Guest essay by Eric Worrall
If you read Willis’ excellent essay on energy poverty, you might think countries like Britain would be keen to address this terrible burden on the poor. Think again; the reality is British and European politicians just don’t seem to care.
Tax raid on your lifestyle! Boris Johnson is considering a new carbon tax that could see the price of mince rise 40% to more than £5, four pints of milk by 21% to £1.32 and push up cost of gas heating
- Downing Street asks all departments for plans for a carbon-pricing scheme
- One of the policies mooted is a carbon tax on high-impact food such as beef
- Could add up to £1.80 on a steak, £1.50 on lamb chops and 20p on milk
- Farmers believe there is a ‘heavy bias against meat’ in climate change debate
By MARTIN ROBINSON, CHIEF REPORTER FOR MAILONLINE
Tax raid on your lifestyle! Boris Johnson is considering a new carbon tax that could see the price of mince rise 40% to more than £5, four pints of milk by 21% to £1.32 and push up cost of gas heating
- Downing Street asks all departments for plans for a carbon-pricing scheme
- One of the policies mooted is a carbon tax on high-impact food such as beef
- Could add up to £1.80 on a steak, £1.50 on lamb chops and 20p on milk
- Farmers believe there is a ‘heavy bias against meat’ in climate change debate
By MARTIN ROBINSON, CHIEF REPORTER FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 20:23 AEDT, 4 February 2021 | UPDATED: 02:57 AEDT, 5 February 2021
Families are facing a tax on their lifestyles as Boris Johnson ponders new carbon taxes and charges for Britain that would see higher prices on meat and cheese at the supermarket and on gas for their hobs and boilers at home.
The Prime Minister has ordered Whitehall departments to look at how much greenhouse gas emissions produced by different sectors of the economy cost society.
At present, only airlines and power generators are charged for their emissions, but ministers want to extend the ‘polluter pays’ principle to all sectors. This could lead to a hike in prices for goods such as beef, lamb and cheese, or more heavily polluting forms of heating such as gas.
No costs have been mooted by Whitehall, but recent studies by a team at Oxford University have calculated that surcharges of 40 per cent on beef, 25 per cent on oils, 20 per cent on milk, 15 per cent on lamb and 10 per cent on chicken would reduce emissions and reduce consumption in the way the PM wants.
…
Four pints of milk would go from £1.09 to £1.32, four lamb chops up to £7.50 from £6, six chicken breasts up 50p per pack to £5.50 while a whole chicken would increase in price by 28p to £3.78; Eggs would rise 5p to 94p and sugar would increase by a penny to 66p.
…
The Irish potato famine, the mass starvation of Irish people in the mid 1800s, was caused as much by the cruel indifference of arrogant British politicians as by crop failure.
British politicians could have intervened and saved lives, and to be fair then prime minister Robert Peel attempted to intervene, but the interventionists were defeated by conceited politicians who refused to compromise their warped vision of free market ideals, even in the face of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe. By the time politicians realised what they had done, it was too late.
Could something similar happen again? Fuel poverty is already a serious problem in Britain. According to the government’s own figures, as of 2018 10.7% of households make difficult daily decisions in winter about whether to heat their homes or put food on the table.
In human terms, this means millions of ordinary Britons are living on the edge, risking hypothermia, starvation, and serious long term health complications in their annual struggle to survive Britain’s cold winters. Occasionally some of them starve to death. A third of people admitted to hospital in Britain are malnourished or judged to be at risk of malnutrition.
Boris Johnson’s plan to force up the price of affordable energy rich foods like meat, milk, eggs and cheese, and to drive up the price of home heating, could push a lot of those poor people over the brink, and trigger an even worse hunger crisis.
In my opinion this cruel sacrifice of ordinary people’s welfare on the altar of carbon virtue signalling is an unconscionable betrayal of the millions of Britons who supported Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in the last general election, because they believed Johnson’s assurances that the Conservatives would make their lives better.
Update (EW): BAPEN Publishes Results of Biggest Malnutrition Survey Ever Undertaken (Scotland), last updated October 2020, shows malnutrition in patients admitted in English hospitals running at 30%.
Sounds like a short squeeze pending on edible insect stocks.
