Essay by Eric Worrall
UK Prime Minister Liz Truss apparently wants us to believe she is Margaret Thatcher reborn. But her history of political switchbacks on important issues leaves a lot of uncertainty.
Boris Johnson’s ‘green legacy’ has major flaws – it’s up to the next prime minister to rescue net zero
ANALYSIS
Boris Johnson likes to portray himself as a champion of climate action, but he leaves his successor with a net zero mountain to climb
September 5, 2022 11:14 am(Updated 3:22 pm)
It is perhaps fitting that in one of his final speeches as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson took the opportunity to trumpet his government’s record on climate action.
He said his government had made “big decisions” to secure a “clean, green future” for the UK.
Mr Johnson has always liked to talk big on climate change. He inherited an ambitious target of delivering net zero emissions by 2050 from his predecessor Theresa May – but he grabbed the challenge and ran with it.
…
Both candidates have promised to uphold the 2050 net zero goal, but have said little about the radical action needed to get there.
Instead the favourite for the job, Liz Truss, has hit the campaign trail touting policies experts say will increase emissions, not cut them. She has vowed to halt the spread of solar farms around the country, lift the moratorium on fracking, and boost exploration efforts for more oil and gas in the North Sea.
…
Read more: https://inews.co.uk/news/boris-johnson-green-legacy-major-flaws-next-prime-minister-rescue-net-zero-1827289
A point in Truss’ favour, Nigel Farage was impressed by Liz Truss’ victory speech, enough to suggest people give her a chance. Farage is a friend and supporter of President Trump, he was a surprise guest at one of President Trump’s campaign speeches during Trump’s first run for presidency. Farage’s focus in his response to the Truss win was uncontrolled illegal immigration, but Farage once appointed Lord Monckton as climate spokesman for UKIP, which will give you an idea of his views on climate policy.
My biggest concern with Truss is she seems to be a political chameleon. Truss went from staunch anti-Brexit campaigner to now saying she supports Brexit. She claims to support Net Zero, but also claims to want to restrict new renewable installations and encourage more fossil fuel production. Some people have described her speech delivery as awkward, but she impressed Trump’s friend Nigel Farage with her victory speech.
Given Truss’ history of apparent political flexibility, frankly I have no idea what she will do, now she is Prime Minister. We can only hope Truss makes an effort to keep her promise to ease restrictions on domestic fossil fuel production, and at least defers her promise of continued support for Britain’s ruinously expensive Net Zero policies.
Correction (EW): Staunch anti-brexit campaigner to pro-brexit.
The French call her “The Iron Weathercock”
“Farage once appointed Lord Monckton as climate spokesman for UKIP”
Alas, it did not last
“UKIP chief Nigel Farage has sacked Scottish party leader Lord Christopher Monckton in an attempt to end infighting north of the Border.”
UKIP at the time I had contact was a very diverse group all trying to live under the same roof. They were united by their desire for political self determination, but that is where it ended.
The media always portray them as right wing, but that simply isn’t true – they were far more diverse than that. I once attended a meeting in Birmingham where the economic ideas being raised would have made Trotsky blush. But they were completely friendly when I mentioned I didn’t agree with some of their ideas, “we’ll sort it out after we leave the EU”, because as they said, none of this mattered if Britain didn’t have political self determination.
So I’m not surprised at the infighting, and the occasional unfortunate falling out.
People, especially the media, continually repeat the mental error of believing that everything in life comes down to ideology and left vs. right. But most real people are mostly concerned with normal every day concerns … putting bread on the table, a roof over your head, being able to heat or cool your home and workplace, being free of violence from crime or war, family, friends, education, fun, and personal fulfillment … really, how many people go to bed at night worrying over whether the left is “winning” or the right is “winning”? Damned few.
Additionally, leftists continually define everyone who disagrees with them on anything as right wingnut fascists … and similarly rightists define everyone who disagrees with them on anything as communists and antifa wingnuts. But the 85% of us who are neither right wing nor left wing just want solutions to the everyday concerns listed above.
I agree, but that does not fit with captive media agenda (NBC), advocacy agendas ahead of you, or other special interests with money on the table (unions, select industry, greens).
Since you like to call people wingnuts, which side of the 85% do see yourself as?
The 85% that are not wingnuts … or radicals of any stripe. Most real people aren’t nuts. Wingnut are nuts … and represent the two tails of the normal distribution of human beings, the “blow it all up crowd”.
Duane’s observations were borne out by the results of that survey of ~ 7 million people the UN conducted a few years ago.
Out of 16 key aspirations nominated for quality of life, climate change rated last.
Has it not occurred to you Duane that the concerns of the common man are actually what is at stake in the contest of ideas between the left and the right.
I, personally am committed to conservative ideology in the strong belief that conservative policies and actions provide the pathway for human kind to the benefits and concerns which you.
Politics in Scotland with relation to England and the UK have a complicated history ever since the “Parcel of Rogues”. In recent times The main Centre Right party between 1912 and 1965 was The Unionist Party formed in 1886. Which was allied with the English Conservative Party. Several UK Prime Ministers were members of the Scottish Unionist Party, most recently Sir Alec Douglas-Home. The Conservative party is officially Conservative and Unionist Party, I’m not sure where the Ulster Unionists fit in and which branch.
So UKIP in Scotland is probably going to have problems in recruiting members anyway, Scotland voting remain by a large majority, there ready being a Unionist Party with a long history UKIP and Brexit parties got less than 1% of the vote in Scotland between them in 2019. UKIP has probably picked up a few extreme members from the blue side of the Auld Firm. (The Forces of Darkness and The Forces of Evil) and various other people of disparate views. Holding them together would be an interesting job
The views in the links aren’t necessarily what I think but interesting none the less
The Northern Ireland ‘Ulster Unionists’ were for a long time ( 1921 to 1972) closely aligned with and sit in government with the Conservatives ( like the Scottish Unionists as you mentioned)
No longer the case and any way they have been supplanted by the ‘Paisley Unionists’, the Democratic Unionists ( who are ultra conservative on social issues)
The Monckton incident was in 2013, in case anyone is interested
Yes. Eric said that Farage’s good words for Liz were to be valued because of his appointment of Lord M as UKIP spokesman (before 2013). I just point out that this unfortunate interlude interrupts that logic.
