passed their HGV test vs the year before.
In 2019 before Brexit there were 44,000 lorry drivers from the EU and now there are around 25,000.
So 19,000 from Brexit 25,000 from fewer tests passed 60,000 residual shortage
= 100,000 shortage.
But that 100,000 is not a robust number according to MoL. No one knows how many there are to determine there is a 100,000 shortage.
Yes, I think that's fair.
My guess, based mainly on anecdote, is that the massive increase in home delivery over the pandemic has bled some of the potential employees out of the HGV market. People are finding they can earn very similar money whilst being at home every night doing local deliveries at much more sociable hours and are going for it. When this is added to the lack of new recruits coming in you get a problem.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
And it is one of the most inhospitable places in the world (or was a t the time) to drill for oil.
I would like to put up a photo of the last time I was offshore in 2013 which would illustrate this well but I lack the technical ability...
Go to vf.politicalbetting.com and you can upload photos there.
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
I think it is simply volume, which makes their supply chain a little more vulnerable than some of the larger chains that can spread shortages/surpluses over a greater number of stores .
That makes sense. And is also a rather more reassuring than just bad management. I do like Waitrose in many ways but it has always been the case that if we are shopping there we are already accepting a further trip to one of the other supermarkets to get what they were missing.
The favourite with waitrose is when you decide to cook fish or venison or whatever and they supply everything for the recipe and the rest of the meal, except the fish is missing.
I've noticed labour shortages more generally, even in my consultancy industry where all firms want to expand like crazy but can't find enough good staff.
Right now, this is good for me - as I've just had a fantastic job offer to become a Director with a substantial pay rise - but, it will shortly become my problem once I take the job and can't staff my teams.
The trouble is: immigration fixes it in weeks, whereas training & education take years, so firms are always going to prefer the former.
It's not uniform, though?
I met someone from a local authority who told me they'd had over 100 applications for a relatively junior role which isn't what you would expect from a "tight" labour market.
Local councils struggle more with professional roles as they can't offer qualified accountants, surveyors or solicitors the money they can get in the private sector. I'll know the labour market is really tightening when I hear of Councils struggling to recruit to professional posts.
I think the issue with driver shortages is that whole lorry loads get missed whereas if you have production shortages everyone gets a bit less of everything.
As a simple example, you need to send out ten loads of breakfast cereal but only have nine drivers. One supermarket won't get a delivery of cereal and will have empty shelves for that product, while the remaining nine supermarkets have full deliveries and shelves of cereal. The supermarket without cereal may get full deliveries and shelves of other products.
If production of breakfast cereal was short by 10%, every supermarket would get 90% of their order and no-one would notice the shortfall.
The shortages are relatively minor at present, but people are sensitised and starting to attribute any temporary lack of stock to the general narrative of HGV disruption (not so much Brexit, yet).
More or Less had a good episode on this (HGV drivers) yesterday. Their conclusion? Brexit is a contributory factor, as are other issues. This in response to a supposed shortage of HGV drivers of 100,000.
There was a shortage of 60,000 HGV drivers the year before the Brexit (2019) and 50,000 in 2015.
25,000 fewer people passed their HGV test vs the year before.
In 2019 before Brexit there were 44,000 lorry drivers from the EU and now there are around 25,000.
So 19,000 from Brexit 25,000 from fewer tests passed 60,000 residual shortage
= 100,000 shortage.
But that 100,000 is not a robust number according to MoL. No one knows how many there are to determine there is a 100,000 shortage.
Yes, I think that's fair.
My guess, based mainly on anecdote, is that the massive increase in home delivery over the pandemic has bled some of the potential employees out of the HGV market. People are finding they can earn very similar money whilst being at home every night doing local deliveries at much more sociable hours and are going for it. When this is added to the lack of new recruits coming in you get a problem.
Also add the normal retirement of truckies as they get older. The shit (literally) time they had during Covid, when refused loos, would not have helped retention.
The shortages are relatively minor at present, but people are sensitised and starting to attribute any temporary lack of stock to the general narrative of HGV disruption (not so much Brexit, yet).
More or Less had a good episode on this (HGV drivers) yesterday. Their conclusion? Brexit is a contributory factor, as are other issues. This in response to a supposed shortage of HGV drivers of 100,000.
There was a shortage of 60,000 HGV drivers the year before the Brexit (2019) and 50,000 in 2015.
25,000 fewer people passed their HGV test vs the year before.
In 2019 before Brexit there were 44,000 lorry drivers from the EU and now there are around 25,000.
So 19,000 from Brexit 25,000 from fewer tests passed 60,000 residual shortage
= 100,000 shortage.
But that 100,000 is not a robust number according to MoL. No one knows how many there are to determine there is a 100,000 shortage.
Yes, I think that's fair.
My guess, based mainly on anecdote, is that the massive increase in home delivery over the pandemic has bled some of the potential employees out of the HGV market. People are finding they can earn very similar money whilst being at home every night doing local deliveries at much more sociable hours and are going for it. When this is added to the lack of new recruits coming in you get a problem.
When I was at royal mail we got many of our HGV drivers like that; after a youth driving the motorways of Europe they had got a family and wanted a driving job with a base and a routine
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
(I would point out that British Gas was also a big, state owned, beneficiary of the North Sea.)
I think it's very easy to be wise after the event. One only has to glance around the world to see that the number of promising petroleum basins, and the number of profitable, producing petroleum basins are very different. The British Government neither had the technical experience or the money to take on the gigantic risks of developing the North Sea on their own.
One also should look at Mexico and Venezuela: in both cases, laws were passed that stopped rapacious foreigners from exploiting vast hydrocarbon reserves. In both cases, this was a disaster for oil production.
Now, could we have done better. Yes, sure, of course we could. But this is based on knowledge that was only available after the event.
Venezuela is an interesting one. It is not entirely due just to kicking out the international oil companies that they had a collapse of their industry. It was far more to do with the fact that any Venezuelan who had previously worked for any of those companies was banned from working for the new state oil companies. Most of them left the country and very large numbers ended up in Aberdeen and Houston. One of them is a good friend of mine and was one of the world leading experts on steam induced heavy oil production. Venezuela lost almost all of their oil knowledge and experience overnight and it was almost entirely self inflicted.
