Something else that's been overlooked in Ed's speech was his statement that we cannot compete with the Far East and India.
I can't remember his exact words, but he admiited it is pointless us depressing wages in an attempt to produce goods as cheaply as the Chinese.
I agree we can't compete. And our lack of manufacturing competitiveness is fundamental to the economic future of the UK. We cannot manufacture goods as competitively as China can. That's a fact.
We are heading in that direction. Energy bills, tax bills, food prices, mortgage payments, the cost of living are all becoming unafforable to people who want to live the same standard of life their parents lived. Our government can't afford to sustain our living standards. They can't afford it now; just look at the £100bilion deficit. God help what it will be like in twenty years when we have millions more pensioners.
I don't think Ed Miliband has the answers. But he was brave to bring it up in his speech. Because these are the big issues facing us in the future. We can all retreat to our comfy capitalist soundbites and decry the uselessness of socialism, but the answers to our future need a lot of future home truths.
Sorry Fenster that's just hooey, Ed has less understanding of manufacturing than he does of energy. it might be worth his time to work out where our manufacturing deficit comes from. The last time I looked about 20% of the annual total was with Germany whose wages are higher than ours. Big chunks of our deficit is in things like foodstuffs and mid tech products from high cost countries ( cars, fridges ). China is just a comfort blanket they all reach for since the alternative involves doing hard graft - like the Germans have done.
It is possible to argue that this is the fault of the parties and if only we had sensible policies attuned to non-voters, turnout would jump. UKIP is banking heavily on that, and they record high "certainty to vote" figures so they might be right, but I wonder.
What UKIP has in their favour is that their non-voters are in an exceedingly votery demographic.
The speech matters really for only one thing: Ed Miliband has decided to fight the next election as Red Ed. For the first time in a generation, business will uniformly strongly support the Conservatives.
Energy costs are hugely important for many businesses, who might like the idea prices should be reduced but would happily settle for them being predictable.
Business for Labour!
It is bizarre the CBI opposes this when it is business which are big winners from the freeze as well as any further reduction in the price of electricity after Ofgem is reorganised.I am sure small businesses would love this.
The problem though is if business let him do this to the energy industry, who is next in the firing line...
Mr Miliband insisted that that his legal advice was that he would “absolutely” be able to freeze energy prices. He also indicated that he could be prepared to intervene in other areas like the food and petrol industries if those markets are also deemed to have “failed”.
I'm old enough to remember when Pickford's Removals and Thomas Cook were also nationalised - mission creep when HMG starts down this road knows no bounds.
Pickfords and Thomas Cook were nationalised in the 1940s.
If you look at Eagle's comments on the rail network you'll find the same tendency to intervene in a myriad of ways into the core of free market operation.
The rail network is hardly a free market operation.
It was effectively challenging that part of the free market they have left, not by proposing the renationalisation of the railways but by limiting particular features of the market's operation. So for example, paying more in person than online. Are we going to force Ryanair to do the same?
I'm old enough to remember when Pickford's Removals and Thomas Cook were also nationalised - mission creep when HMG starts down this road knows no bounds.
According to "Soldier 'I'" the SAS had some "special-interest" in an up-market travel-agency in the 'Seventies and 'Eighties. I will have to locate the dead-wood from the library.
[HurstLhama and Red-Trousers might be able to confirm it....]
Mr Smithson, will there be a raft of opinion polls in the forthcoming days to see how the speech was percieved and any short term jump in percentage of any of the parties (apart from the usual Yougov/Populus)?
"Robert Colvile @rcolvile 30m Crime. Welfare. Europe. Debt/deficit. Education. Immigration. Any other big areas Miliband utterly failed to mention yesterday?"
I think of those, debt/deficit will need some sort of narrative from Labour, and Europe might, depending on how the winds blow between now and the election. I think Labour could duck have a narrative on the others.
It was effectively challenging that part of the free market they have left
There are plenty of rules that operating companies have to comply with. It comes with the territory. Labour is talking about different rules that might fix elements of the pricing regime that consumers dont like (or that they think consumers dont like). It doesnt represent a fundamental challenge to a free market as it isnt a free market in the first place.
Something else that's been overlooked in Ed's speech was his statement that we cannot compete with the Far East and India.
I can't remember his exact words, but he admiited it is pointless us depressing wages in an attempt to produce goods as cheaply as the Chinese.
I agree we can't compete. And our lack of manufacturing competitiveness is fundamental to the economic future of the UK. We cannot manufacture goods as competitively as China can. That's a fact.
And Ed is right, and actually quite brave, to point it out. I wish he had elaborated on it, because I'd like to know what the answers are for a country like the UK.
His argument (that we can't compete with countries that pay pennies an hour) is basically that we need to move upmarket - it led into the less-noted part of his energy passage where he promised a stable green tech platform running to 2030 to make higher-tech green energy a financially sound prospect (which by implication we could then export).
When I used to work in pharma, I was told by then CEO Vasella (now a controversial figure as he's insanely rich) that he'd be perfectly happy to invest in an environment where taxes were high and regulation was strict, so long as other factors were present: good education and infrastructure, and above all certainty from government on what the taxes and regulations were. What would be a total turn-off was uncertainty. That's why it was important to balance the price freeze with the medium-term commitment (which won't mean cheaper long-term prices, but does mean a market you can plan for).
This runs into the laid-back "let the market do what it wants" approach that has been fashionable for some years under all parties. I don't think anyone serious wants direct government micro-management over a long period, but some stable guarantees for high-tech industries are a good thing.
Good point, and we should all feel a little guilty. Where has the inventiveness gone? If people want improving lifestyles, how do we achieve that goal? How can we organise our leisure time more effectively (and more equitably)?
Think people are concentrating a bit too much on the price freeze. The real shocker for me was the pledge to decarbonise the economy by 2030. So presumably this means shutting our remaining coal plants and all our gas plants too (and abandoning shale gas)? And replacing them with what? More inefficient, expensive and ugly windfarms? Solar is fine but not so good when it gets dark!
I think the pledge is to decarbonise the electricity supply, so there would still be a demand for [shale] gas, which accounts for 80% of household heating.
Most such plans involve an element of carbon capture and storage, so that one can keep some coal and gas on the grid. Nuclear is very likely, and of course more renewables - by 2030 that would hopefully include tidal and wave as well as wind and solar.
If you want to increase renewables and nuclear then you need some form of electricity storage. When we first started building nuclear plants we also built pumped storage power plants to help deal with the inconveniences of nuclear electricity generation. So a few more of them would help.
If Britain managed to pull it off we would have the significant benefit of an electricity supply that was not beholden to fossil fuel imports and price volatility.
Unfortunately, the chances of Ed Miliband being PM in 2030 are nil, and so he has little incentive to do the difficult things in the short-term that would be necessary to make this a reality. So it won't happen. They are just words. Do not be scared of words - and do not believe in them too much either.
The Tories are going to have to come up with something better than "It cannot be done", I'm afraid. Populism is powerful - as the Tories have discovered with their attacks on welfare claimants and their immigration rhetoric.
What EdM has latched onto is the fact that there can be left wing populism as well as right wing populism. And as he knows from experience that it is very hard to counter.
With the Tories painting Labour as the party of shirkers and the immigrant hordes; and Labour painting the Tories as the party of the big energy companies and property speculators it looks like we are going to be getting a thoroughly unedifying and vacuous GE campaign, with neither party speaking to the country as a whole.
As a businessman, how important is security of supply to your business?
It is absolutely vital, as is access to the very best talent - wherever in the world that may come from.
I am not defending what Ed said. I am not sure what I think about it, though I doubt it will lead to the apocalypse predicted by some on here. I am commenting on the politics of it. It is left wing populism and it very effectively latches on to what I think is a widespread feeling in the country that big businesses, such as those we see in the energy sector, are screwing ordinary people. The Tories would do well to accept that people do feel this way, just as Labour has had to accept that the pendulum has swung on welfare and immigration.
Fair enough. But wouldn't it be better to actually work out the causes of problems and fix them, rather than finding easy, populist solutions? That's what good governments should do, but sadly all fail that test in one way or another.
In this case, the problem is high energy prices. But the solution given does little to solve that, and has many potential downsides.
No-ones claiming the apocalypse, just that this policy introduces layers of more risk into an already-fragile situation. As people on here will know, I'm very bearish and concerned about energy supply even before this policy was announced. Things have just got a whole load worse.
The Tories are going to have to come up with something better than "It cannot be done", I'm afraid. Populism is powerful - as the Tories have discovered with their attacks on welfare claimants and their immigration rhetoric.
What EdM has latched onto is the fact that there can be left wing populism as well as right wing populism. And as he knows from experience that it is very hard to counter.
With the Tories painting Labour as the party of shirkers and the immigrant hordes; and Labour painting the Tories as the party of the big energy companies and property speculators it looks like we are going to be getting a thoroughly unedifying and vacuous GE campaign, with neither party speaking to the country as a whole.
Actually the the issue isn't "it cannot be done", it's, there are better ways of doing it ( ironic that after Ed's speech ). Assuming of course that "it" means putting more money in ordinary people's pockets.
