By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
After 14 years of net-zero nonsense from the Conservative Party, Nigel Farage’s climate-skeptic Reform Party has taken away a third of the Conservative vote. As a result of the Conservatives’ relentless exclusion of the free-market, small-government, low-tax, pro-family, anti-net-zero center-Right over the past 14 years, the Labor party – which, like all totalitarian parties, takes a radically climate-extremist view – has won the election with a record swing of 11% from the Conservatives and a record majority over all other parties.
The central issue for Reform is net immigration, which has increased the UK population by six million, or almost 10%, or since Margaret Thatcher left office in 1990. Last year, there were 600,000 births in the UK; 200,000 children were killed by abortion; and almost 800,000 immigrants arrived.
Reform’s contract with the people summarizes its climate policy as follows –
“Imagine affordable, stable energy bills
“Scrap energy levies and Net Zero to slash energy bills and save each household £500 per year. Unlock Britain’s vast oil and gas reserves to beat the cost of living crisis and unleash real economic growth.”
In full, the policy reads thus –
“Net Zero is pushing up bills, damaging British industries like steel, and making us less secure. We can protect our environment with more tree-planting, more recycling and less single-use plastics. New technology will help, but we must not impoverish ourselves in pursuit of unaffordable, unachievable global CO2 targets.
“CRITICAL REFORMS NEEDED IN THE FIRST 100 DAYS:
“Scrap Net Zero and related subsidies
“Ditching Net Zero could save the public sector over £30 billion per year for the next 25 years.
“Scrap annual £10 billion of renewable energy subsidies
“Achieve this through equivalent taxes on then. Renewables are not cheaper. Our bills have increased dramatically in line with the huge increase in renewables capacity over the last 15 years.
“Cheap, secure energy for Britain
“Start fast-track licences of North Sea gas and oil. Grant shale gas licences on test sites for 2 years. Enable major production when safety is proven, with local compensation schemes.
“Thereafter:
“Cleaner energy from new technology
“Fast-track clean nuclear energy with new small modular reactors, built in Britain, increase and incentivise ethical UK lithium mining for electric batteries, combined-cycle gas turbines, clean synthetic fuel, tidal power and explore clean coal mining.”
The Labor party, by contrast, will ban all new internal-combustion vehicles in just five years’ time, and says Britain should attain net zero emissions by 2045.
One should not imagine that the Labor party any longer has anything much to do with labor. Its nut zero policy will continue the startling downtrend in energy consumption in the industrial sector. Since 1970, industrial energy consumption in the UK has fallen from two-thirds to little more than one-fifth of national energy consumption as industry after industry is driven offshore because it can no longer afford to turn the machines on.
Source: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
The decline began in earnest after the coal-miners received pay-rises of 30% and then 35% as a result of two strikes in the early 1970s, making coal and hence electricity increasingly unaffordable. It has continued ever since, now driven by the astonishing price increases directly arising from the installation of cripplingly costly wind and solar power.
Britain’s last major steelworks, at Port Talbot in Wales, closed forever a couple of months ago because the management could no longer afford to turn on the furnaces. That closure marked the end of Britain as a first-world, industrial giant, and the beginning of its third-world status. Without an indigenous steel industry, we can no longer defend our nation in time of war. During the Battle of Britain we were making 100 Spitfires a week, to say nothing of ships, tanks and guns. We could not do that today.
A year ago I made a discreet but determined attempt to persuade a former Cabinet minister to write to the Orwellian “Energy Security and Net Zero” department to ask how much global warming would be prevented by the target year of 2050 if the UK moved in a straight line from current emissions to net zero by that year, and at what cost.
That elegant and effete but ineffectual Minister twice said he would write, but twice failed to do so. He has now lost his seat in Parliament, as I told he would unless the Conservatives began to offer their voters the conservative policies that the party had abandoned after Margaret Thatcher’s strikingly successful tenure as the longest continuously serving prime minister since 1827.
I also tried to persuade the chairman of an influential parliamentary committee to write to ask these surely pertinent questions. He did so, and received a limp, dismissive page of propaganda drivel from the Department, which took great care not to answer the questions he had asked. I persuaded him to write a second time. He did so, but received the same page of waffle, whereupon, uselessly, he gave up. Well, the electors have given up on him. He, too, has lost his seat in Parliament, and deservedly so.
The answer to the questions I had invited these two wastes of space to ask is that even if the UK achieved net zero it would reduce global temperature by less than a thousandth of a degree by 2050, at a cost exceeding $15 trillion. Thus, each $1 billion spent on attempting to attain net zero would abate global warming by less than one 20-millionth of a degree.
There is a wider lesson for skeptics in the disastrous British election result. Under Margaret Thatcher, all wings of the Conservative Party were represented both in Cabinet and in the party’s policymaking. Ever since, however, all who believed in the traditional, British values that she espoused have been ruthlessly excluded from the corridors of impotence.
The Conservatives learned nothing from the bloody nose they received at the hands of the electorate on the issue of Brexit. They continued to abandon Conservative policies, not least on the climate question. As a result, the Conservative vote in this election was split with Reform, which took almost 40% of the Conservatives’ votes.
A month before the election, I went to see a Cabinet Minister and suggested that the Conservatives should do a deal with the Reform party, so that they presented a united front. Had they done so, as Boris Johnson had done in 2019, the Conservative/Reform alliance would have won the election with a narrow but sufficient majority over Labor.
However, the current Conservative party is ideologically far, far closer to the totalitarian than to the libertarian viewpoint. The Minister did nothing. He too no longer sits in Parliament.