That is without doubt the stupidest idea I've heard today.
The shortages are relatively minor at present, but people are sensitised and starting to attribute any temporary lack of stock to the general narrative of HGV disruption (not so much Brexit, yet).
Anecdata - visited a friend in Brighton yesterday for a pub crawl (something I've never done in my life, you're never too old to try new things...). Masking was well down on even a crowded train (about 20%) and social distancing had been completed abandoned in the streets. Very different from cautious Godalming. Pubs were still making a bit of an effort with signs encouraging distancing and tables fairly well separated.
German update from INSA, who seem to be doing polls ever few days now: SPD 26 (+1), CDU 20.5 (+0.5), Greens 15.5 (-0.5), FDP 12.5 (-0.5), Linke 6.5 (-0.5), AfD 11(-1). SPD win nailed on, with a coalition with Green and FDP looking the only realistic option.
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
I think it is simply volume, which makes their supply chain a little more vulnerable than some of the larger chains that can spread shortages/surpluses over a greater number of stores .
That makes sense. And is also a rather more reassuring than just bad management. I do like Waitrose in many ways but it has always been the case that if we are shopping there we are already accepting a further trip to one of the other supermarkets to get what they were missing.
The favourite with waitrose is when you decide to cook fish or venison or whatever and they supply everything for the recipe and the rest of the meal, except the fish is missing.
My favourite substitution during the pandemic was the following
Ordered: Sainsbury's sponge scourers.
Substitution: Sainsbury's Victoria sponge cake.
Although my friend received the best ever substitution.
The shortages are relatively minor at present, but people are sensitised and starting to attribute any temporary lack of stock to the general narrative of HGV disruption (not so much Brexit, yet).
More or Less had a good episode on this (HGV drivers) yesterday. Their conclusion? Brexit is a contributory factor, as are other issues. This in response to a supposed shortage of HGV drivers of 100,000.
There was a shortage of 60,000 HGV drivers the year before the Brexit (2019) and 50,000 in 2015.
25,000 fewer people passed their HGV test vs the year before.
In 2019 before Brexit there were 44,000 lorry drivers from the EU and now there are around 25,000.
So 19,000 from Brexit 25,000 from fewer tests passed 60,000 residual shortage
= 100,000 shortage.
But that 100,000 is not a robust number according to MoL. No one knows how many there are to determine there is a 100,000 shortage.
Yes, I think that's fair.
My guess, based mainly on anecdote, is that the massive increase in home delivery over the pandemic has bled some of the potential employees out of the HGV market. People are finding they can earn very similar money whilst being at home every night doing local deliveries at much more sociable hours and are going for it. When this is added to the lack of new recruits coming in you get a problem.
Also add the normal retirement of truckies as they get older. The shit (literally) time they had during Covid, when refused loos, would not have helped retention.
Yes, I am sure it has been a much tougher job during lockdowns than it is normally and I wouldn't fancy it even under normal circumstances.
The shortages are relatively minor at present, but people are sensitised and starting to attribute any temporary lack of stock to the general narrative of HGV disruption (not so much Brexit, yet).
More or Less had a good episode on this (HGV drivers) yesterday. Their conclusion? Brexit is a contributory factor, as are other issues. This in response to a supposed shortage of HGV drivers of 100,000.
There was a shortage of 60,000 HGV drivers the year before the Brexit (2019) and 50,000 in 2015.
25,000 fewer people passed their HGV test vs the year before.
In 2019 before Brexit there were 44,000 lorry drivers from the EU and now there are around 25,000.
So 19,000 from Brexit 25,000 from fewer tests passed 60,000 residual shortage
= 100,000 shortage.
But that 100,000 is not a robust number according to MoL. No one knows how many there are to determine there is a 100,000 shortage.
Yes, I think that's fair.
My guess, based mainly on anecdote, is that the massive increase in home delivery over the pandemic has bled some of the potential employees out of the HGV market. People are finding they can earn very similar money whilst being at home every night doing local deliveries at much more sociable hours and are going for it. When this is added to the lack of new recruits coming in you get a problem.
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
I think it is simply volume, which makes their supply chain a little more vulnerable than some of the larger chains that can spread shortages/surpluses over a greater number of stores .
That makes sense. And is also a rather more reassuring than just bad management. I do like Waitrose in many ways but it has always been the case that if we are shopping there we are already accepting a further trip to one of the other supermarkets to get what they were missing.
The favourite with waitrose is when you decide to cook fish or venison or whatever and they supply everything for the recipe and the rest of the meal, except the fish is missing.
My favourite substitution during the pandemic was the following
Ordered: Sainsbury's sponge scourers.
Substitution: Sainsbury's Victoria sponge cake.
Although my friend received the best ever substitution.
Ordered: Latex gloves
Substitution: Condoms.
(Even funnier when you realise she's a lesbian.)
In fairness you can never really have too much Victoria sponge cake.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
b).... we have the example across the sea where the Norwegians got about three times as much per barrel!
Given that the UK government took 70% of the value of each barrel in tax, I'm struggling to understand how the Norwegians could have gotten 3x as much.
It's a combination of 1) UK oil coming out when prices were lower 2) Norway having higher tax rates 3) a healthy dollop of dubious accounting 4) Norwegians keeping equity.
Let's remember also... it's very unlikely the Norwegians did this *perfectly*. They doubtless had room for improvement also.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
And it is one of the most inhospitable places in the world (or was a t the time) to drill for oil.
Our nephew lost his life on Piper Alpha
Sorry for your loss Big G.
On a similar note one of the in laws neighbours used to work on the rigs. One day he fell into the ocean. Was never found. Horrible way to go.
The shortages are relatively minor at present, but people are sensitised and starting to attribute any temporary lack of stock to the general narrative of HGV disruption (not so much Brexit, yet).
More or Less had a good episode on this (HGV drivers) yesterday. Their conclusion? Brexit is a contributory factor, as are other issues. This in response to a supposed shortage of HGV drivers of 100,000.
