Essay by Eric Worrall
Britain’s opposition leader is not interested in Net Zero proposals unless they produce lots of green jobs, to replace jobs lost in “old sectors”.
‘I hate tree huggers’: How Starmer apparently exploded over Labour’s green policy
The Labour leader’s outburst followed a presentation from climate and net zero spokesman Ed Miliband
Sir Keir Starmer said “I hate tree huggers” in an outburst that shocked his shadow cabinet, it has been claimed.
The Labour leader’s furious remark followed an animated presentation from climate and net zero spokesperson Ed Miliband setting out his revolutionary energy policies.
Mr Miliband is said to have told his colleagues of the hope and change his policies would bring, receiving only a lukewarm reception from Sir Keir.
Sir Keir “thanked him for his presentation but said he wasn’t interested in hope and change”, according to a source.
The source told The Sunday Times: “He was more interested in creating sustainable new jobs to replace jobs in old sectors that were being lost. He then said he was not interested in tree huggers, before adding to everyone’s surprise, ‘In fact, I hate tree huggers’.”
…
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-green-climate-change-starmer-miliband-b2372012.html
Left wing British opposition leader Keir Starmer is on track to be Britain’s next prime minister, assuming the Tories don’t shuffle the deck a few more times, once they accept what a vote loser Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is.
The British “Conservatives” have led Britain to the brink of economic ruin with their nut zero policies driving up energy prices, and their incompetent big government socialism, and rightly deserve to be dumped at the next election.
My reservation about this, a fear I’m sure is shared by many, is Labour is currently on track to be even more committed to green energy than the Conservatives.
But will Labour actually follow through on this net zero commitment?
Keir Starmer seems to be claiming his priority is jobs. How will Starmer respond, when no matter what he does, the promised green jobs fail to materialise?
We have no way of knowing whether Keir Starmer’s Labour will do a better job of managing the economy than Britain’s current crop of useless Conservatives. But one point in Labour’s favour, Labour would have to make a real effort to do worse.
Despite his supposed support for jobs, Sir Keir and Labour are even more committed to Nut Zero than the alleged Tories.
https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/18/keir-starmer-to-throw-everything-at-plan-to-get-uk-to-net-zero
Guardian wishful thinking methinks.
Labour’s policy platform says the same.
https://labour.org.uk/stronger-together/britain-2030/green-and-digital-future/
Wish it was, but no, its real.
Yes. The entire political establishment is committed to net zero. The only alternative vote is for Reform. A no chancer.
Yes, it looks like the UK’s economy is going to have to crash and burn before the politicians wake up.
The trouble with that is Keir Starmer has flip-flopped and u-turned on virtually everything he’s stated. It’s almost impossible to work out what he stands for, other than getting votes – todays positive is tomorrow’s negative if the votes aren’t there.
I wouldn’t worry about jobs, lads. In fact, Lord Keynes himself, the fountain of all proper economic wisdom accepted by our progressive / socialist politicians on both sides of the pond had this to say about the matter.
“If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with bank-notes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal-mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is.”
The problem of British politics is that it is populated by second-raters and downright idiots, with few exceptions. The rationalists are so far outside the mainstream parties that they are unelectable under the first-past-the-post system.
A succint description of the state of British public life, not just politicians.
Unfortunately, like most of this woke, green, climate nonsense, it isn’t limited to any one nation more or less. The global consensus seems to be all hands on the path to multi-national destruction of the working and middle class.
The global green consensus doesn’t include China, India, Russia, Africa and maybe even much of Latin America.
That is also true in the U.S.A.
And in Oz. Sadly.
‘populated by second-raters and downright idiots’? Oh, you flatterer!
The fall of the Empire emasculated the UK. Or it seems to me.
Personally, I wonder if the Conservative party is pulling a fast one here. Even Kneeler (Starmer, following his humiliating exhibition of taking the BLM knee) said that Miliband’s green nuttery might be be exploited by the Conservatives (Tories).
And here my hypothesis begins.The financial pain already being inflicted on the British public is beginning to tell. People are falling out of love with NetZero.
The Tories are further behind the labour party than Biden is behind Trump, by a large margin. They must pull a rabbit from the hat or they are sunk and may not even be the official opposition after the General Election in 2024 if they are not careful. It really is that bad.
As for policies, there’s barely a cigarette paper between the Tories and labour on almost any policy you care to mention. Predictably the battles will be over the NHS, immigration, housing and jobs and none of them have any solutions or, vitally, money.
The Tories know the public is suffering with NetZero, there are even a formal group of them criticising everything associated with the subject which is perhaps quite deliberate.
To even begin to ditch NetZero Sunak must have the public on his side, which they are not right now thanks to the cost of living increase largely caused by NetZero policies. So how about he keeps up the pressure, he keeps turning the financial screw on the public until the General election looms.