I have long thought that climate skeptics would be more successful if we agreed on a short-list of main points that we could all present and argue for. So far, however, like the now self-destroyed Conservatives, we seem to have ignored Benjamin Franklin’s warning that “we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
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Yes!
I predict the local WUWT Climate Communists will be along shortly with much whining about this one, Christopher.
I happened to watch the last Midsomer Murders episode last night (season 24), which takes place in “the village with the smallest carbon footprint in all of England.” It features a recycled British cop (Inspector Linley) as the local climate NAZ! and pub owner who imposes fines on locals who violate his klimate diktats. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as I couldn’t tell if the writers were True Believers or were making a parody of it all.
I don’t think the Reform party and the Conservatives should merge. There are too many socialists, or stakeholder capitalists if you prefer, cluttering up the Conservative party. We don’t want them contaminating Reform. Let them go extinct. Any right minded free thinkers still left in the party should leave and join Reform.
Mind you I think Reform needs to become more democratic and debate all ideas. The leaders are not the only ones with a right to an opinion. The safety and efficienciies of the so called Covid vaccines beiing a case in point.
I think the bigger problem is that they are dependent on the charisma of one person, Nigel Farage.
That doesn’t build a lasting political party in the UK. The SDP was formed from four leading politicians breaking away from Labour in the 1980’s. They had short term success before dwindling and merging into the Liberal Party.
Though I wish them well, the same is likely to happen to Reform UK. Let’s not get carried away by wishful thinking.
If they were second in hundreds of seats there is a lot of popular talent. Looks like a solid party.
So was the SDP. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
That was my point in that it needs to become more democratic. Somebody needs to be developed to take over from Nigel Farage, and, I can tell you for free, that it is NOT Tice.
Most politicians in my experience have little common sense, scientific knowledge or integrity, they follow the party rules and don’t rock the boat. So, don’t expect them to welcome the climate sceptical viewpoint that we don’t have a climate emergency, we cannot control climate in any case and if we were to ameliorate climate threats the current methodology of emissions reductions is totally useless! The only effective form of weather hazard abatement is protection by adaption to the direct threat, and minimization of the local conditions that ramp up the danger of floods, bush fires, tidal waves etc.
Thus, we have to educate our politicians and the bureaucracy, that whatever the existing natural or manmade threats to society, given time technology will find a solution. However, if we don’t have cheap reliable electricity mostly from baseload power sources, we can’t afford to create the innovative technology that will solve these problems as well as keep the lights on. Perhaps lessons learn by other governments on cost effective energy supply will teach us to be more pragmatic about how we go about retaining a prosperous society, a growing economy and meeting our international social and environmental obligations.
Excellent…”they follow the party rules and don’t rock the boat” is exactly the problem here in NZ and globally.
The Conservative Party, or its leaders, had already shown themselves to be little different from the green crazies in other parties.
To his credit, Keir Starmer has already incurred green wrath, pre-election, by winding back on some of the green promises. That is a good sign that he is aware that they are unachievable. All the net-zero promises by 2030 are going to fail on his watch if he remains PM for five years.
No political party should get too comfortable with being in power. As I’ve said before, this could be a good election to lose for the Conservatives. They need to go away, regroup, and come up with some sensible ideas and a good leader.
‘As I’ve said before, this could be a good election to lose for the Conservatives.’
That could also be the ‘silver lining’ for Republicans this fall should America’s so-called ‘intellectuals’, particularly the media, remain successful with their 24/7 efforts to keep ‘President’ Biden and his fellow Democrats well within the ‘margin of fraud’.
Interesting election facts.
Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour got 3 million votes more than Starmer’s Labour – ouch.
The Conservatives lost ~50% of their votes – down to ~7 million
Reform got 14% of the popular vote and 5 seats
Limp Dums got 12% of the popular vote and… 71 seats.
That’s mediaeval feudal democracy. And none of them want to change a thing.
How did the Sheriff of Nottingham do?
All kidding aside, are there any breakdowns on how ‘immigrants’, ‘women’ and the ‘posh’ voted?
Bang on point.
With all the talk of Brexit, the referendum over whether to switch to proportional representation or continue with first-past-the-post about a decade ago is conveniently memory-holed.
It’s one thing that the Westminster elite wanted to persist with first-past-the-post, it’s another when a lot of people voted to keep it, and yet complain when they feel they have little choice.
The one positive is that all those Reform voters have obviously decided to stop gerrymandering.
Except that there never was a referendum on switching to PR. The referendum gave people a choice between First-Past-The-Post and the Alternative Vote System. As Australians will know, the Alternative Vote System is not a proportional system.
Ah, I was wrong, then. I haven’t lived in the UK for years, I had left by the time that referendum came around.
I thought that there was a decent, proportional representation system offered. No surprise that they didn’t offer a real choice, then. And that makes the result make more sense.
I’ll have to read into how the Alternative Vote System actually works.
A couple of quick questions, as I am too lazy this morning to use the Google machine: How was the voter turnout? What percentage of voters cast a ballot?
60%
According to John Cook’s analysis, it was 97%
And worth mentioning, here, that normal turnout level in UK is in the 70-72% range.
Not really true. There hasn’t been a general election with more than 70% turn out since 1997.
True but turnout in 2024 was considerably below turnout in 2017 and 2019. In 2017 it was 68.8% and in 2019 was 67.3%.
And there might be interesting questions about why it was so much lower this time. One obvious difference is that this was the first General Election to require photo ID. Other possibilities are that Labour were always predicted to won by a landslide, and general dissatisfaction with the Tories resulting in more of their voters abstaining rather than voting for a different party.