There was a shortage of 60,000 HGV drivers the year before the Brexit (2019) and 50,000 in 2015.
25,000 fewer people passed their HGV test vs the year before.
In 2019 before Brexit there were 44,000 lorry drivers from the EU and now there are around 25,000.
So 19,000 from Brexit 25,000 from fewer tests passed 60,000 residual shortage
= 100,000 shortage.
But that 100,000 is not a robust number according to MoL. No one knows how many there are to determine there is a 100,000 shortage.
Yes, I think that's fair.
My guess, based mainly on anecdote, is that the massive increase in home delivery over the pandemic has bled some of the potential employees out of the HGV market. People are finding they can earn very similar money whilst being at home every night doing local deliveries at much more sociable hours and are going for it. When this is added to the lack of new recruits coming in you get a problem.
I have some friends who work at ASDA and Morrisons HQ, they've said one of the other major issues is that driving a HGV isn't a homogenous experience.
There's a world of difference driving a HGV full of frozen/chilled goods and one with dry products or electronics.
Then some places operate a drop and drive approach other places require you to account for every item in the delivery.
I've noticed labour shortages more generally, even in my consultancy industry where all firms want to expand like crazy but can't find enough good staff.
Right now, this is good for me - as I've just had a fantastic job offer to become a Director with a substantial pay rise - but, it will shortly become my problem once I take the job and can't staff my teams.
The trouble is: immigration fixes it in weeks, whereas training & education take years, so firms are always going to prefer the former.
If there are two firms bidding for a contract, the one that has the lower price will win.
Firms should be investing in training and education, and the government needs to make sure the tax system encourages it.
One of the problems is this:
Imagine I take on John for £20,000 per year. In the first two years, I spend £10,000 each year training up John and he generates £15,000 of economic output. So, over the two years, I am out of pocket by £30,000.
In year three, John is fully trained and can generate economic output of £40,000 per year. Yay! If I pay him £30,000 per year, I'll get my money back in three years.
But NewCo down the road can afford to offer him £35,000/year and earn a profit on John from day one.
For almost any firm, the incentive is to take on qualified employees by outbidding rather than training them up themselves, because if you train them, they will leave for a higher paying job and you will be out of pocket.
Now, there are various ways around this. In America, the cost of training is handed over to the employees, and they send themselves to business or law or medical school and take on big debts. The Germans and the Swiss have done it differently, with vocational training seamlessly continuing from secondary education, and with the cost of that training shared between the state and the employer.
We in the UK have done it really badly.
Immigration is a consequence of the failure of the UK's tax, benefits and education systems.
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
I think it is simply volume, which makes their supply chain a little more vulnerable than some of the larger chains that can spread shortages/surpluses over a greater number of stores .
That makes sense. And is also a rather more reassuring than just bad management. I do like Waitrose in many ways but it has always been the case that if we are shopping there we are already accepting a further trip to one of the other supermarkets to get what they were missing.
The favourite with waitrose is when you decide to cook fish or venison or whatever and they supply everything for the recipe and the rest of the meal, except the fish is missing.
My favourite substitution during the pandemic was the following
Ordered: Sainsbury's sponge scourers.
Substitution: Sainsbury's Victoria sponge cake.
Although my friend received the best ever substitution.
Ordered: Latex gloves
Substitution: Condoms.
(Even funnier when you realise she's a lesbian.)
In fairness you can never really have too much Victoria sponge cake.
Doesn't do much for the dishes, though.
I would love to report that election fever is building, here in Bavaria. But I have yet to hear anyone talking politics, at all.
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
I think it is simply volume, which makes their supply chain a little more vulnerable than some of the larger chains that can spread shortages/surpluses over a greater number of stores .
That makes sense. And is also a rather more reassuring than just bad management. I do like Waitrose in many ways but it has always been the case that if we are shopping there we are already accepting a further trip to one of the other supermarkets to get what they were missing.
The favourite with waitrose is when you decide to cook fish or venison or whatever and they supply everything for the recipe and the rest of the meal, except the fish is missing.
My favourite substitution during the pandemic was the following
Ordered: Sainsbury's sponge scourers.
Substitution: Sainsbury's Victoria sponge cake.
Although my friend received the best ever substitution.
Ordered: Latex gloves
Substitution: Condoms.
(Even funnier when you realise she's a lesbian.)
In fairness you can never really have too much Victoria sponge cake.
Indeed, and the condoms do double up as great party balloons if you don't wish to use them as intended.
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
They’re unusual in still sourcing online deliveries from the local store, rather than through a separate network of warehouses. Whether this affects things I don’t know.
That's not unusual, most Online is still store pick outside of Ocado, even if there's the odd dark-store and local fulfilment centre trialling going on.
Im not sure that's true - read up on Sainsbury's and it looks like online is mostly sourced direct from warehouses
I can tell you for a certainty that Sainsbury's is store picked online, it's reconfirmed at every investor call.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
And it is one of the most inhospitable places in the world (or was a t the time) to drill for oil.
I don't doubt it. I find it somewhat incredible whenever I think about getting oil out of the sea.
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
They’re unusual in still sourcing online deliveries from the local store, rather than through a separate network of warehouses. Whether this affects things I don’t know.
That's not unusual, most Online is still store pick outside of Ocado, even if there's the odd dark-store and local fulfilment centre trialling going on.
Im not sure that's true - read up on Sainsbury's and it looks like online is mostly sourced direct from warehouses
I can tell you for a certainty that Sainsbury's is store picked online, it's reconfirmed at every investor call.
Tesco has teams of pickers picking from the main stores.
I am drinking an excellent Prosecco, eating a soft feta canapé, staring at a tiny lakeside villa where the Nazis first directly discussed surrender with the Allies, in 1945. It is estimated these secret debates hastened the end of the war by 6-8 weeks, saving tens of thousands of lies
The shortages are relatively minor at present, but people are sensitised and starting to attribute any temporary lack of stock to the general narrative of HGV disruption (not so much Brexit, yet).