Yes the thought occurred to me if the peasants can’t afford a decent meal then let them eat meal worms.
I did like this pearler from Twitter at the very end-
Australian citizen and Aung San Suu Kyi advisor Sean Turnell ‘detained’ (msn.com)
Only we at Twitter have the right to decide who needs to be heard.
This part is dripping with hypocrisy considering what Google-YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have done here in the US in the last 2 months.
Myanmar is a private country. If Google/YouTube/Facebook/Twitter don’t like Myanmar’s rules, they can start their own Myanmar.
/sarc
brilliant!
Boris needs to remember France’s YELLOW VEST protests. Get ready for President Marie Le Pen. If Biden does this in the USA, we will wear yellow vests.
Marine Le Pen will beat Macron in the first round in 2022, the French have had it with all the rest now. The vaccination fiasco across Europe is the final nail in the coffin for the rest. Whether everyone doing their own thing turns out to be good or bad remains to seen.
I just think “Divide and Conquer” is the method both Russia and China employ to rule the world
You think Russia rules the world?
The Democrats do!
If the alternative to a divided Europe is the anti-democratic EU, then a divided Europe with vibrant democratic institutions in each nation state is infinitely preferable.
If they count votes like they did here in USA, Macron can safely remain in his basement and win.
Nobody in the UK on the right of centre will do anything at all.
Yep.
There isn’t a UK ‘right of centre’. The ‘Conservatives’ are a fake party. They’re liberal left and indistinguishable from the Lib Dems and Labour.
The UK is lost.
Hmmm, sounds a LOT like the Republicans and the Democrats, in the USA. Not a dimes worth of difference between them.
They’re all marxists now , like yourself, bossy and interfering but useless in any practical endeavour other than pleasuring yourself.
wow, can it be that griff got something right?
Biden’s doing it. Never doubt that.
Interesting that there is no mention of the warming impact of hothouse or imported vegetables. Nor, is there any thought given to alternative uses of the welsh Hills or similar grazing lands.
I wonder how long until an alternative political party wakes up to the votes that will be freely available?
Welsh hills, Scottish Highlands (check out Tim Kirkwood said that Anders and Anne Holch Povlsen) and Lake District due for re-wilding. I’m expecting wolves to suddenly appear in the Highlands in much the same way Beavers did.
Sheep having replaced people in the 19th century are now disappearing due the same economics that got rid of the people, they are no longer profitable.
Mind you replacing blanket bog with trees will be a good thing in my opinion. Ruminants don’t thrive on blanket bog, they do better on the grass on hillsides which are well drained. But neither lend themselves to arable, Lazy Beds are still visible across much of Scotland indicating that topsoil is thin and poor.
We are going to grow hothouse veg on the Welsh hills?
Veg grows well in Southern England, had some really good seasonal crops of tomatoes, greens, onions, garlic and carrots out of quite small gardens. Not so sure about Wales.
“we are going to grow hothouse veg on the Welsh hills?”. Why not you keep telling us how warm it is?
Green zealots loathe sheep – the infamous George Monbiot refers to them as “woolly maggots” and regularly calls for sheep farming to be banned
@old planning engineer: UKIP became ‘The Brexit Party’ and achieved Brexit for the UK.
The Brexit Party has formally changed its name to Reform UK Party. It is seeking to offer new policies that differ from the two establishment parties. Something that the voting public badly need.
I suspect that Nigel Farage is already thinking along the same lines…
Children just aren’t going to know what meat is
They’ll find a new use for kittens.
Johnson must go.
It’s not credible that the UK’s climate policy is dictated by his unelected girlfriend.
Kind of like Trump and his daughter. That ended well as it will for PolPot (sorry) Boris.
Whilst tucking into his 2lb 32 days dry-aged Aberdeen Angus Cote de Boeuf with his billionaire friends, Bojo the clown mumbled, “Let them eat grass”.
Well, the beef was grass-fed, so like any good renter, BoJo is just trying to cut out the middleman.
BoJo is the middleman
The problem is that like socialism, AGW has become a religion and is thus impervious to any consequences. Just as socialism leads to dictatorship and economic ruin so will the doctrine of AGW. The only hope is that the public will reject these policies but unfortunately in the UK there is no real difference between tory, labour, lib dems or even the greens regarding this ridiculous net zero by 2050 objective. Perhaps banning new ice powered vehicles by 2030 will be the trigger to replace them all!
