Trump beaming as the Knesset stand and applause and cheer him
He deserves credit but it will grate with many
I never thought I would say this, but thank you Donald Trump. Ungrits teeth.
Can't help thinking this is all very over the top considering how many more v hard steps to a lasting peace there are.
Hope I'm wrong.
Agree. R4 Today this morning was totally OTT, as are lots of others.
Why is it OTT
It is a moment of world history that is going to dominate the news for days to come
Everyone should endorse this day 100% and pray that it is the start of something special and long overdue
It was OTT for two reasons:
It isn't the BBC News's job to go round praising and gloating but to report, give depth, analyse and draw attention to whatever it is that power, money and influence doesn't want you to know or to care about.
The sort of hanging around waiting for man to get off plane and talking repetitiously may be suitable on the day when a clear, full and final settlement of the middle east is done, dusted and signed, borders and forms of government agreed, peace and security guarantors all in place, all factions surrendered and disarmed and an economy and reconstruction deal in place. But that ain't today.
Isn’t that famous photo of Chamberlain of him waving “a little piece of paper” through an airplane door?
Trump beaming as the Knesset stand and applause and cheer him
He deserves credit but it will grate with many
I never thought I would say this, but thank you Donald Trump. Ungrits teeth.
Can't help thinking this is all very over the top considering how many more v hard steps to a lasting peace there are.
Hope I'm wrong.
Agree. R4 Today this morning was totally OTT, as are lots of others.
Why is it OTT
It is a moment of world history that is going to dominate the news for days to come
Everyone should endorse this day 100% and pray that it is the start of something special and long overdue
It was OTT for two reasons:
It isn't the BBC News's job to go round praising and gloating but to report, give depth, analyse and draw attention to whatever it is that power, money and influence doesn't want you to know or to care about.
The sort of hanging around waiting for man to get off plane and talking repetitiously may be suitable on the day when a clear, full and final settlement of the middle east is done, dusted and signed, borders and forms of government agreed, peace and security guarantors all in place, all factions surrendered and disarmed and an economy and reconstruction deal in place. But that ain't today.
Isn’t that famous photo of Chamberlain of him waving “a little piece of paper” through an airplane door?
Reform's programme of deciding that Rome was not built in a day continues. Part of their tricky tightrope act of being both populist and a possible government. Tice explains that their 2024 manifesto was tosh. Tax cuts will have to wait until after the cuts, like the ones Reform LAs are so good at finding.
Reform voters are absolutely clear that: 1) Foreigners will be sent home. Quickly. How broad that definition is remains TBC but the pledge is already up to a million and we're 3.5 years out from the election so hopefully millions plural by then 2) Benefits will be cut from scroungers. All foreigners are scroungers but they are going. Next we get rid of benefits from the fakers and cheaters and single mums. Scroungers. 3) Taxes will go down. For me. And money will be spent in my community.
Reform will only be able to blame foreigners for so long when they fail to deliver their promises*
*Read X. I have paraphrased what fukers genuinely seem to expect...
One would expect taxes to go down somewhat if less money is spent both on recent newcomers and home-grown scroungers. That is not a fantastical scenario.
Of course, the level of our indebtedness gets in the way of that. But you would expect some money to be redeployed, as well as spent on debt repayment. Apart from anything else, as the current Government are finding, tax hikes, and even the threat of them, are having a disastrous effect on rates of growth, which has a corresponding effect on tax revenues. So it's logical that lightening the tax burden strategically could have a positive impact.
This needs at least some fag packet figures. We have borrowed £60 billion in the first five months of this financial year; so heading towards £120 billion + for the year.
In ball park figures, how do you get from that position to 'debt repayment' (ie nil PSBR borrowing + finding money to decrease the trillions of debt) in the early course of a 2028/9 Reform government?
As Reform would find out, as you start a government you inherit current commitments WRT state managed payments for stuff (about 44% of GDP) and a set of public expectations, especially about Reform, that public services can be brilliant, extensive and cheap.
Reform voters are people who need a welfare safety net, NHS, schools and pensions. They don't all use daddy's trust fund, Eton and private health care. Ask his Clacton voters.
...It is also a test of my own evolving political attitude. I am very much behind the idea that power must be restored to parliament and away from courts and quangos...
But David Starkey articulates things very well and places the movement within its broader historical context.
Bullshit has many parents and even more midwives
It is intellectually feeble (to put it mildly) to rubbish the idea that the balance between parliament and the courts/quangos in the UK has gone severely awry. It's long-since past that it can be dismissed as the rantings of Truss - Labour are quietly admitting that the same blocks are being placed in the way of their own occasional attempts to govern.
I’m in the queue for the new EES system. Just happens that my first trip during the roll out is to Geneva, which is in Schengen but not the EU.
Slow moving. But so is the other, non-EU non-EES lane, which is largely made up of Turks.
Hopefully it will get faster as people get established profiles, at least that's what I understand will be the case.
It should do. Annoyingly my next experience of it is likely to be at the Chunnel at Christmas with the family, so my own registration won’t help with the queuing then.
Are people allowed to pop in and register in advance, or do you need a boarding pass to register?
I assume the latter.
Today’s queue to be honest is only partly down to the new system. It’s more an example of the flight arrivals lottery in European airports, especially the smaller ones like Geneva. If you come in just after a jumbo jet from a non-EU origin then you’re going to be waiting a while.
So far 50 minutes and counting.
I thought I’d pop over to Amsterdam for dinner on Wednesday - hopefully it will be quiet!
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Reform's programme of deciding that Rome was not built in a day continues. Part of their tricky tightrope act of being both populist and a possible government. Tice explains that their 2024 manifesto was tosh. Tax cuts will have to wait until after the cuts, like the ones Reform LAs are so good at finding.
Reform voters are absolutely clear that: 1) Foreigners will be sent home. Quickly. How broad that definition is remains TBC but the pledge is already up to a million and we're 3.5 years out from the election so hopefully millions plural by then 2) Benefits will be cut from scroungers. All foreigners are scroungers but they are going. Next we get rid of benefits from the fakers and cheaters and single mums. Scroungers. 3) Taxes will go down. For me. And money will be spent in my community.
Reform will only be able to blame foreigners for so long when they fail to deliver their promises*
*Read X. I have paraphrased what fukers genuinely seem to expect...
One would expect taxes to go down somewhat if less money is spent both on recent newcomers and home-grown scroungers. That is not a fantastical scenario.
Of course, the level of our indebtedness gets in the way of that. But you would expect some money to be redeployed, as well as spent on debt repayment. Apart from anything else, as the current Government are finding, tax hikes, and even the threat of them, are having a disastrous effect on rates of growth, which has a corresponding effect on tax revenues. So it's logical that lightening the tax burden strategically could have a positive impact.
As we rely on migrant labour for so many sectors where they not only pay tax but are the reason it still exists, sending the foreign invaders home would lower our tax revenues...
I guess in the coming months the IDF troops will sit around drinking coffee, while an international force takes their place on the battlefield trying to destroy Hamas.
I'm sure when an international force made up largely of Muslims from countries opposed to Hamas are killing Hamas fighters the Gaza mob will find a way to blame it on "the Jews" and be out protesting every weekend as usual.
There does appear to be a total lack of celebration from the people who have spent the last two years banging on about “Peace”, now that an actual deal for peace has been agreed.
I’m sure some of them just don’t want to give Trump the credit, but for many of them it does appear that “Peace” and “Palestine” were not top of their list of their actual grievances.
Reform's programme of deciding that Rome was not built in a day continues. Part of their tricky tightrope act of being both populist and a possible government. Tice explains that their 2024 manifesto was tosh. Tax cuts will have to wait until after the cuts, like the ones Reform LAs are so good at finding.
Reform voters are absolutely clear that: 1) Foreigners will be sent home. Quickly. How broad that definition is remains TBC but the pledge is already up to a million and we're 3.5 years out from the election so hopefully millions plural by then 2) Benefits will be cut from scroungers. All foreigners are scroungers but they are going. Next we get rid of benefits from the fakers and cheaters and single mums. Scroungers. 3) Taxes will go down. For me. And money will be spent in my community.
Reform will only be able to blame foreigners for so long when they fail to deliver their promises*
*Read X. I have paraphrased what fukers genuinely seem to expect...
One would expect taxes to go down somewhat if less money is spent both on recent newcomers and home-grown scroungers. That is not a fantastical scenario.
Of course, the level of our indebtedness gets in the way of that. But you would expect some money to be redeployed, as well as spent on debt repayment. Apart from anything else, as the current Government are finding, tax hikes, and even the threat of them, are having a disastrous effect on rates of growth, which has a corresponding effect on tax revenues. So it's logical that lightening the tax burden strategically could have a positive impact.
As we rely on migrant labour for so many sectors where they not only pay tax but are the reason it still exists, sending the foreign invaders home would lower our tax revenues...
As someone (I think it was Carnforth) said very cleverly yesterday, if sending people home is going to lower tax revenues, presumably inviting them all must have dramatically raised them? Um...
He described seeing a silver Bentley with a lone driver that he said was "an unusual car to come through". The driver was Mr Lennon. ... "He refused to provide the Pin number, saying there was journalist material in his phone," PC Thorogood said.
Jo Morris, for the prosecution, said that Mr Lennon had used an expletive at officers, who also found a small bag in the Bentley containing £13,370 and €1,910 (£1,660). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lp1k7pnpno
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Yes, by fuelling their cheap manufacturing of those things and therefore their market leadership in them with dirty energy!
We on the other hand, who used to make solar panels in the 1990s, have priced our manufacturing out of business, and now we import them and marvel at China's 'dominant leadership'.
I refuse to believe that you're not sensible enough to understand all this.
Trump beaming as the Knesset stand and applause and cheer him
He deserves credit but it will grate with many
I never thought I would say this, but thank you Donald Trump. Ungrits teeth.
Can't help thinking this is all very over the top considering how many more v hard steps to a lasting peace there are.
Hope I'm wrong.
Agree. R4 Today this morning was totally OTT, as are lots of others.
Why is it OTT
It is a moment of world history that is going to dominate the news for days to come
Everyone should endorse this day 100% and pray that it is the start of something special and long overdue
It was OTT for two reasons:
It isn't the BBC News's job to go round praising and gloating but to report, give depth, analyse and draw attention to whatever it is that power, money and influence doesn't want you to know or to care about.