Nick, Farage has long been a busted flush. I’m scratching my head wondering how this fact has passed you by.
He blotted his copybook quite some time ago and only his loose association with Trump keeps him afloat. That and his green jobs. You see, a politician is a politician no matter what banner or rosette they have.
Farage is supposedly anti-net zero – among a good many other things.
“Dutch Green Business Group, which is listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange, said it had appointed Farage to its new advisory board. The eurosceptic and former Ukip leader will “facilitate introductions to politicians and business leaders in the UK and around the world” while also acting as a spokesman for the company, it said in a press release.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/28/nigel-farage-appointed-to-advisory-board-of-green-finance-firm
His stance on militant islam is.. somewhat jaundiced.
I’d recommend you get a little more up to date.
“Nick, Farage has long been a busted flush. I’m scratching my head wondering how this fact has passed you by.”
I was responding to Eric. You should have a word with him:
“A point in Truss’ favour, Nigel Farage was impressed by Liz Truss’ victory speech, enough to suggest people give her a chance. Farage is a friend and supporter of President Trump, he was a surprise guest at one of President Trump’s campaign speeches during Trump’s first run for presidency.“
Unfortunately Farage is defined more by what he’s against than what he stands for – we’ll have to see what happens.
Nick Stokes once decide not to post irrelevant junk that no-one cared about … alas it did not last.
Now all we need is Griff the stupid to give us what he thinks but I think his power bill has kept him to reduced postings. All they need is a lot more bird choppers and he will be able to afford to post.
Nick is probably going to face power rationing soon and he will go the same way 🙂
I’m getting a very odd display in the comment box… not sure any of this is actually getting through…
Or has Watts censored me?
If it says moron, that’s you.
No,its something to do with wordpress.
Yes
LOL,
No, it is a problem effecting many here and if you were snipped any moderator would tell you.
That is not the comment box … it is the mirror.
(The comment box is on your computer screen.)
No, I think it’s Meta and Google tech commando teams assaulting WUWT for political brownie points before the next Congressional hearings on abusive business tactics.
I dunno why I am helping you here.
Clear your browser cache.
Same here, Leo, but I helped him because it’s the right thing to do and it may help others.
Griffy, you have quids on yourself, mate, Watts wouldn’t even register you on the horizon.
If it is the very large ‘B’, ‘I’,U’, and other weird characters, i am getting the same thing, and noticed it a few days ago. It LOOKS like something about setting the text IN the comment box. I see this at the beginning of EVERY comments section, as well as IF i were to try to comments.
I DID clear the browswer cache, but it is still doing it . . MODS, any idea? .
Try a different browser. Firefox does that to me, too, but not Safari. No idea why that is.
Cometh the hour, cometh the idiot!
Is a nine year old story from a now almost entirely defunct political party supposed to be meaningful or just your usual attempt to discredit anything that doesn’t conform to your climate change fanaticism?
I was responding to Eric’s invocation of Farage, UKIP and Lord Monckton.
I have greatly simplified the issue. Liz is 47 years old. My generation lived according to an ironclad set of principles, one of which was: “Never Truss anyone over 30.”
The problem here is that she’s Putin’s pawn and I don’t think she knows it.
Yes, what she’s touting is likely going to help the economy a little but the problem is that there’s no market for boxes of yob. I am completely unconcerned about a single politician, even PM,’s final effect on UK or even global stage; it takes so many of them to do anything that grudging progress leaving a trail of inconsequentiality seems to be the only four-year-plan.
Hopefully she has good hiring skills.
“Putin’s pawn”? Where do you get that? She is a staunch supporter of the Ukrainians in their war with Russia. The UK is not dependent on Russian oil and gas like so many members of the EU are.
Truss certainly is a political unknown compared to Boris Johnson, but that is mostly a result of him having once been London’s Mayor and also an extremely flamboyant personality.
Are you aware that anyone from anywhere in the world can join the Conservative party and thus can vote in the final part of the leadership contest, thus our prime minister can be voted in by non U.K. citizens?
There are restrictions on who can vote in General Elections.
I doubt that I could join the Republican Party and thus vote in the elections of their presidential candidate.
One does not have to be a member of the Republican party to vote for a Republican candidate. Even a Democrat can vote for a Republican. Just watch the next election.
I think JohnC is a UK citizen so is not eligible to legally vote in the U.S.
“an extremely flamboyant personality. ”
Surely you mean Eton trained loud mouthed lying cretin???
The important thing to note here is that there is now serious and growing debate about net zero policies in the UK due to the energy crisis and its profound financial effects. Many commentators across swathes of the media (no, don’t be silly, not the BBC or Sky as yet) are asking questions about whether net zero is a good idea at all at this time. Such public discussion – and its impact upon fracking for instance) would have been unthinkable even 6 months ago. La Truss therefore has a golden opportunity to attack the greens.
Sadly, even (most of) the journalists at the likes of GBNews and the Telegraph still cannot bring themselves to even begin to challenge the “settled science”. This really is a sacred cow and they – and nearly all of our politicians – are far too scared to slay it. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that even if the “science” as they understand it turns out to be even slightly flaky, the whole need for the £tns to be spent on net zero evaporates instantly and we can go back to running the economy sensibly and our lives as we wish. We sceptics in Britain, therefore, still have a very long way to go, even with Truss at the helm.
