I’m sceptical the market thinks what that tweet says they think.
The BoE base rate is highly unlikely to be so volatile. However, I do suspect IR’s are going to overshoot current expectations.
Indeed.
Anyone dealing with numbers should know to sanity-check figures before prognosticating. Who could honestly look at that chart and think "Base Rate 7% in Nov 2023" rather than see that there's an error there.
2.5850 + 7.0964 / 2 = 4.8407 which is in line with the other months.
I'll repeat my anecdote from a presentation at a fracking conference some year ago:
"The cheapest shale gas in the UK will be LNG imported from the US"
That comes in at the standard wholesale price of gas. So if the existing wells (like the two in Lancashire) are to resume pumping under some form of special domestic-only deal, it will be cheaper.
No, UK shale gas is lots more expensive than US, that's the whole point.
Yes, but by the time we get US shale gas, it's priced as 'Dutch ttf' and costs the same as any other gas. If the plan is to keep UK fracked gas off the international market for the time being, its price would presumably be lower than Dutch ttf.
The anti-fracking lobby is hilarious. Anyone would think the Government was reallocating half the NHS budget to and demolishing Bath to build 'Frackville'. All they're actually doing is reviewing restrictions on fracking activity in the face of an unprecedented rise in gas prices. It literally costs us nothing. The histrionics is truly a sight to behold.
They are not just “reviewing restrictions”. They have already cancelled the general moratorium against fracking.
It doesn’t cost us nothing. Fracking will have negative effects in local populations, and ultimately on the whole world population through climate change.
This is why your criticisms aren't serious.
Importing Qatari gas instead of UK gas causes more climate change, not less.
Anyone who quotes climate change as a reason to oppose fracking is not being serious. If you want to stop climate change, lets start with stopping Qatari etc imports which have more emissions than UK domestic generation, not less.
We need to do many things to stop climate change, and we are doing many things (if not enough). Yes, we need to reduce and then stop Qatari imports. But we were talking specifically about fracking. In a context where we’re doing all the things we need to stop climate change, where is the role for fracking?
(Existing UK domestic generation has less emissions than Qatari gas, but developing new fields has an initial cost in emissions (and in £). Developing new fields is rarely a sensible way of reducing emissions.)
Again not true. You keep making these statements which are based on nothing but supposition and are factually inaccurate. Qatari gas does not just seep from the ground by osmosis. It needs to be drilled for and produced in exactly the same way as UK gas. Adding new field emissions to UK fields but ignoring them for imported gas is simply dishonest.
My apologies. You are quite right. I was not seeking to add new field emissions in the UK, but not in Qatar or anywhere else. I was seeking to compare a new field in the UK with an existing field in Qatar. I understand there are a lot of existing fields in Qatar(!). It is, as I understand it, cheaper (financially and in terms of emissions) to get another X cubic metres out of an existing field than it is to get your first X cubic metres out of a new site.
Of course, fields run out, so you need new fields… except we’re going to have to reduce demand so much that, at some point, we stop needing new fields.
Your mistake - and one we have had to correct on here before - is thinking that net zero means no gas. It doesn't. It mean as that overall our CO2 balance is zero. We still can - and should - have gas as a backup for when renewables can't cope. But we should also have nuclear, geothermal, tidal and hydro.
And we will still be drilling oil wells in 30 years time (and more) because we still need all the products that come from oil that we don't burn.
If the boss of Cuadrilla is saying fracking won't work then there's not much worry about it I'd have thought. A few exploratory wells that don't yield anything. Some humming and harring followed eventually by a restoration phase https://drillordrop.com/2019/07/10/site-restoration-underway-at-tinker-lane/
With the frackers out of pocket.
Well this is basically my thought.
If fracking isn't viable as some claim, then it won't be done. So it can be legal, but not done, what's the issue with that?
If fracking is viable, then it shouldn't be banned.
We don't need to ban that which isn't viable, just have it legal but undone by choice rather than diktat.
Fracking should be treated like mining and other resource generation - subject to sensible standards, and if we can't economically do it in this country then so be it. But if we can, it should not be forbidden.
That seems like a sensible thing to say, but it's very dependent on what being "subject to sensible standards" means. That's why there's a debate, that's what one needs to address. In particular:
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to climate change?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to the earthquake risk?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to major building projects in rural areas?
Thank you for saying its sensible and yes your questions are sensible too. My answers to your questions would be:
Climate change: Similar rules and regulations should apply to imports etc - if gas can be imported for use, it should be able to be extracted domestically, which reduces our carbon emissions it doesn't increase them.
Earthquake risk: It should have similar standards to alternative developments like seismic activity allowed to take place with regards to mining etc too.
Building projects: It should have similar standards to other forms of development.
Standards shouldn't be lower than they would be for alternatives, but they shouldn't be draconianly higher either.
Thanks for a detailed answer that generally avoids actually saying anything.
Climate change: so, what should those standards be? We're meant to be Net Zero in 28 years. It is difficult to see fracking being consistent with that. How should Government implement reaching Net Zero? Is it sensible to say, on one hand, that we've made this commitment, while saying, on the other hand, that we want developers to open fracking wells, that typically run for 20-40 years? Will fracking licenses say, "No fracking past 2050"? The Government has not provided clarity on how it will achieve Net Zero, but that matters for developers of wells.
Earthquake risk: the BGS says the earthquake risk is unpredictable, in a manner that is different from the risks from mining. Do you take a precautionary approach, as with the present rules, or do you wait for a big earthquake and only worry about it after the fact?
Climate Change: Net Zero should be reached by reducing demand, not supply. Demand being met by Qatari imports instead of domestically produced gas makes no improvement whatsoever to the climate, demand not existing does make a difference. Net zero doesn't mean zero production even post-2050.
Earthquake risk: If it were up to me, I would predominantly deal with it after the fact, but require firms involved to demonstrate appropriate liability insurance that covers that, if they're proven to cause one. If they're unable to find insurance, then they won't be able to trade, same as any other firm. If they have the relevant insurance to appropriate standards then the liability risk is covered.
I would have thought that, as a Conservative, you had some idea of how supply and demand are related.
Dealing with problems after the fact means people suffer the ill consequences and then find themselves stuck with lengthy, legalistic processes to get compensation.
Not when limits on supply are circumvented by simply importing to make up the difference. Stopping UK oil and gas production will do nothing to reduce carbon emissions if all we do is import that oil and gas instead. In fact it will increase it because of the increased transport costs and the lack of CO2 mitigation policies in the production facilities of the countries we are importing from.
“if all we do is import that oil and gas instead”: I certainly don’t think that should be all we do. We should be massively driving down demand, as soon as possible.
“Stopping UK oil and gas production”: The immediate question was not about stopping any production, but about opening up new production. If we’re serious about climate change and reducing demand, then demand will fall below existing domestic production at some point before 2050.
You’re starting from the premise of the domestic impact on climate change, others are starting from the premise of maximising domestic production at a time of high prices.
It’s difficult to predict the future. (It’s much easier predicting the past…) If I knew what was going to happen to gas prices, I’d be very rich. However, we can observe some general points.
Gas prices are currently very high because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Hopefully, the war will be over with a Ukrainian victory as soon as possible. Of course, that may not happen, but commentators generally think the price shock from the war will reduce over time, either because something happens in the war or because alternative supply routes to Europe are established.
Fracking will take time to produce gas. That depends on particular sites etc., but fracking isn’t going to have a significant effect on domestic production this winter and probably not next winter. As I understand it.
So fracking doesn’t seem like a good way to tackle the current energy crisis. On shore solar and wind are the quickest ways of increasing domestic energy production. By the time fracking is producing serious quantities of gas in the UK, if that ever happens, gas prices are likely to be back to normal.
Longer term, if we in the UK and the rest of the world are serious about climate change, then the demand for gas will have to be significantly decreased soon. Demand will decrease faster than supply. Prices should fall. A large gas reserve will become almost worthless. I don’t think that has a sunk in for a lot of people.
A company seeking new gas production has to take a gamble on what prices will be. I think many are gambling that people aren’t serious about climate change, and maybe they’ll be proved correct. It’s difficult for businesses to deal with such uncertainty. It would be better if the Government could be clearer about how we move to Net Zero, but they won’t because they want the plaudits for being green without talking about the costs there will have to be.
I am afraid that you've gone so very deep down your ideological rabbit hole on this, it's actually 'the costs', that you feel people should bear are what is important to you. There are a lot of ways we can make ourselves (if we must reach an arbitrary target) net zero. Dressing fields with rock dust will apparently get us 45% of the way there for example. I would imagine this feels wrong to you, because there's not enough pain and misery involved.
Could you tell me more about how dressing fields with rock dust will get us 45% of the way to net zero emissions?
Why do I have the feeling this will have unintended consequences?
Acts as a decent fertiliser apparently.
Not really, unless you happen to have a deficiency of one of the micromicronutrients in the rock dust. Which you will already know about if you are a modern farmer.
Completely off topic, but Modern Farmer sounds so much like a portmanteau Viz character ...
Would there be anything unfeasibly large about him at all?
The tattered Brexit sign in the field next to the motorway?
Edit: Sorry. A bit unfair. The other thought that came to mind was the crop of glamping pods in the upper field.