Then he promises to pull the plug on things like the ICE ban and delays it by five years or so, he pledges to stop the ban on gas boilers, and drops the targets for heat pumps? Those are the public facing opportunities, but there is a lot more can be done by slashing subsidies for green nonsense, ditching carbon credits and promising to launch fracking and nuclear.
Would it happen and would it be enough? At the moment I’m not confident it would happen but I think it might just be enough to satisfy people the Tories are doing enough to alleviate financial pressure on households and their chronic fuel bills at least.
It an opportunity for the Tories to create some clear water between them and labour, but do they have the guts?
That suggests a level of intelligence the Tories do not possess. Next year’s election is likely to be highly focused on immigration where Labour supports unlimited immigration, and the Tories support unlimited immigration while trying to pretend they don’t. The slime known as William Hague is trying to get the narrative to be that nobody cares about it but in the real world people seen the damage it is doing to our country. Although our police are not a patch on the French police, it wouldn’t take much for immigrant riots to break out here. Good to see that a poll by Le Figaro has the vast majority critical of the rioters and not supporting the bleeding heart weepy leftwing scum.
I don’t disagree with that.
That’s what I said, there’s not a cigarette paper between them on any other policy. There could be though, on NetZero policy.
Why does anyone in the UK support ANY immigration? It’s a small nation.. er.. uh.. Kingdom- with a lot of people, already.
HS….you must be living near me: that hypothesis of yours is precisely what I’ve been banging on about round here for anyone who will listen. I think it has legs – but I don’t trust Sunak…
No
The Tories are Tories in name only
A fit of pique at the terrible reception to Ed[stone] Miliband’s expensive ideas in a time of tightening belts; but I don’t buy it.
Starmer is Mr U-Turn, for votes he will be all things to all men
“”Ed Miliband’s ‘Ed Stone’ helps land Labour a £20,000 fine””
https://www.itv.com/news/2016-10-25/ed-milibands-edstone-helped-land-labour-a-20-000-fine-from-electoral-spending-watchdog
Essential reading if you want to know where the UK is going:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/07/10/fes-2023-the-emperor-still-has-no-clothes/
This is the latest iteration of the National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios. Paul Homewood has done a quick summary of it, and what he shows is that the current policies are based entirely on wishful thinking, have no chance of being successfully implemented, and if pushed to the limit will simply result in a breakdown of electricity supply coupled with a huge increase in demand. Social and economic disaster.
Will Starmer’s election, if it happens, make much difference? Very doubtful. He vacillates. He probably has no firm ideas about AGW and energy, but will go with the flow. And the flow, from Liberals, Plaid, SNP and Conservatives is to head for net zero as fast as possible. You can see from Paul’s piece that the mania has even penetrated the grid planners. They are putting together and publishing numbers which plainly show that what they are committing to do is impossible of achievement. And yet they seem either not to realize it or not to care.
A reasonably likely outcome of the next election is a hung parliament, and guess who will hold the balance of power. The mad green Liberals, headed by the egregious Ed Davey. And maybe the SNP.
Britain will get through this summer and a couple of winters following. After that, get a generator, because you are going to need one.
Reform UK, strongly opposed to all this Green idiocy, have overtaken the Lib Dems in some polls. Things may change for the better at the next election. I sincerely hope so.
Unfortunately, under the First-Past-the-Post system of voting, it is not just the number of votes you get that matters, it is where those votes are located. Reform’s votes are not sufficiently concentrated in any area for them to win any seats. The Lib Dem vote, however, is sufficiently concentrated in some areas that they are able to win some seats. I live in a consituency where the Lib Dems are well-placed to take the seat from the SNP at the next election. But I am surrounded by seats where the Lib Dems will do well to save their deposit.
Well, the ungrateful little rat….
It is that me and him are both alumni of Leeds University.
In my self appointed capacity of ‘nosey parker exploring asker of cheeky questions diesel burner and coffee aficionado‘ – I venture through/past The Old Place now and again
1/ Leeds has self-declared itself to be some sort of Eco City Wonder World Leader blah blah blah. There are humongous billboards dotted along main road arteries informing us all of as much – boldy printed with kiddie style graphics of blue skies, fluffy white clouds, windmills and – trees.
Lots Of Trees = Fluorescent Lime-Green trees
2/ Leeds University itself in the last 20 something years constructed a huuuuge Climate Change steel & glass edifice in the centre of its campus – employing 200+ ‘researchers , professors and modellers’ – we see The Head Honcho mentioned on these pages regularly = Piers Forster
3/ After that, Leeds University off its own bat has recently begged borrowed scrounged truck loads of money so as to plant a mini forest on some ground it owns not far from the city centre
Then Starmer comes out with that
sigh
Watch out for York!