GBNews, after a successful inaugural year, has been refinanced and had personnel replaced or rejigged to the point that subtle changes are appearing that might indicate a change in editorial control and direction.
Questions were idly asked as to who would invest £60M and for what reason, and I would suggest, from the relative safety that endures under my rarely used tin hat, that those interested in the machinations of the deep state keep a watchful eye as the Truss era unfolds.
There isn’t, outside a self referential group of right wing climate skeptics
I am a long time INDEPENDENT yet knows the AGW is a failed conjecture which means it is the Sun/Ocean dynamo that dominates the weather and climate.
People here are very centrist
By then, even Che, Mao and Marx would be “right-wing” compared to you.
She’s a WEF stooge. So was Rishi.
Badenoch would have trashed them both in an open party election, but she had the temerity to criticise anointed facts while being black, so she couldn’t be allowed to run.
More that the MPs knew she wouldn’t be as easily controlled. She could have been whiter than Prince Charles, Camilla and the queen’s butler all put together and the MPs wouldn’t have let her get within striking range of the final two.
She has a future, though. I wouldn’t write her off yet.
Badenoch is a completely unknown quantity and needs to prove herself before stepping up to a top job
What does proving herself entail? I’m not as familiar with UK politics.
From the outside, it seems like a system filled with cronyism, lying to the public, avoiding anything with nuance. In other words, just like the US, only with slightly different rules.
In the US, you prove yourself by voting with your party 99% of the time and cheering while your party leaders do their best impressions of failed dictators from past regimes.
All the talk is of funny money
Windfall taxes, price freezes(sic) and even a modified version of furlough
Nothing about securing our own resources at all
We’re well and truly fnucked
All the indications are that Truss will enable fracking to begin almost immediately. If she freezes energy cost’s, and she pretty well must as businesses will fail en mass without it, then there must be cheap energy coming from somewhere down the line. The country can’t afford another open furlough style cheque book.
One fracking company has said it could begin delivering gas by January if given an immediate go ahead. The terms of how its priced is the important part.
‘Cheap Energy’ is the key point – as long as fracking the gas is economical then it’ll be a worthwhile investment. We do need a 2 – pronged approach though; we need to expand the north sea drilling as well – chances are that’ll stay economical even if the gas price drops considerably.
:,,,as long as fracking the gas is economical”
Since we are the worlds best at it, and we won’t be able to replace 2022 PDP reserves in the juiciest shale plays, even at high prices, KYSO. I really do hope for your sustainable success, but I have already predicted:
But to bone throw, no earthquake swarms. Your activity level will be too low to lube and pressure up aqueous haz waste disposal strata.
I think of her as the Vicar of Bray but I understand that some of the European press is has labelled her The Iron Weathervane probably a more modern sobriquet
I wonder if that’s better or worse than the ‘shopping trolley’ of BoJo?
Why do you delude yourself that the PM, Biden, Scholz, Macron, et. al. decide anything? They are marionettes. Gates, Schulz, Musk, Rothschields, Rockefellers, etc they pull the strings
Look out, there’s a black helicopter hovering over your head.
Do you really imagine Gates, Schulz, Musk, Rothschields, Rockefellers etc. could survive for more than five minutes in a room together without stabbing one another in the back?
These people respect no one, least of all each other. They all have their ambitions for the future of the world and every one of them are different. They wouldn’t share power between each other if their lives depended on it.
I think the damage each of them do, especially Gates, is unimaginable, but not because they are working together.
No one can agree on everything 😉
I believe they do meet and negotiate how to bring about the “reset”. The knives will come out within the elitist group later, if they manage to bring about the general plan.
Not control, rather influence, indeed. Specific multi-million/billion dollar investments. Lots of capability for policy influence.
And that is a force acting on the sociopolitical steering wheel. Like it or not.
Example; Mark Zuckerberg’s use of censorship at Facebook and his $400millionUSD financing of local Democratic Party election offices over 2,500 counties in 49 States in 2020.
Musk and Gates are already at one another’s throats.
Tin foil hat alert!
Says the proven moron.
Can we borrow one from your sizable stash of tin-foil hats?
You know, those hats that have block the ingress of any real knowledge since you were 5 years old !
Is there room in your basement for any more ?
You should all read about Trilateral Commission. Famous words from 1970’s. “Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.” — Henry Kissinger. He who was founding member of Trilateral Commission, and teacher for Klaus Schwab and founding member of WEF. He is true technocrat to the heart.
Trilateral Commission members have initiated such UN programs as Agenda 21, Sustainable Development ja Smart Grid. Climate Change for them is just a tool to make a global scale societal change. Basically Globe Inc. They do not care about political parties. Jim Carter, George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton have been members.
Rockefellers fell in love with technocrats and gave lots of funding to initiate different UN programs. Rockefellers have also kept different positions in UN. But, it is not only about them. Real players are those 0.001% of richest families. Those that have invested to Vanguard and Blackrock, for example. Try to find out who owns/funds Vanguard. You cannot. These are those to whom Gates family have worked for 100 years. Those that Elon Musk’s grandfather have worked for.
Only the politicians, that is elected officials, can ditch alarmist policies. UK not looking so good, with Truss naming KK as Chancellor. As Energy Minister he endorsed net zero as the “solution” to the energy crisis just 5 months ago.
https://www.energylivenews.com/2022/04/07/kwasi-kwarteng-net-zero-is-the-solution-to-the-global-gas-crisis/
We have a long way to go.
I see as a Yes Man, when the PM says jump his only question is “How high Boss?”
Kwarteng is absolutely hopeless a real fence-sitter
“Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng delivered a speech to the Harvard Kennedy School, outlining the most appropriate ways to delivery energy security throughout the UK. “The way to decarbonise isn’t through a planned economy – but through the British way – science, innovation powered on by free enterprise,” he said.”