I'll repeat my anecdote from a presentation at a fracking conference some year ago:
"The cheapest shale gas in the UK will be LNG imported from the US"
That comes in at the standard wholesale price of gas. So if the existing wells (like the two in Lancashire) are to resume pumping under some form of special domestic-only deal, it will be cheaper.
What makes you imagine gas produced here will sell at less than the market rate ?
The comment you replied to quite clearly refers to the cost of production plus transport.
Actually the engineer on 5 live this morning who is involved in the East Midlands did say that UK fracked gas would not be on the open market but sold locally to residents
Well, the key question is: at what price?
I don’t expect you or anyone to know the answer, btw. But that is the key question.
Open market -10%? Or cost +10%?
How local do you have to be to get the discount?
I expect, once the policy has been hammered out and if commercially viable gas is actually found, then local residents will end up with a shit deal.
Cynical, me? Never!
As far as I know our own @Richard_Tyndall is an expert in this field and his opinion on the East Midlands would be interesting
It still isn't really economic because of the large number of wells that need to be drilled and the heavily faulted and barriered nature of the fields.
There are over a thousand oil wells drilled within 30 miles of Newark and as a result the subsurface geology of the East Midlands is probably the best investigated and understood of any region in Britain - or indeed in Europe. As a result we know that what shale gas plays there are, will be extremely limited in extent and will need far more wells to exploit than a US or Polish play. It is good to see that the man who was running all of this until recently understands this and is realistic enough to accept it.
As a student in the early 1970s, I worked as a rod puller on many of these East Midlands wells (including Dukes Wood, the original site near Eakring where Oklahama wildcatters were brought over to drill in 1943 - any source of oil that could be exploited was important at the time). The job involved pulling 3000 ft of rods in sections out of the well to be sent off for cleaning (the crude oil was very waxy) and then dropping another 3000ft of clean rods back and restarting the nodding donkey. The rod pulling team were all Nottinghamshire locals (ayup, surree) except the foreman, Bela Borsos, who was a refugee from the 1956 Hungarian uprising. We could generally do two wells a day.
I don't know how many of those wells are still in existence.
I also got sent down to Wareham one summer to load oil from the wells at Kimmeridge from the road tankers to rail tankers. Only one tanker in the morning and one in the afternoon, the rest of the day to myself. Dream job for a lazy student.
I'll repeat my anecdote from a presentation at a fracking conference some year ago:
"The cheapest shale gas in the UK will be LNG imported from the US"
That comes in at the standard wholesale price of gas. So if the existing wells (like the two in Lancashire) are to resume pumping under some form of special domestic-only deal, it will be cheaper.
What makes you imagine gas produced here will sell at less than the market rate ?
The comment you replied to quite clearly refers to the cost of production plus transport.
Actually the engineer on 5 live this morning who is involved in the East Midlands did say that UK fracked gas would not be on the open market but sold locally to residents
Well, the key question is: at what price?
I don’t expect you or anyone to know the answer, btw. But that is the key question.
Open market -10%? Or cost +10%?
How local do you have to be to get the discount?
I expect, once the policy has been hammered out and if commercially viable gas is actually found, then local residents will end up with a shit deal.
Cynical, me? Never!
As far as I know our own @Richard_Tyndall is an expert in this field and his opinion on the East Midlands would be interesting
It still isn't really economic because of the large number of wells that need to be drilled and the heavily faulted and barriered nature of the fields.
There are over a thousand oil wells drilled within 30 miles of Newark and as a result the subsurface geology of the East Midlands is probably the best investigated and understood of any region in Britain - or indeed in Europe. As a result we know that what shale gas plays there are, will be extremely limited in extent and will need far more wells to exploit than a US or Polish play. It is good to see that the man who was running all of this until recently understands this and is realistic enough to accept it.
As a student in the early 1970s, I worked as a rod puller on many of these East Midlands wells (including Dukes Wood, the original site near Eakring where Oklahama wildcatters were brought over to drill in 1943 - any source of oil that could be exploited was important at the time). The job involved pulling 3000 ft of rods in sections out of the well to be sent off for cleaning (the crude oil was very waxy) and then dropping another 3000ft of clean rods back and restarting the nodding donkey. The rod pulling team were all Nottinghamshire locals (ayup, surree) except the foreman, Bela Borsos, who was a refugee from the 1956 Hungarian uprising. We could generally do two wells a day.
I don't know how many of those wells are still in existence.
I also got sent down to Wareham one summer to load oil from the wells at Kimmeridge from the road tankers to rail tankers. Only one tanker in the morning and one in the afternoon, the rest of the day to myself. Dream job for a lazy student.
What did you do in between, sunbathe or go fossil-hunting?
That sounds like a massively city-centric solution. Probably only works in London tbh.
Don't think it works in Newcastle even (unless you went to Gateshead)...
Newcastle and Gateshead are the same city anyway – i.e. Newcastle – the idea they are somehow separate is completely ludicrous.
Don't say that to Gateshead council - why do you think it's taken 20+ years to get a sane regional assembly rebuilt...
Gateshead and Sunderland are (rightly) scared that were such a thing to be recreated they would end up being 2nd / 4th class citizens with all the investment / money going to Newcastle
Which would if course be a perfectly good outcome for Gateshead, as it is very clearly part of Newcastle.
You've never been there then?
Many times a year, my wife's family are from there. The idea that Newcastle and Gateshead are separate places is risible.
Aww come on, Britain lives for these tedious pointless local rivalries. People would rather indulge them than have rational functioning local government, and that's their right.
That sounds like a massively city-centric solution. Probably only works in London tbh.
Don't think it works in Newcastle even (unless you went to Gateshead)...
Newcastle and Gateshead are the same city anyway – i.e. Newcastle – the idea they are somehow separate is completely ludicrous.
Don't say that to Gateshead council - why do you think it's taken 20+ years to get a sane regional assembly rebuilt...
Gateshead and Sunderland are (rightly) scared that were such a thing to be recreated they would end up being 2nd / 4th class citizens with all the investment / money going to Newcastle
Which would if course be a perfectly good outcome for Gateshead, as it is very clearly part of Newcastle.
You've never been there then?
Many times a year, my wife's family are from there. The idea that Newcastle and Gateshead are separate places is risible.
Under Labour you saw a GP within 2 days. The NHS waiting times were the shortest in history. The NHS had the largest funding it has ever had as a share of GDP (actually inline with the EU for once). There was a guarantee for cancer treatment.
The Tories are arsonists. You don't get an arsonist to put out the fire they created.
Under Labour the GP receptionist said "sorry all our appointments are full, call back tomorrow at 8am" so you wouldn't be logged into the figures and people gave up on calling GPs.
Though considering you were OK with lockdown, and cancelling cancer etc treatments in order to prioritise Covid instead, any remarks you make now I'll take with a pinch of salt.
The suppression of an enquiry into Mid Staffs and the 10 billion quid IT bodge were other highlights of Labours mismanagement of the NHS, and the filthy conditions of hospitals. Who can forget Brown needing to promise a 'deep clean' because of the shit everywhere?
Are you seriously suggesting that the NHS is in better shape now than it was at the end of the Labour party's governance?
No, im pointing out that they are also inept at running a health service.
I'll repeat my anecdote from a presentation at a fracking conference some year ago:
"The cheapest shale gas in the UK will be LNG imported from the US"
That comes in at the standard wholesale price of gas. So if the existing wells (like the two in Lancashire) are to resume pumping under some form of special domestic-only deal, it will be cheaper.
No, UK shale gas is lots more expensive than US, that's the whole point.
Yes, but by the time we get US shale gas, it's priced as 'Dutch ttf' and costs the same as any other gas. If the plan is to keep UK fracked gas off the international market for the time being, its price would presumably be lower than Dutch ttf.
The anti-fracking lobby is hilarious. Anyone would think the Government was reallocating half the NHS budget to and demolishing Bath to build 'Frackville'. All they're actually doing is reviewing restrictions on fracking activity in the face of an unprecedented rise in gas prices. It literally costs us nothing. The histrionics is truly a sight to behold.
They are not just “reviewing restrictions”. They have already cancelled the general moratorium against fracking.
It doesn’t cost us nothing. Fracking will have negative effects in local populations, and ultimately on the whole world population through climate change.
This is why your criticisms aren't serious.
Importing Qatari gas instead of UK gas causes more climate change, not less.
Anyone who quotes climate change as a reason to oppose fracking is not being serious. If you want to stop climate change, lets start with stopping Qatari etc imports which have more emissions than UK domestic generation, not less.
We need to do many things to stop climate change, and we are doing many things (if not enough). Yes, we need to reduce and then stop Qatari imports. But we were talking specifically about fracking. In a context where we’re doing all the things we need to stop climate change, where is the role for fracking?
(Existing UK domestic generation has less emissions than Qatari gas, but developing new fields has an initial cost in emissions (and in £). Developing new fields is rarely a sensible way of reducing emissions.)
Again not true. You keep making these statements which are based on nothing but supposition and are factually inaccurate. Qatari gas does not just seep from the ground by osmosis. It needs to be drilled for and produced in exactly the same way as UK gas. Adding new field emissions to UK fields but ignoring them for imported gas is simply dishonest.
My apologies. You are quite right. I was not seeking to add new field emissions in the UK, but not in Qatar or anywhere else. I was seeking to compare a new field in the UK with an existing field in Qatar. I understand there are a lot of existing fields in Qatar(!). It is, as I understand it, cheaper (financially and in terms of emissions) to get another X cubic metres out of an existing field than it is to get your first X cubic metres out of a new site.