Anecdata - visited a friend in Brighton yesterday for a pub crawl (something I've never done in my life, you're never too old to try new things...). Masking was well down on even a crowded train (about 20%) and social distancing had been completed abandoned in the streets. Very different from cautious Godalming. Pubs were still making a bit of an effort with signs encouraging distancing and tables fairly well separated.
German update from INSA, who seem to be doing polls ever few days now: SPD 26 (+1), CDU 20.5 (+0.5), Greens 15.5 (-0.5), FDP 12.5 (-0.5), Linke 6.5 (-0.5), AfD 11(-1). SPD win nailed on, with a coalition with Green and FDP looking the only realistic option.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
(I would point out that British Gas was also a big, state owned, beneficiary of the North Sea.)
I think it's very easy to be wise after the event. One only has to glance around the world to see that the number of promising petroleum basins, and the number of profitable, producing petroleum basins are very different. The British Government neither had the technical experience or the money to take on the gigantic risks of developing the North Sea on their own.
One also should look at Mexico and Venezuela: in both cases, laws were passed that stopped rapacious foreigners from exploiting vast hydrocarbon reserves. In both cases, this was a disaster for oil production.
Now, could we have done better. Yes, sure, of course we could. But this is based on knowledge that was only available after the event.
Venezuela is an interesting one. It is not entirely due just to kicking out the international oil companies that they had a collapse of their industry. It was far more to do with the fact that any Venezuelan who had previously worked for any of those companies was banned from working for the new state oil companies. Most of them left the country and very large numbers ended up in Aberdeen and Houston. One of them is a good friend of mine and was one of the world leading experts on steam induced heavy oil production. Venezuela lost almost all of their oil knowledge and experience overnight and it was almost entirely self inflicted.
That is without doubt the stupidest idea I've heard today.
That's even dafter than Brexit. At least we've only got rid of some of our truckers, carers, food packers, etc! I suppose they can always train up some more though.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
And it is one of the most inhospitable places in the world (or was a t the time) to drill for oil.
Our nephew lost his life on Piper Alpha
Sorry for your loss Big G.
On a similar note one of the in laws neighbours used to work on the rigs. One day he fell into the ocean. Was never found. Horrible way to go.
Unrecoverable loss at sea is tragic and leaves an emptiness that is not the same when the body is recovered
Our family, being fishermen, have experienced several such loses
Boris and Brexit. At the time it was politically essential for Boris to deliver Brexit. otherwise he and the Tories were toast.
He had these options:
Leave, no deal, make the NI/RoI border the EU's problem.
Or
Leave, with deal, take on the insoluble border problem - because unless he took it on the EU wouldn't agree a deal.
I suspect No Deal would have been 20 times more catastrophic than Deal + owning the NI/RoI border problem.
So Boris did right; but knew, as did we all, that the border's insolubility would have to be revisited.
But we held all the cards, why didn't Boris Johnson use them?
We did. Which is why we got the deal we wanted for England and forced the EU into a position where we could compel them to revisit NI later on.
Check and mate.
It appears your knowledge of chess and card games is similar to your knowledge on "herd immunity" and international negotiation. No, hang on, just negotiation generally. Johnson fucked up the negotiation because to use a phrase that someone on here once used, he couldn't negotiate a discount at SCS. He is a journalist FFS! He has never had to negotiate a thing in his life, other than getting into the next debutants knickers. You don't want to see that because you have been suckered by him and his "get Brexit done" bollox. Quaint really.
It was a deliberately mixed metaphor. 🤦♂️
But if Boris couldn't negotiate a discount, how come he managed to get the atrociously awful backstop replaced with a NI-only Protocol that the EU can't even get the UK to implement against its will?
Seems like he's achieved a 98.5% discount to me. 97% by avoiding GB in the Protocol, and a further 50% because its only half-implemented in NI anyway.
that is because you are a true believer, and probably like him, have never had to negotiate anything complex in your life. It wasn't a negotiation, it was a capitulation, dressed up for the gullible as a great victory. It will unravel.
The UK never wanted the backstop/protocol, it was a "price" to be paid for a deal as the EU wanted it. A price that Boris got a massive "discount" on.
If it was a capitulation, then how come GB isn't in the Protocol/backstop as the EU managed to get May to agree to?
If it was a capitulation, then how the UK has a unilateral exit from it? Something the EU pointedly refused to agree too under May and Robbins? Remember "a backstop with an exit is not a backstop".
I get completely that you dislike Brexit, all it stands for, and you think Brexit will be bad ... But as far as the Protocol/backstop is concerned even you have to surely admit the UK has got a tremendous "discount" from what was on offer before - and if it's unravelling for anyone it's the EU who have discovered they can't compel the UK to implement it how they wanted us to.
Norway made sure the resources benefitted its population and largely developed them using state-owned companies... the UK left it up to private companies, and didn't negotiate a good deal. This analysis reckons UK missed out on hundreds of billions of revenue.
BP was state owned at the time. So the British government gained on the privatisation of BP later in the decade.
Now, it may be that the terms offered to companies for exploiting the North Sea were more favourable for the Norwegian government, but it is also worth remembering that when initial licenses were being auctioned, no-one was really sure it was going to work. The UK Continental Shelf Act was in 1963/64 and then there were a succession of dry holes. I forget the actual number, but I think of the first 48 or 49 wells drilled in the North Sea, none found oil. (Although a few found gas, which at the time was massively less valuable.)
Only with Ecofisk (which was the last well Phillips petroleum was planning on drilling, so unhappy were they with the North Sea), that things were transformed.
The Norwegians were lucky. They sold licenses later. And therefore they got the benefit of people knowing that oil was there.
As the link notes - a few extra billion from privatizations doesn't change the overall arithmetic. It wasn't luck - > better judgment & not being ideologically driven to privatise, instead being open for the public sector to take on risk. Ultimately a very costly mistake not to keep equity in case of a large upside.
It would also have been an equally costly mistake to have tried to carry the costs and risks for themselves though. A quick trawl through the history of the North sea and how many companies went bust or were only saved from going bust by being bought out by other companies shows how much risk would have been involved. Only 1 in 7 wells drilled in the North Sea ever found hydrocarbons and only 1 in 11 ever led to development.