The LibDems came up with the best way and that was by continuing to lift the low paid out of tax altogether. To date none of the other parties have come up with a better or more directly effective idea.
Out of income tax. They still pay National Insurance, VAT, duties etc.
The ONS rental statistics are out today. Rent increases are all below inflation and wage increases. Also worth noting that since mid 2012 rent increases are on a downwards slope so looks like the governments housing benefit reforms have been working.
"In the 12 months to August 2013 private rental prices paid by tenants in Great Britain rose by 1.2%.
Private rents in Great Britain excluding London rose by 0.8% during the same period.
In the 12 months to August 2013 private rental prices grew by 1.1% in England, 1.3% in Scotland and 1.3% in Wales."
It was effectively challenging that part of the free market they have left
There are plenty of rules that operating companies have to comply with. It comes with the territory. Labour is talking about different rules that might fix elements of the pricing regime that consumers dont like (or that they think consumers dont like). It doesnt represent a fundamental challenge to a free market as it isnt a free market in the first place.
Going back to what I said about the system of price, supply, rent, and wage controls, it was that system that was the "challenge to the free market", and that Ed wanted to bring back in a small way part of it with the implication that the system as a whole might return bit by bit. Eagle's comments on the trains are effectively the same steps in a different context. I don't accept areas of industry are either "free market" or not. There's regulation in various places in the train industry, more than most. But those freedoms that remain are being challenged by Ms Eagle.
Interesting comments by the Italian PM on the UK's position in Europe:
Markets, politicians and ordinary people “are all under-evaluating the risk of a U.K. exit,” Letta said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Erik Schatzker. The other EU nations need to work “a good deal to convince the British to remain on board.”
The Tories are going to have to come up with something better than "It cannot be done", I'm afraid. Populism is powerful - as the Tories have discovered with their attacks on welfare claimants and their immigration rhetoric.
What EdM has latched onto is the fact that there can be left wing populism as well as right wing populism. And as he knows from experience that it is very hard to counter.
With the Tories painting Labour as the party of shirkers and the immigrant hordes; and Labour painting the Tories as the party of the big energy companies and property speculators it looks like we are going to be getting a thoroughly unedifying and vacuous GE campaign, with neither party speaking to the country as a whole.
Actually the the issue isn't "it cannot be done", it's, there are better ways of doing it ( ironic that after Ed's speech ). Assuming of course that "it" means putting more money in ordinary people's pockets.
The LibDems came up with the best way and that was by continuing to lift the low paid out of tax altogether. To date none of the other parties have come up with a better or more directly effective idea.
Out of income tax. They still pay National Insurance, VAT, duties etc.
well of course they do. But if you want to target the least paid and still add value to going out to work I've yet to see someone come up with a better proposal.
The Tories are going to have to come up with something better than "It cannot be done", I'm afraid. Populism is powerful - as the Tories have discovered with their attacks on welfare claimants and their immigration rhetoric.
What EdM has latched onto is the fact that there can be left wing populism as well as right wing populism. And as he knows from experience that it is very hard to counter.
With the Tories painting Labour as the party of shirkers and the immigrant hordes; and Labour painting the Tories as the party of the big energy companies and property speculators it looks like we are going to be getting a thoroughly unedifying and vacuous GE campaign, with neither party speaking to the country as a whole.
Actually the the issue isn't "it cannot be done", it's, there are better ways of doing it ( ironic that after Ed's speech ). Assuming of course that "it" means putting more money in ordinary people's pockets.
The LibDems came up with the best way and that was by continuing to lift the low paid out of tax altogether. To date none of the other parties have come up with a better or more directly effective idea.
Out of income tax. They still pay National Insurance, VAT, duties etc.
well of course they do. But if you want to target the least paid and still add value to going out to work I've yet to see someone come up with a better proposal.
The problem now is that people on under ~£10,000 won't be affected by subsequent rises. That is obviously far more of an issue at £10,000 than it was at £6,000. So worth considering in light of LibDems wanting to go further on the personal allowance.
(Just to be clear, I've always been a firm supporter of raising the PA to £10,000.)
I don't accept areas of industry are either "free market" or not.
But that is the case - you can have competition in a market or, where you cant, you let the public sector deliver it or you try to replicate the effect of competition through a regulatory regime. Rail travel and energy supply are largely regulated industries rather than free markets.
The Tories are going to have to come up with something better than "It cannot be done", I'm afraid. Populism is powerful - as the Tories have discovered with their attacks on welfare claimants and their immigration rhetoric.
What EdM has latched onto is the fact that there can be left wing populism as well as right wing populism. And as he knows from experience that it is very hard to counter.
With the Tories painting Labour as the party of shirkers and the immigrant hordes; and Labour painting the Tories as the party of the big energy companies and property speculators it looks like we are going to be getting a thoroughly unedifying and vacuous GE campaign, with neither party speaking to the country as a whole.
As a businessman, how important is security of supply to your business?
It is absolutely vital, as is access to the very best talent - wherever in the world that may come from.
I am not defending what Ed said. I am not sure what I think about it, though I doubt it will lead to the apocalypse predicted by some on here. I am commenting on the politics of it. It is left wing populism and it very effectively latches on to what I think is a widespread feeling in the country that big businesses, such as those we see in the energy sector, are screwing ordinary people. The Tories would do well to accept that people do feel this way, just as Labour has had to accept that the pendulum has swung on welfare and immigration.
I agree with you mostly, but one thing which some people know is that things which seem 'popular' on the face of it, are usually very bad ideas if you look at them at any great detail.
That's why we have representative democracy, so people can look at issues which are for the good of the country as a whole, and not as separate populist measures.
Ed said nothing about debt, or the deficit, or about how anything is going to be funded (other than sponging the banks 30 times over).
Labour has abandoned the economic arguement for it's safety ground of anti business and anti rich.
The Tories are going to have to come up with something better than "It cannot be done", I'm afraid. Populism is powerful - as the Tories have discovered with their attacks on welfare claimants and their immigration rhetoric.
What EdM has latched onto is the fact that there can be left wing populism as well as right wing populism. And as he knows from experience that it is very hard to counter.
With the Tories painting Labour as the party of shirkers and the immigrant hordes; and Labour painting the Tories as the party of the big energy companies and property speculators it looks like we are going to be getting a thoroughly unedifying and vacuous GE campaign, with neither party speaking to the country as a whole.
People wanted clear blue/red water between the main two parties, looks like we will have to take the sewerage that comes along with it.
Actually, I think it works the other way: when there are clear policy differences between the parties, that tends to dominate the debate. Sure, both sides will try to paint their opponents as irresponsible, uncaring and/or incompetent, but at least there's a policy basis on which to make the judgement as to whether those criticisms have merit. By contrast, when candidates or parties are very close in policy terms, the battle tends to concentrate on personal matters - and that's when it really gets dirty.
The speech matters really for only one thing: Ed Miliband has decided to fight the next election as Red Ed. For the first time in a generation, business will uniformly strongly support the Conservatives.
Energy costs are hugely important for many businesses, who might like the idea prices should be reduced but would happily settle for them being predictable.
Business for Labour!
It is bizarre the CBI opposes this when it is business which are big winners from the freeze as well as any further reduction in the price of electricity after Ofgem is reorganised.I am sure small businesses would love this.
The problem though is if business let him do this to the energy industry, who is next in the firing line...
Mr Miliband insisted that that his legal advice was that he would “absolutely” be able to freeze energy prices. He also indicated that he could be prepared to intervene in other areas like the food and petrol industries if those markets are also deemed to have “failed”.
I'm old enough to remember when Pickford's Removals and Thomas Cook were also nationalised - mission creep when HMG starts down this road knows no bounds.
Pickfords and Thomas Cook were nationalised in the 1940s.
I presume Plato means she can remember them as nationalised firms, rather than she can remember the state acquiring them!
"Miliband’s U.K. Utility Breakup Plan Threatens Investment"
“These significant proposed changes may create a whole new level of uncertainty,” said Tony Ward, head of power and utilities at the consulting firm Ernst & Young LLP. “Each of the changes proposed will require massive change in their own right, and collectively will lead to a reassessment of the risks of operating in the energy market.”
The most immediate risk is Electricite de France SA’s talks with the government about building the first new nuclear power plant in two decades. All except one of Britain’s 23 atomic plants is due to retire from service by 2023.
Labour has abandoned the economic arguement for it's safety ground of anti business and anti rich.
They're choosing to fight on territory they believe is better for them. I think they are staking out more of an anti-big business than an anti-business line. Balls was very explicit about that.
Something else that's been overlooked in Ed's speech was his statement that we cannot compete with the Far East and India.
I can't remember his exact words, but he admiited it is pointless us depressing wages in an attempt to produce goods as cheaply as the Chinese.
I agree we can't compete. And our lack of manufacturing competitiveness is fundamental to the economic future of the UK. We cannot manufacture goods as competitively as China can. That's a fact.
And Ed is right, and actually quite brave, to point it out. I wish he had elaborated on it, because I'd like to know what the answers are for a country like the UK.