What has happened to the backbone of the British people ? Have they just simply given up ? Why is there no Yellow Vest movement occurring in the UK. As a Texan of British heritage I am shocked at the people of my ancestors sitting by idly while they are fleeced by rather incompetent wolves.
We’re not allowed out
Brits are not revolutionary Marc, they generally suffer in silence.
It’s in the genes. Saxons are pathologically obedient.
https://m.facebook.com/ItsGoneViralOfficial/videos/827357621431033/
This idea got scrapped. Basically, his girlfriend, Carrie, is an eco warrior, who also works for an animal conservation group.
She is obviously controlling him, he never used to be an eco nazi, but if he and the Tory party continue with this crap they will lose the next election.
All the parties have the same agenda
Not Farages
But we have no alternative, they are all the same. Is it any wonder so many don’t even bother to vote. The last time I voted was out of fear of Corbyn getting in. If the Tories lose the next election we’ll be stuck with labour cos there is no one else. My wife and I have always fancied living in Scotland I’m put off by the nutter in charge. The joys of being a Brit !
It’s true we’ll wind up with the same eco-loon policies regardless of which major party get in, but the Tories would still rather win elections than lose them.
So they have an incentive to provide an alternative, and as “conservatives” are generally the most sceptical of CAGW, and the Tories are the most “conservative” party in the UK (which isn’t saying much, I know) one would expect the backbench to make their displeasure more and more clear to the executive (which is appointed by them, not the electorate).
The problem is that any politician who raises their head above the parapet by declaring GND scepticism is immediately attacked by virtually all the press as a “denier” and not following “the” science.
The Warmunists’ capture of the MSM is almost complete.
If one was brave enough to raise their head above the parapet the msm would indeed slaughter him/her but I wonder what the public would do, would it win votes. We’d find out true public opinion on the GND and all the other green silliness. I read somewhere a good while ago that a land owner gets £40000 per year for each windmill on his land. What would public reaction to this be if they knew. A brave politician now there’s a pipedream.
My figure for the windfarmer may be off I will humbly accept being put right,if any one knows.
In a word, Farage. Our last hope
Yes, and I think he’d make sure we still have some pubs left.
They will also cause rampant inflation – or perhaps that’s the idea so that they can inflate away the government’s current massive debt levels!
She also held a post in the Conservatives HQ so may well have something on Boris beyond that on which the more salacious parts of the media comment.
The media could stop this in a second if they had a mind to. You could imagine the questions “Prime minister, why is it all right for you to eat that steak when millions of vulnerable people can’t afford to even eat properly because of your green taxes?” No, but they’re on board with it.
Birds of a feather flock together
Fools seldom differ
Where’s my passport to Pimlico?
There was a famine in India, mainly Punjab I think, during WW2 which was made worse by British policy.
The Westminster Government has a long and inglorious history of abusing the people it governs. The Highland Clearances were overseen by a complicit government. The Welsh language speaking population were treated as second class citizens.
I’m afraid that Boris Johnson is no libertarian, quite the reverse in fact
“The Westminster Government has a long and inglorious history of abusing the people it governs”
I think that sums up most governments.
Never, never forget that since a government itself never produces a sellable commodity or product, its most basic survival need is to seek out tax revenue to continue its existence.
This need overrides party affiliation, campaign promises, addressing the needs of governed citizens, religion, or science.
As the old adage says: “Follow the money.”
Boris. seems a decent sort of chap getting quite a lot right but on climate and green issues – a total twat.
His whole govt and party are behind renewables and fighting climate change… no UK govt could now go back on greening the UK. Boris represents mainstream opinion outside US Republican party…
I suspect the left will crack first.
I once listened to a talk by George Galloway. He said from memory that the reason he believed in climate change was since corporations had messed up everything else, why not the climate? But he always struck me as a man of principle, even if I completely disagree with him on a lot of issues. I can’t imagine people like that standing by if starvation starts to ramp up.