The history of BNOC/Britoil is instructive in this case but they were only one amongst very many.
Sharing the risks would have been smart (upside and downside). It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
When you say "the UK missed out", do you mean:
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost (b) that more tax revenue could have been collected or (c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
b).... we have the example across the sea where the Norwegians got about three times as much per barrel!
Given that the UK government took 70% of the value of each barrel in tax, I'm struggling to understand how the Norwegians could have gotten 3x as much.
It's a combination of 1) UK oil coming out when prices were lower 2) Norway having higher tax rates 3) a healthy dollop of dubious accounting 4) Norwegians keeping equity.
Let's remember also... it's very unlikely the Norwegians did this *perfectly*. They doubtless had room for improvement also.
I agree that the UK's oil was produced when prices were lower, but the report you linked is also rather misleading in its presentation of figures.
(1) the UK gets no credit for selling its stakes in BG and BP, while the Norwegian government gets its Statoil dividend.
(2) the report also misses out on of the peculiarities of Norwegian oil taxation. If I start an oil company (Smithson Resources AS) and drill a well in Norwegian waters, and it turns out to be dry, then I don't just get a tax credit for money I lost, I actually get cash. You need to net out those payments, not just look at the money recieved by the Norwegian government.
(3) the UK got its revenues earlier, and there's therefore the time value of money element. Receiving $100 in 1980 is a lot better than receiving it in 2010
Have 56% of Britons noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets or have they just noticed 56% of people talking about food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets?
I've noticed precisely nothing, and had no trouble getting anything at all.
I haven't because generally I don't do the shopping. If I were a politician and was asked the cliched question "how much is a pint of milk" I really wouldn't have a clue.
It can vary.
"Since leaving their City jobs 7 years ago Letitia Barrington Webb and her husband Roland have been producing organic milk on their farm in Devon. Using only the finest cows, and just one at a time, they produce the milk of dreams. The current cow is called Mathilda and she is treated like a queen. Every morning Letitia kneels and with great reverence and oh so gently kneads Mathilda's teats to bring forth the day's supply. Roland then bottles it and off it goes to Waitrose."
You pay a premium for this type of product. Quite a hefty one.
Why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery.
Not really, just the power of marketing. If people are willing to spend £13 for 20 cancer sticks with human deformities on the front cover, it is hardly surprising they can also be convinced to buy some peckham spring.
Or Dasani.
I'd say that One is the greatest water scam.
Supplying an entirely unnecessary product by convincing people that recycling the unnecessary plastic bottles is "ethical", and then 'giving people healthy water' with the proceeds. IMO it's the ethical equivalent of people who wrap their websites around a free service, and charge for it.
"One Water was launched back in 2005 with a simple vision: to sell bottled water in the UK to fund water projects across the world. The name One represents the idea that you can’t change a billion people’s lives, but if you can change just One that’s a definition of success."
Have 56% of Britons noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets or have they just noticed 56% of people talking about food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets?
I've noticed precisely nothing, and had no trouble getting anything at all.
I haven't because generally I don't do the shopping. If I were a politician and was asked the cliched question "how much is a pint of milk" I really wouldn't have a clue.
It can vary.
"Since leaving their City jobs 7 years ago Letitia Barrington Webb and her husband Roland have been producing organic milk on their farm in Devon. Using only the finest cows, and just one at a time, they produce the milk of dreams. The current cow is called Mathilda and she is treated like a queen. Every morning Letitia kneels and with great reverence and oh so gently kneads Mathilda's teats to bring forth the day's supply. Roland then bottles it and off it goes to Waitrose."
You pay a premium for this type of product. Quite a hefty one.
Have 56% of Britons noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets or have they just noticed 56% of people talking about food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets?
I've noticed precisely nothing, and had no trouble getting anything at all.
I haven't because generally I don't do the shopping. If I were a politician and was asked the cliched question "how much is a pint of milk" I really wouldn't have a clue.
I wonder how many of these have just seen hysterical or fake claims about it.
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
I think it is simply volume, which makes their supply chain a little more vulnerable than some of the larger chains that can spread shortages/surpluses over a greater number of stores .
That makes sense. And is also a rather more reassuring than just bad management. I do like Waitrose in many ways but it has always been the case that if we are shopping there we are already accepting a further trip to one of the other supermarkets to get what they were missing.
The favourite with waitrose is when you decide to cook fish or venison or whatever and they supply everything for the recipe and the rest of the meal, except the fish is missing.
My favourite substitution during the pandemic was the following
Ordered: Sainsbury's sponge scourers.
Substitution: Sainsbury's Victoria sponge cake.
Although my friend received the best ever substitution.
Ordered: Latex gloves
Substitution: Condoms.
(Even funnier when you realise she's a lesbian.)
In fairness you can never really have too much Victoria sponge cake.
Doesn't do much for the dishes, though.
I would love to report that election fever is building, here in Bavaria. But I have yet to hear anyone talking politics, at all.
Give them a putsch and see if that helps them open up.
Boris and Brexit. At the time it was politically essential for Boris to deliver Brexit. otherwise he and the Tories were toast.
He had these options:
Leave, no deal, make the NI/RoI border the EU's problem.
Or
Leave, with deal, take on the insoluble border problem - because unless he took it on the EU wouldn't agree a deal.
I suspect No Deal would have been 20 times more catastrophic than Deal + owning the NI/RoI border problem.
So Boris did right; but knew, as did we all, that the border's insolubility would have to be revisited.
But we held all the cards, why didn't Boris Johnson use them?
We did. Which is why we got the deal we wanted for England and forced the EU into a position where we could compel them to revisit NI later on.
Check and mate.
It appears your knowledge of chess and card games is similar to your knowledge on "herd immunity" and international negotiation. No, hang on, just negotiation generally. Johnson fucked up the negotiation because to use a phrase that someone on here once used, he couldn't negotiate a discount at SCS. He is a journalist FFS! He has never had to negotiate a thing in his life, other than getting into the next debutants knickers. You don't want to see that because you have been suckered by him and his "get Brexit done" bollox. Quaint really.