His argument (that we can't compete with countries that pay pennies an hour) is basically that we need to move upmarket - it led into the less-noted part of his energy passage where he promised a stable green tech platform running to 2030 to make higher-tech green energy a financially sound prospect (which by implication we could then export).
Moving upmarket in this argument is pointless when a good proportion of the body of labour is incapable of doing so, education and skill will only get you so far, and especially when china and india can do the same.
What Ed therefore's seems to be saying is that we have to have a increasing large body of unemployed people without skills funded by a smaller and smaller skilled workforce.
The Tories are going to have to come up with something better than "It cannot be done", I'm afraid. Populism is powerful - as the Tories have discovered with their attacks on welfare claimants and their immigration rhetoric.
What EdM has latched onto is the fact that there can be left wing populism as well as right wing populism. And as he knows from experience that it is very hard to counter.
With the Tories painting Labour as the party of shirkers and the immigrant hordes; and Labour painting the Tories as the party of the big energy companies and property speculators it looks like we are going to be getting a thoroughly unedifying and vacuous GE campaign, with neither party speaking to the country as a whole.
Actually the the issue isn't "it cannot be done", it's, there are better ways of doing it ( ironic that after Ed's speech ). Assuming of course that "it" means putting more money in ordinary people's pockets.
The LibDems came up with the best way and that was by continuing to lift the low paid out of tax altogether. To date none of the other parties have come up with a better or more directly effective idea.
Out of income tax. They still pay National Insurance, VAT, duties etc.
well of course they do. But if you want to target the least paid and still add value to going out to work I've yet to see someone come up with a better proposal.
I agree. But I would have liked to see the tax credits system dismantled at the same time. Both policies address the same issue, but the tax allowance is a lot simpler to administer.
Something else that's been overlooked in Ed's speech was his statement that we cannot compete with the Far East and India.
I can't remember his exact words, but he admiited it is pointless us depressing wages in an attempt to produce goods as cheaply as the Chinese.
I agree we can't compete. And our lack of manufacturing competitiveness is fundamental to the economic future of the UK. We cannot manufacture goods as competitively as China can. That's a fact.
And Ed is right, and actually quite brave, to point it out. I wish he had elaborated on it, because I'd like to know what the answers are for a country like the UK.
His argument (that we can't compete with countries that pay pennies an hour) is basically that we need to move upmarket - it led into the less-noted part of his energy passage where he promised a stable green tech platform running to 2030 to make higher-tech green energy a financially sound prospect (which by implication we could then export).
When I used to work in pharma, I was told by then CEO Vasella (now a controversial figure as he's insanely rich) that he'd be perfectly happy to invest in an environment where taxes were high and regulation was strict, so long as other factors were present: good education and infrastructure, and above all certainty from government on what the taxes and regulations were. What would be a total turn-off was uncertainty. That's why it was important to balance the price freeze with the medium-term commitment (which won't mean cheaper long-term prices, but does mean a market you can plan for).
This runs into the laid-back "let the market do what it wants" approach that has been fashionable for some years under all parties. I don't think anyone serious wants direct government micro-management over a long period, but some stable guarantees for high-tech industries are a good thing.
Nick:
Main problem of high-tech industries is that they are not large employers. Anything that needs assembly gets hiked off to the Far East.
So did EdM come up with ideas of where to employ all the graduates we are producing, let alone the unemployable because they are uneducated.
Labour has abandoned the economic arguement for it's safety ground of anti business and anti rich.
They're choosing to fight on territory they believe is better for them. I think they are staking out more of an anti-big business than an anti-business line. Balls was very explicit about that.
Yes, Miliband's speech means they've given up on trying to win the argument on the economy, public spending, the deficit, growth and jobs, and want to talk about something else. This is sensible enough from Labour's point of view, but will it work? Over the next few days, I'm sure it will, but I doubt they'll be given a free ride on this attempt to distract from the biggest challenges the country faces.
Decarbonising the electricity supply is a ridiculous pipedream unless we go massively towards new nuclear power. (not such a bad idea IMHO)
Any attempt to achieve this via the Green route takes you to where Germany is now finding itself. Ask their industry minister how it's working out!
The real problem is that some aspects of our modern lives just require ALOT of energy. We can save a bit here and there but heating water, running trains, using the washing machine, operating lifts and a million other things will forever require the UK to be able to supply electricity in quantities that diffuse renewable supplies will never meet. You'd need to cover the whole UK landscape (plus alot of Africa) with windfarms or solar arrays (and hope every day is sunny and windy). Sure renewables can contribute but can never become baseload supply.
Right now and for a few decades gas looks good. In the medium to long term we will be forced to recognise that fossil and renewable sources won't deliver (for reasons of cost and diffusion respectively). But there are some technologies upon which mankind could base a stable future energy system. I'd include traditional nuclear fission, Thorium fission, deuterium fusion, orbital solar and deep core geothermal amongst these. We can do the fission stuff already and fusion will be commercially viable at some point.
I don't accept areas of industry are either "free market" or not.
But that is the case - you can have competition in a market or, where you cant, you let the public sector deliver it or you try to replicate the effect of competition through a regulatory regime. Rail travel and energy supply are largely regulated industries rather than free markets.
There is no industry free from regulation, whether it's the national minimum wage or guaranteed standards for some kind. So I think it's more helpful to think of the free market as one end of a spectrum, with entirely nationalised industries at the other end and regulation pushing a given industry towards the latter. or alternatively see the free market as a specific (long) list of freedoms: over wages, prices, supply, competition, product, and so on. Then as you remove them one by one you move away from the free market.
So taking Eagle's comments as an example, she wants to push the train operators further away from the free market ideal, albeit they are already far from it in comparison to, say, making light fittings. Or to use my second version, remove some of the freedoms they have remaining.
Labour has abandoned the economic arguement for it's safety ground of anti business and anti rich.
I don't believe for one minute that Labour is anti-business or anti-rich. I have more sympathy for an argument that Labour does not "get" business and that some in the party worry too much about personal wealth per se. But then I am also sympathetic to the argument that the Tories do not "get" ordinary people and do not worry enough about poverty.
The speech matters really for only one thing: Ed Miliband has decided to fight the next election as Red Ed. For the first time in a generation, business will uniformly strongly support the Conservatives.
Energy costs are hugely important for many businesses, who might like the idea prices should be reduced but would happily settle for them being predictable.
Business for Labour!
It is bizarre the CBI opposes this when it is business which are big winners from the freeze as well as any further reduction in the price of electricity after Ofgem is reorganised.I am sure small businesses would love this.
Large businesses too, especially manufacturers. Furnaces don't heat themselves.
Large industrial energy users on interruptible contracts can look forward to more disruption to their grid based energy supplies in the future, if there are any shortages in the market due to underinvestment as a result of yesterdays announcement.
If I ran a power hungry business, I'd be seriously worried about this today.
Labour has abandoned the economic arguement for it's safety ground of anti business and anti rich.
I don't believe for one minute that Labour is anti-business or anti-rich. I have more sympathy for an argument that Labour does not "get" business and that some in the party worry too much about personal wealth per se. But then I am also sympathetic to the argument that the Tories do not "get" ordinary people and do not worry enough about poverty.
If every there were a summary of how the two main parties characterises each other, it's basically that.
His message is simple: get with the programme or get out of the way. He is prepared to marshal public opinion against the bad guys. And that is the arresting theme emerging from Mr Miliband's remarkable speech. He is patently putting himself at the head of what he hopes is a public insurrection against the various centres of power and wealth. Energy companies? Hand it over. Property developers? Use it or lose it. Big companies? Pay more. Employers? Hire who we say. Is it any wonder that the analogies being suggested range from Stalin to Mugabe to Poujade. The test then will be whether the public respond to his rallying cry and say that yes, they too want to stop the world and get off. That's why on my blog yesterday I was cautious about how the Tories should respond. Populism can be seductive. Mr Cameron can too easily be portrayed as the millionaire's friend. His message of hardship and sacrifice required to win a global race is being turned against him by Mr Miliband who talks of a race to the bottom for all but the wealthy. The economic and political answers to Mr Miliband are easy, but which argument will the public prefer to hear?
Lab has, I must say, brilliantly outbribed the Cons with the price freeze; the Cons will have to be careful in opposing it.
That said, I don't think Lab are now, nor will they be in GE2015 credible enough for a large majority of the public not to understand that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is too good to be true.
Cons should fight this on Lab profligacy not on the mechanics of the energy market.
What Militwunt's speech boils down to me for me is this:
'I am going to say the things I need to say in order to win the next election. That actually doing what I say would ruin the country is secondary. Being in power is way more important to me than exercising that power responsibly.'
And if the British electorate are gullible / biddable / bribable enough to put Ed n Ed in charge in 18 months time then we'll get what we voted for.
Labour has abandoned the economic arguement for it's safety ground of anti business and anti rich.
I don't believe for one minute that Labour is anti-business or anti-rich. I have more sympathy for an argument that Labour does not "get" business and that some in the party worry too much about personal wealth per se. But then I am also sympathetic to the argument that the Tories do not "get" ordinary people and do not worry enough about poverty.
Saw someone ask you yesterday about where your mum lived... Was it the mother in law that was out in the sticks with poor bus connections?