Of course, fields run out, so you need new fields… except we’re going to have to reduce demand so much that, at some point, we stop needing new fields.
Your mistake - and one we have had to correct on here before - is thinking that net zero means no gas. It doesn't. It mean as that overall our CO2 balance is zero. We still can - and should - have gas as a backup for when renewables can't cope. But we should also have nuclear, geothermal, tidal and hydro.
And we will still be drilling oil wells in 30 years time (and more) because we still need all the products that come from oil that we don't burn.
Yes, but we won't necessarily be fracking for gas.
News from across the border. Russia is actually attempting a full mobilization of up to a million men not a partial mobilization of 300K. No shock Putin lied, but protests in Russia are continuing, despite the violent crack down. There is not much sympathy here: "so they protest mobilization but not the rape, torture and murder of innocent people". In fact this mobilization could be a turning point, although the Russians have been beta testing mobilization in Smolensk and other small regions for a couple of months, there is no infrastructure to create an army de novo, let alone a big army, Either this is another bluff, or the whole system could break apart.
General view is that Reckless Putin is having a last go. However it is poorly conceived, badly planned and very badly led, and this could lead to a wholesale defeat of the Russian army. The Armed forces of RF are down to very basic kit, and training is abysmal so this would be an attempt to storm the battle field by sheer force of untrained numbers. With the new kit the UAF are getting, this could end up as a total massacre.
Under Labour you saw a GP within 2 days. The NHS waiting times were the shortest in history. The NHS had the largest funding it has ever had as a share of GDP (actually inline with the EU for once). There was a guarantee for cancer treatment.
The Tories are arsonists. You don't get an arsonist to put out the fire they created.
Under Labour the GP receptionist said "sorry all our appointments are full, call back tomorrow at 8am" so you wouldn't be logged into the figures and people gave up on calling GPs.
Though considering you were OK with lockdown, and cancelling cancer etc treatments in order to prioritise Covid instead, any remarks you make now I'll take with a pinch of salt.
No Mr R, that might have been the case in the early part of the Labour government, but it wasn't by the end of it.
I used to get that with my GP surgery, even at the end of the Labour government. Call at a time that suits the GP, or they refuse to log you in which case you get no appointment rather than an appointment later on.
The guarantee would have only meant anything if it was 48hours from your first phone call any time of day and the GPs were banned from rejecting appointments. They never were. All the guarantee did was abolish the ability to schedule appointments easier and enforce a mad dash to be first to call at 8am whether that time suited you or not.
Yes for a pre booked follow up youd need a signed affadavit from the GP to say it was definitely required to present to the gruppenfuhrer in reception.
To be fair, we're not talking about GPs themselves. We are talking about their receptionists, who traditionally are very variable quality. And their interpretation of the rules which the GPs made, often on the advice ofd said receptionists. I don't know where the GPs get any training in practice management; my experience is that, generally speaking, they couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag. And I visited quite a lot of GP practices.
Tories 15 points ahead on the economy generally and on reducing inflation. Headline voting is going to eventually follow the underlying questions if nothing else changes . The chrysallis of a bounce now exists, we await the butterfly, or news of its demise
Labour’s lead has slipped from 14 points in July to ten, with the party down four points to 40 per cent, the Conservatives are unchanged on 30 per cent, the Liberal Democrats up three points to 13 per cent and the Greens unchanged on eight per cent.
We got our industrial revolution in earlier, is all. They are world leaders in renewables - I think the 3 gorges dam produces more power than UK consumes?
Under Labour you saw a GP within 2 days. The NHS waiting times were the shortest in history. The NHS had the largest funding it has ever had as a share of GDP (actually inline with the EU for once). There was a guarantee for cancer treatment.
The Tories are arsonists. You don't get an arsonist to put out the fire they created.
Under Labour the GP receptionist said "sorry all our appointments are full, call back tomorrow at 8am" so you wouldn't be logged into the figures and people gave up on calling GPs.
Though considering you were OK with lockdown, and cancelling cancer etc treatments in order to prioritise Covid instead, any remarks you make now I'll take with a pinch of salt.
No Mr R, that might have been the case in the early part of the Labour government, but it wasn't by the end of it.
I used to get that with my GP surgery, even at the end of the Labour government. Call at a time that suits the GP, or they refuse to log you in which case you get no appointment rather than an appointment later on.
The guarantee would have only meant anything if it was 48hours from your first phone call any time of day and the GPs were banned from rejecting appointments. They never were. All the guarantee did was abolish the ability to schedule appointments easier and enforce a mad dash to be first to call at 8am whether that time suited you or not.
Yes for a pre booked follow up youd need a signed affadavit from the GP to say it was definitely required to present to the gruppenfuhrer in reception.
To be fair, we're not talking about GPs themselves. We are talking about their receptionists, who traditionally are very variable quality. And their interpretation of the rules which the GPs made, often on the advice ofd said receptionists. I don't know where the GPs get any training in practice management; my experience is that, generally speaking, they couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag. And I visited quite a lot of GP practices.
Labour’s lead has slipped from 14 points in July to ten, with the party down four points to 40 per cent, the Conservatives are unchanged on 30 per cent, the Liberal Democrats up three points to 13 per cent and the Greens unchanged on eight per cent.
"Sir Keir leads Ms Truss on “who would make the most capable PM” by 40 per cent to 36 per cent, little change from July when she was Foreign Secretary but a smaller gap than when the Labour leader was ahead of Boris Johnson by 51 per cent to 31 per cent."
News from across the border. Russia is actually attempting a full mobilization of up to a million men not a partial mobilization of 300K. No shock Putin lied, but protests in Russia are continuing, despite the violent crack down. There is not much sympathy here: "so they protest mobilization but not the rape, torture and murder of innocent people". In fact this mobilization could be a turning point, although the Russians have been beta testing mobilization in Smolensk and other small regions for a couple of months, there is no infrastructure to create an army de novo, let alone a big army, Either this is another bluff, or the whole system could break apart.
General view is that Reckless Putin is having a last go. However it is poorly conceived, badly planned and very badly led, and this could lead to a wholesale defeat of the Russian army. The Armed forces of RF are down to very basic kit, and training is abysmal so this would be an attempt to storm the battle field by sheer force of untrained numbers. With the new kit the UAF are getting, this could end up as a total massacre.
Under Labour you saw a GP within 2 days. The NHS waiting times were the shortest in history. The NHS had the largest funding it has ever had as a share of GDP (actually inline with the EU for once). There was a guarantee for cancer treatment.
The Tories are arsonists. You don't get an arsonist to put out the fire they created.
Under Labour the GP receptionist said "sorry all our appointments are full, call back tomorrow at 8am" so you wouldn't be logged into the figures and people gave up on calling GPs.
Though considering you were OK with lockdown, and cancelling cancer etc treatments in order to prioritise Covid instead, any remarks you make now I'll take with a pinch of salt.
No Mr R, that might have been the case in the early part of the Labour government, but it wasn't by the end of it.
I used to get that with my GP surgery, even at the end of the Labour government. Call at a time that suits the GP, or they refuse to log you in which case you get no appointment rather than an appointment later on.
The guarantee would have only meant anything if it was 48hours from your first phone call any time of day and the GPs were banned from rejecting appointments. They never were. All the guarantee did was abolish the ability to schedule appointments easier and enforce a mad dash to be first to call at 8am whether that time suited you or not.
Yes for a pre booked follow up youd need a signed affadavit from the GP to say it was definitely required to present to the gruppenfuhrer in reception.
To be fair, we're not talking about GPs themselves. We are talking about their receptionists, who traditionally are very variable quality. And their interpretation of the rules which the GPs made, often on the advice ofd said receptionists. I don't know where the GPs get any training in practice management; my experience is that, generally speaking, they couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag. And I visited quite a lot of GP practices.
Nationalise the lot of them. Simple
Is the goverment allowed to set up its own GP practices, employing GPs directly?
Amongst all the posh sods speaking at the funeral, Liz Truss accent stood out - and I liked it. She’s Yorkshire alright. It’s good that common uneducated people with an accent can get right up the greasy pole in politics, it gives me hope.
What the fuck is this? Jizzy Lizzy has a PPE from Oxford and is a Chartered Accountant. How is that 'uneducated'?
Irony? LizT makes great play of having been educated at Dotheboys Hall.
One comment I read after one of her more rubbish speeches - if her Comprehensive managed to get her into Oxford it must have been a lot better than she is making out.
Or her father pulled strings, of course.
But from what I know, which may be completely wrong, it's probably the former.
That in itself raises questions about her integrity, but equally Harold Wilson played the same card most days and he was quite successful.
I went to a secondary school that dropped from seven classes in year 7 to six classes by year 10, because so many kids had been permanently excluded for violence. There would be fights in the corridor to determine who would get to sit next to me in class tests, and poke me with a compass so that I showed my answers.
I still made it to Cambridge, mostly because my Dad had gone to Cambridge, and his Dad was a graduate, and so there was an expectation at home that I would do well at school and go to university. When you told my Dad that you scored 98% on a test he'd want to know how you managed to drop 2%.