Another bureaucrat BS artist with no science or engineering knowledge, and no common sense. Doubling down on stupid policies. A good leader would not tolerate such a bureaucrat. Trump tolerated Grouchy Fauci, Debby Birx and Bill Barr — look what they did to him in 2020. Biden’s selections are even worse — The Gang of Incompetents.
But none have stabbed Biden in the back, yet!
Kamala Harris is insurance
And leftists are loyal.
They are running the show
Biden signs what they tell him to sign
Biden reads their speeches as well as possible
Biden is his staff’s trained parrot.
If Kwarteng gets the job as chancellor we might as well install Schwab as PM right now. Why keep up the pretence?
He is an extremely bright man and if he is in the Treasury then he can’t promote the policies he endorsed as Energy minister as he would have to be the one finding the money for absurd green projects.
Kwarting’s voting record on environmental issues is described as :
“Generally voted against measures to prevent climate change”
“Voted a mixture of for and against greater regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract shale gas”
“Voted a mixture of for and against lower taxes on fuel for motor vehicles“
“Generally voted against financial incentives for low carbon emission electricity generation methods”
Liz Truss is just another Conservative PM.
She has no principles. She has morals. She is only interested in looking after herself;
her ego, wealth and any chance to bully those around her. Same as all the
others.
Liz Truss is the fourth Tory PM of this government. None have been able to govern for long because they have no vision for the country and inspire no loyalty from their fellow
scroungers.
What does this mean for Green policies? It means no change.
There are far more ways to embezzle the public wealth if the economy is relegated to second place behind a “more important issue” – like the environment.
The Conservative Party is fundamentally corrupt. It’s no coincidence that most recent Tory PMs have been adulterers. Even their own spouses can’t trust them.
This current crook in No 10 will carry on fleecing the country so long as fools keep voting Tory.
British politics needs open primaries to improve the quality of political candidates, seems to work in the USA. Unfortunately the incumbents like things just the way they are, with head office calling the shots.
Three of them, May, Johnson and now Truss have been elevated to PM by 150,000 or so people. In the past Major, worse than that was Douglas-Home. We have the cheek to laugh at Banana Republics
The PM is not the Head of State. Are you suggesting that they should be selected by the whole country, that is by a General election.
British democracy works, and has worked longer than any other democracy.
Don’t criticise what you do not understand.
The point is not only could we get rid of May and Johnson, we actually did get rid of them.
Tell me how to get rid of – say – Joe Biden, mid term.
Yes but I could have sworn Johnson then won a General Election with a record majority…………..
Change the status quo?
Good luck with that, that won’t happen before Satan starts skating to work
How do you explain Biden and Harris, if the system State side is so good?
Harris is easy to explain – Biden chose the least likeable candidate for VP, as an insurance policy. Biden, I guess no system is perfect.
You really think Biden makes any decisions Eric?
2020 election fraud
Seems to work in the USA? where is the evidence for that?
It’s all kept under lock and key at Mar-A-Lago. That’s why Biden employed the FBI to raid his political opponents home, to figure out what he’s doing wrong.
((cough))… Liverpool…
Remember it’s Tory run councils that are going bankrupt.
But the corruption I was referring to was at the national level. Don’t forget the deals done for mates down the pub that was found to be unlawful. £10Billion may not sound like much but if you write it out:
£10,000,000,000.
https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o296
Of course, back in the pandemic that was more money, before the current run on the pound.
“Remember it’s Tory run councils that are going bankrupt.”
See Croydon /sarc
You want to talk corruption? How about Gordon Brown’s Climate Change Act. Nothing has been the same since with crony capitalists fleecing the public for everything they have.
I daresay you’ll have a positive view of one, A. Blair.
‘Gordon Brown’s’ Climate Change Act came from the office of Ed Milliband – apparently written by an environmental activist doing ‘voluntary’ (paid by FoE, GP or WWF) work for him.
What makes you think any of them stand for anything?
Eric could have just written –
she seems to be a
political chameleonpolitician.You would rather a Labour PM? Starmer? Or perhaps you would prefer the raging socialist, multi millionaire Corbyn?
There have been six Conservative PM’s since Thatcher in 1979. Was she an adulterer? Was David Cameron an adulterer? Was Theresa May an adulterer? Is Liz Truss and adulterer?
There have been two ‘adulterers’ as PM. One, John Major when in office, the other, Boris Johnson before he was in office.
The only thing the left do well is lie.
John Major, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were the three I meant.
I doubt May or Thatcher were. Thatcher came from a different era.
Cameron seems to have had no rumours relating to his private life. But then, it took two decades for Major’s affair to come out.
Three out of the last five. These are the people that Tories look to for leadership. Even their own spouses can’t trust them. How likely are they to be loyal to the country?
Liz Truss is de facto the UK’s fourth female prime minister. Now that Carrie is out of No. 10 you can be very confident that Liz Truss will be an improvement on the third one.
I will govern as a conservative. – Liz Truss
Time will tell.
The first thing Liz needs to do is secure Britain’s energy supply. As soon as possible. Everything depends on a secure energy supply.
CO2 is a benign gas, Liz. Don’t destroy Britain trying to control it. If you feel you must eliminate CO2, then the only logical solution is to go nuclear. Solar and windmills are a deadend and will be the ruination of Britain.
Read WUWT, Liz.
“The first thing Liz needs to do is secure Britain’s energy supply. “
Any fool could have done that years ago. Human impact is the metric now with a preferability of ‘net zero’ impact
When they turn off the UK gas mid-Winter we may see where “net zero” really takes a country. The only way to eliminate human impact is to eliminate the cause of the impact…
But the whole country is not of one mind.