If you wanted to “green the UK” you could raise CO2 levels and plant some more trees. (“Act locally”)
Adding taxes has no positive benefit to the UK; it’s contribution to WW emissions is miniscule.
griff,
Any evidence, any evidence at all, that the “mainstream opinion outside US Republican party” is “behind renewables and fighting climate change”?
Not that I really expect a fact-based reply from you regarding this most fundamental question.
BTW, I welcome your specific definition of what “climate change” is . . . but likewise I’m confident such will not be provided by you.
It seems more like the opinion of very vocal groups and vested interests
Griff, how do you want the “fight against climate change” to turn out?
“no UK govt could now go back on greening the UK” the UK is greening nicely thanks to all that extra co2, along with most of the rest of the world. “Boris represents mainstream opinion outside US Republican party” I wonder what mainstream opinion would be if people knew about the mwp or the Roman warm period or Egyptian or Minoan or the Holocene optimum. If they knew the Vikings were farming on Greenland if they knew how much further north the treeline in Canada and Siberia was or if they knew penguins were making nests out of pebbles on beaches in the Antarctic,all during the mwp. What if they realised that when they are told it’s the warmest it’s been since most records began that those records began at the end of the LIA. To them it’s not a debate they are told the science is settled. If they knew all these things and more what do you think mainstream opinion would be then. Mainstream opinion is what it is because they’ve not been allowed to even know there is another side to the debate. I’ve mentioned the mwp to dozens of people I’ve yet to meet anyone who knows what I’m talking about and who can blame them they only know what they are told because they are busy with their lives, and they are told from voices of authority that anyone who doesn’t believe is a crazy,a denier,a flat earther. Mainstream opinion currently has the same value as scientific consensus NONE.
Curios as to what you think he is getting right? Besides this there are UK totalitarian COVID laws and speaking from Ireland I can say it has become a disaster attempting to import anything across the Irish sea because of Brexit. What does that leave that he is doing well?
“getting quite a lot right”
You must read different new sources than I do. I can’t see anything BoJo has gotten right since he became PM:
Brexit: only an imbecile would have signed that agreement
EU trade deal: ditto
Covid: he started out ok, but once he came down with a short sharp fever, it turned to the dark side.
Vaccines: rolling out under-tested vaccines is killing and maiming people all over Britain.
Too many words – just total twat was correct. He is much thicker than people would think and his first instinct is always to lie.
Very much like our beloved Trudeau here in canada.
A couple of my favorite quotes describing him:
“A ninny with a cluttered mind”, Andrew Coyne
“Educated beyond his intellectual means”, George Jonas
The price of UK electricity and gas will rise anyway from March, it was announced this week: and that was nothing at all to do with renewables or a carbon tax.
The government and complicit media will portray energy price rises as being down to “greedy” energy companies. So far the energy companies have played ball and kept quiet and collaborated in the deception of the public. They could easily itemise the green surcharges on their bills if they wanted to do so.
You are lying griff as it is the ever increasing subsidies paid to unreliable renewables that is pushing up costs and well as an increase of £1.5bn in grid balancing costs caused by having unreliable intermittent generation on the grid. Used to cost £200k to balance the grid – now it is £2bn and rising. Not that you will find this in the pages of your beloved Guardian or on the BBC.
It’s Saturday
Griff is lying
Moving on
Only on days ending in Y.
Nothing to do with restricted supply?
Can we hang Boris, yet?
Has anybody read the Paris Agreement? It’s meanibgless!
It’s main “message” is “limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.”
Anybody knows what is the world average temperature during the pre-industrial
period?
Not one wotd about CO2! Only one mention about greenhouse gas.But it does mention “equality fo women”!
This link provides the full agreement.
https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement
“Pre-industrial to them is the Little Ice Age.
Politicians are so f…ing dim, Co² is now casually called a pollutant, a cow is a polluter, and you too if you dare to heat your home.
Clown world.
Politicians can’t tell the difference between Carbon and Carbon Dioxide.
Some scientists can’t tell the difference, either. I heard a couple of them referring to carbon dioxide as carbon, just the other day. And they were astronomers who should have known better.
More immaculate timing from wuwt
This came in yesterday – and it saddened me greatly.