It was a deliberately mixed metaphor. 🤦♂️
But if Boris couldn't negotiate a discount, how come he managed to get the atrociously awful backstop replaced with a NI-only Protocol that the EU can't even get the UK to implement against its will?
Seems like he's achieved a 98.5% discount to me. 97% by avoiding GB in the Protocol, and a further 50% because its only half-implemented in NI anyway.
that is because you are a true believer, and probably like him, have never had to negotiate anything complex in your life. It wasn't a negotiation, it was a capitulation, dressed up for the gullible as a great victory. It will unravel.
The UK never wanted the backstop/protocol, it was a "price" to be paid for a deal as the EU wanted it. A price that Boris got a massive "discount" on.
If it was a capitulation, then how come GB isn't in the Protocol/backstop as the EU managed to get May to agree to?
If it was a capitulation, then how the UK has a unilateral exit from it? Something the EU pointedly refused to agree too under May and Robbins? Remember "a backstop with an exit is not a backstop".
I get completely that you dislike Brexit, all it stands for, and you think Brexit will be bad ... But as far as the Protocol/backstop is concerned even you have to surely admit the UK has got a tremendous "discount" from what was on offer before - and if it's unravelling for anyone it's the EU who have discovered they can't compel the UK to implement it how they wanted us to.
Gosh, took you a while there Philip. I was just about to log off, but thought I would say that your blind loyalty to the cause does trouble me. I do think Brexit is pointless, but I am over that, and there are many people on here who support Brexit that I have respect for their views.
The aftermath of Brexit is really so far unknown except NI. As I am part Irish, and NI was an area in my early career that I regularly visited (often with a high degree of trepidation) I do feel a strange affinity for it, and also have some perspective on its complexity. Johnson's "solution" is a fuck up and it will have consequences, I just pray they are not too serious. Your opinion on it is, I am sorry to tell you, highly uninformed and simplistic. It is fortunate for you that you are able to opine on the subject from that position of ignorance.
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
I think it is simply volume, which makes their supply chain a little more vulnerable than some of the larger chains that can spread shortages/surpluses over a greater number of stores .
That makes sense. And is also a rather more reassuring than just bad management. I do like Waitrose in many ways but it has always been the case that if we are shopping there we are already accepting a further trip to one of the other supermarkets to get what they were missing.
Mrs C consistently reports that our local store, a Co-op, either has empty shelves or has them only partly filled. Tesco, a bit further away, isn't quite as bad, but there are still gaps.
The son of a friend who is a Regional manager for one of the others says he's never known supplies as difficult.
Chatting to the late evening supervisor at Aldi last Saturday, he said that they had delivery issues but it was because Aldi were only offering £14 to delivery drivers.
Strange for them, as they are normally positioned as one of the top payers in the industry.
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
They’re unusual in still sourcing online deliveries from the local store, rather than through a separate network of warehouses. Whether this affects things I don’t know.
That's not unusual, most Online is still store pick outside of Ocado, even if there's the odd dark-store and local fulfilment centre trialling going on.
Im not sure that's true - read up on Sainsbury's and it looks like online is mostly sourced direct from warehouses
I can tell you for a certainty that Sainsbury's is store picked online, it's reconfirmed at every investor call.
Tesco has teams of pickers picking from the main stores.
"As of last week, 56% of Britons had noticed food shortages in their local shops/supermarkets. This had risen from 45% in mid August, and 36% in late July"
Lies. All lies !!!*
*according to the PB brain trust...
I’ve noticed a shortage of bottled water in Waitrose, but nothing else missing in the 4 or 5 supermarkets I’ve visited
So I’m one of the 56%
Water isn't food.
So you're not the 56%.
So the question actually defined what food is? I suspect most people, whilst understanding at some level that water isn't food, would consider that a 'food shortage' if asked. Indeed many of the photos posted over the last few weeks both here and elsewhere showing 'food shortages' have actually been of empty water bottle shelves.
It is obvious to most that food and water are different things which is why YouGov focussed on food.
Plus there's no real water shortage if you have a tap.
In which case I hope you will be picking up those posting pictures of empty fizzy water shelves.
As an aside, anyone using Waitrose as an example for anything - at least the ones I use - really hasn't a leg to stand on. Waitrose have regularly had empty shelves at their stores for years - since long before Brexit or covid or anything else was ever imagined. I do like the stuff they have but compared to any of the other big supermarkets their ability to keep stock on the shelves is absolutely dire. Since RP is in the business I would love to know if Waitrose follow a different model to the other supermarkets which makes them more prone to shortages. And I mean before all the current stuff.
I think it is simply volume, which makes their supply chain a little more vulnerable than some of the larger chains that can spread shortages/surpluses over a greater number of stores .
That makes sense. And is also a rather more reassuring than just bad management. I do like Waitrose in many ways but it has always been the case that if we are shopping there we are already accepting a further trip to one of the other supermarkets to get what they were missing.
The favourite with waitrose is when you decide to cook fish or venison or whatever and they supply everything for the recipe and the rest of the meal, except the fish is missing.
My favourite substitution during the pandemic was the following
Ordered: Sainsbury's sponge scourers.
Substitution: Sainsbury's Victoria sponge cake.
Although my friend received the best ever substitution.
Ordered: Latex gloves
Substitution: Condoms.
(Even funnier when you realise she's a lesbian.)
In fairness you can never really have too much Victoria sponge cake.
Doesn't do much for the dishes, though.
I would love to report that election fever is building, here in Bavaria. But I have yet to hear anyone talking politics, at all.
How's your German though? Could it be passing you by?
Badoit and San Pellegrino have a nice volcanic taste.
All British mineral water tastes like nothing and is a waste of money.
Nonsense
Highland springs tastes different to buxton which tastes different to malvern
The best is that posh one, Hildon, tho I do confess that might be because it is served in expensive places and in expensive bottles. We are all susceptible to branding
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 1h The Conservatives have had 12 years to come up with a plan for social care. But so have Labour: @MrTCHarris
Labour would imo be nuts to get bogged down in floating alternative proposals. The GE is years away and the government is (barring a u turn) stuck with trying to defend the indefensible with this NI plan. It can be ripped apart on so many levels that Labour's biggest challenge is knowing where to start.