There’s also the fact this was a July election when more people are likely to be on holiday, and the fact that it was an unusually nice day compared with the rest of the week.
But the ID issue is my main worry – the harder you make it to vote the fewer people will vote seems obvious. If Reform got their way it could be a lot worse as they want to ban postal voting.
The UK election was a classic case of what happens when a Political Promise or manifesto as they are called here in the UK, is not delivered. The Reform Party unilaterally decided to stand its candidates down in 2019 so the Boris Johnson led Tory Party would be elected with a sufficient majority to get leaving the EU conditions finalised that allow the UK to advance its own economy and legal rights, outside the EU straight jacket.
The Tory Party did not do that work as promised. They let down the electorate spectacularly. There were several other major promises made. Immigration reduction was promised, yet they put in place policies to increase it. Reform of the woke BBC was offered but again not delivered. The policies advanced during Covid also went against the norms of British openness and freedoms with zero benefit..
Because of those failed promises, the Reform team decided they would never again trust the Tory Party or ever again stand aside to help them.
This election is the start of a determined push to make Reform the Party of choice for the electorate in 2029.
Step one has taken place.
Labour will ensure the ongoing progress of Reform happens because Labour advance policies the majority of UK voters do not accept despite the scale of the majority they were gifted this time. That good fortune for Labour was simply a by product of voters determination that the Tory Party was removed.
‘Things can only get better’ as they like to say, but not for the Labour Party or the rump Tory Party.
The reshaping of British politics has begun.
The Labour Party is not totalitarian. It has always accept ed defeat at the polls. They have never called for supporters to storm government buildings when the vote went against them.
The poor understanding of politics shown here, even down to the name of the party, is staggering.
Because it has had so much practice over the years?
Yes.
But that emphasises that they are definitely democratic.
As democratic as the Soviet Union and other communist entities that also have elections.
What’s the good of elections if all political parties lie about their policies and their effects?
No, its much more democratic than the former Soviet Union. That is undeniable – if you doubt it, you need to do more reading. But the interesting and important question about Labour is not that. The question is how much of its democratic practice is due to its own impulses and values, and how much due to the constraining forces of British history and social practice.
I don’t know the answer with any certainty, but suspect that far more is due to social constraints than most people realize, and that the authoritarian impulse in Labour is much more powerful and deep rooted than most think.
Why on earth does that comment get 7 (current number) of minuses? Who could possibly disagree with it?
No, because it had no alternative.
“The Labour Party is not totalitarian.”
Monckton calls anyone he disagrees with “totalitarian”.
Let’s see just how marxist totalitarian they are over the next few years.
Be very thankful if you don’t live in England!
Well we do know one candidate for president who says he will be dictator …but only for one day. Yeah right since he is above the law now for official duties
Liar.
And his opponent is a person that just ignores Supreme Court decisions, existing laws, and just rules by Executive Order. Dictator for a day a year beats dictator for 365.
From the people who use “alarmist” as an insult.
‘The Labour Party is not totalitarian. It has always accepted defeat at the polls.’
That’s a very low standard. A reasonable standard would define as totalitarian any regime that does not allow individuals to opt out of any laws beyond those needed to secure their negative rights.
Can you name one country that allows individuals to opt out of laws? By that definition every country in the world is totalitarian.
I sincerely wish you lived in England, Izzydumb… to experience just what is coming. !
A near total disrespect for individual freedoms… It is a far-left thing.
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
now in good old lay man’s terms, if a state in the USA makes a ‘bad’ law as described above, it is the USA citizen’s choice to opt out of said law. But the jackboot of the government will fall on the citizen’s neck like a hammer, and too often the legislators are some combination of lazy, stupid, crooked, immoral, or too greedy to care. Organizations like the ACLU USED to step in, but nowadays you should only expect help if you are BIPOC, an illegal immigrant, or (((dual citizen)))….. or a Biden maybe?
But my question about Nigel and his crew’s big gain; does it amount to any real power in parliament?
But my question about Nigel and his crew’s big gain; does it amount to any real power in parliament?
No, of course not. Reform will have 5 seats out of 650, so no power at all in Parliament. But outside?
They got 14% of the vote, about 4 million total. By way of comparison, the total votes cast were about 29 million, and Labour got its huge majority in the Commons with about 10 million. Conservatives roughly 7 million.
Reform received the third-highest vote share among all parties, more than the Liberal Democrats and Greens. They came second in 103 constituencies, with 93 of those won by Labour.
The aspect of this result that will change British politics is what it threatens for the next election five years from now. Both Labour and Conservatives have to reckon with that 4 million rising to a number quite close to their total vote. And with five years for Reform to organize in promising seats to translate that vote into seats. And with that success adding members and activists.
In addition, while the five Parliamentary seats may not give them any power in the Commons, it gives them a platform in the country. When you have a presence in the Commons you are automatically a real political party and movement in a way you can never be without it. This means news coverage, participation in debates, national attention.
There is going to be a presence in the Commons regularly stating, and being reported as stating, that there is no climate emergency, that net-zero is impossible, unaffordable and pointless, that there is no such thing as gender as distinct from sex, that trans women are not women but altered men, that schools should be banned from teaching trans ideology, that British history should be a source of pride not embarrassment or shame, that taxes should be reduced not raised, that welfare and dependency must be reformed, that there must be a stop to immigration both legal and illegal.
This will be a considerable social and cultural change, and the existence of 4 million votes backing them is going to change the debate on all these issues. Labour are going to realize that in those 93 seats where Reform came second, when and if their Net Zero plans crash and burn, the electorate is going to turn on them, and they will have a rolling pin ready to hand. This will make a difference.
