In the Mail, Reform UK’s Richard Tice argues that scrapping Labour’s “Net Stupid Zero” agenda could save families £1,000 a year. Here’s an excerpt:
This week, Ed Miliband opens his latest renewable energy auction, which allows green developers to bid for lucrative taxpayer-funded contracts.
The eco lobby says the auction, officially titled Allocation Round 7 (AR7), will be the centrepiece of Labour’s plan to decarbonise the grid by 2030, and that this seventh round must be the biggest yet to “keep the dream alive”.
But it’s a dream Britain cannot afford. Inflation is rising. Food prices are once again on the up. And families across the country are cutting back – not just on holidays or takeaways, but on essentials. …
And one of the biggest contributory factors to this crisis is an issue that almost no one in Westminster wants to talk about: Net Zero and the spiralling cost of Britain’s green energy agenda.
Expensive energy is the grenade exploding Britain’s economic model. It is not just about switching on the lights and heating homes.
It powers industry, transports goods and underpins every job and price tag. When energy becomes expensive and unreliable, everything else does too. …
For nearly two decades, clueless politicians from Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have clung to a fantasy: that we could eliminate all hydrocarbon use, build a national grid dominated by wind and solar power and suffer no consequences.
The result? At a time of rising demand we are reliant on an unreliable energy supply and lumbered with higher bills. Three-quarters of the rise in electricity bills over the past decade can be attributed to green energy policies and the multi-billion-pound subsidies paid to renewable investors, according to Net Zero Watch. …
Now suppliers are warning that prices will rise again in 2026. Professor Gordon Hughes, a former energy adviser at the World Bank, has warned they could approach 40p per kilowatt hour by 2030 – up from 25p today, which is a catastrophic increase.
That’s why I took action. Last month, I wrote to major wind farm developers, warning them and their investors to stay away from the AR7 auction. I made it clear that if they press ahead, a Reform government will make them regret it.
As Nigel Farage said a few weeks ago about the renegotiation of green subsidy contracts, investors will see “some haircuts”. Naturally, activists, consultants and subsidy-hunters – the ‘Green Blob’ – erupted in outrage.
But, if these wind farms go ahead, it will be an act of grave economic self-harm. By putting a spanner in the works of Miliband’s mad plan, we can stop the 20-year rise in bills. By 2030, my letter alone might be saving households £1,000 a year.
Worth reading in full.
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Net Stupid Zero
Britain may have lower gas stockpiles going into the winter after the owner of British Gas indicated it plans to sell its stored gas to help reduce losses at a North Sea gas storage facility.
Centrica said the financial losses from its Rough gas storage business were not sustainable, meaning it would aim to sell the existing gas at the site without restocking before winter.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/24/fears-uk-gas-stockpile-drop-for-winter-british-gas-owner-centrica-sell-off
How stupid is that?
Just another reflection of the stupidity of giving preference to what *doesn’t work* (wind and solar) while reducing the use of what does work (fossil fuels and nuclear) to “filling in the (frequency and haphazard) gaps.”
Just another reflection
Westminster is jam packed full of them. But common sense has broken out in the company they love to hate…
“BP Plc paid £1.25 billion ($1.6 billion) in taxes to the UK government in 2024, with about a third of the payments a result of the country’s windfall charge.” – Bloomberg News
Peak oil and gas? Not a chance of it.
BP makes its biggest oil and gas discovery in 25 years off coast of Brazil
Company to carry out more tests on its Santos basin find as it continues shift from renewables back to fossil fuels – The Guardian
Might come in handy…
Milliband has already increased (again) the ‘Contracts for Difference’ subsidies to ensure that the subsidy miners will actually bid to build these bird mincers. Meanwhile, the scottish ‘government’ has signed off on the biggest offshore wind industrial complex (in the world they say), close to Bass Rock and the largest colonies of endangered sea birds in UK, despite being warned by RSPB and NatureScot that there will be carnage. So much for environmentalism.
But (name withheld) states forcefully that it is oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear that destroy the environment.
Therefore since our “resident expert” has made the proclamation, I must conclude that you are wrong, lying, and a shill of the oil industry.
Please note: MEGA SARCASM
Not just the UK, Bass Rock is home to the largest gannet colony in the world, earning it Sir David Attenborough’s claim to be one of the ‘wildlife wonders of the world’.