The sort of hanging around waiting for man to get off plane and talking repetitiously may be suitable on the day when a clear, full and final settlement of the middle east is done, dusted and signed, borders and forms of government agreed, peace and security guarantors all in place, all factions surrendered and disarmed and an economy and reconstruction deal in place. But that ain't today.
Isn’t that famous photo of Chamberlain of him waving “a little piece of paper” through an airplane door?
Reform's programme of deciding that Rome was not built in a day continues. Part of their tricky tightrope act of being both populist and a possible government. Tice explains that their 2024 manifesto was tosh. Tax cuts will have to wait until after the cuts, like the ones Reform LAs are so good at finding.
Reform voters are absolutely clear that: 1) Foreigners will be sent home. Quickly. How broad that definition is remains TBC but the pledge is already up to a million and we're 3.5 years out from the election so hopefully millions plural by then 2) Benefits will be cut from scroungers. All foreigners are scroungers but they are going. Next we get rid of benefits from the fakers and cheaters and single mums. Scroungers. 3) Taxes will go down. For me. And money will be spent in my community.
Reform will only be able to blame foreigners for so long when they fail to deliver their promises*
*Read X. I have paraphrased what fukers genuinely seem to expect...
One would expect taxes to go down somewhat if less money is spent both on recent newcomers and home-grown scroungers. That is not a fantastical scenario.
Of course, the level of our indebtedness gets in the way of that. But you would expect some money to be redeployed, as well as spent on debt repayment. Apart from anything else, as the current Government are finding, tax hikes, and even the threat of them, are having a disastrous effect on rates of growth, which has a corresponding effect on tax revenues. So it's logical that lightening the tax burden strategically could have a positive impact.
As we rely on migrant labour for so many sectors where they not only pay tax but are the reason it still exists, sending the foreign invaders home would lower our tax revenues...
As someone (I think it was Carnforth) said very cleverly yesterday, if sending people home is going to lower tax revenues, presumably inviting them all must have dramatically raised them? Um...
Mate, they're proposing to gut the NHS. The care sector. The hospitality sector. Fishing. The food industry. People who are here legally who have jobs and pay taxes.
Not only do they no longer pay taxes, they no longer do the jobs. As Brits aren't sat there waiting to take them thats jobs not done and business output falling.
None of this is difficult to comprehend. Its called "adding"
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Yes, by fuelling their cheap manufacturing of those things and therefore their market leadership in them with dirty energy!
We on the other hand, who used to make solar panels in the 1990s, have priced our manufacturing out of business, and now we import them and marvel at China's 'dominant leadership'.
I refuse to believe that you're not sensible enough to understand all this.
Are Reform proposing to make solar panels here? Wind turbines? To rebuild our lost manufacturing capacity in this area?
Are they fuck.
And as the rest of civilisation keeps going with renewables and Reform lose the 2034 election we find that we can do nothing else other than import.
I guess in the coming months the IDF troops will sit around drinking coffee, while an international force takes their place on the battlefield trying to destroy Hamas.
I'm sure when an international force made up largely of Muslims from countries opposed to Hamas are killing Hamas fighters the Gaza mob will find a way to blame it on "the Jews" and be out protesting every weekend as usual.
There does appear to be a total lack of celebration from the people who have spent the last two years banging on about “Peace”, now that an actual deal for peace has been agreed.
I’m sure some of them just don’t want to give Trump the credit, but for many of them it does appear that “Peace” and “Palestine” were not top of their list of their actual grievances.
The Gaza mob were out in force on Saturday as usual, not to celebrate a peace deal but to continue their campaign of intimidation against British Jews. The group that is least pleased about this peace deal are the mob and other hard lefty activists who will need to find some other grievance to enable them to publicly hate Jews and call for them to be exterminated.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Yes, by fuelling their cheap manufacturing of those things and therefore their market leadership in them with dirty energy!
We on the other hand, who used to make solar panels in the 1990s, have priced our manufacturing out of business, and now we import them and marvel at China's 'dominant leadership'.
I refuse to believe that you're not sensible enough to understand all this.
When China is producing solar panels using solar energy (which is not that far off), they will be even cheaper.
The UK never had a real panel manufacturing industry. China became dominant because its government backed the industry through sectoral recessions; they allowed/encouraged cutthroat competition between competitors, but made sure the fittest survived. The US just allowed its industry to go bust (and not infrequently for the assets to be acquired by the Chinese.
"Clean versus dirty energy" has very little to do with it. It's not as though the US was any kind of paragon in that respect bad when it was developing its own panel manufacturing.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
How is the UK dependent on China?
98% of the world’s supply of paracetamol for example.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Yes, by fuelling their cheap manufacturing of those things and therefore their market leadership in them with dirty energy!
We on the other hand, who used to make solar panels in the 1990s, have priced our manufacturing out of business, and now we import them and marvel at China's 'dominant leadership'.
I refuse to believe that you're not sensible enough to understand all this.
When China is producing solar panels using solar energy (which is not that far off), they will be even cheaper.
The UK never had a real panel manufacturing industry. China became dominant because its government backed the industry through sectoral recessions; they allowed/encouraged cutthroat competition between competitors, but made sure the fittest survived. The US just allowed its industry to go bust (and not infrequently for the assets to be acquired by the Chinese.
"Clean versus dirty energy" has very little to do with it. It's not as though the US was any kind of paragon in that respect bad when it was developing its own panel manufacturing.
We used to have a significant manufacturing industry, and then we broke chunks of it and sold the rest.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
How is the UK dependent on China?
In simple terms, they now have a manufacturing monopoly on a huge number of everyday items, and are starting to throw their weight around when it comes to trade just because they can.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
How is the UK dependent on China?
In simple terms, they now have a manufacturing monopoly on a huge number of everyday items, and are starting to throw their weight around when it comes to trade just because they can.
We need to wean ourselves off the unnecessary items, and start making the necessary ones ourselves, or from allies.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
How is the UK dependent on China?
In simple terms, they now have a manufacturing monopoly on a huge number of everyday items, and are starting to throw their weight around when it comes to trade just because they can.
It's also not just in terms of finished items. Even for the things that are manufactured elsewhere they will often be dependent on parts made in China.
So if our relationship with China breaks, not only do we lose access to everything that we buy directly from China, but we also lose access to everything that is made elsewhere but that relies on parts made in China.
Furthermore, this affects everyone in the world, so if it comes down to choosing sides, a lot of countries will find that they are more reliant on China than they are on the UK/US/EU, and so if China tells them to impose sanctions on us, then...
Historically the UK built its strength on trade, and it fought and won three world wars (if you include the Napoleonic Wars as a world war) by protecting its access to trade and denying trade to our adversaries. Is this any longer true in a world dominated by China?
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
I guess in the coming months the IDF troops will sit around drinking coffee, while an international force takes their place on the battlefield trying to destroy Hamas.
I'm sure when an international force made up largely of Muslims from countries opposed to Hamas are killing Hamas fighters the Gaza mob will find a way to blame it on "the Jews" and be out protesting every weekend as usual.
There does appear to be a total lack of celebration from the people who have spent the last two years banging on about “Peace”, now that an actual deal for peace has been agreed.
I’m sure some of them just don’t want to give Trump the credit, but for many of them it does appear that “Peace” and “Palestine” were not top of their list of their actual grievances.
Not wishing to join the doomsayers, but in a year since the Lebanon ceasefire, Israel has broken it thousands of times. It has killed hundreds, including innocent non-combatants, demolished tens of thousands of homes and annexed five areas of Lebanon. I suspect that the IDF will re-badge any operations it sees as necessary in Gaza as legitimate anti-terrorist tatics and DJT will return to his 'allowed self-defence' mantra.
And we should be making better use of tidal. But again that's not totally simple. The marine environment is tough place for engineering, and keeping the turbines etc running is non trivial.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Yes, by fuelling their cheap manufacturing of those things and therefore their market leadership in them with dirty energy!
We on the other hand, who used to make solar panels in the 1990s, have priced our manufacturing out of business, and now we import them and marvel at China's 'dominant leadership'.
I refuse to believe that you're not sensible enough to understand all this.
When China is producing solar panels using solar energy (which is not that far off), they will be even cheaper.
The UK never had a real panel manufacturing industry. China became dominant because its government backed the industry through sectoral recessions; they allowed/encouraged cutthroat competition between competitors, but made sure the fittest survived. The US just allowed its industry to go bust (and not infrequently for the assets to be acquired by the Chinese.
"Clean versus dirty energy" has very little to do with it. It's not as though the US was any kind of paragon in that respect bad when it was developing its own panel manufacturing.
We used to have a significant manufacturing industry, and then we broke chunks of it and sold the rest.
We also had stupid people running unions in a way that destroyed our competitiveness. See British Leyland for examples.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
How is the UK dependent on China?
98% of the world’s supply of paracetamol for example.
Thats not a problem. Most A level students synthesise paracetamol at some point in the course. Just need to scale up (and a bit of purification, maybe).
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
How is the UK dependent on China?
A couple of examples: Pretty well all advanced manufacturing is dependent on refined rare earth supplies, Our aerospace and electronics industries would be SoL without them. Ditto pharmaceutical feedstocks.
On the gross trade figures, they're only out fifth or sixth largest trading partner: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68c9816fc6df905ce770844f/china-trade-and-investment-factsheet-2025-09-19.pdf But that of course ignores the movement of goods via other countries which have their own dependencies. On a broader level, we're a trading nation, with more of our economy dependent on overseas trade than the average, so any disruption of trade with China - ie a trade war - would hurt us disproportionately.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
And we should be making better use of tidal. But again that's not totally simple. The marine environment is tough place for engineering, and keeping the turbines etc running is non trivial.
A vast number of jobs in the offshore industry up here, with the fossil part transitioning to servicing the renewables part of it.
I guess in the coming months the IDF troops will sit around drinking coffee, while an international force takes their place on the battlefield trying to destroy Hamas.
I'm sure when an international force made up largely of Muslims from countries opposed to Hamas are killing Hamas fighters the Gaza mob will find a way to blame it on "the Jews" and be out protesting every weekend as usual.
There does appear to be a total lack of celebration from the people who have spent the last two years banging on about “Peace”, now that an actual deal for peace has been agreed.