There is a dumbed down generational divide that has been engineered via schools, universities and other public institutions. And it is quite simply the self-loathing middle and upper classes against the rest.
How to break those mainly working class groups up? Identity politics.
Liz Truss is/was a Remainer. I haven’t great hopes that her focus will be on UK energy security. I expect that she is another globalist, but time will tell.
We will know soon enough whether Truss has any meaningful policies to resolve the energy crisis.
If she lifts the fracking ban, blocks solar farms being built on agricultural land and declares the end of Green levies, we will feel some encouragement?
The declared Truss support for nuclear power having a major place in future grid energy supply, will hopefully be followed up with a realistic policy on what to do with wind turbines.
Those of us who had a vote in the new PM’s appointment have seen Tory promises abandoned on too many occasions to be overly optimistic about PM promises and declared intentions.
Time will tell, and there isn’t much of that left if we intend to continue living in a civilised society.
The British people are screwed. Where’s Don Quixote when you need him? We could be energy independent, the wherewithal is beneath our feet! The political will to bring that about has been slowly stifled over the last twenty years or so by the globalists.
Don was last seen near the windmills of Hornsea 2
Not to worry. The next buzz bombs over London with swift and silent.
Russia is purchasing millions of rockets and artillery shells from North Korea, US official says – CNNPolitics
Here are the current projections before she got the job:
3500 pounds = $4054 US Dollars
6600 pounds = $7640 US Dollars
5900 pounds = $6834 US Dollars
” By October, the annualised energy price cap for a typical household paying their bills by direct debit will have trebled to more than £3,500 in 18 months.
Fast forward to next April and it’s expected to rise again, to £6,600, before remaining at about £5,900 for the rest of 2023. Next spring a typical family could be paying 500% more than they were before the pandemic, and the UK’s overall annual household energy bill will have risen from around £30bn to more than £180bn in just two years. With the costs of energy permeating the wider economy, headline inflation is expected to exceed levels not seen for more than 40 years.”
SOURCE OF QUOTE:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/05/a-crisis-is-coming-for-uk-energy-prices-and-this-is-what-has-to-be-done
“UK consumer energy price tariff cap. These predict a consumer energy tariff price cap of £4,266 ($5,158) in January 2023, using UK energy regulator Ofgem’s new calculation methodology. This means that, from a price cap of £1,271 ($1,537) in January 2022, energy prices would reach 330% of their original price over 12 months.”
SOURCE OF QUOTE:
https://www.power-technology.com/news/uk-energy-tariff-price-cap-rise-cornwall-insight/#:~:text=Cornwall%20Insight%20currently%20expects%20tariff,around%20%C2%A33%2C800%20(%244%2C595).
Yet they still can’t make up their minds if fracking is a good idea…
They have the natural resources but want them left in the ground
I can’t see that changing.
I can see a change in the desire for nuclear energy with it’s long lead time and high costs for facilities
According to other comment, Liz Truss is either”
The Iron Weathercock” or
“Putin’s Pawn” or
“A staunch supporter of the Ukrainians in their war with Russia” or
” the Vicar of Bray” or
“just another Conservative (like a US liberal) PM. She has no principles.” or
“She’s a WEF stooge”
Color me confused.
Truss is but one of six hundred and fifty
Parliament :- A moderately far left dictatorship of the DisUnited Kingdom, where subjects get to help rearrange the deck chairs – unless they’re under house arrest.
You shouldn’t be confused.
Vicar of Bray changed his stance depending on who was in power to remain as the Vicar and the weathercock follows the way the wind is blowing, so basically the same thing. No principles also saying the same thing.
Ukraine supporter, Putin’s Pawn and WEF stooge remain to be seen.
The Iron Weathercock is a play on her habit of copying Thatcher’s iconic photos, for example riding with her head out of a tank turret
That did not work for US politician Dukakis in nearby Sterling Heights Michigan:
“Matt Bennett can still hear the reporters laughing, all 90 of them. He can still picture Sam Donaldson doubled over, guffawing, on a riser that looked out over a dusty field in suburban Detroit. Bennett was a 23-year-old political rookie in 1988 when he was sent to a General Dynamics facility in Sterling Heights, Mich., to organize a campaign stop for Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis: a ride in a 68-ton M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank. The visit, meant to bolster the candidate’s credibility as a future commander-in-chief, would go down as one of the worst campaign backfires in history.”
Dukakis and the Tank – POLITICO Magazine
You forgot ‘In Liz, we Truss’
and
‘Welcome to the Trussiac Age’.
One thing is for sure, the Left hate her.
The establishment fears her.
Nigel Farage likes her
Lord Frost rates her.
That’s enough for me to give her the benefit of the doubt.
One thing we have discovered, is that the Tory party will do what it has to do to stay in power. At the first sign of a by-election loss, leaders are sacked and policies are changed.
Liz knows she actually has to solve the energy crisis if she wants to stay as leader and the Tories stay in power.
She also knows that the Tory party is heavily funded by renewable energy companies.
A nice dilemma.
Nigel also said last week the tories were on track for a 1997 style deluge defeat and ‘they deserved it’
Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?
Translation: She’s perfect for the job.
Good luck Liz as the climate changer brigade having caused the problems have all the usual helpful advice-
Should there be a ‘free basic energy’ plan for households? (msn.com)
Weather vane or not the political ruling class are creating more problems than solving with the people taking the blunt of their actions.
Climate policy will be unchanged, implementation will remain incoherent, financing need and risk will continue to rise.
I’m no fan of Truss, I thought she was the lesser of two evils, but then I thought that of Trump and he changed my mind in about six months when I watched him begin to tick off his manifesto pledges. Not many country leaders manage that feat.
Truss has a few things going for her. She’s worked in business, so a life before politics. She’s an accountant so unlike Boris and so many of her predecessors very well able to see behind the BS sold to her by her cabinet.