I know nothing about the school Liz Truss went to, but it's not implausible to me that she ended up at Oxford on her merits, and despite her school, and without any inappropriate influence.
It would be interesting to know whether the school you went to has improved as a consequence of the inspection regime now in place… what is the name of the school, so I can look it up?
If it's like the dump schools round here - it will be on it's 3rd name, it's 6/10th head and it's 5th Trust, having destroyed 3 of them
Interesting, may I ask where you are?
Darlington - now I did exaggerate very slightly there I think it's the 4th trust and the current head is an acting one but the rest is true.
What's more entertaining is that if you move to the big new build estates you get a choice of 1 secondary school - care to guess which one...
Longfield? Or Wyvern?
Wyvern - Longfield used to be the leader of the local Trust with Wyvern / Branksome / DSMS under it (I can't remember under which name) but Wyvern quickly managed to blow the whole trust up....
Reading some of the history, it does look a complete mess and underlines the weaknesses in school governance; in particular, the arrangements to support struggling schools. The parallel systems of local authority education departments and regional schools commissioners really doesn’t work in my experience. The whole system is underfunded and has fallen into a pattern of dealing with school failure rather than identifying and fixing underperforming schools before they fail. It is farcical that schools have to end up in special measures before they get serious attention… even more farcical that a failing school then has to be pimped around academy trusts to find one that’ll take it on (at the risk of overstretching its own management bandwidth).
Another factor round here is that Darlington is too small to be a self contained unitary authority but for historic reasons it isn't part of Cleveland (thankfully for a whole lot of reasons).
That did however mean that on the day all schools could become Trusts every single School in Darlington (bar a school stuck with a disastrous PFI deal) left Darlington's control...
Under Labour you saw a GP within 2 days. The NHS waiting times were the shortest in history. The NHS had the largest funding it has ever had as a share of GDP (actually inline with the EU for once). There was a guarantee for cancer treatment.
The Tories are arsonists. You don't get an arsonist to put out the fire they created.
Under Labour the GP receptionist said "sorry all our appointments are full, call back tomorrow at 8am" so you wouldn't be logged into the figures and people gave up on calling GPs.
Though considering you were OK with lockdown, and cancelling cancer etc treatments in order to prioritise Covid instead, any remarks you make now I'll take with a pinch of salt.
No Mr R, that might have been the case in the early part of the Labour government, but it wasn't by the end of it.
I used to get that with my GP surgery, even at the end of the Labour government. Call at a time that suits the GP, or they refuse to log you in which case you get no appointment rather than an appointment later on.
The guarantee would have only meant anything if it was 48hours from your first phone call any time of day and the GPs were banned from rejecting appointments. They never were. All the guarantee did was abolish the ability to schedule appointments easier and enforce a mad dash to be first to call at 8am whether that time suited you or not.
Yes for a pre booked follow up youd need a signed affadavit from the GP to say it was definitely required to present to the gruppenfuhrer in reception.
To be fair, we're not talking about GPs themselves. We are talking about their receptionists, who traditionally are very variable quality. And their interpretation of the rules which the GPs made, often on the advice ofd said receptionists. I don't know where the GPs get any training in practice management; my experience is that, generally speaking, they couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag. And I visited quite a lot of GP practices.
Chaired a 90 minute marketing meeting with main client's big bosses and my media agency. My voice is *destroyed* - several times either nothing at all came out or I sounded like a dalek. Which was great as an icebreaker!
But the meeting was a huge success and we now have an accelerated timetable for getting their market launch agreed and funded. After the best part of two years of largely fucking around, we're actually doing this...
News from across the border. Russia is actually attempting a full mobilization of up to a million men not a partial mobilization of 300K. No shock Putin lied, but protests in Russia are continuing, despite the violent crack down. There is not much sympathy here: "so they protest mobilization but not the rape, torture and murder of innocent people". In fact this mobilization could be a turning point, although the Russians have been beta testing mobilization in Smolensk and other small regions for a couple of months, there is no infrastructure to create an army de novo, let alone a big army, Either this is another bluff, or the whole system could break apart.
General view is that Reckless Putin is having a last go. However it is poorly conceived, badly planned and very badly led, and this could lead to a wholesale defeat of the Russian army. The Armed forces of RF are down to very basic kit, and training is abysmal so this would be an attempt to storm the battle field by sheer force of untrained numbers. With the new kit the UAF are getting, this could end up as a total massacre.
The Russian people know that their regimes lied to them in the past. Why do so many of them think they are being told the truth now? I feel sorry for these new conscripts, but I feel much more sorry for the people of Ukraine.
Under Labour you saw a GP within 2 days. The NHS waiting times were the shortest in history. The NHS had the largest funding it has ever had as a share of GDP (actually inline with the EU for once). There was a guarantee for cancer treatment.
The Tories are arsonists. You don't get an arsonist to put out the fire they created.
Under Labour the GP receptionist said "sorry all our appointments are full, call back tomorrow at 8am" so you wouldn't be logged into the figures and people gave up on calling GPs.
Though considering you were OK with lockdown, and cancelling cancer etc treatments in order to prioritise Covid instead, any remarks you make now I'll take with a pinch of salt.
No Mr R, that might have been the case in the early part of the Labour government, but it wasn't by the end of it.
I used to get that with my GP surgery, even at the end of the Labour government. Call at a time that suits the GP, or they refuse to log you in which case you get no appointment rather than an appointment later on.
The guarantee would have only meant anything if it was 48hours from your first phone call any time of day and the GPs were banned from rejecting appointments. They never were. All the guarantee did was abolish the ability to schedule appointments easier and enforce a mad dash to be first to call at 8am whether that time suited you or not.
Yes for a pre booked follow up youd need a signed affadavit from the GP to say it was definitely required to present to the gruppenfuhrer in reception.
To be fair, we're not talking about GPs themselves. We are talking about their receptionists, who traditionally are very variable quality. And their interpretation of the rules which the GPs made, often on the advice ofd said receptionists. I don't know where the GPs get any training in practice management; my experience is that, generally speaking, they couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag. And I visited quite a lot of GP practices.
Nationalise the lot of them. Simple
Is the goverment allowed to set up its own GP practices, employing GPs directly?
I believe commercial firms already do (not sure if all UK).
Under Labour you saw a GP within 2 days. The NHS waiting times were the shortest in history. The NHS had the largest funding it has ever had as a share of GDP (actually inline with the EU for once). There was a guarantee for cancer treatment.
The Tories are arsonists. You don't get an arsonist to put out the fire they created.
Under Labour the GP receptionist said "sorry all our appointments are full, call back tomorrow at 8am" so you wouldn't be logged into the figures and people gave up on calling GPs.
Though considering you were OK with lockdown, and cancelling cancer etc treatments in order to prioritise Covid instead, any remarks you make now I'll take with a pinch of salt.
No Mr R, that might have been the case in the early part of the Labour government, but it wasn't by the end of it.
I used to get that with my GP surgery, even at the end of the Labour government. Call at a time that suits the GP, or they refuse to log you in which case you get no appointment rather than an appointment later on.
The guarantee would have only meant anything if it was 48hours from your first phone call any time of day and the GPs were banned from rejecting appointments. They never were. All the guarantee did was abolish the ability to schedule appointments easier and enforce a mad dash to be first to call at 8am whether that time suited you or not.
Yes for a pre booked follow up youd need a signed affadavit from the GP to say it was definitely required to present to the gruppenfuhrer in reception.
To be fair, we're not talking about GPs themselves. We are talking about their receptionists, who traditionally are very variable quality. And their interpretation of the rules which the GPs made, often on the advice ofd said receptionists. I don't know where the GPs get any training in practice management; my experience is that, generally speaking, they couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag. And I visited quite a lot of GP practices.
Nationalise the lot of them. Simple
Is the goverment allowed to set up its own GP practices, employing GPs directly?
No idea but im guessing its just a matter of legislation
But the meeting was a huge success and we now have an accelerated timetable for getting their market launch agreed and funded. After the best part of two years of largely fucking around, we're actually doing this...
It sounds like the story of a certain 'oven ready deal'.
Chaired a 90 minute marketing meeting with main client's big bosses and my media agency. My voice is *destroyed* - several times either nothing at all came out or I sounded like a dalek. Which was great as an icebreaker!
But the meeting was a huge success and we now have an accelerated timetable for getting their market launch agreed and funded. After the best part of two years of largely fucking around, we're actually doing this...
Clearly all that was required was for you to shut up for a moment. (ducks)
News from across the border. Russia is actually attempting a full mobilization of up to a million men not a partial mobilization of 300K. No shock Putin lied, but protests in Russia are continuing, despite the violent crack down. There is not much sympathy here: "so they protest mobilization but not the rape, torture and murder of innocent people". In fact this mobilization could be a turning point, although the Russians have been beta testing mobilization in Smolensk and other small regions for a couple of months, there is no infrastructure to create an army de novo, let alone a big army, Either this is another bluff, or the whole system could break apart.
General view is that Reckless Putin is having a last go. However it is poorly conceived, badly planned and very badly led, and this could lead to a wholesale defeat of the Russian army. The Armed forces of RF are down to very basic kit, and training is abysmal so this would be an attempt to storm the battle field by sheer force of untrained numbers. With the new kit the UAF are getting, this could end up as a total massacre.
A "million man army" reduced to 100,000 dead, 900,000 giving up as POWs.