I’m sure some of them just don’t want to give Trump the credit, but for many of them it does appear that “Peace” and “Palestine” were not top of their list of their actual grievances.
Not wishing to join the doomsayers, but in a year since the Lebanon ceasefire, Israel has broken it thousands of times. It has killed hundreds, including innocent non-combatants, demolished tens of thousands of homes and annexed five areas of Lebanon. I suspect that the IDF will re-badge any operations it sees as necessary in Gaza as legitimate anti-terrorist tatics and DJT will return to his 'allowed self-defence' mantra.
I fear, not 'suspect' that you are right. Mind, if the IDF starts tangling with Turkish peacekeepers I suspect they find they've bitten off more than they can chew. After all, IIRC the Turks have American weapons too!
He described seeing a silver Bentley with a lone driver that he said was "an unusual car to come through". The driver was Mr Lennon. ... "He refused to provide the Pin number, saying there was journalist material in his phone," PC Thorogood said.
Jo Morris, for the prosecution, said that Mr Lennon had used an expletive at officers, who also found a small bag in the Bentley containing £13,370 and €1,910 (£1,660). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lp1k7pnpno
So if he was Fred Smith of 123 Fake St, would plod have arrested him? And is the journalism thing a real defence? What are they looking for on his phone?
YouTube has been offering me shorts from Yes, Prime Minister recently. For a series produced in the 1980s it's still amazingly bang on point.
Fitaloon and I absolutely loved Yes, Prime Minister, I bought him the boxed set many years ago one Christmas. To this day, these two scenes remain my absolute favourites....
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Yes, by fuelling their cheap manufacturing of those things and therefore their market leadership in them with dirty energy!
We on the other hand, who used to make solar panels in the 1990s, have priced our manufacturing out of business, and now we import them and marvel at China's 'dominant leadership'.
I refuse to believe that you're not sensible enough to understand all this.
When China is producing solar panels using solar energy (which is not that far off), they will be even cheaper.
The UK never had a real panel manufacturing industry. China became dominant because its government backed the industry through sectoral recessions; they allowed/encouraged cutthroat competition between competitors, but made sure the fittest survived. The US just allowed its industry to go bust (and not infrequently for the assets to be acquired by the Chinese.
"Clean versus dirty energy" has very little to do with it. It's not as though the US was any kind of paragon in that respect bad when it was developing its own panel manufacturing.
We used to have a significant manufacturing industry, and then we broke chunks of it and sold the rest.
We also had stupid people running unions in a way that destroyed our competitiveness. See British Leyland for examples.
What do you mean "also". I said that - we "broke chunks of it". BL being a perfect example.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Yes, by fuelling their cheap manufacturing of those things and therefore their market leadership in them with dirty energy!
We on the other hand, who used to make solar panels in the 1990s, have priced our manufacturing out of business, and now we import them and marvel at China's 'dominant leadership'.
I refuse to believe that you're not sensible enough to understand all this.
When China is producing solar panels using solar energy (which is not that far off), they will be even cheaper.
The UK never had a real panel manufacturing industry. China became dominant because its government backed the industry through sectoral recessions; they allowed/encouraged cutthroat competition between competitors, but made sure the fittest survived. The US just allowed its industry to go bust (and not infrequently for the assets to be acquired by the Chinese.
"Clean versus dirty energy" has very little to do with it. It's not as though the US was any kind of paragon in that respect bad when it was developing its own panel manufacturing.
We used to have a significant manufacturing industry, and then we broke chunks of it and sold the rest.
We also had stupid people running unions in a way that destroyed our competitiveness. See British Leyland for examples.
What do you mean "also". I said that - we "broke chunks of it". BL being a perfect example.
Sorry was meaning the government did things and the unions also.
It certainly looks like quite a triumph for Trump.
If he can actually get a Palestinian state established in spite of Netanyahu opposition and keep the warring sides apart somehow he will actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I would never have predicted that.
It also kind of makes you wonder what Obama/Biden were doing... if all that was needed was just to play hardball with Israel... why didn't they think of that?
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
How is the UK dependent on China?
98% of the world’s supply of paracetamol for example.
I thought the Trump and Farage fans weren’t taking paracetamol anyway!
He described seeing a silver Bentley with a lone driver that he said was "an unusual car to come through". The driver was Mr Lennon. ... "He refused to provide the Pin number, saying there was journalist material in his phone," PC Thorogood said.
Jo Morris, for the prosecution, said that Mr Lennon had used an expletive at officers, who also found a small bag in the Bentley containing £13,370 and €1,910 (£1,660). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lp1k7pnpno
So if he was Fred Smith of 123 Fake St, would plod have arrested him? And is the journalism thing a real defence? What are they looking for on his phone?
There's a more interesting case that may come up soon.
Someone travelling through the UK border was asked to provide the pin to his phone. Which unlocked the phone.
The officers then charged him with the offence of not providing access - because they believed that the account on the phone was a "burner" account.
For the non-technical - you can, for an iPhone (say) setup multiple Apple Accounts. All the data is stored online by Apple. Only one account at a time can be loaded on the phone - changing Apple ID will wipe out
So you can create a second account, load that on your phone, go through customs etc, then load your "real" account the other side. Many journalists and activists do this when they suspect opening their phone may be demanded. Such as at US customs, these days.
There is nothing in the law, that I am aware of, that says you have to do other than provide access to the *device* (the phone).
This will be an interesting test of the law, if it comes to trial.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Yes, by fuelling their cheap manufacturing of those things and therefore their market leadership in them with dirty energy!
We on the other hand, who used to make solar panels in the 1990s, have priced our manufacturing out of business, and now we import them and marvel at China's 'dominant leadership'.
I refuse to believe that you're not sensible enough to understand all this.
When China is producing solar panels using solar energy (which is not that far off), they will be even cheaper.
The UK never had a real panel manufacturing industry. China became dominant because its government backed the industry through sectoral recessions; they allowed/encouraged cutthroat competition between competitors, but made sure the fittest survived. The US just allowed its industry to go bust (and not infrequently for the assets to be acquired by the Chinese.
"Clean versus dirty energy" has very little to do with it. It's not as though the US was any kind of paragon in that respect bad when it was developing its own panel manufacturing.
We used to have a significant manufacturing industry, and then we broke chunks of it and sold the rest.
We also had stupid people running unions in a way that destroyed our competitiveness. See British Leyland for examples.
What do you mean "also". I said that - we "broke chunks of it". BL being a perfect example.
Sorry was meaning the government did things and the unions also.
Absolutely. And BL being a perfect example. Idiot management. Idiot unions. Designing a succession of terrible cars poorly built by communist unions. No wonder it all went.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
How is the UK dependent on China?
98% of the world’s supply of paracetamol for example.
I thought the Trump and Farage fans weren’t taking paracetamol anyway!
Trump certainly takes (or at least is prescribed - whether he takes it might be moot) Aspirin.
"Angela Merkel’s government was preparing to train Russian troops at a series of state-of-the-art military facilities right up until the moment Moscow invaded Crimea.
The plans were part of a £870m deal that would have seen German troops train their Russian counterparts at eight complexes across Russia, kitted out with some of the most sophisticated military hardware in Europe, including replica guns that fire lasers.
The revelations were made in a book titled “The Failure – an investigative history of Germany’s Russia policies”, and reported by Der Spiegel." (£)
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
China is all about producing as much power as possible, it doesn't particularly care whether or not it's green or coal or whatever. It's entirely non ideological, unlike BOTH Miliband & Farage when it comes to power.
He described seeing a silver Bentley with a lone driver that he said was "an unusual car to come through". The driver was Mr Lennon. ... "He refused to provide the Pin number, saying there was journalist material in his phone," PC Thorogood said.
Jo Morris, for the prosecution, said that Mr Lennon had used an expletive at officers, who also found a small bag in the Bentley containing £13,370 and €1,910 (£1,660). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lp1k7pnpno
So if he was Fred Smith of 123 Fake St, would plod have arrested him? And is the journalism thing a real defence? What are they looking for on his phone?
We often talk about cash here on PB, but I think even the most ardent we-don’t-need-cash people would agree that, if you are carrying cash, it is entirely normal to carry £15k on you. We all do it. There’s nothing suspicious about it. And if the person carrying the cash is facing trial on harassment charges, is being investigated for hiding money from the tax authorities/courts, and has a long history of criminal acts… well, why would any of that be relevant? /s
He described seeing a silver Bentley with a lone driver that he said was "an unusual car to come through". The driver was Mr Lennon. ... "He refused to provide the Pin number, saying there was journalist material in his phone," PC Thorogood said.
Jo Morris, for the prosecution, said that Mr Lennon had used an expletive at officers, who also found a small bag in the Bentley containing £13,370 and €1,910 (£1,660). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lp1k7pnpno
So if he was Fred Smith of 123 Fake St, would plod have arrested him? And is the journalism thing a real defence? What are they looking for on his phone?
We often talk about cash here on PB, but I think even the most ardent we-don’t-need-cash people would agree that, if you are carrying cash, it is entirely normal to carry £15k on you. We all do it. There’s nothing suspicious about it. And if the person carrying the cash is facing trial on harassment charges, is being investigated for hiding money from the tax authorities/courts, and has a long history of criminal acts… well, why would any of that be relevant? /s
Maybe he was having some work done at home, buying a car, who knows really. In itself it's not evidence of criminality.
Trump beaming as the Knesset stand and applause and cheer him
He deserves credit but it will grate with many
I never thought I would say this, but thank you Donald Trump. Ungrits teeth.
Can't help thinking this is all very over the top considering how many more v hard steps to a lasting peace there are.
Hope I'm wrong.
Agree. R4 Today this morning was totally OTT, as are lots of others.
It was quite bizarre for a radio news programme to be ditching all other news/any discussions to be waiting to report on a man getting out of a plane. I could understand them live covering Putin and Zelensky meeting live at the Vatican for example but the coverage was OTT.
Part of the price of Trump's involvement in anything like this is that he gets to strut.
As an alternative to a potential genocide, a day of the BBC's cooperation in that is a very small price. As long as they regain their critical faculties, I'm not going to complain.