That must be his 659th ‘wildlife wonders of the world’ then 🙂
It’s almost all white due the the quantities of bird crap deposited thereon.
The UK’s and Europe’s energy policy: “When you see a cliff, run towards it and flap your arms, and maybe you’ll fly.. Because, Saving the Planet matters!”. .
About 71% of the earth’s surface is water. How do you save all that water and in addition the all ice in the polar regions? Now adays, young peoples only brain is a smart phone gadgets. Take away the phones, they would freak out and their heads would explode!
Not sure explore is the correct metaphor. Perhaps shrivel like a raison might be the better choice.
How about …and have a nervous break down.
Lol…no need for theft, a total blackout does alresdy the trick. Remember 28.04.2025…I was there and it was great haha. No juice, no charge, no coverage and no way to pay…this generation is screwed.
Done properly, I’m pretty sure that this could save much more. Scrapping net zero also means dissolving bodies like the climate change committee and the ‘carbon trust’, a useless body that wastes public money like there’s no tomorrow, one amongst dozens of similar quangos. Foreign ‘climate aid’. Carbon capture and storage. The ridiculous project to remove CO2 from sea water. The even more ridiculous project to reflect sunlight (whilst pushing for millions more solar panels). Thousands more ‘green solutions’ to an invented ‘climate crisis’. Hundreds of billions have been wasted on net zero when there is simply no proof that CO2 has any effect on the climate AT ALL.
From the article: “For nearly two decades, clueless politicians from Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have clung to a fantasy: that we could eliminate all hydrocarbon use, build a national grid dominated by wind and solar power and suffer no consequences.”
Yes, they clung to a fantasy, and they are still doing so.
Net Zero by 2030? Don’t make me laugh!
Net Zero Bankruptcy by 2030, is more likely. Much more likely. Net Zero is an impossible dream. Bankruptcy is just around the corner.
Human-caused Climate Change is the biggest Hoax in Human History. There is no evidence for it, yet millions of delusional people carry on as if it is real.
The UK economy crashing and burning will tell the tale.
The delusional people are in the UK and the EU which have a lot of really smart chemists and physicists. Why are these guys remaining silent?
Human cause Climate Crisis is more apt.
Humanity does have a minor affect, but nothing critical, let alone a crisis, is the result, which is barely measurable above background noise.
Well, it’s settled….Ed has to go. Meanwhile. in Canada, western provinces are considering secession over Ottawa’s opposition to new pipelines and more oil production.
Only Alberta wants to succeed. I live BC and there is there no talk of secession. However, we don’t being ripped off by Ottawa for “equalization payments” which go Quebec and maritime provinces.
Saskatchewan.
Moscow rips off Siberia and there is secession moves there too.
I hear similar secession talk about Canada “all the time”, so to speak. I get the impression some people think it is possible, especially regarding Quebec. Is this actually possible without starting a war — is there some already-defined legal process?
Yes..the secession talks of the “frenchies”rapidly die once they realize that “being truly Canadian” means others money in their pockets. If AB and SK seceed it would be a different story, it’s their own money in their pockets and “appyours” you stupid liberals in the east
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out given Trump’s “invitation” for Canada to join the US.
Personally, I would be agreeable to trading California for any/all provinces so inclined to secede.
Canada in general would be a huge loss for the republicans, just trade AB and SK for California…both vote mostly conservatives, the latter only liberals (democrats you call tbem in the US)
That would be the Canadian version of conservative?
Net zero by 2030 is simply a dystopian phantasy of fools. We’ve already seen that France did not (could not?) supply Spain’s power during its latest dunkelflaute (dark doldrum). Norway is already threatening the same for the UK. It’s worth noting that Norway has their ample hydro, and France their nuclear powerplants intended to keep their own lights on, but hardly enough to power all of their neighboring fools.
It’s a simple fact that intermittent power requires not just daily backup of zero ‘carbon’ energy storage, but the reality of zero ‘carbon’ yearly energy storage to provide power in the dark days of winter. There is simply no known technology for this on the reality horizon in the next decade or longer. It’s a simple fact at any cost, much less ‘only’ a thousand pounds a year per household. This is particularly true for the isle of England with a mid point latitude north of 53 degrees.
My major reasons for voting for Brexit, and subsequently Reform is to prevent economic disaster caused by renewables.