Quote-Link:” How sustainable is our meat? Depends on the metrics”
From the UK Weekly Farm Magazine ‘Bible’ which did not help me in my depression not one bit and then, to completely kick me right where it hurts, was written by:
“Professor Michael Lee: deputy vice-chancellor at Harper Adams University.”
Harper Adams being a Farming School meet University
That it now calls itself University is bad enough, they did used to be ‘Colleges’
Is it even possible to have A University that teaches only one subject?
Because it talks about cows and I like cows.
Cows are gorgeous. Bit like horses in fact, as I’m now learning
Simply, the Farming School has sold out to Climate Change Paranoia
Thus: We Are Fooked. Completely.
e.g Quote:
“The sustainability of different meats is complex, with trade-offs. For example, chicken results in less carbon pollution than beef per kilogram of product, but is less nutrient dense”
Just Get “Carbon Pollution”
Then he raves about nutrient density – The current buzzword
In other parts he talks about ‘processing‘, while being clueless what it actually is.
If Covid and its epic and ongoing rampage through the UK populace doesn’t tell these clowns, zombies, muppets anything, nothing will.
Nuffink
People died from Covid because of Low Nutrient Density Food. This is THE ‘Time Of The Full Stomachs‘
And even in commentators here, we observe the obsession with meat meat meat
Meat = flesh of the animal is ‘not good. for us Human Critters
It is very high protein and protein is chock full of things that break down in hideous chemical toxins – Hydrogen Sulphide, Ammonia, Urea not least.
WHY WE EAT MEAT is to use as a carrier for what we are supposed to be eating:
Fat. Saturated Fat
In turn, that is carrier for, not least, the vital disease fighting nutrients Vitamin B and Vitamin D
And on soils that are increasingly eroded & derelict, exactly caused by growing arable crops, we rely on the grazing animals to find us sufficient..
And a good few more in really microscopic amounts
It is EXACTLY like plants and their Liebeig Limiters (LLs)
We too have LLs and when even just ONE of them falls into short supply, we wither, become ill and ‘Pass Away’
Some examples:
Shortage of B12 = Alzheimers
Shortage of Magnesium. Mg is a truly heroic neuro-transmitter – ask ANY livestock farmer about ‘Grass Staggers’ = identical to Mad Cow Disease = identical to any Dementia. And quite quite fatal inside 48 hours
(Now so we see/understand ‘Care Home Deaths’?)
Shortage of Iron and B Vitamin(esp B9 Folate) gets you Autism and Aspergers
Simple iron deficiency is crippling enough, mentally and physically
Iodine controls just about everything ## (You will love that we you get there)
Shortage of fat gets you ‘surplus of sugar’ get you almost everything else
Especially Magical Thinking, see this ** for a near perfect example.
So very sad. Think of her kids.
Alzheimer’s Dementia is apparent in folks with ‘simple’ undiagnosed pre-diabetes
And if Boris hasn’t got that, just look at him, then I’m The King Of England
## UK was/is one of the few places on The Planet not to make Iodised Salt mandatory.
And seemingly didn’t have any great problems with Iodine.
The reason IS gorgeous….
…. because of the Iodine based sanitiser/disinfectant almost all UK dairy farmers use on their cow’s udders before and after milking.
Check out ‘Iodophor’
And Boris wants to stop milk drinking and fat consumption.
facepalm
(Wonders if Mrs Thatcher’s removal of milk from schools ^^ has anything to do with our Epidemic of Good Health
^^ Every primary school kid, regardless of any circumstance, used to have/get one-third of a pint of full-fat milk for the morning break.
Just before they went outside to play. In the fresh air and (occasional UK) sunshine)
** Quote” “I knew she was really bad but I’d never seen anybody like that before, it was shocking, for someone that healthy to be barely able to walk to a car is quite shocking.”
Now then, this really a beautiful example ow why we are wasted….
Promise you won’t say a word. Not a peep. promise. OK?
Click the link and scroll down to the Christening photo
Covid: Mum-of-five Karen Hobbs dies, aged 40
just. don’t. say. it.
Boris wants to make it all worse
AND
there is no push-back
from
The Very People who SHOULD KNOW DIFFERENT and BETTER
There Is Not A Fate, Any Fate, that is Too Horrible for that Clown Boris – and he really is one of those Scary Clowns that did the rounds recently
Scary and Dumb?