There is going to be a very fraught situation in British politics for the next few years, and it could turn out very badly. The problem is debt and government borrowing. They are right at the limit on that. Taxes are already high. The demands of welfare are great and rising. There is the potential in Reform to move to the authoritarian right, post Farage, just as there is the potential in Labour to move to the authoritarian left, post Starmer. They did it once already with Corbyn, and could again.
One way to look at UK politics post WWII is that Labour has contained the radical left and the Conservatives the radical right. The dire financial situation coupled with the rise of Reform might put that at risk.
I should be clear perhaps. I agree with the Reform stance on UK Net Zero, its only common sense and its a pity the Conservatives have not had the courage to adopt a similar one. But in general I am an interested observer of Reform and the Reform phenomenon, not an admirer, and think that the risks in it are greater than most people realize.
Many of the seats where Reform came second to Labour are ultra-safe Labour seats, unfortunately. Quite a few of them would need a totally cataclysmic change of circumstances for a Labour MP not to be elected.
Funnily enough, Reform have a greater chance of increasing their seat numbers in places whey came a good third. Lots of seats where the Conservative+Reform vote is significantly higher than that obtained by the elected Labour MP.
It’s entirely reasonable for Reform to target over 100 seats for the next election, obviously that’s a lower number with no upper limit set. Who knows what might happen if Labour make a pig’s breakfast of Government and start haemorrhaging votes to Reform, not the Conservatives?
Try comprehending the difference between a law that protects a negative right, say, a prohibition against physical assault and one that mandates the purchase of, say, a heat pump. Only consistent enforcement of the latter would fall within the purview of a totalitarian government.
That is not what you said. You said that non totalitarian governements allow people to “opt out” of laws. Can you name a single country that allows people to “opt out” of any laws?
The question is why it has always accepted defeat. Was it because it respects democracy? Or was it because it had no alternative?
I’d say door #3, because it doesn’t (yet) have the power to ignore current law / custom, as you articulated very well, below.
The king appoints and can fire the PM regardless of what the party leader wants. Lose an election by not having a majority of mps and it’s out toute suite
Probably the same thought that went through Louis XVI’s mind before he was guillotined.
Yvor Winters makes a perceptive remark about Emerson. Bear with me.
He points out that when Emerson preached yielding to one’s impulses, he looked inside himself and saw impulse conditioned and formed by a New England Puritan upbringing. When Hart Crane looked within at his impulses and followed this advice absent such conditioning what he saw and what resulted was very different.
When Labour participates in the UK electoral process it does so in a way conditioned by hundreds of years of UK democratic norms and practice and the understanding and expectations of the entire public. What you see when you look at its practice is this.
But its impulses, though restrained by history, practice and the local environment, are very different. The impulse is to control. Its social engineering. The repeated proposals to abolish private education in the UK are an example. In the last century the confiscatory tax rates on incomes over a certain level were another. Union closed shops. Read the current proposals circulating within the Party on taxation, they too reveal the basic impulse – the desire to use taxation as a tool for social engineering, as well as or instead of to raise money for government.
You cannot tell whether a party is totalitarian by the way it behaves in the present social and political environment. You have to look deeper. And it can change with time. The Labour Party of John Smith was not. That of Jeremy Corbyn was, and anti-semitic with it. The party of Starmer? The jury is out. But the bet is that it will conform like its predecessors. Unless circumstances and the air it breathes changes radically. But if they do, watch out.
It should be remembered that Starmer, now our PM, tried very hard to overturn the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum. Maybe we should demand a re-run of the 2024 election!
The Democrats in the U.S had people storm government buildings when the vote went against them, but what really makes both parties totalitarian is creating laws that interfere with the choices of citizens and ignoring laws and rights that would favor the opposition.
I agree. Calling Labour ‘totalitarian’ is like calling Reform ‘far right’. Totalitarianism involves closing down all other political parties. Labour doesn’t attempt to do that. It involves taking over all the media to silence any opposing voices. Labour hasn’t attempted to do that. It even involves abolishing trades unions and Labour certainly hasn’t attempted to do that.
I doubt Reform would have gone for that. Reform voters wanted a genuine change, not for Reform to be the footstool for yet another 5 years of Tory vacuousness. At least we can rely on Nigel Farage to give Starmer the dressings-down in PMQ’s he will no doubt deserve.
It appears that “Lord” Monckton is suffering from dementia. He must have forgotten that a Climate-committed party — Labour- enjoyed the biggest win in history.
The third lowest percentage of people voted since 1918. Labour only received 20% of the vote of all adult UK citizens. He won because so many chose a vote of no confidence by staying away.
So tell us how many seats Labour won vs the reform party. GO
The issue is whether the vote was an endorsement of any particular view of energy policy or climate. To answer this question you have to look at actual votes case. You also have to look at votes cast to see what the future might look like. Its not Reform seats that matter here, its votes, and I gave the rough answer above:
Labour 10 million
Conservatives 7 million
Liberals 3.5 million
Reform 4 million
These are rough numbers derived from vote share percentages applied to a turnout of about 29 million. Liberals got over 70 seats with a vote lower than Reform with its 4 seats. But if you are an interested observer of British politics and trends, the rise of Reform, in votes, is the thing to notice here.
Also notice by the way that the Labour vote was lower than in the last election. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of anything in particular, other than ‘kick the bums out’.
Yes, a rise from zero (or from a vanishingly small number) to a trivial number is a large % increase. That’s the way math works. Reform has achieved triviality.
No, 4 million votes is not trivial. Not when an established party like the Liberals only gets 3.5 million. And when the Conservatives only get 7 million.