"When the Duke and Duchess failed this year to snag an invite to the Oscars or the Beckham wedding, it was clear that they are slowly being frozen out of Hollywood, one red-carpet event at a time.
...
In hindsight it is now clear that the Sussexes’ wedding was part of Meghan’s plan to make it in Hollywood. Stars such as Elton John, the Beckhams, Serena Williams, George Clooney, Idris Elba, Priyanka Chopra and, of course, Oprah Winfrey lined the pews. A gathering of the closest friends of the bride and groom? Well, not quite. One guest who attended the ceremony told me that nobody there knew each other. ‘It was a show: part of me thinks she Googled who would make her look popular and shipped them over for the day.’
The British journalist Rachel Johnson (sister of Boris) tells a story that was doing the rounds in the weeks after the wedding. While Carolyn Bartholomew, Diana’s former roommate, was waiting for the wedding service to start, she turned to the couple alongside her and asked how they knew Harry or Meghan. ‘We don’t,’ replied the Clooneys. Perhaps it’s a cruel rumour, but it illustrates a feature of their attempt at stardom: they can command the attendance of global VIPs but they can’t command their friendship.
...
Speaking to people in LA, there’s a sense that Tinseltown is starting to see through Meghan’s ‘truth.’ Angelenos are realising that British people didn’t hate her because she wasn’t white, or because she had a career, or any of the other reasons suggested by the Sussexes’ PR. There was no big anti-Meghan conspiracy that kicked into gear as soon as she stepped on British soil. The public there simply saw through her."
Chaired a 90 minute marketing meeting with main client's big bosses and my media agency. My voice is *destroyed* - several times either nothing at all came out or I sounded like a dalek. Which was great as an icebreaker!
But the meeting was a huge success and we now have an accelerated timetable for getting their market launch agreed and funded. After the best part of two years of largely fucking around, we're actually doing this...
Clearly all that was required was for you to shut up for a moment. (ducks)
Indeed! Helps that I had a very good relationship already with the MD of the agency and had pre-briefed her. Their pitch was bob on. Had also done the reverse pitch on the client last week. So it was more bringing them together for their first kiss. I don't need to speak for that.
Chaired a 90 minute marketing meeting with main client's big bosses and my media agency. My voice is *destroyed* - several times either nothing at all came out or I sounded like a dalek. Which was great as an icebreaker!
But the meeting was a huge success and we now have an accelerated timetable for getting their market launch agreed and funded. After the best part of two years of largely fucking around, we're actually doing this...
Clearly all that was required was for you to shut up for a moment. (ducks)
Absurd hubris. Yes, I think there is the potential for Truss to be bounced out by her own MPs - so many of them already seem angry. But by *March*? Surely they'd wait until after the coming mauling in the locals. And I don't think that is likely either.
Absurd hubris. Yes, I think there is the potential for Truss to be bounced out by her own MPs - so many of them already seem angry. But by *March*? Surely they'd wait until after the coming mauling in the locals. And I don't think that is likely either.
It would need a catalyst - severe civil unrest over fuel bills/CoL, huge excess winter deaths etc Then again a 'former Labour special adviser' would say that, wouldnt they?
So we're going to see the CofE howled down by Mr Speaker tomorrow. Hoyle is increasingly fed up with these idiots treating parliament with utter contempt. He hasn't done much about it so far. But it feels like its coming.
Hilarious watching Yorkshire bowling spin at the end to improve their over rate as they suddenly realise that they might still be in danger of going down.
So we're going to see the CofE howled down by Mr Speaker tomorrow. Hoyle is increasingly fed up with these idiots treating parliament with utter contempt. He hasn't done much about it so far. But it feels like its coming.
Can the Speaker actually do anything other than verbally admonish the Gov't for it ?
So we're going to see the CofE howled down by Mr Speaker tomorrow. Hoyle is increasingly fed up with these idiots treating parliament with utter contempt. He hasn't done much about it so far. But it feels like its coming.
Can the Speaker actually do anything other than verbally admonish the Gov't for it ?
Not much, it'll be Eleanor Laing who sits in the Speaker's chair during the budget.
Just had an email from British Gas who supply both gas and electric to me. I live in a well insulated 2 bed house.
Over the last 12 months I have paid a total of £1,514.00
With the new cap and with the £400.00 from the Government, if I use the same amount of energy, my net cost will be £1,423.00 over the 12 months from the 1st October, so I will actually save £91.00.
I doubt I am unusual in a getting a reduction in my energy bill.
That sounds like a massively city-centric solution. Probably only works in London tbh.
It’s exactly what my wife does - as a first generation immigrant from a country where you pay for healthcare (above the most basic), she shops around. Rather than just taking what she is given.
I’ve seen it upset some people in the NHS - who believe you should just sit in the queue you are put in. But she persists with determination of steamroller going downhill….
So we're going to see the CofE howled down by Mr Speaker tomorrow. Hoyle is increasingly fed up with these idiots treating parliament with utter contempt. He hasn't done much about it so far. But it feels like its coming.
Can the Speaker actually do anything other than verbally admonish the Gov't for it ?
Suspect that he can fuck around quite significantly with their ability to try and railroad things through.
The BoE completely fucked it, the quantitative tightening has had the effect of pushing up 10y yields by 20 bps but the weak interest rate rise has pushed currency down which will generate more short term imported inflation. It's time for the government to replace Bailey, the UK is getting the worst of everything, real interest rates surging and the currency falling because the base rate isn't rising fast enough. Absolutely idioitic.
Just had an email from British Gas who supply both gas and electric to me. I live in a well insulated 2 bed house.
Over the last 12 months I have paid a total of £1,514.00
With the new cap and with the £400.00 from the Government, if I use the same amount of energy, my net cost will be £1,423.00 over the 12 months from the 1st October, so I will actually save £91.00.
I doubt I am unusual in a getting a reduction in my energy bill.
Maybe not -that is how averages work. But expect more noise from those on the other side of the line.
After a pleasant lunch in the sun with daughter and her mother, I reckon Ukraine is going to get so bad in the winter even the cost of living crisis will seem a little trivial
Putin is going to hurl vast numbers of soldiers at his “problem” and if/when he fails he might easily go nuclear
So we're going to see the CofE howled down by Mr Speaker tomorrow. Hoyle is increasingly fed up with these idiots treating parliament with utter contempt. He hasn't done much about it so far. But it feels like its coming.
Can the Speaker actually do anything other than verbally admonish the Gov't for it ?
Not much, it'll be Eleanor Laing who sits in the Speaker's chair during the budget.
That's the rule for budgets, this is a Special Military Operation
So we're going to see the CofE howled down by Mr Speaker tomorrow. Hoyle is increasingly fed up with these idiots treating parliament with utter contempt. He hasn't done much about it so far. But it feels like its coming.
Can the Speaker actually do anything other than verbally admonish the Gov't for it ?
Not much, it'll be Eleanor Laing who sits in the Speaker's chair during the budget.
It is not a budget - I expect that The Speaker will be in the chair
Labour’s lead has slipped from 14 points in July to ten, with the party down four points to 40 per cent, the Conservatives are unchanged on 30 per cent, the Liberal Democrats up three points to 13 per cent and the Greens unchanged on eight per cent.
I'll repeat my anecdote from a presentation at a fracking conference some year ago:
"The cheapest shale gas in the UK will be LNG imported from the US"
That comes in at the standard wholesale price of gas. So if the existing wells (like the two in Lancashire) are to resume pumping under some form of special domestic-only deal, it will be cheaper.
No, UK shale gas is lots more expensive than US, that's the whole point.
Yes, but by the time we get US shale gas, it's priced as 'Dutch ttf' and costs the same as any other gas. If the plan is to keep UK fracked gas off the international market for the time being, its price would presumably be lower than Dutch ttf.
The anti-fracking lobby is hilarious. Anyone would think the Government was reallocating half the NHS budget to and demolishing Bath to build 'Frackville'. All they're actually doing is reviewing restrictions on fracking activity in the face of an unprecedented rise in gas prices. It literally costs us nothing. The histrionics is truly a sight to behold.
They are not just “reviewing restrictions”. They have already cancelled the general moratorium against fracking.
It doesn’t cost us nothing. Fracking will have negative effects in local populations, and ultimately on the whole world population through climate change.
This is why your criticisms aren't serious.
Importing Qatari gas instead of UK gas causes more climate change, not less.
Anyone who quotes climate change as a reason to oppose fracking is not being serious. If you want to stop climate change, lets start with stopping Qatari etc imports which have more emissions than UK domestic generation, not less.
We need to do many things to stop climate change, and we are doing many things (if not enough). Yes, we need to reduce and then stop Qatari imports. But we were talking specifically about fracking. In a context where we’re doing all the things we need to stop climate change, where is the role for fracking?
(Existing UK domestic generation has less emissions than Qatari gas, but developing new fields has an initial cost in emissions (and in £). Developing new fields is rarely a sensible way of reducing emissions.)
Again not true. You keep making these statements which are based on nothing but supposition and are factually inaccurate. Qatari gas does not just seep from the ground by osmosis. It needs to be drilled for and produced in exactly the same way as UK gas. Adding new field emissions to UK fields but ignoring them for imported gas is simply dishonest.