You are probably correct, but they will face a lot of "so what would labour do?" questioning. At some point they will need to front up.
I'd argue that the best solution for the country would be a cross party agreement, but sadly low political cunning will almost certainly scupper that. As a country we need to decide who should pay for social care, and whether inheritance of your parents estate is a right, or something that is conditional on other factors. One thing that people in this country do stick to - a sense of fair play.
I was once very struck by the attitude of the grandparents of a friend. They had been frugal all their lives, scrimped, saved and paid their way. They were furious that others of their age had been spendthrift throughout and were now being supported by the state, because they couldn't support themselves. I think they would say if you have assets you should pay for you own care until you can no longer do so (with a cap set at a certain point).
None of this is easy. Most young people don't think they will ever get ill, or get old, or die. But they all will eventually. For the fortunate ones they will live long, healthy lives and then get taken swiftly at the end of a heart attack in their sleep. But we won't all be lucky. We have to do better as a society than 2 to 4 short visits a day where a carer has to chose between feeding someone or washing them, or other things.
I don't know the answer, but we have a duty to try harder.
Yes, I was talking about the politics of this right now for Labour, they should do their job of ripping the plan apart and no more, but I agree with these sentiments. A 'good' solution - ie not crassly unfair and sustainable for the longer term - needs to be cross party since it's too easy to paint anything serious as being some sort of outrage, winning votes off the back of the grievance stirred. Although this effort, using NI instead of either income tax or wealth tax, IS an outrage.
I don't quite follow your anecdote though. If those grandparents were furious that others without assets were getting state aid, surely they would NOT be saying that if you do have assets (eg themselves) you should be paying for care until you can't. They'd find this galling, wouldn't they, when the 'spendthrifts' were getting their bills covered? Exactly this sentiment is very prominent in the mix of emotions that people feel about social care.
I think they wished that they had had more fun through their lives and then turned to the state in old age. They were very bitter.
Comments
Thank goodness they bottled it just in time.
I think it's very easy to be wise after the event. One only has to glance around the world to see that the number of promising petroleum basins, and the number of profitable, producing petroleum basins are very different. The British Government neither had the technical experience or the money to take on the gigantic risks of developing the North Sea on their own.
One also should look at Mexico and Venezuela: in both cases, laws were passed that stopped rapacious foreigners from exploiting vast hydrocarbon reserves. In both cases, this was a disaster for oil production.
Now, could we have done better. Yes, sure, of course we could. But this is based on knowledge that was only available after the event.
The answer of course is to run the tap for 30 seconds before you fill your glass and then drink it straight away. Oh and you have to empty and refill your kettle between each boiling or the tea tastes like shit. But I do wonder why it is like that these days as it certainly wasn't when I was a kid.
Tesco, a bit further away, isn't quite as bad, but there are still gaps.
The son of a friend who is a Regional manager for one of the others says he's never known supplies as difficult.
You point "why anyone is buying bottled water in the UK is a mystery" is not entirely true. The answer is the same as to why some people believe Boris Johnson is a good PM. Gullibility.
Why did no-one think about the consequences of suspending tests at the same time that the flow of drivers from the EU dried up?
There could have been ways of maintaining tests throughout the pandemic: we could have had testers vaccinated first, we could have had mandated PCR tests. etc. There are lots of things we could have done, but didn't.
And, yes, that happed on Boris Johnson's government's watch, and they should be held responsible.
It doesn't matter that many companies went bust and most wells didn't lead to development... overall it was incredibly profitable and sadly the UK missed out on much of what it could have had.
I don't quite follow your anecdote though. If those grandparents were furious that others without assets were getting state aid, surely they would NOT be saying that if you do have assets (eg themselves) you should be paying for care until you can't. They'd find this galling, wouldn't they, when the 'spendthrifts' were getting their bills covered? Exactly this sentiment is very prominent in the mix of emotions that people feel about social care.
(a) that more oil would have been extracted at lower cost
(b) that more tax revenue could have been collected
or
(c) that British firms could have owned more of the licenses
Ultimately, a certain amount of oil was collected and sold. It generated jobs, tax revenue and a thriving oil industry in the UK. It *may* have been the case that more tax revenue was collectable - but that might also have led to less investment.
It's easy to make perfect decisions with perfect knowledge. People making investment decisions in the 70s and 80s did not have that.
Because England has excellent population data on #COVID19, we can make pretty accurate estimates of risk to children...
Fortunately, these risks are extremely low....
Approximate risks to children from SARS-CoV-2 infection summary:
Hospitalisation: 1 in 750
Death: 1 in 120,000
https://twitter.com/apsmunro/status/1434913909694205953?s=20
I've noticed precisely nothing, and had no trouble getting anything at all.
I'm not saying the UK should have taken on all of the risk. But a balanced approach would have been to share risk with private companies, and have a share of the upside when oil was found.
A few years ago we hired some professionals to see what is up with our water and they said that is a common cause.
As the pipes get older they leave more lead in the tap water, not harmful, but definitely messes up smell and taste.
Right now, this is good for me - as I've just had a fantastic job offer to become a Director with a substantial pay rise - but, it will shortly become my problem once I take the job and can't staff my teams.
The trouble is: immigration fixes it in weeks, whereas training & education take years, so firms are always going to prefer the former.
All British mineral water tastes like nothing and is a waste of money.
Lead is highly poisonous and may be absorbed into water from old lead piping on its route to your home. Ironically, those in soft water areas are more at risk from lead pollution as limescale build-up inside water mains acts as a barrier between the pipes and the water to protect it from contamination.