And if you did successfully make ‘Dry Jan 2020’, when you next can, visit a busy pub/club or bar. Of an evening time is best.
You will see Zombie Scary Clowns in droves
I could rave on but, when Rona Variant #97 gets here which she will, at least try to be One Million Zillion miles away.
(Hell might be pleasant in comparison. Do wrap up warm tho. Its not how you think it is)
Peta of Newark posted, incredibly: “we rely on the grazing animals to find us sufficient..
Zinc
Copper
Iodine
Iron
Selenium
Calcium
Cobalt (yes, we do need to eat that shit)
Magnesium”
Really?
Zinc: 1/2 cup of baked beans provides 26% of the RDV*
Copper: one medium size potato provides 75% of the RDV
Iodine: 10 g of dried seaweed provides 155% of the RDV
Iron: 1 cup of canned white beans provides 44% of the RDV
Selenium: 1 ounce (6-8 nuts) of Brazil nuts provides 989% of the RDV
Calcium: 8 ounces of plain, low fat yogurt provides 32% of the RDV
Cobalt: there is no recommended RDV for cobalt; as little as 0.1 microgram cobalt as vitamin B-12 per day is needed by adults, and 100 g of green leafy vegetables can provide 20-60 micrograms of cobalt.
Magnesium: 1 ounce of roasted pumpkin seeds provides 37% of the RDV
*RDV = Recommended Daily (intake) Value
Note: all above values, except for cobalt, obtained from https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/list-all/ ); cobalt values obtained from
http://apjcn.nhri.org.tw/server/info/books-phds/books/foodfacts/html/data/data5p.html
No further comment necessary.
Willis, while I agree that pushing up prices of food is cruel and particularly hard on the poor, you’re conflating “malnourished” with “undernourished”.
Very few of the poor in the UK are “undernourished”; ie, they’re getting enough calories. In fact, given that obesity is a major health problem amongst the poor, they’re actually getting too many calories.
The malnourishment is a result of poor food choices: too many ready-meals and highly-processed foods, not enough fruit & vege.
Sorry, that should have been addressed to Eric, not Willis.
Sometimes decent quality food is expensive and hard to find – from what I saw people often eat poor quality food in Britain because it is all they can afford.
And that 10.7% fuel poverty number is telling.
Also the amount of linoleic acid in processed food is arguably as bad as the carbohydrate.
It’s as if they are hell-bent on killing off all the proles. For some, that is probably the plan, the rest because they go along with it like stupid sheeple.
The linoleic acid (industrial seed oil) and refined carbohydrate go hand in hand. Each makes the other more palatable, usually with a generous handful of salt to try and generate some flavour, but contain virtually no nutrients. Each one is bad for elements of human health which combine and reinforce each other’s damage. Switch back to the natural fats we have eaten throughout all of human history, and the craving for carbohydrates diminishes. Animal fats are the natural energy store of our bodies, and are readily converted into energy when required. Seed oils are similar enough to natural fats to get stored, but are difficult to then break down to release the energy, so you hunger for food calories instead. Is it any wonder that people are getting fatter?
Observer,
Have you ever heard the term “food desert”? Do you know what it means?
Yes. And it’s balderdash.
Every housing estate I’ve been to has a corner shop or supermarket within a few minutes walk that sells fruit and vege.
The sad fact is that the malnourished poor know nothing about nutrition. They’d rather have crisps, chips, white bread, and sausages made of 30% meat than more nutritious foods like tinned sardines or mackerel and vegetables. Hang around one of these places and watch what people buy.
You could double their benefits/incomes and they’d still at poorly, because that’s what they like eating – highly processed cr*p.
Yes, some people on low incomes eat nutritious food, and guess what? They’re not malnourished.
You’ve obviously never lived in a true urban *poor* district. One of my sons lives near Boston in a dense neighborhood. A corner store about 2 minutes walk away. Lots of salty canned goods. Lots of chips and ice cream. Small selection of bread. Very little for fresh veggies or fruits and I mean VERY little. Milk and soda pop. No sardines or mackeral. Condiments out the wazoo.