...the UK to be able to supply electricity in quantities that diffuse renewable supplies will never meet. You'd need to cover the whole UK landscape (plus alot of Africa) with windfarms or solar arrays (and hope every day is sunny and windy). Sure renewables can contribute but can never become baseload supply..
Early on Tuesday morning Ireland was generating more electricity from wind turbines than the UK. That is a country with a population smaller than Yorkshire was generating more electricity from wind turbines than the UK.
Don't you find that just a little bit embarrassing?
That is the position anti-wind rhetoric has put us in, and it's pathetic.
...the UK to be able to supply electricity in quantities that diffuse renewable supplies will never meet. You'd need to cover the whole UK landscape (plus alot of Africa) with windfarms or solar arrays (and hope every day is sunny and windy). Sure renewables can contribute but can never become baseload supply..
Early on Tuesday morning Ireland was generating more electricity from wind turbines than the UK. That is a country with a population smaller than Yorkshire was generating more electricity from wind turbines than the UK.
Don't you find that just a little bit embarrassing?
That is the position anti-wind rhetoric has put us in, and it's pathetic.
Labour has abandoned the economic arguement for it's safety ground of anti business and anti rich.
They're choosing to fight on territory they believe is better for them. I think they are staking out more of an anti-big business than an anti-business line. Balls was very explicit about that.
Yes, Miliband's speech means they've given up on trying to win the argument on the economy, public spending, the deficit, growth and jobs, and want to talk about something else.
Ed’s speech did have a faint whiff of capitulation on the economy front – an expected reaction to the up-tick in the economy I’d imagine – And what better way to mask that retreat than by announcing a string of proposals, though popular to many, would be an affront to many more.
Huey Pierce Long, Jr. (August 30, 1893 – September 10, 1935), nicknamed The Kingfish, was an American politician who served as the 40th Governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a member of the United States Senate from 1932 until his assassination in 1935.
A Democrat, he was an outspoken populist who denounces the rich and the banks and called for "Share the Wealth"--that is a redistribution of wealth in favor of the poor. As the political boss of the state he commanded wide networks of supporters and was willing to take forceful action. He established the political prominence of the Long political family
Left-wing facism thriving on Labour's front-benches.
“I managed to get that photo onto almost every broadsheet front page and on page 2 of every tabloid. That said, given later events, it’s interesting to note that Tom and I almost fell out over the distribution of the photo, since he thought it should be an exclusive for the News of the World.”
So this is how I see it, Ed and Labour see the 2015 election as a foregone conclusion that they will either be the largest party in Parliament or they will have a slim outright majority and are using that to push through the socialist agenda they failed to achieve throughout the 80's when Maggie beat them to a pulp.
As for energy price controls, it seems absolutely insane. What happens when the wholesale price of energy goes above the price ceiling imposed by the government, does the government intervene and (illegally) subsidise energy companies or do the lights go out because energy companies have nothing to gain from selling at below cost (see California). Will the government then choose to nationalise the whole energy sector? Which is what I think is the endgame here, nationalisation of utility companies, and rolling back the private sector to return to the 80's. This policy is Ed reintroducing Clause IV by the back door.
I agree. Help the poorly paid working population by increasing the personal allowance to say, £16,000. Even if pay-rises are below inflation, take-home pay will be higher.
I'm surprised Ed hasn't done this. Is it because the LDs already have ownership?
I think Labour and Tory supporters have the same view. You cannot trust the Lib Dems. They say different things in different constituencies around the country, as a strategy to help them win the seat.
...the UK to be able to supply electricity in quantities that diffuse renewable supplies will never meet. You'd need to cover the whole UK landscape (plus alot of Africa) with windfarms or solar arrays (and hope every day is sunny and windy). Sure renewables can contribute but can never become baseload supply..
Early on Tuesday morning Ireland was generating more electricity from wind turbines than the UK. That is a country with a population smaller than Yorkshire was generating more electricity from wind turbines than the UK.
Don't you find that just a little bit embarrassing?
That is the position anti-wind rhetoric has put us in, and it's pathetic.
I'm surprised we were generating any electricity at all given we had a big fat anticyclone with attendant light winds sitting over us. Yesterday was breathless in SE England.
Mr Cameron can too easily be portrayed as the millionaire's friend. His message of hardship and sacrifice required to win a global race is being turned against him by Mr Miliband who talks of a race to the bottom for all but the wealthy. The economic and political answers to Mr Miliband are easy...
The problem with Brogan's argument is that the economic data supports Miliband's contention. The very rich are getting richer while everyone else is told to accept zero-hour contracts and sees prices rise faster than wages.
If Cameron cannot make the economy function for the benefit of the majority of the population it seems perfectly reasonable for the majority of the population to vote for someone who recognises it as a problem.
I think there is an ongoing problem with this kind of analysis and the conclusions Mike is drawing.
Whilst it is true that the Lib Dem/Labour switchers do represent a sizable number of voters - some 1.9 million voters - it is a number that is dwarfed by comparison with the number of eligible voters who did not vote - almost 16 million of them.
The real question for any party seems to me to be how to re-enthuse those voters and get them supporting our electoral system again. The party that can do that with any degree of success is the one that will win the next election, irrespective of what Lib Dem switchers (or UKIP) are doing.
There is a simple reason why Mike will disagree with that, and it's that he lost [some] money at the 2010 election because of people who told opinion pollsters that they would vote Lib Dem, but who then did not bother to go out to vote at all.
Time after time people talk about appealing to people who did not vote - I remember reams of analysis from Patrick before the last election on why an increased turnout would produce a thumping Conservative victory - but it is never that simple.
I would also argue that there are structural reasons why turnout is lower now than in the past, to do with a greater number of people being registered to vote at more than one address, because of second homes, split families, university and moving around the country for work. As I've said before, I was registered to vote in three different constituencies for the 2001 general election, but I only voted once, so my personal turnout figure would have been recorded as 33.3%.
Since I support the integrity of our voting system, there was no way for any party to enthuse me to increase my turnout to 100%.
The logical flaw in that argument is that 4 million more people voted in 1992 than in 2010 and yet in the intervening 18 years the population of the UK has increased by 5 million. Even assuming a couple of million of those are kids, that would still indicate that the number of people eligible to vote but choosing not to had increased by 6-7 million.
I simply don't believe that the large drop in % turnout in the last 20 years is simply due to ghost voters who don't actually exist.
So this is how I see it, Ed and Labour see the 2015 election as a foregone conclusion that they will either be the largest party in Parliament or they will have a slim outright majority and are using that to push through the socialist agenda they failed to achieve throughout the 80's when Maggie beat them to a pulp.
As for energy price controls, it seems absolutely insane. What happens when the wholesale price of energy goes above the price ceiling imposed by the government, does the government intervene and (illegally) subsidise energy companies or do the lights go out because energy companies have nothing to gain from selling at below cost (see California). Will the government then choose to nationalise the whole energy sector? Which is what I think is the endgame here, nationalisation of utility companies, and rolling back the private sector to return to the 80's. This policy is Ed reintroducing Clause IV by the back door.
George Osborne caps rail fares quite happily. They're equally dependent on wholesale energy prices.
Help the poorly paid working population by increasing the personal allowance to say, £16,000. Even if pay-rises are below inflation, take-home pay will be higher.
I can see how that helps someone on £20,000. It doesnt help someone on £15,000 as much and it hardly helps someone on £10,000 at all.
So this is how I see it, Ed and Labour see the 2015 election as a foregone conclusion that they will either be the largest party in Parliament or they will have a slim outright majority and are using that to push through the socialist agenda they failed to achieve throughout the 80's when Maggie beat them to a pulp.
As for energy price controls, it seems absolutely insane. What happens when the wholesale price of energy goes above the price ceiling imposed by the government, does the government intervene and (illegally) subsidise energy companies or do the lights go out because energy companies have nothing to gain from selling at below cost (see California). Will the government then choose to nationalise the whole energy sector? Which is what I think is the endgame here, nationalisation of utility companies, and rolling back the private sector to return to the 80's. This policy is Ed reintroducing Clause IV by the back door.
George Osborne caps rail fares quite happily. They're equally dependent on wholesale energy prices.
And our railways are a great example of investment and businesses being run well?
So this is how I see it, Ed and Labour see the 2015 election as a foregone conclusion that they will either be the largest party in Parliament or they will have a slim outright majority and are using that to push through the socialist agenda they failed to achieve throughout the 80's when Maggie beat them to a pulp.
As for energy price controls, it seems absolutely insane. What happens when the wholesale price of energy goes above the price ceiling imposed by the government, does the government intervene and (illegally) subsidise energy companies or do the lights go out because energy companies have nothing to gain from selling at below cost (see California). Will the government then choose to nationalise the whole energy sector? Which is what I think is the endgame here, nationalisation of utility companies, and rolling back the private sector to return to the 80's. This policy is Ed reintroducing Clause IV by the back door.
George Osborne caps rail fares quite happily. They're equally dependent on wholesale energy prices.
And our railways are a great example of investment and businesses being run well?
Ironically they're an excellent example of privatising utilities leading to poor customer experience.