You are letting your dislike of Reform prevent you from assessing the facts of the phenomenon. Like it or not, its real, and its important, and there is real chance it may take the country to a place many will like even less.
Unfortunately, the Reformists didn’t muster the votes to get influence in governing. The new government is committed to achieving 100% clean power by 2030, and a spending program of L28bn per year until it’s done.
No, its not. It was committed to 28 billion, but it has pretty much cancelled that.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/02/labours-ditched-ps28-billion-climate-pledge-sends-wrong-message-uk-cop-energy-commitments
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/09/labour-government-would-have-to-delay-28bn-green-fund-rachel-reeves-says
Not that 28 billion would have done it. The 2030 goal is both impossible and pointless. The Conservative goal of 2035 was a bit more possible, though equally pointless.
Only pointless if you have an uninformed opinion.
That’s not the object is it. The contest is about the number of seats won not the % of the vote.
At the end of the Teacher era and her lap dog Major the labour party won big tim too
I reckon that Mrs Thatcher was a very good Teacher.
Only because the Right split on the way to a new Right. Labour’s vote count is more important than its seat count and much less. Hopefully Labour will think it has a mandate when it has no such thing. This is the beginning of political turmoil. Bring it on.
No matter how you slice it, 411 seats represents a mandate from the people — to address the climate problem too long ignored by the right.
Yep, the complete IDIOCY of the climate Net-Zero agenda will continue…
.. as England works hard to become a third-world country.
I hope you live there, and enjoy what you have voted for.
Good luck surviving the next 5 years, because a lot of people won’t.
If you want it so much then you stump up the $15 trillion it’s going to cost.
The cost will be less than $15 Trillion for the UK and far less than the cost impacts of climate change.
roflmao…
You still believe in the fakery of “impacts of climate change”.
You really are a gullible little beetroot, aren’t you. !
Warming for England would only be a benefit.
Unfortunately, they are destined to destroy everything they have had, on the rancid, deceitful alter of the climate and net-zero religion.
Down the gurgler, round the S-bend.
I hope you live in the UK and get to experience it first hand.
Liar.
Ignoramus
There’s absolutely no need to use that kind of language. Just stick to the arguments and leave out the personal stuff.
But the problem is that nothing the UK does will have any effects on climate change or the costs it imposes on the UK. If climate change is coming, those costs are coming too, and there is nothing the UK can do about it. Building more wind farms? How much effect do you suppose that will have? Do the numbers, you lower 1% of global emissions to about 0.6% of global emissions. Do you think anyone will notice? Or care?
Its GLOBAL warming, remember. Its China doing, what, 12 billion tons a year emissions now, compared to UK doing 450 million or so. So you drop it to 300 by wind and solar (if that’s even possible). So what? The year you get that done, China will be doing 13 billion or higher.
What is your prediction for 2030? Do you predict that the Labour Government will have achieved its Net Zero targets by 2030? And do you predict that our energy bills will be lower in 2030than they are now?
What are yours? I don’t make predictions.
So you have zero confidence that Labour will achieve its Net Zero targets and no confidence that they will reduce our energy bills.
My predictions? That’s easy. They will not achieve their Net Zero targets and energy bills will be a lot higher than they are at the moment.
You know I didnt say that. I said I dont make predictions. But you must be able to make predictions with no data. So You must own the worlds first time machine. Congrats!
…411 seats represents a mandate from the people — to address the climate problem too long ignored by the right.
This is typically confused thinking.
There is no way for any UK government to ‘address the climate problem’. Lets suppose there is one. Nothing any UK government does on local wind and solar power generation will have the slightest effect.
Second, the only difference between Labour and the Conservatives is minor differences over the speed of their proposed actions on energy generation. The Conservatives were fully bought in to both the existence of a climate crisis and to converting UK electricity generation to wind and solar. And to converting transport to EVs. The only difference was five years, Labour thinks it can and should be done by 2030, the Conservatives would have picked 2035. Big deal!
Another way point on this: Miliband has said that he is not going to reinstate the gas boiler ban in 2035. Stepping back from the wilder shores of unpopularity and impracticality.
Notice the difference on EVs. Sunak would have made 80% of new car sales EVs in 2030. That was back from a Conservative previous policy of 100% in 2030. Labour might reinstate 100%. Again, big deal! Minor differences of implementation.
I don’t know what you think Labour is going to do to ‘address the climate problem’ that the Conservatives have not done or were not intending. It was a Conservative government that hosted COP26, and did their level best to persuade the world to embark on emission reduction. It failed, as all of these conferences have failed, but I don’t see what more a Labour government could have done to make the world sign up to real reductions.
Its the usual left fantasy that all the problems, or what they see as the problems, are caused by bad people in government, replace them and everything will be find. No, it won’t, the new people are pursuing the same policies and will encounter the same problems.
“Labour- enjoyed the biggest win in history.”
Sorry, Warren, you’re statistically wrong. The Labour majority in 1997 was 179 as compared to 175 in 2024.
What do you mean by ‘climate committed’? Are you talking about Net Zero? That’s about national energy plans. It is often irrationally justified by invoking climate change, but UK Net Zero will have no effect on it, and I don’t think the global climate was an issue during the election.
Nor for that matter was energy. The UK Net Zero plans were hardly debated at all during the election, probably because the differences between Conservatives and Labour and Liberals are minor, just a matter of speed of implementation.
The dissenter from the UK energy consensus was Reform. I don’t think their dissent was the key factor in their very large vote gains since the last election, but it probably was a factor. That, if you are looking for an indicator of national feeling on the subject of energy, is where to look. Dissent is rising as costs rise. Over 500 sterling per household per hear, at the moment, and under Labour going further north.