Sky have been broadcasting live all day with no adverts
Trump is still in the Knesset and yet he is due in Egypt for the bigger peace conference so the coverage is likely to continue throughout today and tomorrow
he cannot stop talking
Needs a diaper for the verbal diarrhea. (Yes, I did look up the correct spelling)
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
China is all about producing as much power as possible, it doesn't particularly care whether or not it's green or coal or whatever. It's entirely non ideological, unlike BOTH Miliband & Farage when it comes to power.
They do care. They have a plan to reduce fossil fuel use. They know their agriculture is vulnerable to global warming, in a way that the US and Russia, for example, are not.
In Britain we've been distracted by arguing over whether to do it, rather than working out how best to do it. And we're still having that false argument while China is simply doing it.
He described seeing a silver Bentley with a lone driver that he said was "an unusual car to come through". The driver was Mr Lennon. ... "He refused to provide the Pin number, saying there was journalist material in his phone," PC Thorogood said.
Jo Morris, for the prosecution, said that Mr Lennon had used an expletive at officers, who also found a small bag in the Bentley containing £13,370 and €1,910 (£1,660). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lp1k7pnpno
So if he was Fred Smith of 123 Fake St, would plod have arrested him? And is the journalism thing a real defence? What are they looking for on his phone?
There's a more interesting case that may come up soon.
Someone travelling through the UK border was asked to provide the pin to his phone. Which unlocked the phone.
The officers then charged him with the offence of not providing access - because they believed that the account on the phone was a "burner" account.
For the non-technical - you can, for an iPhone (say) setup multiple Apple Accounts. All the data is stored online by Apple. Only one account at a time can be loaded on the phone - changing Apple ID will wipe out
So you can create a second account, load that on your phone, go through customs etc, then load your "real" account the other side. Many journalists and activists do this when they suspect opening their phone may be demanded. Such as at US customs, these days.
There is nothing in the law, that I am aware of, that says you have to do other than provide access to the *device* (the phone).
This will be an interesting test of the law, if it comes to trial.
Travelling with ‘clean’ laptops and mobiles has been a thing for many years now, and made much easier now we have cloud storage for everything.
Will be interesting to see the law as it relates specifically to a border search, rather than a police stop. IIRC the regular police need a warrant to force you to unlock your phone.
The US are famous for saying that the Consitution doesn’t apply at the border, and used that to justify all sorts of bad behaviour starting after the 9/11 terror attacks. The usual suspects of China, Russia, Iran, Saudi etc are all interested in who you’re meeting and why, and if there’s any nice company documents on your laptop that might be worth stealing. .
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Yes, by fuelling their cheap manufacturing of those things and therefore their market leadership in them with dirty energy!
We on the other hand, who used to make solar panels in the 1990s, have priced our manufacturing out of business, and now we import them and marvel at China's 'dominant leadership'.
I refuse to believe that you're not sensible enough to understand all this.
Are Reform proposing to make solar panels here? Wind turbines? To rebuild our lost manufacturing capacity in this area?
Are they fuck.
And as the rest of civilisation keeps going with renewables and Reform lose the 2034 election we find that we can do nothing else other than import.
I don't know, but what they are doing is proposing to end what is effectively a hostile environment for manufacturing. Industries destroyed by successsive Governments (including this one) thoughtlessly increasing their cost base, cannot just 'come back' in a trice - apart from anything else, their mills and other heavy equipment have often been sold to factories in China and India. However we can at least get our foot off their neck.
He described seeing a silver Bentley with a lone driver that he said was "an unusual car to come through". The driver was Mr Lennon. ... "He refused to provide the Pin number, saying there was journalist material in his phone," PC Thorogood said.
Jo Morris, for the prosecution, said that Mr Lennon had used an expletive at officers, who also found a small bag in the Bentley containing £13,370 and €1,910 (£1,660). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lp1k7pnpno
So if he was Fred Smith of 123 Fake St, would plod have arrested him? And is the journalism thing a real defence? What are they looking for on his phone?
There's a more interesting case that may come up soon.
Someone travelling through the UK border was asked to provide the pin to his phone. Which unlocked the phone.
The officers then charged him with the offence of not providing access - because they believed that the account on the phone was a "burner" account.
For the non-technical - you can, for an iPhone (say) setup multiple Apple Accounts. All the data is stored online by Apple. Only one account at a time can be loaded on the phone - changing Apple ID will wipe out
So you can create a second account, load that on your phone, go through customs etc, then load your "real" account the other side. Many journalists and activists do this when they suspect opening their phone may be demanded. Such as at US customs, these days.
There is nothing in the law, that I am aware of, that says you have to do other than provide access to the *device* (the phone).
This will be an interesting test of the law, if it comes to trial.
Travelling with ‘clean’ laptops and mobiles has been a thing for many years now, and made much easier now we have cloud storage for everything.
Will be interesting to see the law as it relates specifically to a border search, rather than a police stop. IIRC the regular police need a warrant to force you to unlock your phone.
The US are famous for saying that the Consitution doesn’t apply at the border, and used that to justify all sorts of bad behaviour starting after the 9/11 terror attacks. The usual suspects of China, Russia, Iran, Saudi etc are all interested in who you’re meeting and why, and if there’s any nice company documents on your laptop that might be worth stealing. .
That was the case 15 years ago - I once travelled into the US sans laptop and phone, picking up fresh ones when I arrived in the US.
It certainly looks like quite a triumph for Trump.
If he can actually get a Palestinian state established in spite of Netanyahu opposition and keep the warring sides apart somehow he will actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I would never have predicted that.
It also kind of makes you wonder what Obama/Biden were doing... if all that was needed was just to play hardball with Israel... why didn't they think of that?
They did play hardball with Israel, so why the difference now? There might be many answers to that. The progress of the Gaza war has turned many against Bibi’s approach, internationally and domestically. So, the whole context was different now to what it was earlier in the war or before Hamas’s attack. It’s only an example, but the UK and other countries recognising a Palestinian state is part of that. Remember also that Netanyahu is now very unpopular at home, and the only thing that Bibi cares about is staying in power. Most of Israel wanted a way out of this war, and they wanted the hostages back.
But it also matters that the hardball came from Trump. If Democrat Presidents played hardball with Israel, the government there always had the hope of a Republican coming into office and reversing anything that was done. If the Republicans are complaining, if Trump is, that’s different. It’s like being PM. If the opposition are calling for your resignation, that’s a normal Monday. If your Chancellor of Exchequer does, that’s another matter. Likewise, if his ally, his best pal, Donald Trump is saying something, Netanyahu had to listen.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
China is all about producing as much power as possible, it doesn't particularly care whether or not it's green or coal or whatever. It's entirely non ideological, unlike BOTH Miliband & Farage when it comes to power.
That is a very unfair characterisation. Farage is only proposing to revive viable or strategically important industries. That isn't ideological - it's restitution of basic common sense.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
China is all about producing as much power as possible, it doesn't particularly care whether or not it's green or coal or whatever. It's entirely non ideological, unlike BOTH Miliband & Farage when it comes to power.
They do care. They have a plan to reduce fossil fuel use. They know their agriculture is vulnerable to global warming, in a way that the US and Russia, for example, are not.
In Britain we've been distracted by arguing over whether to do it, rather than working out how best to do it. And we're still having that false argument while China is simply doing it.
How actually f-ing dare you flagrantly lie like this?
If China's Net Zero policy is so great, presumably you want a Chinese Net Zero policy implemented here in the UK?
So completely repudiating Net Zero by 2050, no carbon taxes (China has only just started asking plants to even record their emissions), and opening a string of coal mines for a start.
Or does your admiration for 'simply doing it' stop at the Chinese border for some reason.
It certainly looks like quite a triumph for Trump.
If he can actually get a Palestinian state established in spite of Netanyahu opposition and keep the warring sides apart somehow he will actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I would never have predicted that.
It also kind of makes you wonder what Obama/Biden were doing... if all that was needed was just to play hardball with Israel... why didn't they think of that?
Probably for fear of alienating the Jewish vote in the US, which was already suspicious of the Democrats. When Trump did it, they didn't really have any choice but to go along with it.
Paradoxically, it sometimes seems easier for right-wing goverments to enact policies that might be viewed as left wing than it would be for left-wing governments to do so (and vice versa, of course). That's because those who would object have nowhere else to go.
It certainly looks like quite a triumph for Trump.
If he can actually get a Palestinian state established in spite of Netanyahu opposition and keep the warring sides apart somehow he will actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I would never have predicted that.
It also kind of makes you wonder what Obama/Biden were doing... if all that was needed was just to play hardball with Israel... why didn't they think of that?
We're the equivalent of a minute into a football game. Sure. Getting two teams onto the pitch is an achievement in itself. Already Hamas has military and Police openly on the streets of Gaza. Who else would do it? So the question arises. Who's going to try to disarm them? Israel. The first moment Netanyahu sniffs the prospect of a place in the dock. That's who.
It certainly looks like quite a triumph for Trump.
If he can actually get a Palestinian state established in spite of Netanyahu opposition and keep the warring sides apart somehow he will actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I would never have predicted that.
It also kind of makes you wonder what Obama/Biden were doing... if all that was needed was just to play hardball with Israel... why didn't they think of that?
They did play hardball with Israel, so why the difference now? There might be many answers to that. The progress of the Gaza war has turned many against Bibi’s approach, internationally and domestically. So, the whole context was different now to what it was earlier in the war or before Hamas’s attack. It’s only an example, but the UK and other countries recognising a Palestinian state is part of that. Remember also that Netanyahu is now very unpopular at home, and the only thing that Bibi cares about is staying in power. Most of Israel wanted a way out of this war, and they wanted the hostages back.
But it also matters that the hardball came from Trump. If Democrat Presidents played hardball with Israel, the government there always had the hope of a Republican coming into office and reversing anything that was done. If the Republicans are complaining, if Trump is, that’s different. It’s like being PM. If the opposition are calling for your resignation, that’s a normal Monday. If your Chancellor of Exchequer does, that’s another matter. Likewise, if his ally, his best pal, Donald Trump is saying something, Netanyahu had to listen.
I think the bombing of Qatar was the over-reach that forced the Americans to get the Israelis to the negotiating table. But then you could argue it had the desired effect for Israel; they have their hostages back because nowhere was safe for the senior Hamas people.