So this is how I see it, Ed and Labour see the 2015 election as a foregone conclusion that they will either be the largest party in Parliament or they will have a slim outright majority and are using that to push through the socialist agenda they failed to achieve throughout the 80's when Maggie beat them to a pulp.
As for energy price controls, it seems absolutely insane. What happens when the wholesale price of energy goes above the price ceiling imposed by the government, does the government intervene and (illegally) subsidise energy companies or do the lights go out because energy companies have nothing to gain from selling at below cost (see California). Will the government then choose to nationalise the whole energy sector? Which is what I think is the endgame here, nationalisation of utility companies, and rolling back the private sector to return to the 80's. This policy is Ed reintroducing Clause IV by the back door.
George Osborne caps rail fares quite happily. They're equally dependent on wholesale energy prices.
And our railways are a great example of investment and businesses being run well?
Labour has abandoned the economic arguement for it's safety ground of anti business and anti rich.
I don't believe for one minute that Labour is anti-business or anti-rich. I have more sympathy for an argument that Labour does not "get" business and that some in the party worry too much about personal wealth per se. But then I am also sympathetic to the argument that the Tories do not "get" ordinary people and do not worry enough about poverty.
Saw someone ask you yesterday about where your mum lived... Was it the mother in law that was out in the sticks with poor bus connections?
The speech matters really for only one thing: Ed Miliband has decided to fight the next election as Red Ed. For the first time in a generation, business will uniformly strongly support the Conservatives.
Energy costs are hugely important for many businesses, who might like the idea prices should be reduced but would happily settle for them being predictable.
Business for Labour!
It is bizarre the CBI opposes this when it is business which are big winners from the freeze as well as any further reduction in the price of electricity after Ofgem is reorganised.I am sure small businesses would love this.
The problem though is if business let him do this to the energy industry, who is next in the firing line...
Mr Miliband insisted that that his legal advice was that he would “absolutely” be able to freeze energy prices. He also indicated that he could be prepared to intervene in other areas like the food and petrol industries if those markets are also deemed to have “failed”.
I'm old enough to remember when Pickford's Removals and Thomas Cook were also nationalised - mission creep when HMG starts down this road knows no bounds.
Pickfords and Thomas Cook were nationalised in the 1940s.
Both were privitised in the early 1980s by Thatcher so I am sure Plato can remember when they were nationalised industries. But whether she can remember it or not doesn't change the basic principle that them being nationalised was a lunatic idea.
So this is how I see it, Ed and Labour see the 2015 election as a foregone conclusion that they will either be the largest party in Parliament or they will have a slim outright majority and are using that to push through the socialist agenda they failed to achieve throughout the 80's when Maggie beat them to a pulp.
As for energy price controls, it seems absolutely insane. What happens when the wholesale price of energy goes above the price ceiling imposed by the government, does the government intervene and (illegally) subsidise energy companies or do the lights go out because energy companies have nothing to gain from selling at below cost (see California). Will the government then choose to nationalise the whole energy sector? Which is what I think is the endgame here, nationalisation of utility companies, and rolling back the private sector to return to the 80's. This policy is Ed reintroducing Clause IV by the back door.
George Osborne caps rail fares quite happily. They're equally dependent on wholesale energy prices.
And our railways are a great example of investment and businesses being run well?
Sunil is yer man on this, Max, but weren't they once, many years ago, rescued from ruin and insolvency by Nationalisation - (much as the Banks were more recently)?
I think that Ed Milliband's speech should go down very well with that 28% of Lib Dems, who've switched to Labour since 2010. But that only takes Labour up to 37% (which is UKPR's current average rating) and that doesn't leave much room for slippage between now and May 2015.
I don't doubt that Milliband's speech (like many of William Hague's speeches) hits a lot of the right notes, as far as the public is concerned. The probelm is that he's now so poorly regarded by the public that (like Hague) few people really listen to him.
So this is how I see it, Ed and Labour see the 2015 election as a foregone conclusion that they will either be the largest party in Parliament or they will have a slim outright majority and are using that to push through the socialist agenda they failed to achieve throughout the 80's when Maggie beat them to a pulp.
As for energy price controls, it seems absolutely insane. What happens when the wholesale price of energy goes above the price ceiling imposed by the government, does the government intervene and (illegally) subsidise energy companies or do the lights go out because energy companies have nothing to gain from selling at below cost (see California). Will the government then choose to nationalise the whole energy sector? Which is what I think is the endgame here, nationalisation of utility companies, and rolling back the private sector to return to the 80's. This policy is Ed reintroducing Clause IV by the back door.
George Osborne caps rail fares quite happily. They're equally dependent on wholesale energy prices.
Capped at an above inflation rate rise (not a freeze) and rail companies aren't having to make investment decisions that require huge capital outlays that are repaid over the course of 30 years. Also there is a small difference between your train being a few minutes late and the power going off.
The speech matters really for only one thing: Ed Miliband has decided to fight the next election as Red Ed. For the first time in a generation, business will uniformly strongly support the Conservatives.
Energy costs are hugely important for many businesses, who might like the idea prices should be reduced but would happily settle for them being predictable.
Business for Labour!
It is bizarre the CBI opposes this when it is business which are big winners from the freeze as well as any further reduction in the price of electricity after Ofgem is reorganised.I am sure small businesses would love this.
The problem though is if business let him do this to the energy industry, who is next in the firing line...
Mr Miliband insisted that that his legal advice was that he would “absolutely” be able to freeze energy prices. He also indicated that he could be prepared to intervene in other areas like the food and petrol industries if those markets are also deemed to have “failed”.
I'm old enough to remember when Pickford's Removals and Thomas Cook were also nationalised - mission creep when HMG starts down this road knows no bounds.
Pickfords and Thomas Cook were nationalised in the 1940s.
Both were privitised in the early 1980s by Thatcher so I am sure Plato can remember when they were nationalised industries. But whether she can remember it or not doesn't change the basic principle that them being nationalised was a lunatic idea.
...the UK to be able to supply electricity in quantities that diffuse renewable supplies will never meet. You'd need to cover the whole UK landscape (plus alot of Africa) with windfarms or solar arrays (and hope every day is sunny and windy). Sure renewables can contribute but can never become baseload supply..
Early on Tuesday morning Ireland was generating more electricity from wind turbines than the UK. That is a country with a population smaller than Yorkshire was generating more electricity from wind turbines than the UK.
Don't you find that just a little bit embarrassing?
That is the position anti-wind rhetoric has put us in, and it's pathetic.
So wind, at peak windy times, can supply electricity. BFD. Yes, wind is one way of generating power.
How much electricity was being supplied? Could higher and higher densities of wind meet our demand reliably? No – some days are dead still. So however high wind’s contribution goes you still need some alternative baseload supply. That baseload supply needs to be there, ready to go when it’s calm and economically viable – otherwise it won’t be there. The more the wind blows the less the back-up is used. The so the higher the pricing for back-up needs to be when in use – whatever the level of wind the back-up needs a bankable cashflow. The real problem of wind is how to make the back-up / secure baseload generation viable.
So wind is good from a resource consumption point of view. But it dies on its feet in terms of economic viability. The industry requires subsidy to exist and an economically suicidal back-up to cover for its operational shortcomings.
Basically we’re asking and trying to answer the wrong question. It should not be ‘what can we do to reduce CO2 generation’ but should be ‘what can we do to deliver reliable and cheap power’.
...the UK to be able to supply electricity in quantities that diffuse renewable supplies will never meet. You'd need to cover the whole UK landscape (plus alot of Africa) with windfarms or solar arrays (and hope every day is sunny and windy). Sure renewables can contribute but can never become baseload supply..
Early on Tuesday morning Ireland was generating more electricity from wind turbines than the UK. That is a country with a population smaller than Yorkshire was generating more electricity from wind turbines than the UK.
Don't you find that just a little bit embarrassing?
That is the position anti-wind rhetoric has put us in, and it's pathetic.
I'm surprised we were generating any electricity at all given we had a big fat anticyclone with attendant light winds sitting over us. Yesterday was breathless in SE England.
It is sad when wind turbine fanatics fail to understand the basic principles of how wind energy works. If the wind don't blow the power don't flow.
I think that Ed Milliband's speech should go down very well with that 28% of Lib Dems, who've switched to Labour since 2010. But that only takes Labour up to 37% (which is UKPR's current average rating) and that doesn't leave much room for slippage between now and May 2015.
I don't doubt that Milliband's speech (like many of William Hague's speeches) hits a lot of the right notes, as far as the public is concerned. The probelm is that he's now so poorly regarded by the public that (like Hague) few people really listen to him.
Unlike other announcements,his energy price freeze has generated a storm.For good or for bad,this policy is going to remain in public consciousness for a while yet and is going to define him.
So this is how I see it, Ed and Labour see the 2015 election as a foregone conclusion that they will either be the largest party in Parliament or they will have a slim outright majority and are using that to push through the socialist agenda they failed to achieve throughout the 80's when Maggie beat them to a pulp.