So do not portray the Labour win as an endorsement for Net Zero. They got a small vote share of a low turnout while being very vague about what they would do when elected, so its hard to see that their win was a national endorsement of any particular policies. And as for it being an endorsement of any particular view of climate or weather or energy? No, definitely not.
A zero-carbon electricity system by 2030, five years before the government’s aim, is the most clearly defined of Labour’s targets. And Labour’s Climate pledge is to spend L28bn per year to get there.
As I pointed out above, they have walked back from the 28 billion.
The 2030 target is impossible to meet, with or without the 28. They will end up walking back from that, too. In fact there are hints that walk back is under way.
They are now struggling with the fact that steel making requires coke, and that means emissions, and that eliminating those emissions means closing down the UKs remaining primary steel production. Which means layoffs and job losses. They are having second thoughts about that now. Too late however. And those closures happened because of policy under a Conservative government.
The assumption that left governments, and particularly Labour, are going to lower emissions is not safe at all. When they get to see the real world effects and costs of the policies, they blink. Like everyone else.
NB : The “Labor” party is based in … checks dictaphone … Oar-stray-lee-ah. In these here antipodes it’s the “Labour” party.
More seriously, one aspect that “jumped out” to me was the rise in the abstention level, from 31% in 2017 and 32.5% in 2019, to 40% in 2024.
While OK with tables of numbers I prefer a more “visual” approach, which led me to generate the attached graph.
Note that “NOTA” stands for “None Of The Above”, which includes both the angry political activist “A plague on all your houses !” and the world-weary “I’ve got bigger things to worry about right now … and bitter experience has taught me that no party is going to help me with my problems anyway …” groups of people (amongst others).
Note also that apart from “NOTA” and Reform, the only party that increased their vote share in Great Britain (England + Scotland + Wales, Northern Ireland is a special case) was … the Greens !
Why oh why will the public accept drivel from the mainstream and ignore the common sense of the above? Especially by following this line they will be so much better off.
“Britain’s last major steelworks, at Port Talbot in Wales, closed forever a couple of months ago”
NOT TRUE
Steelmaking continues at Port Talbot using the basic oxygen steel-making process, as will ingot, plate & sheet rolling.
When the Blast Furnaces are demolished, an Electric Arc Furnace will be used to melt local scrap & imported pig iron.
Only the basic Iron production has been terminated.
The Morfa Coke Ovens were decommissioned in March 24, after concerns about the deteriorating conditions.
The operations to close Blast Furnace 5 (BF5) were initiated on July 4th.
Blast Furnace 4 (BF4) is due to shut at the end of September 24.
Following the UK’s departure from the EU and the implementation of the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, UK steel exports to the EU dropped significantly
Brexit tariffs and quotas on UK steel exports increased TATAs operating costs, adding around 15% to the cost of transport and processing.
TATA is only closing UK basic Iron production, because of a combination of Nut Zero requirements & Brexit tariffs and quotas; other Blast Furnace sites in EU will remain open.
Why the down ticks ???
Port Talbot hasn’t shut … it’s still in production: Christopher didn’t check his facts.
https://www.tatasteel.com/media/newsroom/press-releases/india/2024/tata-steel-announces-next-steps-towards-its-ambitious-transformation-from-blast-furnaces-to-green-steelmaking-in-the-uk-and-initiates-statutory-consultation/
https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2024-07-04/blast-furnace-5-winds-down-with-steam-and-loud-noises-expected-in-port-talbot
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cervyne7ej1o
https://www.ft.com/content/95a202b1-1631-4878-b8a1-4a9601b76576
“Unlock Britain’s vast oil and gas reserves”
vast?
Christopher,
I was campaign manager for the Reform candidate in Godalming and Ash. We did the best we could, but didn’t quite succeed in taking enough votes from the Tories to let the Lib Dem candidate oust Jeremy Hunt. Things will be different next time. And it won’t be the illiberal and undemocratic “Lib Dems” that benefit.
But a question on your article itself. Were there really 200,000 abortions in the UK in 2023? Please provide a link to your data source.
Beyond this, Christopher, what you write here has reinforced my view that you can’t change a bad system from the inside. You have to invade it from the outside. And Nigel Farage has put his “first foot” in the door.
Things are going to become very “interesting.”
They became interesting, with the pro climate party winning a record 411 seats
Yes. So they have TOTAL control of all legislation, and can not blame anyone else for the damage they do to the “common” man in the UK over the next 5 years.
The NEXT election will be interesting. A choice will be given between the uniparty command and control politicians and Reform people.
And that’s what happened to the Conservatives. The PEOPLE were fed up.
They certainly will be fed-up after 4-5 years of what is coming.
(although they may not be able to afford food)
And you are wrong as always…
What happened to the so-called conservatives is that they followed the far-left agenda. That lost them a large proportion of their voting public.
If people want that agenda, they can vote Labour or Green
Apart from the newly formed Reform party, there is no party for rational conservatives to vote for anymore. So 40% of people did not vote.
Thus the uniparty comment.
Rush Limbaugh always said that a Republican trying to be “liberal light” would always lose to a “true” liberal.
Well in the UK, the last 3 years of the “Tory” party trying to be “liberal light” got their just deserts.
I watched the Tory selection process that ended up with the outgoing PM. It was much like Republican primaries in the US that ended up with McCane and Romney. The most big government beholding to special interest “liberal light” candidate was selected.
TRUMP! in 2016 broke that series of worthless nominees in the US.