He described seeing a silver Bentley with a lone driver that he said was "an unusual car to come through". The driver was Mr Lennon. ... "He refused to provide the Pin number, saying there was journalist material in his phone," PC Thorogood said.
Jo Morris, for the prosecution, said that Mr Lennon had used an expletive at officers, who also found a small bag in the Bentley containing £13,370 and €1,910 (£1,660). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lp1k7pnpno
So if he was Fred Smith of 123 Fake St, would plod have arrested him? And is the journalism thing a real defence? What are they looking for on his phone?
We often talk about cash here on PB, but I think even the most ardent we-don’t-need-cash people would agree that, if you are carrying cash, it is entirely normal to carry £15k on you. We all do it. There’s nothing suspicious about it. And if the person carrying the cash is facing trial on harassment charges, is being investigated for hiding money from the tax authorities/courts, and has a long history of criminal acts… well, why would any of that be relevant? /s
Maybe he was having some work done at home, buying a car, who knows really. In itself it's not evidence of criminality.
Oh, yeah, I’m sure the person with multiple convictions for fraud, who is avoiding paying >£600k he owes in a libel case, who has been sanctioned by the High Court for not answering questions about his finances, and who was awaiting a court date on a harassment charge had some entirely straightforward reason for why he had £15k in cash on him. Maybe he should have explained to the police what that was, and unlocked his phone.
You may not be a paid lobbyist for Tidal any more, but you could still talk to future power brokers if you wished. The Tidal lagoons, if they're what you crack them up to be, are ideal Kemi ground - sensible but green. A new way of doing things. And even if she doesn't become PM, her better policies stand a very good chance of being implemented as part of a coalition. But as I understand it you don't want to talk to her because her flavour of Torydom offends your refined palette.
It certainly looks like quite a triumph for Trump.
If he can actually get a Palestinian state established in spite of Netanyahu opposition and keep the warring sides apart somehow he will actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I would never have predicted that.
It also kind of makes you wonder what Obama/Biden were doing... if all that was needed was just to play hardball with Israel... why didn't they think of that?
We're the equivalent of a minute into a football game. Sure. Getting two teams onto the pitch is an achievement in itself. Already Hamas has military and Police openly on the streets of Gaza. Who else would do it? So the question arises. Who's going to try to disarm them? Israel. The first moment Netanyahu sniffs the prospect of a place in the dock. That's who.
If the price of no more deaths in Gaza is immunity for Netanyahu AND the Hamas leaders, I would pay it.
He described seeing a silver Bentley with a lone driver that he said was "an unusual car to come through". The driver was Mr Lennon. ... "He refused to provide the Pin number, saying there was journalist material in his phone," PC Thorogood said.
Jo Morris, for the prosecution, said that Mr Lennon had used an expletive at officers, who also found a small bag in the Bentley containing £13,370 and €1,910 (£1,660). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lp1k7pnpno
So if he was Fred Smith of 123 Fake St, would plod have arrested him? And is the journalism thing a real defence? What are they looking for on his phone?
There's a more interesting case that may come up soon.
Someone travelling through the UK border was asked to provide the pin to his phone. Which unlocked the phone.
The officers then charged him with the offence of not providing access - because they believed that the account on the phone was a "burner" account.
For the non-technical - you can, for an iPhone (say) setup multiple Apple Accounts. All the data is stored online by Apple. Only one account at a time can be loaded on the phone - changing Apple ID will wipe out
So you can create a second account, load that on your phone, go through customs etc, then load your "real" account the other side. Many journalists and activists do this when they suspect opening their phone may be demanded. Such as at US customs, these days.
There is nothing in the law, that I am aware of, that says you have to do other than provide access to the *device* (the phone).
This will be an interesting test of the law, if it comes to trial.
Travelling with ‘clean’ laptops and mobiles has been a thing for many years now, and made much easier now we have cloud storage for everything.
Will be interesting to see the law as it relates specifically to a border search, rather than a police stop. IIRC the regular police need a warrant to force you to unlock your phone.
The US are famous for saying that the Consitution doesn’t apply at the border, and used that to justify all sorts of bad behaviour starting after the 9/11 terror attacks. The usual suspects of China, Russia, Iran, Saudi etc are all interested in who you’re meeting and why, and if there’s any nice company documents on your laptop that might be worth stealing. .
The police don’t need a warrant to ask you to unlock your phone, but they do need sufficient reason under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
It certainly looks like quite a triumph for Trump.
If he can actually get a Palestinian state established in spite of Netanyahu opposition and keep the warring sides apart somehow he will actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I would never have predicted that.
It also kind of makes you wonder what Obama/Biden were doing... if all that was needed was just to play hardball with Israel... why didn't they think of that?
Probably for fear of alienating the Jewish vote in the US, which was already suspicious of the Democrats. When Trump did it, they didn't really have any choice but to go along with it.
Paradoxically, it sometimes seems easier for right-wing goverments to enact policies that might be viewed as left wing than it would be for left-wing governments to do so (and vice versa, of course). That's because those who would object have nowhere else to go.
Only Nixon could go to China (and only John Adams could turn the event into an opera).
Reform's programme of deciding that Rome was not built in a day continues. Part of their tricky tightrope act of being both populist and a possible government. Tice explains that their 2024 manifesto was tosh. Tax cuts will have to wait until after the cuts, like the ones Reform LAs are so good at finding.
Reform voters are absolutely clear that: 1) Foreigners will be sent home. Quickly. How broad that definition is remains TBC but the pledge is already up to a million and we're 3.5 years out from the election so hopefully millions plural by then 2) Benefits will be cut from scroungers. All foreigners are scroungers but they are going. Next we get rid of benefits from the fakers and cheaters and single mums. Scroungers. 3) Taxes will go down. For me. And money will be spent in my community.
Reform will only be able to blame foreigners for so long when they fail to deliver their promises*
*Read X. I have paraphrased what fukers genuinely seem to expect...
One would expect taxes to go down somewhat if less money is spent both on recent newcomers and home-grown scroungers. That is not a fantastical scenario.
Of course, the level of our indebtedness gets in the way of that. But you would expect some money to be redeployed, as well as spent on debt repayment. Apart from anything else, as the current Government are finding, tax hikes, and even the threat of them, are having a disastrous effect on rates of growth, which has a corresponding effect on tax revenues. So it's logical that lightening the tax burden strategically could have a positive impact.
As we rely on migrant labour for so many sectors where they not only pay tax but are the reason it still exists, sending the foreign invaders home would lower our tax revenues...
As someone (I think it was Carnforth) said very cleverly yesterday, if sending people home is going to lower tax revenues, presumably inviting them all must have dramatically raised them? Um...
Mate, they're proposing to gut the NHS. The care sector. The hospitality sector. Fishing. The food industry. People who are here legally who have jobs and pay taxes.
Not only do they no longer pay taxes, they no longer do the jobs. As Brits aren't sat there waiting to take them thats jobs not done and business output falling.
None of this is difficult to comprehend. Its called "adding"
Are you doing proper double-entry accounting here?
Adding people to do unproductive jobs does increase output, but it lowers it per head overall. Adding also adds to our costs and overheads. It means we need to invest, heavily, in capital for infrastructure to sustain the increased demands whether it be increased costs for health, or education, or transport, or anything else. And don't forget to accrue for pensions etc too.
Too many people account for one side of the ledger but not both. Claiming the taxes but not accounting for the increased demands on costs, or claiming the costs but not accounting for the taxes. You need to do both or you have only half the picture.
There is absolutely no reason why we can't sustainably grow our population and our per capita wealth while also investing in infrastructure. However to fail to invest in infrastructure while growing low skilled roles just devalues and deflates our productivity and diminishes our per capita wealth and living standards.
We need a balanced picture and to aim for high skilled, highly productive roles.
It certainly looks like quite a triumph for Trump.
If he can actually get a Palestinian state established in spite of Netanyahu opposition and keep the warring sides apart somehow he will actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I would never have predicted that.
It also kind of makes you wonder what Obama/Biden were doing... if all that was needed was just to play hardball with Israel... why didn't they think of that?
We're the equivalent of a minute into a football game. Sure. Getting two teams onto the pitch is an achievement in itself. Already Hamas has military and Police openly on the streets of Gaza. Who else would do it? So the question arises. Who's going to try to disarm them? Israel. The first moment Netanyahu sniffs the prospect of a place in the dock. That's who.
If the price of no more deaths in Gaza is immunity for Netanyahu AND the Hamas leaders, I would pay it.
It's the old way, isn't it. Pinochet, BiBi and Putin lining up for a 7.30am tee time somewhere in Surrey.
I wonder whether personal assurances to BiBi that the US would have his back to get him the hell out of there forms a part of this.
It certainly looks like quite a triumph for Trump.
If he can actually get a Palestinian state established in spite of Netanyahu opposition and keep the warring sides apart somehow he will actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I would never have predicted that.
It also kind of makes you wonder what Obama/Biden were doing... if all that was needed was just to play hardball with Israel... why didn't they think of that?
Probably for fear of alienating the Jewish vote in the US, which was already suspicious of the Democrats. When Trump did it, they didn't really have any choice but to go along with it.
Paradoxically, it sometimes seems easier for right-wing goverments to enact policies that might be viewed as left wing than it would be for left-wing governments to do so (and vice versa, of course). That's because those who would object have nowhere else to go.
Only Nixon could go to China (and only John Adams could turn the event into an opera).
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
And it's now "is", rather than "will" Coal generation fell not just as a percentage of the China's total capacity (from 80% a couple of decades back to a bit over 50% now), it will start to fall in absolute terms, sometime in the next 18 months. Additional solar generation is now a lot cheaper than additional generation from new coal plants, so they're now at the point where dirty power isn't particularly cheap any more.
China has contributed massively to in creased global CO2 emissions in that period, of course.
It certainly looks like quite a triumph for Trump.
If he can actually get a Palestinian state established in spite of Netanyahu opposition and keep the warring sides apart somehow he will actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I would never have predicted that.
It also kind of makes you wonder what Obama/Biden were doing... if all that was needed was just to play hardball with Israel... why didn't they think of that?
We're the equivalent of a minute into a football game. Sure. Getting two teams onto the pitch is an achievement in itself. Already Hamas has military and Police openly on the streets of Gaza. Who else would do it? So the question arises. Who's going to try to disarm them? Israel. The first moment Netanyahu sniffs the prospect of a place in the dock. That's who.