In soft water areas where there is a high risk of lead being absorbed from pipework, water companies treat the water with orthophosphate (phosphoric acid) which reduces any lead content.
https://www.aquacure.co.uk/knowledge-base/truth-about-uks-water-supply
This is breakdown for extra cash for NHS in England
£2.8 billion for COVID-19 costs including infection control measures
£600 million for day-to-day costs
£478 million for enhanced hospital discharge and
£1.5 billion for elective recovery, including £500 million capital funding
Announcement says Scotland, Wales and NI will receive up to another billion in 2021-22
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1434920332167684099?s=20
Old Trafford might be a two-spinners pitch, but Root is yet another England captain with no idea how to captain spin.
I met someone from a local authority who told me they'd had over 100 applications for a relatively junior role which isn't what you would expect from a "tight" labour market.
Local councils struggle more with professional roles as they can't offer qualified accountants, surveyors or solicitors the money they can get in the private sector. I'll know the labour market is really tightening when I hear of Councils struggling to recruit to professional posts.
As a simple example, you need to send out ten loads of breakfast cereal but only have nine drivers. One supermarket won't get a delivery of cereal and will have empty shelves for that product, while the remaining nine supermarkets have full deliveries and shelves of cereal. The supermarket without cereal may get full deliveries and shelves of other products.
If production of breakfast cereal was short by 10%, every supermarket would get 90% of their order and no-one would notice the shortfall.
Ordered: Sainsbury's sponge scourers.
Substitution: Sainsbury's Victoria sponge cake.
Although my friend received the best ever substitution.
Ordered: Latex gloves
Substitution: Condoms.
(Even funnier when you realise she's a lesbian.)
Rivalled only by the “disastrous” 1931 benefits cut.
Let's remember also... it's very unlikely the Norwegians did this *perfectly*.
They doubtless had room for improvement also.
On a similar note one of the in laws neighbours used to work on the rigs. One day he fell into the ocean. Was never found. Horrible way to go.
There's a world of difference driving a HGV full of frozen/chilled goods and one with dry products or electronics.
Then some places operate a drop and drive approach other places require you to account for every item in the delivery.
Firms should be investing in training and education, and the government needs to make sure the tax system encourages it.
One of the problems is this:
Imagine I take on John for £20,000 per year. In the first two years, I spend £10,000 each year training up John and he generates £15,000 of economic output. So, over the two years, I am out of pocket by £30,000.
In year three, John is fully trained and can generate economic output of £40,000 per year. Yay! If I pay him £30,000 per year, I'll get my money back in three years.
But NewCo down the road can afford to offer him £35,000/year and earn a profit on John from day one.
For almost any firm, the incentive is to take on qualified employees by outbidding rather than training them up themselves, because if you train them, they will leave for a higher paying job and you will be out of pocket.
Now, there are various ways around this. In America, the cost of training is handed over to the employees, and they send themselves to business or law or medical school and take on big debts. The Germans and the Swiss have done it differently, with vocational training seamlessly continuing from secondary education, and with the cost of that training shared between the state and the employer.
We in the UK have done it really badly.
Immigration is a consequence of the failure of the UK's tax, benefits and education systems.
I would love to report that election fever is building, here in Bavaria. But I have yet to hear anyone talking politics, at all.
https://twitter.com/TorstenBell/status/1434877552280092676
And the polling is very close
Support abolition 38%
Oppose abolition 39%
The canapé is, I can report, rather nice
Our family, being fishermen, have experienced several such loses
If it was a capitulation, then how come GB isn't in the Protocol/backstop as the EU managed to get May to agree to?
If it was a capitulation, then how the UK has a unilateral exit from it? Something the EU pointedly refused to agree too under May and Robbins? Remember "a backstop with an exit is not a backstop".
I get completely that you dislike Brexit, all it stands for, and you think Brexit will be bad ... But as far as the Protocol/backstop is concerned even you have to surely admit the UK has got a tremendous "discount" from what was on offer before - and if it's unravelling for anyone it's the EU who have discovered they can't compel the UK to implement it how they wanted us to.
Or that famous ad slogan
Every pint of london water has been passed by the members of the London Water Board
(1) the UK gets no credit for selling its stakes in BG and BP, while the Norwegian government gets its Statoil dividend.
(2) the report also misses out on of the peculiarities of Norwegian oil taxation. If I start an oil company (Smithson Resources AS) and drill a well in Norwegian waters, and it turns out to be dry, then I don't just get a tax credit for money I lost, I actually get cash. You need to net out those payments, not just look at the money recieved by the Norwegian government.
(3) the UK got its revenues earlier, and there's therefore the time value of money element. Receiving $100 in 1980 is a lot better than receiving it in 2010
"Since leaving their City jobs 7 years ago Letitia Barrington Webb and her husband Roland have been producing organic milk on their farm in Devon. Using only the finest cows, and just one at a time, they produce the milk of dreams. The current cow is called Mathilda and she is treated like a queen. Every morning Letitia kneels and with great reverence and oh so gently kneads Mathilda's teats to bring forth the day's supply. Roland then bottles it and off it goes to Waitrose."
You pay a premium for this type of product. Quite a hefty one.
Supplying an entirely unnecessary product by convincing people that recycling the unnecessary plastic bottles is "ethical", and then 'giving people healthy water' with the proceeds. IMO it's the ethical equivalent of people who wrap their websites around a free service, and charge for it.
https://onewater.org.uk/sustainability/packaging-recycling/
"One Water was launched back in 2005 with a simple vision: to sell bottled water in the UK to fund water projects across the world. The name One represents the idea that you can’t change a billion people’s lives, but if you can change just One that’s a definition of success."
The aftermath of Brexit is really so far unknown except NI. As I am part Irish, and NI was an area in my early career that I regularly visited (often with a high degree of trepidation) I do feel a strange affinity for it, and also have some perspective on its complexity. Johnson's "solution" is a fuck up and it will have consequences, I just pray they are not too serious. Your opinion on it is, I am sorry to tell you, highly uninformed and simplistic. It is fortunate for you that you are able to opine on the subject from that position of ignorance.
Strange for them, as they are normally positioned as one of the top payers in the industry.
Highland springs tastes different to buxton which tastes different to malvern
The best is that posh one, Hildon, tho I do confess that might be because it is served in expensive places and in expensive bottles. We are all susceptible to branding