Boris and Sunak were both fine examples of “liberal light” PMs, right down to Boris ignoring China virus mandates, just like MANY Democrats in the US.
“although they may not be able to afford food”
In 2010 when labour were last in power there were 61000 people using food banks. In 2023 after 13 years of a Tory government there were just under 3 million.
They are not a ‘pro climate party’, whatever that means. In the UK there has been a climate and energy consensus between Conservatives, Labour and Liberals. None are any more or less pro climate than any others.
And the seats won are more a reflection of FTTP performance in a multi party situation.
Sorry, but that’s wrong. Farge’s reformists are anti climate action (more like wuwt). Conservatives are ‘luke warm on climate action’ and Labour is much stronger on climate action.
Its not ‘climate action’. Its action on energy which will have no effect one way or the other on climate. Its irrelevant to the climate. Calling it climate action is a form of newspeak.
You could with equal justification call standing on one’s head ‘action on climate’. It would have as much effect.
OMG. I thought Id heard everything on WUWT, but your gobsmacking ignorance takes the proverbial cake. Climate Change is almost entirely about energy — and the carbon emissions which are given off by burning of fossil fuels.
It seems like the real headline should be: Labour — the pro Climate party– won a record 411 seats.
Labour got 411 seats with only 38% of the vote. Many people who applied for postal votes also failed to receive their ballots. Our electoral system is in dire need of reform.
Or more likely, citizens who wanted to see action on the climate issue have too long been under represented, Thats now changed.
“Labour got 411 seats with only 38% of the vote.”
33.8%.
But then 85.7% voted for parties other than Reform.
“Our electoral system is in dire need of reform.”
Agreed, but the people rejected change in the referendum, and the cry over the last 8 years is that you mustn’t defy the will of the people.
“you mustn’t defy the will of the people.”
Unless the politicians deem it OK to do so.. right..
Next 4-5 years will be a hard, downhill slide for the UK. !
Yes, they voted for it… but I still hope they survive… somehow !
Another joke flies far above bnice’s little head.
Poor bellboy.
… the jokes are all in its head. !
Great that you think its ok for the politicians to ignore the will of the people, if it suits their purposes…
He still doesn’t get it. Probably too young to remember 2011. So let me explain.
I have always been in favour of electoral reform. It’s one of the few things I agree with Garage about.
However, I do like to reflect on his hypocracy regarding referendums. In 2011 voted overwhelmingly, over 2/3rds, to keep the current system. In 2016 the people voted by a small margin, 52% to leave, with no details as to how we would leave.
Farage seems to be keen to reject the first referendum, but insists the second must be followed to the extreme.
Yes, Farage remains committed to Leave — in spite of the economic debacle that has been left in the wake of Brexit. So much for his IQ as well as integrity.
34% of the vote, actually.
And not a single one of any of the klimate diktats will have any effect on air temperature.
Sux2BU
They all have an impact.
Rubbish.. They have not and cannot make any difference to the climate.
UK is a total non-entity wrt CO2 emissions (that don’t have any effect anyway.)
All they will do is put the UK well ahead in the race to the bottom.
because their manufacturing is already dropping rapidly, they will have to find funds to import “stuff”,
.. that “stuff” will all come from the COAL-FIRED manufacturing in places like China….. With INCREASED in global CO2 emissions.
Yep!
Prove it.
I’d suggest you study the relationship between emissions and warming of the climate
Causation, correlation or coincidence?
Guess which word is correct.
Since your posts have shown your total lack of understanding of the scientific method, you will probably FIRST need to go to a dictionary for the definitions of all three words.
When you post your guess, could you provide some proof?
Let’s see. Thousands of PhD scientists, working in every country of the developed world, concluding that man’s burning of fossil fuels is the cause of modern day climate change. And then there’s YOU. Who should we believe? 😂
And yet you cannot produce one single paper that give empirical evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2.
There is a lot of money to be lost if they don’t follow the meme !
And tell us, apart from a slight warming since the coldest period in 10,000 years, caused by solar energy increases..
In what way has the global climate changed ?
And where is your evidence of human causation of global warming.
There is no evidence in the UAH satellite data.
Urban warming (2-4% of the globe), as represented by the mal-manufactured surface series certainly cannot be used to illustrate CO2 warming.
We know you have none, so we know you will waffle on, refusing to submit any scientific evidence.
Still no proof. Not even any evidence.
“Let’s see. Thousands of PhD scientists, working in every country of the developed world, concluding that man’s burning of fossil fuels is the cause of modern day climate change.”
That’s a completely false assertion. The IPCC and NASA refer to the same four studies of scientific consensus. None of them found thousands concluding humans are the cause of climate change, and none of them say the number of scientists that claim humans are the cause of climate change is larger than the number of scientists that state humans are not the cause of climate change.
Those are lies.
Anderegg et al, Oreskes, Doran &Zimmermann, Cook et al: Every single one conforms to my statement. Try reading the methods and data instead of stories about the studies.
No you are wrong. Those studies all conclude that the scientific consensus is that well more than 90% of researching scientists conclude man is the cause of the warming
There isn’t any causal relationship !
I suggest you go back to primary school and study something… anything !!
Just try to learn this time.
Oh look, no proof.
What a surprise.
How much effect will UK Net Zero, if achieved, have on the global average temperature?
Answer in degrees C, and show your workings.
Everything has an impact, including each breath you take. None of them have a measurable impact.
Without CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, the amount of warming would be reduced 80% from its current level. You do the math.
LOL. Obviously, you can’t.