If the price of no more deaths in Gaza is immunity for Netanyahu AND the Hamas leaders, I would pay it.
It's the old way, isn't it. Pinochet, BiBi and Putin lining up for a 7.30am tee time somewhere in Surrey.
I wonder whether personal assurances to BiBi that the US would have his back to get him the hell out of there forms a part of this.
Yes, it might not seem 'fair' and 'just' but it might be called 'pragmatic'. Bit like the IRA leadership etc.
It certainly looks like quite a triumph for Trump.
If he can actually get a Palestinian state established in spite of Netanyahu opposition and keep the warring sides apart somehow he will actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I would never have predicted that.
It also kind of makes you wonder what Obama/Biden were doing... if all that was needed was just to play hardball with Israel... why didn't they think of that?
We're the equivalent of a minute into a football game. Sure. Getting two teams onto the pitch is an achievement in itself. Already Hamas has military and Police openly on the streets of Gaza. Who else would do it? So the question arises. Who's going to try to disarm them? Israel. The first moment Netanyahu sniffs the prospect of a place in the dock. That's who.
Who did the Brits turn to for policing duty when we temporarily took administration of Indo-China and Indonesia and the end of WW2?
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
And it's now "is", rather than "will" Coal generation fell not just as a percentage of the China's total capacity (from 80% a couple of decades back to a bit over 50% now), it will start to fall in absolute terms, sometime in the next 18 months. Additional solar generation is now a lot cheaper than additional generation from new coal plants, so they're now at the point where dirty power isn't particularly cheap any more.
China has contributed massively to in creased global CO2 emissions in that period, of course.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Yes, by fuelling their cheap manufacturing of those things and therefore their market leadership in them with dirty energy!
We on the other hand, who used to make solar panels in the 1990s, have priced our manufacturing out of business, and now we import them and marvel at China's 'dominant leadership'.
I refuse to believe that you're not sensible enough to understand all this.
Are Reform proposing to make solar panels here? Wind turbines? To rebuild our lost manufacturing capacity in this area?
Are they fuck.
And as the rest of civilisation keeps going with renewables and Reform lose the 2034 election we find that we can do nothing else other than import.
I don't know, but what they are doing is proposing to end what is effectively a hostile environment for manufacturing. Industries destroyed by successsive Governments (including this one) thoughtlessly increasing their cost base, cannot just 'come back' in a trice - apart from anything else, their mills and other heavy equipment have often been sold to factories in China and India. However we can at least get our foot off their neck.
It certainly looks like quite a triumph for Trump.
If he can actually get a Palestinian state established in spite of Netanyahu opposition and keep the warring sides apart somehow he will actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I would never have predicted that.
It also kind of makes you wonder what Obama/Biden were doing... if all that was needed was just to play hardball with Israel... why didn't they think of that?
We're the equivalent of a minute into a football game. Sure. Getting two teams onto the pitch is an achievement in itself. Already Hamas has military and Police openly on the streets of Gaza. Who else would do it? So the question arises. Who's going to try to disarm them? Israel. The first moment Netanyahu sniffs the prospect of a place in the dock. That's who.
Who did the Brits turn to for policing duty when we temporarily took administration of Indo-China and Indonesia and the end of WW2?
The supposedly "disarmed" Japanese Army!
The counter-example fresh in everyone's mind is Iraq where the Baathist civil infrastructure was removed and the place dissolved into anarchy at best and civil war at worst. Someone has to run normal society in Gaza.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
China is all about producing as much power as possible, it doesn't particularly care whether or not it's green or coal or whatever. It's entirely non ideological, unlike BOTH Miliband & Farage when it comes to power.
They do care. They have a plan to reduce fossil fuel use. They know their agriculture is vulnerable to global warming, in a way that the US and Russia, for example, are not.
In Britain we've been distracted by arguing over whether to do it, rather than working out how best to do it. And we're still having that false argument while China is simply doing it.
How actually f-ing dare you flagrantly lie like this?
If China's Net Zero policy is so great, presumably you want a Chinese Net Zero policy implemented here in the UK?
So completely repudiating Net Zero by 2050, no carbon taxes (China has only just started asking plants to even record their emissions), and opening a string of coal mines for a start.
Or does your admiration for 'simply doing it' stop at the Chinese border for some reason.
Don't call me a liar.
China started at a different point in economic development to us. It's reasonable that they should have a different path to us.
They've set conservative goals and exceeded them. I would not be surprised to see them reach zero before Britain.
I've never been a fan of grandiose targets. I've advocated for meaningful action. I would have been delighted if Britain had invested in industry manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Yes, by fuelling their cheap manufacturing of those things and therefore their market leadership in them with dirty energy!
We on the other hand, who used to make solar panels in the 1990s, have priced our manufacturing out of business, and now we import them and marvel at China's 'dominant leadership'.
I refuse to believe that you're not sensible enough to understand all this.
Are Reform proposing to make solar panels here? Wind turbines? To rebuild our lost manufacturing capacity in this area?
Are they fuck.
And as the rest of civilisation keeps going with renewables and Reform lose the 2034 election we find that we can do nothing else other than import.
I don't know, but what they are doing is proposing to end what is effectively a hostile environment for manufacturing. Industries destroyed by successsive Governments (including this one) thoughtlessly increasing their cost base, cannot just 'come back' in a trice - apart from anything else, their mills and other heavy equipment have often been sold to factories in China and India. However we can at least get our foot off their neck.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
China is all about producing as much power as possible, it doesn't particularly care whether or not it's green or coal or whatever. It's entirely non ideological, unlike BOTH Miliband & Farage when it comes to power.
They do care. They have a plan to reduce fossil fuel use. They know their agriculture is vulnerable to global warming, in a way that the US and Russia, for example, are not.
In Britain we've been distracted by arguing over whether to do it, rather than working out how best to do it. And we're still having that false argument while China is simply doing it.
As I understand it, in China they don't have to worry about people with other opinions on issues.
You may not be a paid lobbyist for Tidal any more, but you could still talk to future power brokers if you wished. The Tidal lagoons, if they're what you crack them up to be, are ideal Kemi ground - sensible but green. A new way of doing things. And even if she doesn't become PM, her better policies stand a very good chance of being implemented as part of a coalition. But as I understand it you don't want to talk to her because her flavour of Torydom offends your refined palette.
"as I understand it you don't want to talk to her because her flavour of Torydom offends your refined palette."
Eh????
I'll talk to anyone. But the Tories could have owned tidal power nearly a decade ago. We could have it making a real contribution to the national grid by, with much more on the way. But look who was behind hydrogen and carbon capture to see why tidal got hobbled.
He described seeing a silver Bentley with a lone driver that he said was "an unusual car to come through". The driver was Mr Lennon. ... "He refused to provide the Pin number, saying there was journalist material in his phone," PC Thorogood said.
Jo Morris, for the prosecution, said that Mr Lennon had used an expletive at officers, who also found a small bag in the Bentley containing £13,370 and €1,910 (£1,660). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lp1k7pnpno
So if he was Fred Smith of 123 Fake St, would plod have arrested him? And is the journalism thing a real defence? What are they looking for on his phone?
There's a more interesting case that may come up soon.
Someone travelling through the UK border was asked to provide the pin to his phone. Which unlocked the phone.
The officers then charged him with the offence of not providing access - because they believed that the account on the phone was a "burner" account.
For the non-technical - you can, for an iPhone (say) setup multiple Apple Accounts. All the data is stored online by Apple. Only one account at a time can be loaded on the phone - changing Apple ID will wipe out
So you can create a second account, load that on your phone, go through customs etc, then load your "real" account the other side. Many journalists and activists do this when they suspect opening their phone may be demanded. Such as at US customs, these days.
There is nothing in the law, that I am aware of, that says you have to do other than provide access to the *device* (the phone).
This will be an interesting test of the law, if it comes to trial.
Travelling with ‘clean’ laptops and mobiles has been a thing for many years now, and made much easier now we have cloud storage for everything.
Will be interesting to see the law as it relates specifically to a border search, rather than a police stop. IIRC the regular police need a warrant to force you to unlock your phone.
The US are famous for saying that the Consitution doesn’t apply at the border, and used that to justify all sorts of bad behaviour starting after the 9/11 terror attacks. The usual suspects of China, Russia, Iran, Saudi etc are all interested in who you’re meeting and why, and if there’s any nice company documents on your laptop that might be worth stealing. .
It'll all be much easier when the government (any government) can access everyone's cloud storage automatically.
He described seeing a silver Bentley with a lone driver that he said was "an unusual car to come through". The driver was Mr Lennon. ... "He refused to provide the Pin number, saying there was journalist material in his phone," PC Thorogood said.
Jo Morris, for the prosecution, said that Mr Lennon had used an expletive at officers, who also found a small bag in the Bentley containing £13,370 and €1,910 (£1,660). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lp1k7pnpno
So if he was Fred Smith of 123 Fake St, would plod have arrested him? And is the journalism thing a real defence? What are they looking for on his phone?
We often talk about cash here on PB, but I think even the most ardent we-don’t-need-cash people would agree that, if you are carrying cash, it is entirely normal to carry £15k on you. We all do it. There’s nothing suspicious about it. And if the person carrying the cash is facing trial on harassment charges, is being investigated for hiding money from the tax authorities/courts, and has a long history of criminal acts… well, why would any of that be relevant? /s
Maybe he was having some work done at home, buying a car, who knows really. In itself it's not evidence of criminality.
Oh, yeah, I’m sure the person with multiple convictions for fraud, who is avoiding paying >£600k he owes in a libel case, who has been sanctioned by the High Court for not answering questions about his finances, and who was awaiting a court date on a harassment charge had some entirely straightforward reason for why he had £15k in cash on him. Maybe he should have explained to the police what that was, and unlocked his phone.
Never give the pin to your phone unless compelled by a court order, and then give freely as you have no option. If you were Mr Robinson, would you hand over the information voluntarily? It will be examined extensively far outside the initial accusation.
Same for anyone else. Have nothing to hide? Remember the fruity whatsapp videos the lads send each other on that group you are part of?
It certainly looks like quite a triumph for Trump.
If he can actually get a Palestinian state established in spite of Netanyahu opposition and keep the warring sides apart somehow he will actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I would never have predicted that.