As for energy price controls, it seems absolutely insane. What happens when the wholesale price of energy goes above the price ceiling imposed by the government, does the government intervene and (illegally) subsidise energy companies or do the lights go out because energy companies have nothing to gain from selling at below cost (see California). Will the government then choose to nationalise the whole energy sector? Which is what I think is the endgame here, nationalisation of utility companies, and rolling back the private sector to return to the 80's. This policy is Ed reintroducing Clause IV by the back door.
George Osborne caps rail fares quite happily. They're equally dependent on wholesale energy prices.
Capped at an above inflation rate rise (not a freeze) and rail companies aren't having to make investment decisions that require huge capital outlays that are repaid over the course of 30 years. Also there is a small difference between your train being a few minutes late and the power going off.
The key point is that there is no rubicon about capping prices or intervening in markets. The Tories do it already.
Not sure commuters or rail franchise holders would agree with you.
Since all energy companies already offer long fixed price tariffs, they can't be that opposed to it. The idea of the lights going out because of this policy is absurd.
The Tories are going to have to come up with something better than "It cannot be done", I'm afraid. Populism is powerful - as the Tories have discovered with their attacks on welfare claimants and their immigration rhetoric.
What EdM has latched onto is the fact that there can be left wing populism as well as right wing populism. And as he knows from experience that it is very hard to counter.
With the Tories painting Labour as the party of shirkers and the immigrant hordes; and Labour painting the Tories as the party of the big energy companies and property speculators it looks like we are going to be getting a thoroughly unedifying and vacuous GE campaign, with neither party speaking to the country as a whole.
What's interesting to me is how ineffectual left wing populism has been since 2008, despite the conditions being apparently so ripe for it. It looks to me as though modern social democratic parties invested so heavily in identity politics, over the past couple of generations, that they can no longer make the sort of economic case to the average voter that was once so persuasive.
Help the poorly paid working population by increasing the personal allowance to say, £16,000. Even if pay-rises are below inflation, take-home pay will be higher.
I can see how that helps someone on £20,000. It doesnt help someone on £15,000 as much and it hardly helps someone on £10,000 at all.
One problem with raising the personal allowance is that (usually) to avoid higher tax payers benefiting, the higher rate threshold has been falling (or frozen) to account for it.
That makes the 20% much smaller than it used to be, and more and more people falling into the 40% band. Both tories and labour have been guilty of this, but its polarising people between high tax payers and no tax payers.
OK, push the PA up to £16k in three stages. Increase minimum wage to £8 an hour over the same period. 40 hours at £8 an hour = £16,640 pa. There's still a benefit up the scale.
Warning: I have a vested interest too.
Proper socialist policies aimed at the low paid workers.
Warning: I'm no economist, but neither is EdM or EdB.
Get rid of the green agenda, convert the polar bears into fur coats and eat the penguins.
Clearly Ed's speech has created a lot of talking points. At least makes politics a bit more interesting than it has been for many years. Going back to the ICM poll that was done after Thatcher died - there was a problem with how the questions were asked to my mind (asking if policies had worked or not) it's worth noting that her most effective policy was deemed to be right to buy and least successful was privatisation of utilities.
I don't know whether Ed's Energy policy is water tight, but given he's a former Energy minister it would be a pretty damning indictment if it wasn't. Personally I'm just fed up of seeing big businesses that benefit from huge public infrastructure making large profits in sectors where proper competition seems debatable at best. Indeed you might suggest they're all behaving like a cartel.
BP has discovered gas in the Nile Delta (Offshore Magazine).
That could have some interesting consequences for Egypt.
Egypt already has a substantial offshore oil industry in the fan deposits beyond the Nile Delta. The problem is that it is all very very high pressure and so extremely difficult to drill and produce. There are a number of rigs that have been lost over recent years due to blowouts in the area.
Patrick: "Basically we’re asking and trying to answer the wrong question. It should not be ‘what can we do to reduce CO2 generation’ but should be ‘what can we do to deliver reliable and cheap power’."
Spot on, sir.
Renewables as currently set up don't do that. Not with the massive subsidy regime in place. The "goldilocks zone" for wind for power is way too small. It currently requires investment in non-green non-renewable diesel plants to be turned on when the wind ain't there. And, when too much wind is there. This aspect never gets included in the numbers submitted for planning applications, which is just wrong.
Much the same applies to solar energy, with the undeniable fact that due to day/night they by their very nature have 50% built-in obsolesence.
Tidal power is the way to go for an island nation. We should be going pell-mell to have massively lucrative prizes for people who can develop this.
I think that Ed Milliband's speech should go down very well with that 28% of Lib Dems, who've switched to Labour since 2010. But that only takes Labour up to 37% (which is UKPR's current average rating) and that doesn't leave much room for slippage between now and May 2015.
I don't doubt that Milliband's speech (like many of William Hague's speeches) hits a lot of the right notes, as far as the public is concerned. The probelm is that he's now so poorly regarded by the public that (like Hague) few people really listen to him.
Well it certainly gained Labour some publicity in a difficult week dominated by the appalling Nairobi mall attack. Genuine Liberals don't particularly approve of Gordon Brown style government is best solutions to problems and I'd see Ed's initiative as being in that vein.. However I feel they get ordinary people and understand poverty better than the Tories so I'll be interested to hear what Ed Davey has to say about it all. Some of those voters "defecting" to Labour were drawn to the Lib Dems because of Cleggasm and are more akin to the floating voters of old, others were part of the Liberal left possibly drawn there because of Iraq.
The Tories are going to have to come up with something better than "It cannot be done", I'm afraid. Populism is powerful - as the Tories have discovered with their attacks on welfare claimants and their immigration rhetoric.
What EdM has latched onto is the fact that there can be left wing populism as well as right wing populism. And as he knows from experience that it is very hard to counter.
With the Tories painting Labour as the party of shirkers and the immigrant hordes; and Labour painting the Tories as the party of the big energy companies and property speculators it looks like we are going to be getting a thoroughly unedifying and vacuous GE campaign, with neither party speaking to the country as a whole.
What's interesting to me is how ineffectual left wing populism has been since 2008, despite the conditions being apparently so ripe for it. It looks to me as though modern social democratic parties invested so heavily in identity politics, over the past couple of generations, that they can no longer make the sort of economic case to the average voter that was once so persuasive.
I think the thing that needs explaining is how little left-wing populism has actually been attempted, while constant little forays into right-wing populism has been absolutely standard SOP for the mainstream right, and occasionally even the Clinton/Blair left, for as long as we can remember. I
guess part of it's related to not having a reliable media pipeline to get the message across; The Mirror is happy to run Labour's line, but not many people read that, and the establishment centre-left channels probably won't be particularly helpful.
One possible outcome of Ed's energy freeze hasn't been discussed. He has used it as a naked bribe to voters. But it could yet backfire.
What if, spring 2015, the energy companies say "to ensure we have requisite capital requirements through the period of uncertainty covered by the possibility of the Labour's price freeze, we are going to put up prices on 1st April by 20%. However, if Labour is not elected, we will have greater flexibility - and so will reduce them by 15%."
Tidal power is the way to go for an island nation. We should be going pell-mell to have massively lucrative prizes for people who can develop this.
Tidal power in the UK seems like more of a political problem than a technical problem. We need massively lucrative prizes for people who can create advertising campaigns that persuade people not to give a shit about endangered wading birds or whatever.
His message is simple: get with the programme or get out of the way. He is prepared to marshal public opinion against the bad guys. And that is the arresting theme emerging from Mr Miliband's remarkable speech. He is patently putting himself at the head of what he hopes is a public insurrection against the various centres of power and wealth. Energy companies? Hand it over. Property developers? Use it or lose it. Big companies? Pay more. Employers? Hire who we say. Is it any wonder that the analogies being suggested range from Stalin to Mugabe to Poujade. The test then will be whether the public respond to his rallying cry and say that yes, they too want to stop the world and get off. That's why on my blog yesterday I was cautious about how the Tories should respond. Populism can be seductive. Mr Cameron can too easily be portrayed as the millionaire's friend. His message of hardship and sacrifice required to win a global race is being turned against him by Mr Miliband who talks of a race to the bottom for all but the wealthy. The economic and political answers to Mr Miliband are easy, but which argument will the public prefer to hear?
I'm not really keen on this 'global race' analogy. Perhaps that's not surprising as it seems to come exclusively from the right and I'm generally on the left. Personally if we could just get our levels of productivity up those of the US, France and Germany and I wouldn't be too concerned as to whether people deem us to have won the global race or not.
The logical flaw in that argument is that 4 million more people voted in 1992 than in 2010 and yet in the intervening 18 years the population of the UK has increased by 5 million. Even assuming a couple of million of those are kids, that would still indicate that the number of people eligible to vote but choosing not to had increased by 6-7 million.
I simply don't believe that the large drop in % turnout in the last 20 years is simply due to ghost voters who don't actually exist.
Many of the "vanished" 1992 voters (especially those who voted Conservative) were pensioners, who 20 years on are most likely pushing up daisies now. They have been replaced by sections of the population that are less likely to vote.
CD13: Sven is a socialist: His posh-flat cost went through-the-roof during the Labour 2007-2010 depression. It's about them with Labour: Not about us poor folk...!