“”The city that’s a hotbed of ‘systemic racism’, according to a Labour-backed study””
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/07/york-systemic-racism-report-funded-by-labour-run-council/
I don’t hate tree huggers, but I sure feel better when they’re not around.
Climate change causes policy fail.
story tip
‘Climate Change Affects Inflation’: ECB Chief Christine Lagarde Urges Global Transition To Future-Proof Economy — 3 Top Green Stocks That Can Make A Difference (yahoo.com)
Our enemies’ minds are finally starting to implode. Expect a bumpy couple of years or so.
In the UK we have a 1st Past the Post System where the winner rules. That means we get broad coalitions. Groups choose who they can live alongside, not whom they fully agree with.
Under Proportional Representation people vote for the groups they like. Then the groups form a broad coalition. Politicians do not trust the people to pick the coalition. They want the choice to go to the political class. But that’s not so under the 1st Past the Post System.
Starmer is on the ‘striving worker’ side of the party (but not the ‘drag back the lucky’ wing – right of the Labour Party). He has no time for 1st world problems.
To understand UK politics you need to understand that the broad coalition includes Starmer, Miliband and even Corbyn.
The Miliband wing gets respect\ but is not on top.
Corbyn is thrown out of the parry.
Economic growth rules.
But (as Kwarteng demonstrated) that means the high growth of the Keynesian era, not the Austrian school.
Thatcherism / Reagonomics has now been proven to have failed.
Surely you jest.
Why then strong economic growth under Thatcher and Reagan, vs. economic catastrophe now?
Not to mention also defeating Soviet Communism.
Good question.
Even John Maynard Keynes wouldn’t be a Keynsian as it is currently defined.
Who is this Kwarteng of whom you write?
That was probably an unfortunate choice of words but I sympathize with him. I am a tree hugger, I love trees, they make nice houses, bridges and any number of other things. They can heat houses and other buildings. I sit under their shade, they are great but that is not the point. The point is that we have a bunch mindless leaders and activists thoughtlessly following faux scientists who lie and cheat and will say whatever needs to be said in pursuit of their next grant or funding. All of them make me sick.
Green jobs….one group is paid to dig ditches…another group is paid to fill in the ditches…all proclaim what a wonderful endeavor has been accomplished.
The myth of job creation is exposed by by the simple expedient of emloying huge quantities of men to dig holes in the road and further huge quantities to fill them in again.
Result? Net zero. Nothing useful is achieved for the rest of society.
And don’t forget that for every person employed to dig holes, they have to employ at least another four to watch him.
The British people have been ‘dudded’ so many times in the past by successive governments that I will not be holding my breath for any hope of Improvement in the future regardless of which side of politics is elected . .
The British electorate have a profound choice at the next election.
Do they vote for Syphilis or do they change government and vote for Anthrax?
Choices, choices, we are so grateful for choices….
I would have been more polite and said Scylla and Charybdis.
Starmer makes Sunak look decisive. It’s a frightening thought that he once held one of the top legal jobs in the country. Even more frightening that he could be the next PM.
In Canada we have reached the point where business will not invest without a huge subsidy. $15 billion to VW, $ 15 billion to Stellantis. Both to produce the same product.
The subsidies are such that if you simply invested the money, the return would be double what is being paid in salaries. Canadian taxpayers are actually losing money to pay for the green jobs. The more green jobs, the more we sink into the red.
Recently our Canadian Prime Minister said there was no business case to supply natural gas to Eastern Canada and Europe. Yet if the Canada East pipeline had received anything like the green subsidies there most certainly be a business case.
The reality is that the energy fron Quebec’s James Bay hydro project would have to compete head to head with natural gas produced in western Canada. To prevent this, there will always be a business case. Canada is ruled by an elite that owe their power to Quebec voters to make sure energy policy benefits Quebec.
Two recent articles by Prof Dieter Helm of Oxford University on UK Government and Labour plans
‘The Net Zero 2035 target for electricity is not credible’ (18th March 2023)
“Despite another 1000 pages explaining Net Zero Strategy there is no credible plan to get from here to there”
https://dieterhelm.co.uk/publications/the-net-zero-2035-target-for-electricity-is-not-credible/
‘Labour’s £28 billion’
“Supply chains do not exist yet to do all this fast track investment……..Britain does not do much manufacturing at all – it is 80% services…….Even £28 billion is nowhere near enough to get to the desired end point”
https://dieterhelm.co.uk/energy-climate/labours-28-billion/
Starmer on track to be PM? You havent heard about Reform UK then, a new party now in third place with 10%.
it is going to win, just like BBB has in Holland