It also kind of makes you wonder what Obama/Biden were doing... if all that was needed was just to play hardball with Israel... why didn't they think of that?
Probably for fear of alienating the Jewish vote in the US, which was already suspicious of the Democrats. When Trump did it, they didn't really have any choice but to go along with it.
Paradoxically, it sometimes seems easier for right-wing goverments to enact policies that might be viewed as left wing than it would be for left-wing governments to do so (and vice versa, of course). That's because those who would object have nowhere else to go.
Only Nixon could go to China (and only John Adams could turn the event into an opera).
We don't actually know what would have happened if the Democrats had won last year. Recall there was a temporary ceasefire at the time, and Netanyahu was refusing to negotiate, as he expected/hoped for Trump to win. After the election would have been a different matter.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
China is all about producing as much power as possible, it doesn't particularly care whether or not it's green or coal or whatever. It's entirely non ideological, unlike BOTH Miliband & Farage when it comes to power.
They do care. They have a plan to reduce fossil fuel use. They know their agriculture is vulnerable to global warming, in a way that the US and Russia, for example, are not.
In Britain we've been distracted by arguing over whether to do it, rather than working out how best to do it. And we're still having that false argument while China is simply doing it.
How actually f-ing dare you flagrantly lie like this?
If China's Net Zero policy is so great, presumably you want a Chinese Net Zero policy implemented here in the UK?
So completely repudiating Net Zero by 2050, no carbon taxes (China has only just started asking plants to even record their emissions), and opening a string of coal mines for a start.
Or does your admiration for 'simply doing it' stop at the Chinese border for some reason.
Don't call me a liar.
China started at a different point in economic development to us. It's reasonable that they should have a different path to us.
They've set conservative goals and exceeded them. I would not be surprised to see them reach zero before Britain.
I've never been a fan of grandiose targets. I've advocated for meaningful action. I worked have been delighted if Britain had invested in industry manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines.
I'm glad to hear you're now in favour of scrapping Net Zero. More joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth and all that. I look forward to hearing your argument that we should mimic China and 'simply do it' applied the next time there's a debate about opening a coal mine. "Of course we should do it - it's powering our future leadership in green energy."
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
China is all about producing as much power as possible, it doesn't particularly care whether or not it's green or coal or whatever. It's entirely non ideological, unlike BOTH Miliband & Farage when it comes to power.
They do care. They have a plan to reduce fossil fuel use. They know their agriculture is vulnerable to global warming, in a way that the US and Russia, for example, are not.
In Britain we've been distracted by arguing over whether to do it, rather than working out how best to do it. And we're still having that false argument while China is simply doing it.
As I understand it, in China they don't have to worry about people with other opinions on issues.
In a democracy it requires skillful political leadership to convince the population of the need for action, but then the greater freedom in society and the economy should make that action more effective.
Democracies have not been blessed by good leadership in recent years. They have chosen to follow the voters instead of lead them, while right-wing plutocrats have shaped public opinion to benefit their narrow interests.
Down detector has been really useful for me on the couple of ocassions that Sky Glass has totally messed itself up (including one where the TV's bricked themselves, and last week where 'live' TV channels vanished. Its kinda reassuring that you are not alone...
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
China is all about producing as much power as possible, it doesn't particularly care whether or not it's green or coal or whatever. It's entirely non ideological, unlike BOTH Miliband & Farage when it comes to power.
They do care. They have a plan to reduce fossil fuel use. They know their agriculture is vulnerable to global warming, in a way that the US and Russia, for example, are not.
In Britain we've been distracted by arguing over whether to do it, rather than working out how best to do it. And we're still having that false argument while China is simply doing it.
As I understand it, in China they don't have to worry about people with other opinions on issues.
In a democracy it requires skillful political leadership to convince the population of the need for action, but then the greater freedom in society and the economy should make that action more effective.
Democracies have not been blessed by good leadership in recent years. They have chosen to follow the voters instead of lead them, while right-wing plutocrats have shaped public opinion to benefit their narrow interests.
Yes, look at that benighted democracy that has followed its voters most slavishly of all -Switzerland. Foolishly refusing to join the EU, foolishly holding referenda all the time, foolishly chucking out their leaders on a rotating basis. One can only look at their sad state with a mixture of pity and horror.
You may not be a paid lobbyist for Tidal any more, but you could still talk to future power brokers if you wished. The Tidal lagoons, if they're what you crack them up to be, are ideal Kemi ground - sensible but green. A new way of doing things. And even if she doesn't become PM, her better policies stand a very good chance of being implemented as part of a coalition. But as I understand it you don't want to talk to her because her flavour of Torydom offends your refined palette.
"as I understand it you don't want to talk to her because her flavour of Torydom offends your refined palette."
Eh????
I'll talk to anyone. But the Tories could have owned tidal power nearly a decade ago. We could have it making a real contribution to the national grid by, with much more on the way. But look who was behind hydrogen and carbon capture to see why tidal got hobbled.
If it first you don't succeed? Get thee to the next Tory conference. You could have a mini meet up with Tim.
What's most surprising is that no official word has gone out from a Vodafone exec on a non-Vodafone platform like Twatter/X or Facebook. That implies they're in very big trouble.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
China is all about producing as much power as possible, it doesn't particularly care whether or not it's green or coal or whatever. It's entirely non ideological, unlike BOTH Miliband & Farage when it comes to power.
They do care. They have a plan to reduce fossil fuel use. They know their agriculture is vulnerable to global warming, in a way that the US and Russia, for example, are not.
In Britain we've been distracted by arguing over whether to do it, rather than working out how best to do it. And we're still having that false argument while China is simply doing it.
How actually f-ing dare you flagrantly lie like this?
If China's Net Zero policy is so great, presumably you want a Chinese Net Zero policy implemented here in the UK?
So completely repudiating Net Zero by 2050, no carbon taxes (China has only just started asking plants to even record their emissions), and opening a string of coal mines for a start.
Or does your admiration for 'simply doing it' stop at the Chinese border for some reason.
Don't call me a liar.
China started at a different point in economic development to us. It's reasonable that they should have a different path to us.
They've set conservative goals and exceeded them. I would not be surprised to see them reach zero before Britain.
I've never been a fan of grandiose targets. I've advocated for meaningful action. I worked have been delighted if Britain had invested in industry manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines.
I'm glad to hear you're now in favour of scrapping Net Zero. More joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth and all that. I look forward to hearing your argument that we should mimic China and 'simply do it' applied the next time there's a debate about opening a coal mine. "Of course we should do it - it's powering our future leadership in green energy."
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
China is all about producing as much power as possible, it doesn't particularly care whether or not it's green or coal or whatever. It's entirely non ideological, unlike BOTH Miliband & Farage when it comes to power.
They do care. They have a plan to reduce fossil fuel use. They know their agriculture is vulnerable to global warming, in a way that the US and Russia, for example, are not.
In Britain we've been distracted by arguing over whether to do it, rather than working out how best to do it. And we're still having that false argument while China is simply doing it.
As I understand it, in China they don't have to worry about people with other opinions on issues.
In a democracy it requires skillful political leadership to convince the population of the need for action, but then the greater freedom in society and the economy should make that action more effective.
Democracies have not been blessed by good leadership in recent years. They have chosen to follow the voters instead of lead them, while right-wing plutocrats have shaped public opinion to benefit their narrow interests.
Yes, look at that benighted democracy that has followed its voters most slavishly of all -Switzerland. Foolishly refusing to join the EU, foolishly holding referenda all the time, foolishly chucking out their leaders on a rotating basis. One can only look at their sad state with a mixture of pity and horror.
A country where you can't run your washing machine before 8am or after 9pm, which doesn't sound like the sort of place you'd like to live, @Luckyguy1983
Looks like there’s a major outage with both Vodafone mobile phone and home broadband services.
One usually goes down but not both at the same time.
Most government departments use Vodafone, I fear this is a major DNS attack by a foreign actor.
Cyberattack is my bet, it does mean the end of my workday though as our VPN is blocked from hotspot connections.
When I worked in the game, I had two ISPs at home and our datacentres had three. It never fails to amaze me how many who should know better have the resilience of a china plate.
The new Chinese export controls include advanced battery tech, along with rare earths, of course. BAE is one of the UK companies on the restricted list.
Gotion announces it has made breakthrough in full solid state battery & it is in the midst of building a 2 GWh production line.
Currently, this 350Wh/kg 金石 battery is under testing. All the major battery makers are making great breakthrough here. Why China started export control on 300 Wh/kg batteries. It wants to keep its edge here. https://x.com/tphuang/status/1977693738492170653
After three decades of slowly boiling the frog, the World is finally waking up to the fact that the frog is dead.
China doesn’t care about anyone else, only China, and they think decades ahead. The World is now dependent on China, so they’re imposing their own terms on trade.
Developing the Greenland rare earths just got more urgent.
Yep, we all need to be doing deals with friendly nations.
China is not a friendly nation, anything but. The West needs to come up with a response the Chinese will understand, whether it be high tariffs or even banning Chinese cars and other key exports, especially anything with their new battery tech.
The UK might be better off encouraging them to build battery manufacturing here.
One of the most laughable things the Reform clowns do is cite China as the reason to ditch "Net Stupid Zero" - because they have a lot of coal power. Making out China is backwards and using fossil fuels so lets ditch renewables.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
Its not quite that simple. China is also using vast amount of coal power. We should be developing our own independent renewables plus batteries and all that is needed, but we don't also have to tie our hands behind our backs with net zero.
They're vast - of course they are using a lot of the thing they already had. But coal will ramp down and solar will ramp up. When people use Chinese coal as the excuse to tie our hands behind our backs with LNG imports, it makes no sense.
China is all about producing as much power as possible, it doesn't particularly care whether or not it's green or coal or whatever. It's entirely non ideological, unlike BOTH Miliband & Farage when it comes to power.
They do care. They have a plan to reduce fossil fuel use. They know their agriculture is vulnerable to global warming, in a way that the US and Russia, for example, are not.
In Britain we've been distracted by arguing over whether to do it, rather than working out how best to do it. And we're still having that false argument while China is simply doing it.
As I understand it, in China they don't have to worry about people with other opinions on issues.