She was a Brexit remainer but seemed to accept the result and did a good job negotiating around 80 trade deals within a year around the world.
In her youth at Oxford she was a Liberal Democrat but for whatever reason she switched to the Conservative party. Maybe an ideological change, maybe a better career opportunity, who knows?
The point here is, I think, to watch her cabinet rather than Liz herself. Suella Braverman, an open and vocal sceptic of NetZero is a shoo in for a job. I would be surprised if Kemi Badenoch, another vocal opponent of NetZero, didn’t get a job.
The one we really need to watch for is Steve Baker, a hardline Conservative who describes himself as a Classic Liberal. For our US friends the Liberal party of many years ago was to the right of the Conservative party, roughly speaking. If Baker get’s a job you know for absolute certain Truss is adopting a more market focussed approach to repairing Britain’s economy and NetZero will be low down on that list.
The flip-flop description seems (to me) to be a purely political, or maybe short-sighted view.
She defended EU membership, and was anti-Brexit because that seemed, to her, at the time, the right thing. After the referendum, seeing that it was the will of the people to leave, she began to defend Brexit – because she was elected to implement the will of the people, not to hector and insult them for being neanderthal morons because they wanted something different.
Same with net zero. It was sold as being the way forward to a better future. Why not support it? But with hindsight, seeing the results, and the damage it is doing to the countryside, industry and people, she changes her opinion.
This seems like a GOOD leader to me. One that is not afraid to admit that they are wrong and reverse direction rather than plow ahead, come hell or high water to implement policies which vested interests want, but are damaging to the people that elected her.
I may be wrong. Whether she has the strength and following to fight those ideological and vested interests, who knows?
Time will tell.
The Marxists and all their associated parties took over UK politics half a century ago.
don’t be daft. We have the most right wing version of the Conservative party in power we’ve had for decades.
don’t be daft. We have the most left wing version of the Conservative party in power we’ve ever had.
Griffy has a habit of posting things that are the complete opposite of the truth, or wandering off in some rambling, incomprehensible delusion. Griffy’s not at all well, mentally speaking, but we do tend to humour him a bit.
How is the current cabinet ‘left wing’ (and since the cabinet changed since my first comment, how is the new current cabinet left wing?)
Let’s just say that BoJo and his cabinet was so far to the left that Liz Truss has had to reassure the Conservative party that she is, in fact, a Conservative and intends to behave like one. It’s far too early to tell, of course, how the new PM and cabinet will behave but the form of the previous ones under BoJo were definitely left wing to the point of overlapping with Labour.
Have we all seen the GWPF email of today:
It appears that she’s lining up £100 Billion to cap domestic energy prices and another 40 Bill for industrial energy
Nobody at GWPF thinks it’s a good idea – not dissimilar to Brandon’s IRA splurge and I have to agree.
https://mailchi.mp/73b86d90ed7b/the-end-of-europes-energy-market-brings-energy-socialism-191015
Free Money never ever does what it’s supposed to – we’re stealing from the kids. again – Boris swiped over £500 Billion just to bail out covid. That ruined their mental health and now here goes their financial well being
(Boris also engineered the housing market during covid so that the poor brats will never own their own home neither)
It is however the plan proposed by the energy suppliers!
Her problem is that pretty much all the chickens have come home to roost at the same time.
The green/net zero energy policies have begun to bite, not only the UK but a lot of Europe too, so the interconnects that were being relied upon are now looking like being worth approximately zero when they are really needed.
The blind fury of some EU members over Brexit is not abating – because they re being bitten hard by the missing UK contributions, and having to make up the shortfall themselves at a time when they too are being bitten by their foolish energy policies.
Liz Truss is making some of the right noises about putting money into more traditional energy sources, sources known to work, rather than throw more money into the bottomless “renewable energy” pit.
Given time, and political will, the energy problems can be fixed. But not immediately. Long term, the real solution is nuclear – not hyper-expensive, contracted out, French nuclear, but home grown industry. All of this takes time. But right now, the UK people are hurting, UK industry is hurting.
This is NOT like Biden’s foolish tossing money around.That has no real point, other than buying votes. It is not aimed at making structural changes to anything other than politics.
The UK bill has a specific aim – to keep the population from dying of cold, and industry open and working while the longer term policies and investment have time to work.
Yes, this is right. But the critical problem facing any UK PM, doesn’t matter which party, is the political impossibility of leaving everyone with the dramatically increased energy bills. None of them have any choice about this, for this winter. Whoever was in power they would have to freeze energy prices in some way. They cannot just let people be stuck with a bill which will eat up half to two thirds of the total state pension.
The question is, how its paid for, and here she is on riskier and more uncertain ground. The fiscally responsible way would be an income tax surcharge on higher earners. But what seems to be on the cards is strong deficit spending, ie borrow and spend. And actually she seems to be intending tax cuts as well as the spending to lower energy prices.
There is a real chance that, as Deutsche Bank has suggested, this may lead to a government bond buyers strike, and a bailout by the IMF. If people think Osborne implemented austerity, they have seen nothing by comparison to what the IMF would impose. It would be like the seventies of the last century in spades. Complete with currency devaluation. Its getting to be on the cards.
Problem is, the money has gone. So all of consumer spending will crash at the same time as the consumer sector will see higher costs. At the moment the painful facts are just starting to dawn on the media and political class.
By the way, Net Zero Watch estimate that renewable subsidies are now costing 2,000 a year sterling per household. This is the first thing that needs to go. Its a real national emergency, as it slowly dawning on everyone.
Nonsense. It simply wouldn’t generate a tiny fraction of what’s required. If it did, we would return to the 50’s/60’s when the higher tax rate was 98%. Businesses and individuals simply fled the country for more tax friendly environments. Otherwise known as a the brain drain.