Tidal has the advantage over wind or solar in that it is predictable. But it is still intermittent. You get two surges day with not alot in the middle. The back-up / baseload economic problems of wind are still there.
I guess the real holy grail of renewables will be storage. Get storage sorted and then all the intermittent sources start looking alot more sensible. We should be busy hollowing out all our mountains and fitting water pumps!
One possible outcome of Ed's energy freeze hasn't been discussed. He has used it as a naked bribe to voters. But it could yet backfire.
What if, spring 2015, the energy companies say "to ensure we have requisite capital requirements through the period of uncertainty covered by the possibility of the Labour's price freeze, we are going to put up prices on 1st April by 20%. However, if Labour is not elected, we will have greater flexibility - and so will reduce them by 15%."
Vote Tory for a 15% cut in your energy bills....
Wouldn't that be illegal operation of a cartel-like collaboration model? And surely if a few companies did something like that (in a proper free market, which I understand is what various posters are trying to defend against Ed's intervention) then a normal competitive response would be for another company to say "we will freeze our prices [at somewhere between the two prices mentioned above] for 2 years for all new customers regardless of the outcome of the next election" thereby hoovering up a massive increase in market share.
So this is how I see it, Ed and Labour see the 2015 election as a foregone conclusion that they will either be the largest party in Parliament or they will have a slim outright majority and are using that to push through the socialist agenda they failed to achieve throughout the 80's when Maggie beat them to a pulp.
As for energy price controls, it seems absolutely insane. What happens when the wholesale price of energy goes above the price ceiling imposed by the government, does the government intervene and (illegally) subsidise energy companies or do the lights go out because energy companies have nothing to gain from selling at below cost (see California). Will the government then choose to nationalise the whole energy sector? Which is what I think is the endgame here, nationalisation of utility companies, and rolling back the private sector to return to the 80's. This policy is Ed reintroducing Clause IV by the back door.
George Osborne caps rail fares quite happily. They're equally dependent on wholesale energy prices.
And our railways are a great example of investment and businesses being run well?
No worse than energy.
Our rail fares are the most expensive in Europe and our energy prices are the lowest. I know which is worse. Be logical Jonathan, you know as well as anyone else here that Ed's pledge to freeze energy prices is a load of waffle but he has said it because it is a vote winner. I'm quite clear that I think HS2 is a Tory vote buying wheeze and so is this energy play from Ed for Labour.
One possible outcome of Ed's energy freeze hasn't been discussed. He has used it as a naked bribe to voters. But it could yet backfire.
What if, spring 2015, the energy companies say "to ensure we have requisite capital requirements through the period of uncertainty covered by the possibility of the Labour's price freeze, we are going to put up prices on 1st April by 20%. However, if Labour is not elected, we will have greater flexibility - and so will reduce them by 15%."
Vote Tory for a 15% cut in your energy bills....
For one that is illegal.
But Miliband has said it will be a genuine freeze.Meaning if the companies try to profit-take before the freeze,he will drag to price to 2014 levels.
Tidal power is the way to go for an island nation. We should be going pell-mell to have massively lucrative prizes for people who can develop this.
Tidal power in the UK seems like more of a political problem than a technical problem. We need massively lucrative prizes for people who can create advertising campaigns that persuade people not to give a shit about endangered wading birds or whatever.
Edmund, they don't have to be tidal barrages. There is currently a prototype scheme off Orkney. Another is proposed for the Pentland Firth. Giant propellors, all subsea. The only worries for environmentalists are going to be whether they are dolphin and whale friendly.
One possible outcome of Ed's energy freeze hasn't been discussed. He has used it as a naked bribe to voters. But it could yet backfire.
What if, spring 2015, the energy companies say "to ensure we have requisite capital requirements through the period of uncertainty covered by the possibility of the Labour's price freeze, we are going to put up prices on 1st April by 20%. However, if Labour is not elected, we will have greater flexibility - and so will reduce them by 15%."
Vote Tory for a 15% cut in your energy bills....
For one that is illegal.
But Miliband has said it will be a genuine freeze.Meaning if the companies try to profit-take before the freeze,he will drag to price to 2014 levels.
If the wholesale price in 2015 is higher than the sale price in 2014, tell me why energy companies would bother supplying gas and electricity? It's an absolute fiction that these companies would sell their goods at below cost.
It's certainly a sign of the times that Ike can turn a Labour leader's speech into an apparent meme about Liberal Democrats. This is all the more extraordinary given the media mauling RedM is getting. The spectre of a return to the bad old days of socialism is THE standout from this and, I hate to pop the egocentric yellow balloon, but will dominate voting intentions as the months unfold, far beyond anything the former LibDem voters bring to the table.
Tidal power is the way to go for an island nation. We should be going pell-mell to have massively lucrative prizes for people who can develop this.
Tidal power in the UK seems like more of a political problem than a technical problem. We need massively lucrative prizes for people who can create advertising campaigns that persuade people not to give a shit about endangered wading birds or whatever.
Not really. In the long term, presumably yes, hence expensive feed-in tariffs for tidal to encourage R&D and not for more developed techs. But at present it's seriously less cost-efficient than wind. Richard Tyndall makes the obvious point that wind power only works when it's windy. But what tends to be overlooked is that it's then remarkably profitable, so much so that it is almost competitive without subsidy despite the downtime when it's calm (or a gale, when wind doesn't work either). As it's intermittent (though usefully more online in winter when demand rises), one needs a baseload (hello nuclear) as well, but it still makes sense as a top-up, as part of a European grid.
Comments
The last time I looked about 20% of the annual total was with Germany whose wages are higher than ours. Big chunks of our deficit is in things like foodstuffs and mid tech products from high cost countries ( cars, fridges ). China is just a comfort blanket they all reach for since the alternative involves doing hard graft - like the Germans have done.
[HurstLhama and Red-Trousers might be able to confirm it....]
Crime. Welfare. Europe. Debt/deficit. Education. Immigration. Any other big areas Miliband utterly failed to mention yesterday?"
I think of those, debt/deficit will need some sort of narrative from Labour, and Europe might, depending on how the winds blow between now and the election. I think Labour could duck have a narrative on the others.
When I used to work in pharma, I was told by then CEO Vasella (now a controversial figure as he's insanely rich) that he'd be perfectly happy to invest in an environment where taxes were high and regulation was strict, so long as other factors were present: good education and infrastructure, and above all certainty from government on what the taxes and regulations were. What would be a total turn-off was uncertainty. That's why it was important to balance the price freeze with the medium-term commitment (which won't mean cheaper long-term prices, but does mean a market you can plan for).
This runs into the laid-back "let the market do what it wants" approach that has been fashionable for some years under all parties. I don't think anyone serious wants direct government micro-management over a long period, but some stable guarantees for high-tech industries are a good thing.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/data-matching-to-make-individual-electoral-registration-easier
Most such plans involve an element of carbon capture and storage, so that one can keep some coal and gas on the grid. Nuclear is very likely, and of course more renewables - by 2030 that would hopefully include tidal and wave as well as wind and solar.
If you want to increase renewables and nuclear then you need some form of electricity storage. When we first started building nuclear plants we also built pumped storage power plants to help deal with the inconveniences of nuclear electricity generation. So a few more of them would help.
If Britain managed to pull it off we would have the significant benefit of an electricity supply that was not beholden to fossil fuel imports and price volatility.
Unfortunately, the chances of Ed Miliband being PM in 2030 are nil, and so he has little incentive to do the difficult things in the short-term that would be necessary to make this a reality. So it won't happen. They are just words. Do not be scared of words - and do not believe in them too much either.
In this case, the problem is high energy prices. But the solution given does little to solve that, and has many potential downsides.
No-ones claiming the apocalypse, just that this policy introduces layers of more risk into an already-fragile situation. As people on here will know, I'm very bearish and concerned about energy supply even before this policy was announced. Things have just got a whole load worse.
"In the 12 months to August 2013 private rental prices paid by tenants in Great Britain rose by 1.2%.
Private rents in Great Britain excluding London rose by 0.8% during the same period.
In the 12 months to August 2013 private rental prices grew by 1.1% in England, 1.3% in Scotland and 1.3% in Wales."
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_327641.pdf
Markets, politicians and ordinary people “are all under-evaluating the risk of a U.K. exit,” Letta said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Erik Schatzker. The other EU nations need to work “a good deal to convince the British to remain on board.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-24/italy-s-letta-says-markets-underestimate-risk-of-u-k-leaving-eu.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/snooker/24223268
Huey Long
and in literature
Only fools would wish history to repeat....
(Just to be clear, I've always been a firm supporter of raising the PA to £10,000.)
That's why we have representative democracy, so people can look at issues which are for the good of the country as a whole, and not as separate populist measures.
Ed said nothing about debt, or the deficit, or about how anything is going to be funded (other than sponging the banks 30 times over).
Labour has abandoned the economic arguement for it's safety ground of anti business and anti rich.
“These significant proposed changes may create a whole new level of uncertainty,” said Tony Ward, head of power and utilities at the consulting firm Ernst & Young LLP. “Each of the changes proposed will require massive change in their own right, and collectively will lead to a reassessment of the risks of operating in the energy market.”