The nearest supermarket is about a 20 minute walk. He doesn’t have any problem pulling a carry cart to haul his groceries with. But a working mom with two kids? A whole different story. They use the local corner store because that’s all they have time to do.
You *really* don’t know what a food desert is!
Carbon taxes drive up the cost of everything. Only the terminally stupid could possibly believe otherwise.
Expect another version of the 18th and 19th century Corn Law Riots, which were in response to wealthy Brit farmers and landowners getting laws passed that blocked the import of grain. People were dependent on grain for a basic food source. This applied to all grains.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Corn-Law-British-history
“Corn” refers to grains of all kinds, not what we call corn. The Brit word for ear corn is/was maize.
So now Boris, in his lack of wisdom, is going to have another population group going hungry because he can’t see past his girlfriend. What a marone.
Yes, fighting the Corn laws was how The Economist magazine was born.
Now it’s just an “advocacy journalism” font like the NYT and CNN
As “free range” is better than factory farmed you might say “wild” is even better. When the UK is covered in trillions of trees we’ll all be less obese from running about hunting boar, deer and the like.
Yeah, but Birnam Wood was cut down to use as camouflage for the attack on Castle Dunsinane. There used to be heavily forested land all over the place in the UK, but it was cut down for shipbuilding and furniture.
A great deal of timber was cut down to be converted to charcoal for cooking etc. before coal became the fuel of choice
Watching from Texas, I had such high hopes for Boris Johnson, but he has turned out to be worse than his predecessors.
The Irish Potato Famine was justified at the time on Malthusian grounds, that there were too many of “those people” anyway.
Well, Boris did have the Wuhan, and the Wuhan supposedly causes brain damage in some people.
It does not. I’ve had the Wuhan, and it definitely does not cause dain bramage.
You had the Wuhan, Bruce? What was it like for you?
Some of us knew he would be an utter disaster but he has a way of fooling people. Even some of the party grandees who backed him did so in the forlorn hope that by becoming PM he would turn into a competent person but alas they are now finding out they were naive and wrong in thinking so.
He lies all the time, has no grasp of detail whatsoever, surrounds himself with clapping seals – actually anyone competent would steer clear of his circle anyway – who insulate him from reality. There are more than few cynics who see the lockdown as a blessing for him as it disguises his and the Tories disastrous Brexit and wonder how much longer they will keep it going. It could be he wants it to go as close to the May local elections as possible in the hope of getting through them without too much damage. Sadly the cack-handed actions of the EU over shellfish are helping his EU-bashing.
Given the EU vaccine fiasco its difficult to see why staying in would be beneficial. The EU are just as climate insane as Boris, but at least in Britain there is some hope of voting out the current crop of clowns.
The prospective tax on animal products is far worse than people realize.
I urge everyone to read Dr. Binkman’s (PhD, cellular molecular biologist) latest book “Why We Get Sick: The Hidden Epidemic at the Root of Most Chronic Disease—and How to Fight It “. The cause of all the “Modern Western Epidemics” is hyperinsulemia. If not the direct cause, it accelerates them.
By putting animal products mostly out of reach of those least able to afford their tax by worshiping the fake science of the vegans and Left, they’re condemning their population to increased sickness due to being forced to eat the cheapest, highest processed foods full of cheap (to make) “vegetable” oils.
The result will be an even “sicker” population with continuing increased obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancers, blindness just to name a few. This means their ineffective NHS will be truly overwhelmed with sky rocketing costs, death panels, etc. And the gov response: increase the carbon taxes to meet the “emergency”. Which ultimately translates into a severely damaged population with very weak immune systems, creating the perfect killing ground for a host of pathogens to sweep through.
Darwin wins, again. Humans will disappear due to their own political agendas.
To these people, the poor are necessary casualties in the great carbon war
Too many people anyway in their view, needs to be a cull but they are rightfully scared of speaking openly
Discouraging natural gas? They’re getting embarrassed by the US at the CO2 reduction game and we aren’t even trying. Maybe withdraw from the Paris Agreement and develop some gas production. Or enjoy your meal worms and energy poverty..
In parts of Alberta the temperature is -40 today. Trudeau is pushing the carbon tax on gas to $170 per ton. Cold heart progressives. I love Alberta beef!