My apologies. You are quite right. I was not seeking to add new field emissions in the UK, but not in Qatar or anywhere else. I was seeking to compare a new field in the UK with an existing field in Qatar. I understand there are a lot of existing fields in Qatar(!). It is, as I understand it, cheaper (financially and in terms of emissions) to get another X cubic metres out of an existing field than it is to get your first X cubic metres out of a new site.
Of course, fields run out, so you need new fields… except we’re going to have to reduce demand so much that, at some point, we stop needing new fields.
Your mistake - and one we have had to correct on here before - is thinking that net zero means no gas. It doesn't. It mean as that overall our CO2 balance is zero. We still can - and should - have gas as a backup for when renewables can't cope. But we should also have nuclear, geothermal, tidal and hydro.
And we will still be drilling oil wells in 30 years time (and more) because we still need all the products that come from oil that we don't burn.
We will also be using gas in CCGT and blue hydrogen plants with carbon capture.
These will be new build, coming on line towards the end of the decade and running until post-2050. By funding these projects, the government is locking in the long-term demand for natural gas.
I'll repeat my anecdote from a presentation at a fracking conference some year ago:
"The cheapest shale gas in the UK will be LNG imported from the US"
That comes in at the standard wholesale price of gas. So if the existing wells (like the two in Lancashire) are to resume pumping under some form of special domestic-only deal, it will be cheaper.
What makes you imagine gas produced here will sell at less than the market rate ?
The comment you replied to quite clearly refers to the cost of production plus transport.
Actually the engineer on 5 live this morning who is involved in the East Midlands did say that UK fracked gas would not be on the open market but sold locally to residents
Well, the key question is: at what price?
I don’t expect you or anyone to know the answer, btw. But that is the key question.
Open market -10%? Or cost +10%?
How local do you have to be to get the discount?
I expect, once the policy has been hammered out and if commercially viable gas is actually found, then local residents will end up with a shit deal.
Cynical, me? Never!
As far as I know our own @Richard_Tyndall is an expert in this field and his opinion on the East Midlands would be interesting
It still isn't really economic because of the large number of wells that need to be drilled and the heavily faulted and barriered nature of the fields.
There are over a thousand oil wells drilled within 30 miles of Newark and as a result the subsurface geology of the East Midlands is probably the best investigated and understood of any region in Britain - or indeed in Europe. As a result we know that what shale gas plays there are, will be extremely limited in extent and will need far more wells to exploit than a US or Polish play. It is good to see that the man who was running all of this until recently understands this and is realistic enough to accept it.
As a student in the early 1970s, I worked as a rod puller on many of these East Midlands wells (including Dukes Wood, the original site near Eakring where Oklahama wildcatters were brought over to drill in 1943 - any source of oil that could be exploited was important at the time). The job involved pulling 3000 ft of rods in sections out of the well to be sent off for cleaning (the crude oil was very waxy) and then dropping another 3000ft of clean rods back and restarting the nodding donkey. The rod pulling team were all Nottinghamshire locals (ayup, surree) except the foreman, Bela Borsos, who was a refugee from the 1956 Hungarian uprising. We could generally do two wells a day.
I don't know how many of those wells are still in existence.
I also got sent down to Wareham one summer to load oil from the wells at Kimmeridge from the road tankers to rail tankers. Only one tanker in the morning and one in the afternoon, the rest of the day to myself. Dream job for a lazy student.
What did you do in between, sunbathe or go fossil-hunting?
Wandered around the heaths of Dorset. Had a BP van for transport, an Austin A50 or similar. Idyllic summer!
Labour’s lead has slipped from 14 points in July to ten, with the party down four points to 40 per cent, the Conservatives are unchanged on 30 per cent, the Liberal Democrats up three points to 13 per cent and the Greens unchanged on eight per cent.
Listening to President Biden's (long) speech to the UN Assembly (I thought they only had a couple of minutes).
On Ukraine as expected, a lot about respect for the UN and the need to respect, and international institutions and how the US has been leaders in all of these (which is mainly, though in no way completely, true).
The most interesting point for me was support for an expanded UN security council, specifically mentioning the need for prominent countries from each continent to be on the SC, and the use of the veto should be very rare.
And some rhetoric that I would call greenwashing, mentioning a huge sounding number as a reduction in US CO2 emissions by 2030 (1 Gigatonne per year), which is actually only -20% on the 2021 figure, though it is a start. That will leave the US at about 2.5-3x higher emissions per capita in 2030 than the average european citizen.
I'll repeat my anecdote from a presentation at a fracking conference some year ago:
"The cheapest shale gas in the UK will be LNG imported from the US"
That comes in at the standard wholesale price of gas. So if the existing wells (like the two in Lancashire) are to resume pumping under some form of special domestic-only deal, it will be cheaper.
No, UK shale gas is lots more expensive than US, that's the whole point.
Yes, but by the time we get US shale gas, it's priced as 'Dutch ttf' and costs the same as any other gas. If the plan is to keep UK fracked gas off the international market for the time being, its price would presumably be lower than Dutch ttf.
The anti-fracking lobby is hilarious. Anyone would think the Government was reallocating half the NHS budget to and demolishing Bath to build 'Frackville'. All they're actually doing is reviewing restrictions on fracking activity in the face of an unprecedented rise in gas prices. It literally costs us nothing. The histrionics is truly a sight to behold.
They are not just “reviewing restrictions”. They have already cancelled the general moratorium against fracking.
It doesn’t cost us nothing. Fracking will have negative effects in local populations, and ultimately on the whole world population through climate change.
This is why your criticisms aren't serious.
Importing Qatari gas instead of UK gas causes more climate change, not less.
Anyone who quotes climate change as a reason to oppose fracking is not being serious. If you want to stop climate change, lets start with stopping Qatari etc imports which have more emissions than UK domestic generation, not less.
We need to do many things to stop climate change, and we are doing many things (if not enough). Yes, we need to reduce and then stop Qatari imports. But we were talking specifically about fracking. In a context where we’re doing all the things we need to stop climate change, where is the role for fracking?
(Existing UK domestic generation has less emissions than Qatari gas, but developing new fields has an initial cost in emissions (and in £). Developing new fields is rarely a sensible way of reducing emissions.)
Again not true. You keep making these statements which are based on nothing but supposition and are factually inaccurate. Qatari gas does not just seep from the ground by osmosis. It needs to be drilled for and produced in exactly the same way as UK gas. Adding new field emissions to UK fields but ignoring them for imported gas is simply dishonest.
My apologies. You are quite right. I was not seeking to add new field emissions in the UK, but not in Qatar or anywhere else. I was seeking to compare a new field in the UK with an existing field in Qatar. I understand there are a lot of existing fields in Qatar(!). It is, as I understand it, cheaper (financially and in terms of emissions) to get another X cubic metres out of an existing field than it is to get your first X cubic metres out of a new site.
Of course, fields run out, so you need new fields… except we’re going to have to reduce demand so much that, at some point, we stop needing new fields.
Your mistake - and one we have had to correct on here before - is thinking that net zero means no gas. It doesn't. It mean as that overall our CO2 balance is zero. We still can - and should - have gas as a backup for when renewables can't cope. But we should also have nuclear, geothermal, tidal and hydro.
And we will still be drilling oil wells in 30 years time (and more) because we still need all the products that come from oil that we don't burn.
You know this stuff better than me. I am happy to be corrected. I was talking specifically about gas because, indeed, we use oil for other things, whereas that’s much less the case with gas (although I understand it does have some uses in certain chemical processes).
We need to achieve net zero. Indeed, it would be better if we were extracting CO2 from the atmosphere. It’s difficult to achieve net zero while you’re burning gas. Carbon capture is a great idea, but we’ve yet to work out how to do it that well. What you want is a system where hydro, nuclear, tidal, etc. can act as a backup when solar/wind aren’t working. In an ideal world (and I recognise we are not in an ideal world), in the 2050s, we will be burning very little gas, way, way less than current global supply.
In that future world, with gas demand a small fraction of today’s, we will need very little supply. Only the cheapest and easiest to extract sources of gas will be worth using. Do you agree/disagree?
I don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s possible the global response to climate change is just to give up and keep pumping out greenhouse gases. If we’re serious about doing something, we’re talking about a completely different fossil fuel extraction industry in a couple of decades. I am sceptical about the idea of continuing anything like the current gas/oil/coal usage but using some magic new tech to suck up all the CO2.
New hare running. Tory MP James Cartlidge asks @theresecoffey to "reconsider the reintroduction of tax relief on private medical insurance" introduced by Ken Clarke in 1989 and scrapped by new Labour Coffey: "I will look into that for him." https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1572934636396740609
If the boss of Cuadrilla is saying fracking won't work then there's not much worry about it I'd have thought. A few exploratory wells that don't yield anything. Some humming and harring followed eventually by a restoration phase https://drillordrop.com/2019/07/10/site-restoration-underway-at-tinker-lane/
With the frackers out of pocket.
Well this is basically my thought.
If fracking isn't viable as some claim, then it won't be done. So it can be legal, but not done, what's the issue with that?
If fracking is viable, then it shouldn't be banned.
We don't need to ban that which isn't viable, just have it legal but undone by choice rather than diktat.
Fracking should be treated like mining and other resource generation - subject to sensible standards, and if we can't economically do it in this country then so be it. But if we can, it should not be forbidden.