The most immediate risk is Electricite de France SA’s talks with the government about building the first new nuclear power plant in two decades. All except one of Britain’s 23 atomic plants is due to retire from service by 2023.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-24/miliband-s-u-k-utility-breakup-plan-threatens-investment.html
'and above all certainty from government on what the taxes and regulations were. What would be a total turn-off was uncertainty.'
And uncertainty is exactly what we have following Ed's speech yesterday.
What Ed therefore's seems to be saying is that we have to have a increasing large body of unemployed people without skills funded by a smaller and smaller skilled workforce.
i.e Welcome to benefit Britain.
Where do they go now? The LDs are now left of centre while Lab are left of left.
I foresee a Lab=>LD=>Lab=>LD movement developing.
Vive Le Coalition.
Main problem of high-tech industries is that they are not large employers. Anything that needs assembly gets hiked off to the Far East.
So did EdM come up with ideas of where to employ all the graduates we are producing, let alone the unemployable because they are uneducated.
Any attempt to achieve this via the Green route takes you to where Germany is now finding itself. Ask their industry minister how it's working out!
The real problem is that some aspects of our modern lives just require ALOT of energy. We can save a bit here and there but heating water, running trains, using the washing machine, operating lifts and a million other things will forever require the UK to be able to supply electricity in quantities that diffuse renewable supplies will never meet. You'd need to cover the whole UK landscape (plus alot of Africa) with windfarms or solar arrays (and hope every day is sunny and windy). Sure renewables can contribute but can never become baseload supply.
Right now and for a few decades gas looks good. In the medium to long term we will be forced to recognise that fossil and renewable sources won't deliver (for reasons of cost and diffusion respectively). But there are some technologies upon which mankind could base a stable future energy system. I'd include traditional nuclear fission, Thorium fission, deuterium fusion, orbital solar and deep core geothermal amongst these. We can do the fission stuff already and fusion will be commercially viable at some point.
So taking Eagle's comments as an example, she wants to push the train operators further away from the free market ideal, albeit they are already far from it in comparison to, say, making light fittings. Or to use my second version, remove some of the freedoms they have remaining.
I don't believe for one minute that Labour is anti-business or anti-rich. I have more sympathy for an argument that Labour does not "get" business and that some in the party worry too much about personal wealth per se. But then I am also sympathetic to the argument that the Tories do not "get" ordinary people and do not worry enough about poverty.
If I ran a power hungry business, I'd be seriously worried about this today.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70103000/jpg/_70103731_70102674.jpg
From Wikimedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HueyPLongGesture.jpg
Ouch!
If every there were a summary of how the two main parties characterises each other, it's basically that.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100237853/ed-milibands-seductive-populism-is-dangerous-for-the-tories/
That said, I don't think Lab are now, nor will they be in GE2015 credible enough for a large majority of the public not to understand that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is too good to be true.
Cons should fight this on Lab profligacy not on the mechanics of the energy market.
'I am going to say the things I need to say in order to win the next election. That actually doing what I say would ruin the country is secondary. Being in power is way more important to me than exercising that power responsibly.'
And if the British electorate are gullible / biddable / bribable enough to put Ed n Ed in charge in 18 months time then we'll get what we voted for.
Saw someone ask you yesterday about where your mum lived... Was it the mother in law that was out in the sticks with poor bus connections?
Don't you find that just a little bit embarrassing?
That is the position anti-wind rhetoric has put us in, and it's pathetic.
http://order-order.com/2013/09/25/when-tom-watson-used-the-screws-to-do-over-enemies/
Those were the good old days....eh Tom.
It reminds me of the tale about how Steve Coogan used to use his contacts at the NOTW to spin the many stories of drug, drink and women in his favour.
As for energy price controls, it seems absolutely insane. What happens when the wholesale price of energy goes above the price ceiling imposed by the government, does the government intervene and (illegally) subsidise energy companies or do the lights go out because energy companies have nothing to gain from selling at below cost (see California). Will the government then choose to nationalise the whole energy sector? Which is what I think is the endgame here, nationalisation of utility companies, and rolling back the private sector to return to the 80's. This policy is Ed reintroducing Clause IV by the back door.
I agree. Help the poorly paid working population by increasing the personal allowance to say, £16,000. Even if pay-rises are below inflation, take-home pay will be higher.
I'm surprised Ed hasn't done this. Is it because the LDs already have ownership?
If Cameron cannot make the economy function for the benefit of the majority of the population it seems perfectly reasonable for the majority of the population to vote for someone who recognises it as a problem.
I simply don't believe that the large drop in % turnout in the last 20 years is simply due to ghost voters who don't actually exist.
It is. One bus a week.
That could have some interesting consequences for Egypt.
I don't doubt that Milliband's speech (like many of William Hague's speeches) hits a lot of the right notes, as far as the public is concerned. The probelm is that he's now so poorly regarded by the public that (like Hague) few people really listen to him.
Capped at an above inflation rate rise (not a freeze) and rail companies aren't having to make investment decisions that require huge capital outlays that are repaid over the course of 30 years. Also there is a small difference between your train being a few minutes late and the power going off.
How much electricity was being supplied? Could higher and higher densities of wind meet our demand reliably? No – some days are dead still. So however high wind’s contribution goes you still need some alternative baseload supply. That baseload supply needs to be there, ready to go when it’s calm and economically viable – otherwise it won’t be there. The more the wind blows the less the back-up is used. The so the higher the pricing for back-up needs to be when in use – whatever the level of wind the back-up needs a bankable cashflow. The real problem of wind is how to make the back-up / secure baseload generation viable.
So wind is good from a resource consumption point of view. But it dies on its feet in terms of economic viability. The industry requires subsidy to exist and an economically suicidal back-up to cover for its operational shortcomings.
Basically we’re asking and trying to answer the wrong question. It should not be ‘what can we do to reduce CO2 generation’ but should be ‘what can we do to deliver reliable and cheap power’.
* IDNK but, peat-bogs are not normally associated with forests. [And, yes, I am still not allowed to have a beer with me Killarney/Tralee sorry-folk!]
Not sure commuters or rail franchise holders would agree with you.
Since all energy companies already offer long fixed price tariffs, they can't be that opposed to it. The idea of the lights going out because of this policy is absurd.
That makes the 20% much smaller than it used to be, and more and more people falling into the 40% band. Both tories and labour have been guilty of this, but its polarising people between high tax payers and no tax payers.
OK, push the PA up to £16k in three stages. Increase minimum wage to £8 an hour over the same period. 40 hours at £8 an hour = £16,640 pa. There's still a benefit up the scale.
Warning: I have a vested interest too.
Proper socialist policies aimed at the low paid workers.
Warning: I'm no economist, but neither is EdM or EdB.
Get rid of the green agenda, convert the polar bears into fur coats and eat the penguins.
Warning: Not 100% serious about that one.
I don't know whether Ed's Energy policy is water tight, but given he's a former Energy minister it would be a pretty damning indictment if it wasn't. Personally I'm just fed up of seeing big businesses that benefit from huge public infrastructure making large profits in sectors where proper competition seems debatable at best. Indeed you might suggest they're all behaving like a cartel.
Spot on, sir.
Renewables as currently set up don't do that. Not with the massive subsidy regime in place. The "goldilocks zone" for wind for power is way too small. It currently requires investment in non-green non-renewable diesel plants to be turned on when the wind ain't there. And, when too much wind is there. This aspect never gets included in the numbers submitted for planning applications, which is just wrong.
Much the same applies to solar energy, with the undeniable fact that due to day/night they by their very nature have 50% built-in obsolesence.
Tidal power is the way to go for an island nation. We should be going pell-mell to have massively lucrative prizes for people who can develop this.
guess part of it's related to not having a reliable media pipeline to get the message across; The Mirror is happy to run Labour's line, but not many people read that, and the establishment centre-left channels probably won't be particularly helpful.
Junior: Please wake up!
What if, spring 2015, the energy companies say "to ensure we have requisite capital requirements through the period of uncertainty covered by the possibility of the Labour's price freeze, we are going to put up prices on 1st April by 20%. However, if Labour is not elected, we will have greater flexibility - and so will reduce them by 15%."
Vote Tory for a 15% cut in your energy bills....
What would be an example of a left wing populist policy?
Tidal has the advantage over wind or solar in that it is predictable. But it is still intermittent. You get two surges day with not alot in the middle. The back-up / baseload economic problems of wind are still there.
I guess the real holy grail of renewables will be storage. Get storage sorted and then all the intermittent sources start looking alot more sensible. We should be busy hollowing out all our mountains and fitting water pumps!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2431660/Miliband-quietly-ditches-plan-cut-VAT-claimed-save-families-450-So-Labours-website.html
But Miliband has said it will be a genuine freeze.Meaning if the companies try to profit-take before the freeze,he will drag to price to 2014 levels.
* I still remember someone - Prof Nabavi [?] - telling me I got it confused with "Sybil". Bloody political cross-dressers...!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-18096372
http://news.stv.tv/north/205280-tidal-turbines-in-pentland-firth-could-power-400000-homes/
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BVAZkqZCAAA-uy4.png:large