Where the carbon tax on manufacturing electric vehicle batteries as well as the mining process? How about the carbon tax on the internet? Cell phone production? Recycling has a massive carbon footprint. How about taxing every m³ of concrete laid down. Concrete is one of the worst carbon polluters. Carbon tax on manufacturing and installing solar panels and wind turbines might be a good idea as well.
You get what you vote for. The US poor and middle class are about to find this out.
A lot of people believe US didn’t get what they voted for?
http://ets.aeso.ca/ets_web/ip/Market/Reports/CSDReportServlet
-23 in calgary
Alberta grid, 0% solar, wind 6%
Anyone advocating 100% renewable for canadian prairie should be executed
Thank you for being using Fahrenheit
And down the rabbit hole we go. Who knew stupidity was infectious.
What a disappointment Boris Johnson is. With a Conservative majority in Parliament he is acting like a radical lefty activist. From far away in Canada the only difference I can see between him and Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau is that Boris is actually moving harder on damaging the economy “because fake CO2 warming” than Trudeau is. Our Canadian Conservative Party’s stated policy is to totally remove Trudeau’s Carbon Tax.
Boris Johnson and Trudeau are both growing hunger, and hypothermia.
If the UK government ever does start taxing meat I would confidently predict that there will be a huge illicit meat trade conducted from backyard abattoirs. The supply of animals to this parallel meat trade will lead to a huge rise in sheep and cattle rustling. Both activities are already carried out widely within certain “communities” located in the UK’s big cities – a tax incentive will only make their endeavours more profitable at the expense of livestock farmers and animal welfare.
Unfortunately, we have had a lifetime of bad nutritional advice based on Ancel Keys badly designed, and fake studies, cherry picked data, and hiding the decline when results were opposite to what was expected. Nutrient free industrial seed oils replacement of nutrient carrying animal fats for cooking and baking over the last century have filled us with toxic fats our bodies can’t break down, leaving us hungry for calories that we can actually metabolise, and sick from the ones we can’t. The ready availability of those calories in (nutrient free) refined carbohydrates as well as in those artificial oils incorporated into processed foods, along with veggie fascists demanding they are provided for even in the steakhouse have left whole populations hungry for nutrition, but stuffed with calories.
The diet industry still considers any challenge to their orthodoxy – such as Atkins / low carb / high protein / high fat / carnivore / caveman diets as denial by heretics, rather than studying why such diets produce health benefits for so many people.
Animals can turn grass into food without fossil fuels much more readily than grain can be grown, harvested, milled, and refined. Yet the PTB want us to be consumers of industrial agriculture rather than of pastoral farming. Mind you, they have already blighted this green and pleasant land with a plethora of windmills that are paradoxically of no grist to the mill.
Which ones want to be plugged back into the (EU) Matrix?
Do they add in the cost of shipping in these food and fruits from around the world? Adding meat to the diet has improved the brain. And how healthier for a longer life. Taller in stature
Don’t worry. Bill Gates is buying up as much farmland as he possibly can. Since he appointed himself saviour of the modern world a few years ago, Bill will make sure that everyone on earth has plenty to eat. Just because it will come in a squeezable tube is a feature, not a drawback.
Since the Norman invasion in 1066 the English have been divided between those who believe in autocracy and those who believe in autonomy. The English who settled here believed in autonomy, the authority of the governmnet arising from the people. The rest of the world held on to autocracy. Only 80 years ago the majority of the world was ruled by dictators, as is still the case for much of the modern globe. The struggle for freedom against tyranny, autonomy vs autocracy, continues and, I fear, freedom is on the precipice.
Tyranny can happen in two ways – bloody or gradual. Bloody has been the norm and still is in the 3rd world. The rest is moving to tyranny gradually. The bigger government gets the more it becomes tyrannical, trying to control the people for the benefit of the Bureaucratic Hegemony. Look at the US and Europe. The watchword is “safety”. Government has to get bigger and more intrusive in order to insure *safety*.
Those who would give up essential liberty for safety deserve neither liberty or safety,
British and European politicians just don’t seem to care.
They are not poor. Is there a problem with career politicians?
Do we need them?