We need to stop using fossil fuel in the UK not because of emissions, but because we don’t have much left. A bit of gas and some uneconomic coal.
But we need nuclear, not renewables.Nuclear works. Renewables simply dont.
Estimated Reserves: Studies suggest the UK might have between 90 and 330 billion cubic metres of recoverable shale gas via fracking between 2020 and 2050.
Something for Reform to ponder.
Some reports suggest there may be more coal and hydrocarbon fuels in the UK than your post suggests.
That aside, GO NUKE!
Under the North Sea there are huge coal seams, enough to fulfil our needs for centuries and make Britain an energy giant. Difficult to recover maybe, but the technology exists to ‘gasify’ it in place.
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/fracking-is-for-amateurs/
“Scientists have discovered vast deposits of coal lying under the North Sea, which could provide enough energy to power Britain for centuries.
Experts believe there is between 3 and 23 trillion tonnes of coal buried in the seabed starting from the northeast coast and stretching far out under the sea.
Data from seismic tests and boreholes shows that the seabed holds up to 20 layers of coal – much of which could be reached with the technology already used to extract oil and gas.
In comparison: so far the world extracted ‘merely’ 0.135 trillion ton of oil, a small fraction of the coal reserves located beneath the North-Sea.”
I think with a little bit of research you will find that the UK has plenty of coal and therefore gas under the North Sea, particularly off Yorkshire and Northumberland. Then there is all the shale gas not yet tested in the Weald and Lankashire amongst other basins. Peak Oil, Gas and Coal has been not happening for the last century due to better technology, Have a little bit of faith my man!
Ditching Net Zero will save all the United Kingdom.
“Could” “May” “Might”. The same guy who said smoking is good for you is now making claims about economics 🤦♂️
And the planet could be destroyed by an asteroid impact, a super volcano eruption, alien invaders.
To which “guy” are you referring. All of the “Could” “May” “Might” in the article are references to other people, not the blogger.
Richard Tice used “could” to point out the consumer costs or cost savings are an estimate. In context “could save” is equivalent to “will save an estimated…” or “will save as much as…”. “Could Save” is a headline notation.
For what it is worth, Richard Tice, according to my limited research, did not claim smoking was good for you. His claim was that the government intervention was overreach.
Tice was basically saying that Sunak’s suggestion was total idiocy..
… like basically everything Sunak says.
I doubt net zero is going to happen in the UK at all. All that’s going to happen is that imported gas will be substituted for North Sea or fracked gas. But nothing Miliband has announced, and nothing that is in the plans, can deliver net zero in power generation by 2030, the promised date. If they want to keep the lights on, the amount of gas used in power generation is going to rise, not fall.
Of course, they can spend a lot of money not getting to net zero. And this seems to be the present plan. Tice is reasonably proposing to stop doing this. He is right, its entirely pointless.
The jury is out on how this will work out. Do they fire Miliband and do a U-turn? Or do they sit there waiting for the inevitable blackouts and consequent electoral revulsion. Probably the worst of both worlds, wait for the blackouts and then panic and fire him.
For some unfathomable reason mad Ed is really popular with his fellow MPs which is a real problem for Starmer..
The reason is pretty fathomabe if you think about it. His fellow MPs are people who go to their annual party conference and conclude it with enthusiastically singing ‘The Red Flag’. A nostalgic paen to mass murder and the gulag. Its as if a right wing party were to conclude its conferences by singing the Horst Wessel Lied.
Miliband was the author of the revised leadership election process, which gave power to the membership, which is dominated by the far left, and which resulted in the selection of Jeremy Corbyn.
Any prominent figure left of Starmer is going to command enthusiastic support from the far left of the membership and from the far left of the MPs.
A long time ago the saying was, “he who controls the money controls.”
This has morphed into “he who controls the energy controls.”
Numerous UN officials have made comments that fully support that.
It’s a global virus going around-
China playing hardball while Australia ‘handicaps’ its industries
It’s the Keynesian version of digging holes and filling them in again.
Hmm it’s my guttfeeling that tells me that savings woul most likely exceed 1000£…take in account secondary effects like: energy savings=better food=better healt=more income f.e.
Buuut then comes another smartass politician “claiming” that your additional income due to savings actually belongs to him to do some good…