I gave you and nutmeg the facts — now you can calculate the answer to nutmegs question
The real headline is the pro-Iran-Hamas party won 411 seats and has rejoined its inspiration, Jeremy Corbyn, in taking the UK into a position where it rivals all of socialist Europe in its desire to eradicate the world’s Jews.
While doing so, they will complete the destruction of the UK’s economy and energy security. Ultimately, they will solve the problem with immigration by turning the island into a such a miserable morass that immigrants will no longer want to cross the pond, legally or illegally.
You and Roger Waters are happy, though. Congrats.
I think you missed the changes wrought by Keith Starmer. It now represents the voice of the PEOPLE. That’s why they WON.
“It now represents the voice of the PEOPLE.”
What, when only 20% of the electorate voted for it? How do you rationalize that?
“…its desire to eradicate the world’s Jews.”
Just as I think these comments can’t get any lower. You do realise that Keir Starmer’s wife is Jewish?
And yet he welcomed Diane Abbott, Corbyn’s former shadow home secretary, back into the fold. Sometimes he talks a good game, but when it comes down to it, Labour under him is just like it is with Macron’s party in France – cover for the antisemites and parades with thousands calling for the murder of the world’s Jews in the streets of London.
He might even prefer to keep antisemites out of his government, but he loves power more and the UK is no friend to Jewish people.
Once more with feeling: Its not a pro climate party!
You need to read up a bit:
This is nuts, really nuts. Or its trolling, which I rather more suspect. Anyway, not bothering replying to this stuff any more. Could be a bot? Or someone who doesn’t know anything about UK politics? Dunno, in either case life is too short.
Sounds like you are rather unfamiliar with Labour’s stated goals, as i posted.
“even if the UK achieved net zero it would reduce global temperature by less than a thousandth of a degree by 2050, at a cost exceeding $15 trillion”
seems reasonable /s
“each $1 billion spent on attempting to attain net zero would abate global warming by less than one 20-millionth of a degree”
also seems very reasonable /s
Jo Nova does a good data driven analysis.
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/07/farage-wins-in-the-uk-taking-14-across-the-country-the-revolt-against-the-establishment-is-underway/
Labour won 411 votes. That sounds like the death rattle of Farage and his nut jobs.
411 votes?
You might want to fact check that. Oh wait a minute, in your world you just have to believe or say it enough times, facts and reality are just inconveniences.
You’re clearly the brains of the operation – you know, the puppet with big glasses.
411 Seats. But you knew that
Shame you didn’t post it – but attention to detail is no biggy in your world 😉
We can be assured that you will continue to pick the fly sh++t out of the pepper.
You’re repartee seems to be as advanced as your brain.
Anyway I’ve heard a lot of screaming and whining about misinformation so thought it best to highlight it.
Like I say – no biggy – do they still let you have crayons?
You keep confirming my posts🤣
I keep correcting your lame trolling excuses for posts.
Now take your meds and get to bed Keir – or is it Ed?
Are you one of the Farage nut jobs?
On the contrary the rapidly emerging Reform party ran second in hundreds of seats, a true victory. Labour’s seeming victory is due to a major shift on the right and as such it is no big win for Labour. Mind you my hope is they take it as a big win and charge ahead. The harder they charge the shorter their tenure will be.
411 Seats vs 5. 😂
Good luck England, surviving the next 4-5 years.
You have voted in a marxist totalitarian parliament absolutely determined to destroy British manufacturing and way of life.
Spoken like a true blue Farage sycophant.
OMG, you are such a clueless muppet.
Do you really, even in your deeply delusional state, think that Net-zero will accomplish anything except the destruction of England. !!
Wow !
I truly hope that is where you live, and you suffer the full effect of what is coming.
This clown is another Simon the Clueless.
Starmer and Millipede claim our energy bills will be lower with ‘green energy’. A miracle is required to achieve that.
I thought that too, but when the cost of electricity increases four fold and it’s then rationed to 3 hours a day, we’ll all be paying half of what we pay today 😉
Why would Reform want to merge with a socialist party like the Conservatives? Their aim should be to wipe out any idea that there is anything conservative about the Conservatives and provide a home for conservative voters.
Yea!
40% of people did not vote.
That is more than the Labour party got !
Conservatives only had Reform to vote for, and unfortunately it was not widespread enough, even though they were in second place in many seats.
The next few years will give the people a real wake-up call.. if they survive. !
As voters in most democratic countries are becoming more aware of the climate scam movement and its associated increased living costs, they are more likely to support political parties that will give them a rest from unnecessary taxes and inconvenient green restrictions. The increase of Reform support is a typical indication, and even though Labor still favors green initiatives, if it faces more opposition over them, it will likely either modify them or abandon them entirely. We’re likely to see more of such sentiment on the parts of voters in the upcoming US and Canadian elections.
As has been seen across all of Europe.
Here is a question for Warren Beeton: What is Labour’s strategy for convincing China and India to largely abandon fossil fuels and to adopt a goal of achieving Net Zero by 2050 along with the UK?
Very nice and clear as a bell. Clear that our problem is government. Bad government. We do not have a climate crisis, CO2 is not the control knob for our climate, we are not going to reach a tipping point and suffer irreversible global warming. Remove wind and solar from the grid, fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear generators, build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators and upgrade the grid. The biggest help the government could do is remove itself from energy production and distribution. All they have accomplished is to screw things up.
Guess what Cabinet proposed this plan: Vast salt caverns designed to store hydrogen are to be excavated under Britain’s biggest former naval base as part of plans to bolster the country’s energy security.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/07/01/vast-salt-caverns-to-store-hydrogen-under-former-royal-navy-base/