In a democracy it requires skillful political leadership to convince the population of the need for action, but then the greater freedom in society and the economy should make that action more effective.
Democracies have not been blessed by good leadership in recent years. They have chosen to follow the voters instead of lead them, while right-wing plutocrats have shaped public opinion to benefit their narrow interests.
Yes, look at that benighted democracy that has followed its voters most slavishly of all -Switzerland. Foolishly refusing to join the EU, foolishly holding referenda all the time, foolishly chucking out their leaders on a rotating basis. One can only look at their sad state with a mixture of pity and horror.
You are not discussing this with me in good faith, and I am not going to waste my time explaining how you've willfully misunderstood my opinion with the aim of winning an internet debate.
Comments
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose
In ball park figures, how do you get from that position to 'debt repayment' (ie nil PSBR borrowing + finding money to decrease the trillions of debt) in the early course of a 2028/9 Reform government?
As Reform would find out, as you start a government you inherit current commitments WRT state managed payments for stuff (about 44% of GDP) and a set of public expectations, especially about Reform, that public services can be brilliant, extensive and cheap.
Reform voters are people who need a welfare safety net, NHS, schools and pensions. They don't all use daddy's trust fund, Eton and private health care. Ask his Clacton voters.
Meanwhile, China continues to grow its dominant leadership position in solar and battery...
I’m sure some of them just don’t want to give Trump the credit, but for many of them it does appear that “Peace” and “Palestine” were not top of their list of their actual grievances.
He described seeing a silver Bentley with a lone driver that he said was "an unusual car to come through". The driver was Mr Lennon.
...
"He refused to provide the Pin number, saying there was journalist material in his phone," PC Thorogood said.
Jo Morris, for the prosecution, said that Mr Lennon had used an expletive at officers, who also found a small bag in the Bentley containing £13,370 and €1,910 (£1,660).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lp1k7pnpno
We on the other hand, who used to make solar panels in the 1990s, have priced our manufacturing out of business, and now we import them and marvel at China's 'dominant leadership'.
I refuse to believe that you're not sensible enough to understand all this.
Not only do they no longer pay taxes, they no longer do the jobs. As Brits aren't sat there waiting to take them thats jobs not done and business output falling.
None of this is difficult to comprehend. Its called "adding"
Are they fuck.
And as the rest of civilisation keeps going with renewables and Reform lose the 2034 election we find that we can do nothing else other than import.
The UK never had a real panel manufacturing industry. China became dominant because its government backed the industry through sectoral recessions; they allowed/encouraged cutthroat competition between competitors, but made sure the fittest survived. The US just allowed its industry to go bust (and not infrequently for the assets to be acquired by the Chinese.
"Clean versus dirty energy" has very little to do with it. It's not as though the US was any kind of paragon in that respect bad when it was developing its own panel manufacturing.
https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
So if our relationship with China breaks, not only do we lose access to everything that we buy directly from China, but we also lose access to everything that is made elsewhere but that relies on parts made in China.
Furthermore, this affects everyone in the world, so if it comes down to choosing sides, a lot of countries will find that they are more reliant on China than they are on the UK/US/EU, and so if China tells them to impose sanctions on us, then...
Historically the UK built its strength on trade, and it fought and won three world wars (if you include the Napoleonic Wars as a world war) by protecting its access to trade and denying trade to our adversaries. Is this any longer true in a world dominated by China?
Pretty well all advanced manufacturing is dependent on refined rare earth supplies,
Our aerospace and electronics industries would be SoL without them.
Ditto pharmaceutical feedstocks.
On the gross trade figures, they're only out fifth or sixth largest trading partner:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68c9816fc6df905ce770844f/china-trade-and-investment-factsheet-2025-09-19.pdf
But that of course ignores the movement of goods via other countries which have their own dependencies.
On a broader level, we're a trading nation, with more of our economy dependent on overseas trade than the average, so any disruption of trade with China - ie a trade war - would hurt us disproportionately.
If he can actually get a Palestinian state established in spite of Netanyahu opposition and keep the warring sides apart somehow he will actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. I would never have predicted that.
It also kind of makes you wonder what Obama/Biden were doing... if all that was needed was just to play hardball with Israel... why didn't they think of that?
Someone travelling through the UK border was asked to provide the pin to his phone. Which unlocked the phone.
The officers then charged him with the offence of not providing access - because they believed that the account on the phone was a "burner" account.
For the non-technical - you can, for an iPhone (say) setup multiple Apple Accounts. All the data is stored online by Apple. Only one account at a time can be loaded on the phone - changing Apple ID will wipe out
So you can create a second account, load that on your phone, go through customs etc, then load your "real" account the other side. Many journalists and activists do this when they suspect opening their phone may be demanded. Such as at US customs, these days.
There is nothing in the law, that I am aware of, that says you have to do other than provide access to the *device* (the phone).
This will be an interesting test of the law, if it comes to trial.
The plans were part of a £870m deal that would have seen German troops train their Russian counterparts at eight complexes across Russia, kitted out with some of the most sophisticated military hardware in Europe, including replica guns that fire lasers.
The revelations were made in a book titled “The Failure – an investigative history of Germany’s Russia policies”, and reported by Der Spiegel." (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/10/12/merkel-planned-train-russian-forces/?recomm_id=3d576204-bf35-4ed5-b3a3-0522214c1a0e
It's entirely non ideological, unlike BOTH Miliband & Farage when it comes to power.
(Yes, I did look up the correct spelling)
In Britain we've been distracted by arguing over whether to do it, rather than working out how best to do it. And we're still having that false argument while China is simply doing it.
Will be interesting to see the law as it relates specifically to a border search, rather than a police stop. IIRC the regular police need a warrant to force you to unlock your phone.
The US are famous for saying that the Consitution doesn’t apply at the border, and used that to justify all sorts of bad behaviour starting after the 9/11 terror attacks. The usual suspects of China, Russia, Iran, Saudi etc are all interested in who you’re meeting and why, and if there’s any nice company documents on your laptop that might be worth stealing. .
Times Radio"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jKTJ2pvESY
got to love BAe
But it also matters that the hardball came from Trump. If Democrat Presidents played hardball with Israel, the government there always had the hope of a Republican coming into office and reversing anything that was done. If the Republicans are complaining, if Trump is, that’s different. It’s like being PM. If the opposition are calling for your resignation, that’s a normal Monday. If your Chancellor of Exchequer does, that’s another matter. Likewise, if his ally, his best pal, Donald Trump is saying something, Netanyahu had to listen.
If China's Net Zero policy is so great, presumably you want a Chinese Net Zero policy implemented here in the UK?
So completely repudiating Net Zero by 2050, no carbon taxes (China has only just started asking plants to even record their emissions), and opening a string of coal mines for a start.
Or does your admiration for 'simply doing it' stop at the Chinese border for some reason.
Paradoxically, it sometimes seems easier for right-wing goverments to enact policies that might be viewed as left wing than it would be for left-wing governments to do so (and vice versa, of course). That's because those who would object have nowhere else to go.
Already Hamas has military and Police openly on the streets of Gaza. Who else would do it?
So the question arises. Who's going to try to disarm them?
Israel. The first moment Netanyahu sniffs the prospect of a place in the dock. That's who.
You may not be a paid lobbyist for Tidal any more, but you could still talk to future power brokers if you wished. The Tidal lagoons, if they're what you crack them up to be, are ideal Kemi ground - sensible but green. A new way of doing things. And even if she doesn't become PM, her better policies stand a very good chance of being implemented as part of a coalition. But as I understand it you don't want to talk to her because her flavour of Torydom offends your refined palette.
Adding people to do unproductive jobs does increase output, but it lowers it per head overall. Adding also adds to our costs and overheads. It means we need to invest, heavily, in capital for infrastructure to sustain the increased demands whether it be increased costs for health, or education, or transport, or anything else. And don't forget to accrue for pensions etc too.
Too many people account for one side of the ledger but not both. Claiming the taxes but not accounting for the increased demands on costs, or claiming the costs but not accounting for the taxes. You need to do both or you have only half the picture.
There is absolutely no reason why we can't sustainably grow our population and our per capita wealth while also investing in infrastructure. However to fail to invest in infrastructure while growing low skilled roles just devalues and deflates our productivity and diminishes our per capita wealth and living standards.
We need a balanced picture and to aim for high skilled, highly productive roles.
I wonder whether personal assurances to BiBi that the US would have his back to get him the hell out of there forms a part of this.
Coal generation fell not just as a percentage of the China's total capacity (from 80% a couple of decades back to a bit over 50% now), it will start to fall in absolute terms, sometime in the next 18 months.
Additional solar generation is now a lot cheaper than additional generation from new coal plants, so they're now at the point where dirty power isn't particularly cheap any more.
China has contributed massively to in creased global CO2 emissions in that period, of course.
The supposedly "disarmed" Japanese Army!
https://x.com/jeremyclarkson/status/1977424715666149817
China started at a different point in economic development to us. It's reasonable that they should have a different path to us.
They've set conservative goals and exceeded them. I would not be surprised to see them reach zero before Britain.
I've never been a fan of grandiose targets. I've advocated for meaningful action. I would have been delighted if Britain had invested in industry manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines.
https://downdetector.co.uk/
One usually goes down but not both at the same time.
Most government departments use Vodafone, I fear this is a major DNS attack by a foreign actor.
Eh????
I'll talk to anyone. But the Tories could have owned tidal power nearly a decade ago. We could have it making a real contribution to the national grid by, with much more on the way. But look who was behind hydrogen and carbon capture to see why tidal got hobbled.
Same for anyone else. Have nothing to hide? Remember the fruity whatsapp videos the lads send each other on that group you are part of?
Recall there was a temporary ceasefire at the time, and Netanyahu was refusing to negotiate, as he expected/hoped for Trump to win. After the election would have been a different matter.
Democracies have not been blessed by good leadership in recent years. They have chosen to follow the voters instead of lead them, while right-wing plutocrats have shaped public opinion to benefit their narrow interests.
I suppose it could have been these guys, but probably too big for even them:
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/13/4chan_ofcom_fine/
ETA top interwebs journal The Sun blames Vodafone.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/36989720/vodafone-broadband-down-thousands-internet-access/
People on say EE trying to ring a Vodafone number and cannot get through will think it is an issue with EE.