That seems like a sensible thing to say, but it's very dependent on what being "subject to sensible standards" means. That's why there's a debate, that's what one needs to address. In particular:
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to climate change?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to the earthquake risk?
What are the "sensible standards" with respect to major building projects in rural areas?
Thank you for saying its sensible and yes your questions are sensible too. My answers to your questions would be:
Climate change: Similar rules and regulations should apply to imports etc - if gas can be imported for use, it should be able to be extracted domestically, which reduces our carbon emissions it doesn't increase them.
Earthquake risk: It should have similar standards to alternative developments like seismic activity allowed to take place with regards to mining etc too.
Building projects: It should have similar standards to other forms of development.
Standards shouldn't be lower than they would be for alternatives, but they shouldn't be draconianly higher either.
Thanks for a detailed answer that generally avoids actually saying anything.
Climate change: so, what should those standards be? We're meant to be Net Zero in 28 years. It is difficult to see fracking being consistent with that. How should Government implement reaching Net Zero? Is it sensible to say, on one hand, that we've made this commitment, while saying, on the other hand, that we want developers to open fracking wells, that typically run for 20-40 years? Will fracking licenses say, "No fracking past 2050"? The Government has not provided clarity on how it will achieve Net Zero, but that matters for developers of wells.
Earthquake risk: the BGS says the earthquake risk is unpredictable, in a manner that is different from the risks from mining. Do you take a precautionary approach, as with the present rules, or do you wait for a big earthquake and only worry about it after the fact?
Climate Change: Net Zero should be reached by reducing demand, not supply. Demand being met by Qatari imports instead of domestically produced gas makes no improvement whatsoever to the climate, demand not existing does make a difference. Net zero doesn't mean zero production even post-2050.
Earthquake risk: If it were up to me, I would predominantly deal with it after the fact, but require firms involved to demonstrate appropriate liability insurance that covers that, if they're proven to cause one. If they're unable to find insurance, then they won't be able to trade, same as any other firm. If they have the relevant insurance to appropriate standards then the liability risk is covered.
I would have thought that, as a Conservative, you had some idea of how supply and demand are related.
Dealing with problems after the fact means people suffer the ill consequences and then find themselves stuck with lengthy, legalistic processes to get compensation.
Not when limits on supply are circumvented by simply importing to make up the difference. Stopping UK oil and gas production will do nothing to reduce carbon emissions if all we do is import that oil and gas instead. In fact it will increase it because of the increased transport costs and the lack of CO2 mitigation policies in the production facilities of the countries we are importing from.
“if all we do is import that oil and gas instead”: I certainly don’t think that should be all we do. We should be massively driving down demand, as soon as possible.
“Stopping UK oil and gas production”: The immediate question was not about stopping any production, but about opening up new production. If we’re serious about climate change and reducing demand, then demand will fall below existing domestic production at some point before 2050.
You’re starting from the premise of the domestic impact on climate change, others are starting from the premise of maximising domestic production at a time of high prices.
It’s difficult to predict the future. (It’s much easier predicting the past…) If I knew what was going to happen to gas prices, I’d be very rich. However, we can observe some general points.
Gas prices are currently very high because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Hopefully, the war will be over with a Ukrainian victory as soon as possible. Of course, that may not happen, but commentators generally think the price shock from the war will reduce over time, either because something happens in the war or because alternative supply routes to Europe are established.
Fracking will take time to produce gas. That depends on particular sites etc., but fracking isn’t going to have a significant effect on domestic production this winter and probably not next winter. As I understand it.
So fracking doesn’t seem like a good way to tackle the current energy crisis. On shore solar and wind are the quickest ways of increasing domestic energy production. By the time fracking is producing serious quantities of gas in the UK, if that ever happens, gas prices are likely to be back to normal.
Longer term, if we in the UK and the rest of the world are serious about climate change, then the demand for gas will have to be significantly decreased soon. Demand will decrease faster than supply. Prices should fall. A large gas reserve will become almost worthless. I don’t think that has a sunk in for a lot of people.
A company seeking new gas production has to take a gamble on what prices will be. I think many are gambling that people aren’t serious about climate change, and maybe they’ll be proved correct. It’s difficult for businesses to deal with such uncertainty. It would be better if the Government could be clearer about how we move to Net Zero, but they won’t because they want the plaudits for being green without talking about the costs there will have to be.
I am afraid that you've gone so very deep down your ideological rabbit hole on this, it's actually 'the costs', that you feel people should bear are what is important to you. There are a lot of ways we can make ourselves (if we must reach an arbitrary target) net zero. Dressing fields with rock dust will apparently get us 45% of the way there for example. I would imagine this feels wrong to you, because there's not enough pain and misery involved.
Could you tell me more about how dressing fields with rock dust will get us 45% of the way to net zero emissions?
Why do I have the feeling this will have unintended consequences?
Acts as a decent fertiliser apparently.
Not really, unless you happen to have a deficiency of one of the micromicronutrients in the rock dust. Which you will already know about if you are a modern farmer.
Completely off topic, but Modern Farmer sounds so much like a portmanteau Viz character ...
Would there be anything unfeasibly large about him at all?
Massive own goal by so-called Trans Activists who have probably done more to harm trans people’s rights than all the so called “TERFs” put together (most of whom are not anti-Trans people).
Judging from the teenagers in my family there is quite the backlash going on even among young people, and any political party that talks more about Trans rights than transport has probably already lost the attention of the voters. Happy to protect minority rights, but some of the demands from some Trans activists go well beyond what is deemed sensible or safe by a fair minded majority,
And that is the thing - people generally want to be reasonable and accommodating, recognising historic discriminations. But they can react negatively to what they regard as hysterical fears if people simply disagree with some wilder claims.
All the shrewd political minds in this country think she'll be gone in 2023.
The same shrewd political minds who didn't think she'd get in Number 10?
The same shrewd political minds who didn't think Boris could win a majority?
The same shrewd political minds who didn't think Boris would get in Number 10?
The same shrewd political minds who didn't think Brexit would be voted through?
The same shrewd political minds who called May out and said she would be gone before she wanted to go.
The same shrewd political minds who called Johnson out and said he would be gone before he wanted to go.
So yes.
All politicians eventually go, say people will go and you'll eventually be right. But setting a date on it, you're probably not.
Re-read the thread where Mr Nabavi resigned from the Tory Party when Boris became Tory Leader and PM. Its quite amusing to read in hindsight. Lots and lots of comments from people about how awful Boris will be, how this is going to ensure a Corbyn Premiership and that the next General Election under Boris would make May's election look like a big success.
Fascinating - and reassuring in a weird way - to see we’re back to the same cyclical debate about Scottish independence after the queens sad death. Even more fascinating is the constant back and forth from those pro Indy just backing the other one up.
PoliticalBetting is back indeed. Just need HFUYD to mention his tanks next
What strikes me is the mismatch between Ireland and GB, the lesson I would draw from NI seceding is Quite right, why have two different nations on one piddling little island?
Piddling? Little? Ireland is the 20th largest island in the world. It's bigger than several other islands split across more than one nation (like Hispaniola, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, Timor and of course Hans Island).
I've always found the idea that islands must be unified to be a very odd one. Even quite small islands, which others have noted Ireland is not, were for very stretches tribally separated. Places and peoples dont automatically need political unification by dint of sharing a landmass.
What's weirder is when its combined with how another island should not be unified.
Its whether it works and is desired by the people in question, not a principle and unity of geography.
I'll repeat my anecdote from a presentation at a fracking conference some year ago:
"The cheapest shale gas in the UK will be LNG imported from the US"
That comes in at the standard wholesale price of gas. So if the existing wells (like the two in Lancashire) are to resume pumping under some form of special domestic-only deal, it will be cheaper.
What makes you imagine gas produced here will sell at less than the market rate ?
The comment you replied to quite clearly refers to the cost of production plus transport.
Actually the engineer on 5 live this morning who is involved in the East Midlands did say that UK fracked gas would not be on the open market but sold locally to residents
Well, the key question is: at what price?
I don’t expect you or anyone to know the answer, btw. But that is the key question.
Open market -10%? Or cost +10%?
How local do you have to be to get the discount?
I expect, once the policy has been hammered out and if commercially viable gas is actually found, then local residents will end up with a shit deal.
Cynical, me? Never!
As far as I know our own @Richard_Tyndall is an expert in this field and his opinion on the East Midlands would be interesting
It still isn't really economic because of the large number of wells that need to be drilled and the heavily faulted and barriered nature of the fields.
There are over a thousand oil wells drilled within 30 miles of Newark and as a result the subsurface geology of the East Midlands is probably the best investigated and understood of any region in Britain - or indeed in Europe. As a result we know that what shale gas plays there are, will be extremely limited in extent and will need far more wells to exploit than a US or Polish play. It is good to see that the man who was running all of this until recently understands this and is realistic enough to accept it.
As a student in the early 1970s, I worked as a rod puller on many of these East Midlands wells (including Dukes Wood, the original site near Eakring where Oklahama wildcatters were brought over to drill in 1943 - any source of oil that could be exploited was important at the time). The job involved pulling 3000 ft of rods in sections out of the well to be sent off for cleaning (the crude oil was very waxy) and then dropping another 3000ft of clean rods back and restarting the nodding donkey. The rod pulling team were all Nottinghamshire locals (ayup, surree) except the foreman, Bela Borsos, who was a refugee from the 1956 Hungarian uprising. We could generally do two wells a day.