It was a mistake then and would be a mistake now.
According to Steve Baker MP, Truss is aiming to reduce the tax burden on the country to stimulate businesses, especially SME’s which make up so much of the country’s GDP. The objective is to increase productivity, employment and earnings to responsibly allow everyone to work their way out this crisis.
Whilst there needs to be some sort of freeze on energy costs there also needs to be a longer term objective of transmitting a sense of urgency rather than fear to the public.
The sooner the country stops suckling on the teat of public spending and QE the better it will be for all of us. That can only be done by inducing a desire to work into people, much of it lost over covid.
Assuming she sticks to her guns it’s going to be tough love but without it, the entire country ends up on the slippery slope to a more authoritarian country with only left wing solutions.
Whether Truss is the woman for the job remains to be seen but she has one huge advantage over Boris. She can count beyond 10 without having to take her socks and shoes off. Truss is an accountant by profession so if she doesn’t already recognise the insanity behind NetZero already, she soon will because she’ll have all the numbers in front of her and be better placed than almost anyone in her cabinet to analyse them.
I have been through the historic voting preferences of all her cabinet so far tonight and none of them could be described as even mildly supportive of NetZero. I’ll qualify that by saying that voting records are only available up until 2015 or so.
I’ll also qualify my comments by saying that I’m an eternal optimist, but without making a fairly drastic change of direction the Conservative party will lose the next election badly.
I don’t think the plans, at least as so far reported, are financially possible. I don’t think buyers of UK government bonds will finance them.
We’ll see when the full details are announced. But they look so far as if they will raise debt/GDP to over 200%. And this is only for an interim fix. When the program runs out, even if it can be financed, there will be still be the high energy prices, and another of the same will certainly not be possible to finance through borrowing.
The consequence of proceeding on the lines of what has so far been reported will be, at the same time, a fall in sterling, a rise in interest rates and an increase in inflation, and it will only kick the can down the road for six months in any case.
I also don’t think that 98% tax bands would be required. There would be quite a bit of pain from what would be required. But there is going to be far more pain from trying to finance the energy subsidy and tax cuts at the same time out of borrowing.
Get ready for an old fashioned sterling crisis.
If you are right and the price cap freeze cannot or will not be financed from increased taxation, then the conclusion to draw is that it cannot be done at all. My own conclusion is that no democratic government will accept that, because it would literally mean milions of people just getting power disconnected. Or the power companies, if compelled to supply and not get paid, going bust.
This is a wartime situation. What you don’t do in such situations, unless you are heading for Weimar hyperinflation, is at the same time as you have huge expenses try and have huge tax cuts.
You have to recognize that its a national emergency and that there is going to be a dramatic fall in disposable income and in standard of living, and accept it. It is analogous to WWII type rationing which served the purpose of spreading the limited amounts of food around so everyone ate. Not much, not what they necessarily wanted, but they did not starve. This is a situation of the same extremity, and it needs a similar response.
Business as usual with borrowing will not cut it.
Who knows what she will do? she told everyone exactly what they wanted to hear. If as she said she governs by the (2019) manifesto, net zero was on page one of that.
What would you do?
I’d go for more onshore wind and keep on as before otherwise, of course. I wouldn’t object to sizewell, given a credible funding plan – but is that likely? But Liz… one week it’d be fracking, next week save the environment and its cancelled…
And what will you use for electricity on the many days that wind is doing nothing…
WIND IS AN UTTERLY POINTLESS WAY TO PROCEED.
But we expect nothing else but “utterly pointless” from griff.
!
On or offshore wind is not going to cut it. Its not going to come on stream soon enough, and there is not going to be any solution to intermittency. All it does is raise your gas consumption.
The problem is this winter and the next two, and the problem is that there is a huge hit to disposable income.
The solution is to recognize that this is a war-time type of national emergency. Immediately suspend all green subsidies. At the same time build the only type of power generating systems that will deliver reliable power promptly at acceptable cost, and that is superheated coal. So embark on a crash building and commissioning program.
And at the same time, explain to the population that this is a real crisis, standards of living are going to take a terrific hit, and raise income taxes to find it. This is not about government handouts to the hospitality industry. This is about accepting that the hospitality industry and the High Streets are largely going to close because there is no disposable income to keep them going, and their costs are too high. Its the end of the consumer boom.
This is three day weeks, welfare cuts, only buying things that you really need, after much thought and planning. Cycling and walking, thinking before you drive because of gasoline prices. Its the real thing, its far more serious than the 70s oil crisis or miners strikes because (1) its going to last longer (2) its far bigger (3) it comes into a situation where the green idiocy has half wrecked electricity suppy.
The whole Net Zero fantasy is going to have to be dropped.
As usual, its taking forever for the pennies to drop in the media and in political circles. As usual they are talking business as usual. But this time its different. As we will see over the next six months.
By the way, while I am writing – would people please stop calling griff names? Or indeed anyone. It demeans the site and it proves nothing. He (or she) is wrong most of the time, but shouting ‘idiot’ does nothing to change his mind and is the sort of thing playground bullies, real idiots, find satisfying.
There is a huge pipeline of offshore wind projects building and approved. They are only likely to help in that they are already underway and that when they do operate, every hour they operate is one less hour of gas. They can’t possibly use more gas.
and by your argument building more gas. coal or certainly nuclear won’t deliver any sooner – nor would we quickly set up a fracking industry.
Meanwhile the UK has no gas shortage, just a shortage of the means to pay for it. Unless huge amounts of gas are diverted from UK market by higher prices elsewhere I don’;t see a crisis and it would still hit heating and industry before power.
Germany too has enough contingency power to replace the 12% of gas powered electricity it has… it is in heating and especially gas intensive industry it will take a hit
I thank you for asking that debate be here conducted on a basis of fact and argument.
Uncosted, clown.
I have told you this before but you just keep dribbling on with the same comments. You’re a boring stuck record.
I’m so hurt…
No, you’re an idiot.
Just listened to her speech in front of 10 Downing St which ran over her intended programmes but no mention of ‘climate change’ which I find promising. NZ is pointless in any case as we all know.
Liz Truss’ voting recored on environmental issues.
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24941/elizabeth_truss/south_west_norfolk/divisions?policy=1030
It’s a race to the bottom now. I think the UK can win it though.
German manufacturers orders down -13.6% in July and released today.
Isn’t she also a current sitting member of WEF?
I don’t know. The photo they have looks at least ten years old.
A lot of people attended WEF meetings to find out what it was about.
Many saw it for what it is, and walked away. Many others are fine with the WEF future.
The WEF exerts no control, isn’t a cabal or conspiracy, directs no policy
Yeah right… and the tooth fairy does exist.
And Soros does not fund the campaigns of slanted district attorneys.
You really are not paying the slightest notice of reality, are you griff. !
Locked in your padded basement viewing the world through the eyes of on-line Gruniad. !
I’m not every day driven to fury because I imagine there’s some conspiracy behind it all. difficult to keep up though: is the WEF a marxist/leftist conspiracy, or do WEF and marxist/leftist conspiracies work side by side or against each other?
Alok Sharma has been reappointed as president of COP26 by Truss. whatever that means…
It means that when in doubt, predict that current trends will continue.
Keeps him off the street.
It means that Alok Sharma remains responsible for anything he signed us up for at the Copfest and if she needs him to publicly fall on his sword then he’ll take it down with him.
I thought Le Chatelier applied to chemical equilibria. There is no reason to expect it applies to everything. In particular if there is positive amplification of a change, it won’t apply. It only applies when there is negative feedback. Granted you think the feedback is indeed negative but it is not mainstream. The mainstream position is that feedback is positive.
Apologies, posted this in the wrong thread !
Or perhaps it will find its own meaning here.
If she does not denounce the catastrophe of net zero, government driven renewable energy mandates and the government driven energy shutdown of fracking technology it’s going to be the same old pattern of failure from energy management incompetence.
Given the decline in the currency, can’t somebody just buy up the place and do a deal with leaders that stipulates energy sanity for a change.
It’s the leaders raking in the corporate green subsidies through their investments that are part of the ongoing “crisis” theme from government. It will be a while before that clown car goes off the cliff along with all the mindless head-bobbing sycophants. The taxpayer dollars have been a real windfall for those wealthy enough to get into the green game… the bottom-feeders haven’t lost a step either. And we’re told it’s our duty to suffer the consequences without whinging.
Liz (in whom we Truss) has had an intrersting life.
Her parents were hard left .
She joined the Liberal party at college.
She worked in a merchant bank
She joined the tories, where she co authored a book extolling the free market and libertarianism
She voted against Brexit, but once is was a fact she went on as one of the very few cabinet ministers determined to make it work, replacing all the EU trade deals with individual UK ones and pushing for better deals with Australia India and the USA.
She could have held back there, if she was a closet EUrophile She didn’t.
Now the Tory party and parliament in general is full of lazy career politicians who loved having the EU make all the decisons while they waffled and theor civil servents turned EU directives into Law.
So far nearly all of them seem to be out of a job. LIz has got to be tough, because they want to destroy her before she even walks through the door of No 10.
Remember that as with Trump, what she says, and what she does, may not be the same thing. She needs the votes of a lot of dead wood to get bills passed. That dead wood needs to be soothed and made to feel comfortable.
I’m with Nigel, I am giving her a chance.
Is she establishment, a pragmatic conservative or a libertarian?
We will see.
I expect one day she is establishment, the next conservative, the next libertarian.
Ho hum. “Jacob Rees Mogg, has been handed the role of Business Secretary which puts him in charge of resolving the energy crisis.”
Well one thing the Moggster ain’t is a Marxist. Dyed in the wool Catholic with a horde of kids. And he has enough money of his own to be reasonably bribe proof.
The Guardian is already calling him a ‘climate denier’.
If the Guardian is against him, I am for him.
I suggest popcorn. He is a very measured very bright man.
Sadly the only engineer in the cabinet – Kemi Badenoch – has gone to international trade, so you guys may be seeing her in the USA.
Bright little lady. One to watch out for.
One Graham Stuart, has been appointed minister for climate at the business department and will attend cabinet… Lord Deben said on UK radio 4 he has historically backed govt net zero approach.
Deben has a history of being economical with the truth
While on their way to see the Queen in Scotland, I noticed that PM Truss and BoJo actually flew up there in separate aircraft.
And this is a country that has (had?) a net-zero agenda under Johnson? Look and what they do and not what they say.
I suspect the possibility of both the incumbent, and new, PM both being killed at the same time, in one air accident, was felt to be more of a risk than the (supposed) effects of 1 extra return flight on climate change.
Yes. Security.
I hadn’t thought of it being done for security reasons. Makes sense.
We’ll see. The Conservative Party in Canada in 2019 elected the candidate, Erin O’Toole, who campaigned as “True Blue” and promised to be a genuine conservative. Unfortunately, as soon as the media criticized him in the following election campaign, he folded and agreed with everything Trudeau was proposing on the climate and “gun control”.
“Conservative” is a pose. Just shout “Racist!” and they fold.
If you think that’s bad, shout ‘anti-semite!’ and the Labour MP’s hide under their desks.
If she is a new Margaret Thatcher, we’ll see her at the UN warning everyone about the dangers of Global Warming, just as the original did.
Don’t really care what positions she took when young. National politics is about forging a coalition to accomplish the greater mission and some things need to be traded off to make a good compromise. Let’s give her a chance unlike what the left did to trump