I don't know how many of those wells are still in existence.
I also got sent down to Wareham one summer to load oil from the wells at Kimmeridge from the road tankers to rail tankers. Only one tanker in the morning and one in the afternoon, the rest of the day to myself. Dream job for a lazy student.
Excellent. Most of the wells at Duke's Wood are long gone. There are still various nodding donkeys scattered around the Kelham Hills but the main areas of interest have moved further east into Lincolnshire. Welton is the biggest field in the area now but there are plenty more smaller ones and also stuff in other parts of Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire (I managed to help burn down a rig at Rempston about 30 years ago and we ended up with fire engines from 3 counties there trying to put it out).
Even the CBI has "questions" about whether this is the right time to uncap bankers' bonuses. See what its economic policy director tells the Treasury Committee.
Comments
Anyone dealing with numbers should know to sanity-check figures before prognosticating. Who could honestly look at that chart and think "Base Rate 7% in Nov 2023" rather than see that there's an error there.
2.5850 + 7.0964 / 2 = 4.8407 which is in line with the other months.
Sanity check your figures!
And we will still be drilling oil wells in 30 years time (and more) because we still need all the products that come from oil that we don't burn.
Edit: Sorry. A bit unfair. The other thought that came to mind was the crop of glamping pods in the upper field.
GFY China, worlds biggest polluters
I don't know how many of those wells are still in existence.
I also got sent down to Wareham one summer to load oil from the wells at Kimmeridge from the road tankers to rail tankers. Only one tanker in the morning and one in the afternoon, the rest of the day to myself. Dream job for a lazy student.
'Arh, I were always agin that Brexit malarkey'
Or in Doric
'Fit a load o' shite thon Brexit wiz'
The curve is flattening - which means that markets now suggesting that rates will stay high for longer because they aren’t going high enough (to hit inflation) now.
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1572942409398648839
General view is that Reckless Putin is having a last go. However it is poorly conceived, badly planned and very badly led, and this could lead to a wholesale defeat of the Russian army. The Armed forces of RF are down to very basic kit, and training is abysmal so this would be an attempt to storm the battle field by sheer force of untrained numbers. With the new kit the UAF are getting, this could end up as a total massacre.
And I visited quite a lot of GP practices.
The chrysallis of a bounce now exists, we await the butterfly, or news of its demise
Chancellor: “Taxing our way to prosperity has never worked. To raise living standards for all, we need to be unapologetic about growing our economy."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62991376
Labour’s lead has slipped from 14 points in July to ten, with the party down four points to 40 per cent, the Conservatives are unchanged on 30 per cent, the Liberal Democrats up three points to 13 per cent and the Greens unchanged on eight per cent.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/labour-conservative-poll-latest-ipsos-cost-of-living-economy-b1027351.html
We got our industrial revolution in earlier, is all. They are world leaders in renewables - I think the 3 gorges dam produces more power than UK consumes?
Not looking very bouncy to me.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1572270599535214598.html
That did however mean that on the day all schools could become Trusts every single School in Darlington (bar a school stuck with a disastrous PFI deal) left Darlington's control...
But the meeting was a huge success and we now have an accelerated timetable for getting their market launch agreed and funded. After the best part of two years of largely fucking around, we're actually doing this...
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1572942761036234755
(ducks)
Spin that one, Vlad.
"NATO made them surrender...."
https://twitter.com/rparloff/status/1572918376820871168
Rolls Royce hatchet job
"When the Duke and Duchess failed this year to snag an invite to the Oscars or the Beckham wedding, it was clear that they are slowly being frozen out of Hollywood, one red-carpet event at a time.
...
In hindsight it is now clear that the Sussexes’ wedding was part of Meghan’s plan to make it in Hollywood. Stars such as Elton John, the Beckhams, Serena Williams, George Clooney, Idris Elba, Priyanka Chopra and, of course, Oprah Winfrey lined the pews. A gathering of the closest friends of the bride and groom? Well, not quite. One guest who attended the ceremony told me that nobody there knew each other. ‘It was a show: part of me thinks she Googled who would make her look popular and shipped them over for the day.’
The British journalist Rachel Johnson (sister of Boris) tells a story that was doing the rounds in the weeks after the wedding. While Carolyn Bartholomew, Diana’s former roommate, was waiting for the wedding service to start, she turned to the couple alongside her and asked how they knew Harry or Meghan. ‘We don’t,’ replied the Clooneys. Perhaps it’s a cruel rumour, but it illustrates a feature of their attempt at stardom: they can command the attendance of global VIPs but they can’t command their friendship.
...
Speaking to people in LA, there’s a sense that Tinseltown is starting to see through Meghan’s ‘truth.’ Angelenos are realising that British people didn’t hate her because she wasn’t white, or because she had a career, or any of the other reasons suggested by the Sussexes’ PR. There was no big anti-Meghan conspiracy that kicked into gear as soon as she stepped on British soil. The public there simply saw through her."
The same shrewd political minds who didn't think Boris could win a majority?
The same shrewd political minds who didn't think Boris would get in Number 10?
The same shrewd political minds who didn't think Brexit would be voted through?
Cuts to National Insurance will save the poorest 63p a week and the richest £150 a week.
https://twitter.com/KwasiKwarteng/status/1572943729681485825
The wealthiest have been paying way too much for years.
This has all the makings of #Omnishambles2. ~AA https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1572942458673303552
Then again a 'former Labour special adviser' would say that, wouldnt they?
A friend of Gove has been in touch to provide a policy list to check against / menu for No10
One to return to in a year https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1572949687195287554/photo/1
I never write threads based on my book. HONEST.
I spoke to some deeply ingrained in the Tory party, they say the magic number is 308.
308 is the number of Tory MPs who didn't vote for Liz Truss in the first round.
That is 234 MPs more than the threshold required to trigger a VONC in Liz Truss.
Proportionally she won with a lower percentage than IDS in the MPs final round and with members.
Over the last 12 months I have paid a total of £1,514.00
With the new cap and with the £400.00 from the Government, if I use the same amount of energy, my net cost will be £1,423.00 over the 12 months from the 1st October, so I will actually save £91.00.
I doubt I am unusual in a getting a reduction in my energy bill.
I’ve seen it upset some people in the NHS - who believe you should just sit in the queue you are put in. But she persists with determination of steamroller going downhill….
Gateshead is part of County Durham. Not part of Newcastle, Northumberland or the fiefdom of the North of Tyne major.
Putin is going to hurl vast numbers of soldiers at his “problem” and if/when he fails he might easily go nuclear
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/2410091#Comment_2410091
These will be new build, coming on line towards the end of the decade and running until post-2050. By funding these projects, the government is locking in the long-term demand for natural gas.
On Ukraine as expected, a lot about respect for the UN and the need to respect, and international institutions and how the US has been leaders in all of these (which is mainly, though in no way completely, true).
The most interesting point for me was support for an expanded UN security council, specifically mentioning the need for prominent countries from each continent to be on the SC, and the use of the veto should be very rare.
And some rhetoric that I would call greenwashing, mentioning a huge sounding number as a reduction in US CO2 emissions by 2030 (1 Gigatonne per year), which is actually only -20% on the 2021 figure, though it is a start. That will leave the US at about 2.5-3x higher emissions per capita in 2030 than the average european citizen.
Speech here o0n the Telegraph channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNflsY00qvg
We need to achieve net zero. Indeed, it would be better if we were extracting CO2 from the atmosphere. It’s difficult to achieve net zero while you’re burning gas. Carbon capture is a great idea, but we’ve yet to work out how to do it that well. What you want is a system where hydro, nuclear, tidal, etc. can act as a backup when solar/wind aren’t working. In an ideal world (and I recognise we are not in an ideal world), in the 2050s, we will be burning very little gas, way, way less than current global supply.
In that future world, with gas demand a small fraction of today’s, we will need very little supply. Only the cheapest and easiest to extract sources of gas will be worth using. Do you agree/disagree?
I don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s possible the global response to climate change is just to give up and keep pumping out greenhouse gases. If we’re serious about doing something, we’re talking about a completely different fossil fuel extraction industry in a couple of decades. I am sceptical about the idea of continuing anything like the current gas/oil/coal usage but using some magic new tech to suck up all the CO2.
Tory MP James Cartlidge asks @theresecoffey to "reconsider the reintroduction of tax relief on private medical insurance" introduced by Ken Clarke in 1989 and scrapped by new Labour
Coffey: "I will look into that for him."
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1572934636396740609
It should never have been created.
Well done Truss and Kwarteng. My faith in the Tories has been restored. 👏👏👏
The same shrewd political minds who called Johnson out and said he would be gone before he wanted to go.
So yes.
Re-read the thread where Mr Nabavi resigned from the Tory Party when Boris became Tory Leader and PM. Its quite amusing to read in hindsight. Lots and lots of comments from people about how awful Boris will be, how this is going to ensure a Corbyn Premiership and that the next General Election under Boris would make May's election look like a big success.
We’re having lunch in Claridge’s.
What's weirder is when its combined with how another island should not be unified.
Its whether it works and is desired by the people in question, not a principle and unity of geography.
Who exactly IS in favour of this measure, other than bankers? And not even all of them. ~AA https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1572955192252833792/video/1