By Vijay Jayaraj
Across the Atlantic, a self-inflicted disaster is steadily unfolding. One of the United States’ closest allies, the United Kingdom, has surrendered energy riches and industrial prowess.
This decline is not the result of any shortage of capital, technological capacity or natural resources. Instead, it is the consequence of an ideologically driven climate agenda that has elevated “green” symbolism over engineering reality.
For years, politicians have beaten their chests about the U.K.’s “world-leading” renewable capacity. They paraded statistics showing wind and solar generating most of the electricity, conveniently ignoring that this only happens when the wind blows and the sun shines.
When “green” generation doesn’t perform, British taxpayers pay for natural gas-fired power plants to back up idle facilities and stabilize the grid. They also pay “constraint payments” to switch off wind turbines when it is too windy to operate them.
This is the great deception of the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) metric the green lobby loves to cite. LCOE excludes the enormous price of grid balancing, backup generation, curtailment payments, transmission expansion and subsidies – all required to prop up the green sham.
In the real world – where bills must be paid – the U.K. has created for itself some of the highest electricity rates on the planet, up to four times more than in the United States. One-third of Scots live in energy poverty. But the real cost never shows up in glossy charts that promote manipulated data representing wind and solar as cheap.
The price caps of Great Britain’s Office of Gas and Electricity Markets now dominate household conversations, which are amplified by each winter’s anxiety over lifestyle choices. Heat or eat has shifted from a slogan to a lived reality. Once a power behind the Industrial Revolution, Britain has shamefully imposed on its citizens energy poverty. Families ration warmth while politicians celebrate decarbonization targets.
One reader told U.K.’s Independent of heating only a single room with a wood-burning stove, mimicking a 19th century living standard 200 years later. Such is the “Green Industrial Revolution” promised by know-nothing managers of energy policy.
And for what? So that the U.K. can reduce its negligible contribution to global emissions of harmless carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, China and India build coal plants to power the manufacturing exported to them by those who have frittered away British industrial might.
Manufacturers have little choice but to leave when a “carbon tax” and heavy-handed regulation on carbon dioxide emissions artificially inflate the cost of energy. Steelmakers are on their knees, facing energy bills that have surged by billions, rendering British steel uncompetitive against foreign rivals free of net-zero dogma.
Nowhere is the insanity more visible than in the North Sea. For decades, offshore oil and natural gas were the crown jewels of the British economy, providing cheap, reliable energy and revenue to fund public services.
Today, this resource is being sacrificed at the altar of climate theology. The Prime Minister’s punitive windfall taxes and refusal to issue new licenses have effectively killed North Sea energy development. Investors have fled. Rigs are decommissioning. Thousands of skilled jobs are evaporating.
Compare this to U.K. neighbor Norway, which continues to extract oil and natural gas from the sea and sell to global customers, including the U.K. While Britain dismantles its energy sovereignty to appease the likes of Extinction Rebellion, Norway enriches its citizens and funds its sovereign wealth fund.
The contrast is humiliating. The U.K. imported over 50% of its natural gas supply in 2024 from Norway.
Apologists for this British collapse point to anything but the truth. They blame Brexit and the Russia-Ukraine war. They blame a “global recession,” pretending that the U.K.’s de-industrialization isn’t an outlier. But the fundamental reason for the collapse is the “green” agenda espoused by the political establishment for 20 years.
It has been a bipartisan failure. Tories chased the “green vote” by banning fracking and demonizing diesel. The Labour party doubled down with net-zero mandates that defy the laws of physics and economics. They built a grid fragile to the weather and expensive to the user.
A crusade to avoid an imaginary climate catastrophe of the future has created a very real economic disaster in the present.
Originally published in Real Clear Markets on January 21, 2026.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada.
The UK is stuck in 1984…
“Across the Atlantic, a self-inflicted disaster is steadily unfolding”
Wel, yes,it is. Its name is Brexit.
This is the facile argument of all foolish people who are upset about the result of a democratic process. Basically, every single thing that happens to or in the UK that they don’t like is definitely the result of Brexit or Climate Change in their simplified and ultimately confused vision of reality.
Colour me surprised that you are part of this particular group…
It is true, in a sort of backhanded way. The persistence of the political class in telling stories and adopting policies that are contrary to the belief of the mass of the population, and opposed by them, has led inexorably to government restrictions on liberty. You insist on doing things the mass of the country regards as stupid, irrational and wrong, sooner of later you have to abolish free speech and trial by jury. So there is a connection between Brexit and the Bill of Rights – just not the one Nick might think. Its the consequences of Government and civil service attempts not to implement it that has led to the rise of Reform and that in turn to the cascade of restrictions on free speech, and now the ‘suspension’ of local government elections in May.
Brexit has yet to be enacted.
They won’t do it, Parliament is busy cancelling elections, anyway.
There are pros and cons to Brexit. The cons have actually been pretty fully enacted. The pros…not so many.
I was a tepid remainer. I didn’t think we’d extracted all the good that was to be had from the EU; we were leaving too soon, like jumping off the Titanic as it sailed out of Southampton so as to drown closer to home. And even at the time I argued the only bureaucracy that could exceed the EU’s would be our own post Brexit.
I am still waiting for the Brexit dividend. Being suffocated and frozen to the marrow by our own rules, while we continue to energetically recruit foreign labour, but now from the global majority, is not a win.
Parliament was and remains determined to spike Brexit. Traitor’s parliaments from May to Starmer.
That’s very true especially in the case of Starmer.Although Rachel Queen Of Thieves has said the UK can’t rejoin the Customs Union because of post Brexit Trade Deals.
The problem is that we spent 40 years arguing about being in and didn’t take advantage of the Pros and suffered from the Cons and now we’re going to spend another four decades doing the same about Brexit
The fact is that a very lucrative career path was denied them. Think Brittan, Kinnock, Mandelson ad nauseam – and Kinnock fired the honest EU auditor who blew the whistle:
Commission Vice-President Neil Kinnock has defended the Commission’s decision to suspend the organisation’s former chief accountant for warning that EU budget was in danger of fraud. – Euractiv
Then there’s the blame game; always easier to point the finger at Brussels than take responsibility.
But they are not our own rules. We are still bound to the EU on energy policy.
I’m listening… Seriously. Say more.
Do you remember how the the European electorate voted for Ursula Von Der Leyen as High Commissioner?
No, neither do I.
You obviously have no idea how the Parliamentary dictatorship works.
What is happening in the UK is indeed a dramatic and disturbing failure, but its not due to Brexit. Though Brexit is a player in it. Lets explain. What is happening is a gap between the political and media classes of the UK and the majority of the country. This has ramifications on much of social and political life. And its getting wider all the time. And it has wide consequences.
The British, by a substantial majority, on a well publicized and strongly argued referencum, decided to leave the EU. It was a decisive mandate. This decision was then either not implemented or actively obstructed by the then Conservative government, under Theresa May, until the Party removed her and installed Johnson, who became Prime Minister and did implement it.
I don’t think there is any evidence of social, political or economic harm to the UK from leaving the EU. In fact the striking thing is that none of the Remain tendency have ever made their argument on the merits of the EU as institution, and since Brexit it has become ever more dysfunctional. They have never been able to explain why this is an institution the UK should want to be part of. But real harm was done in the process, as the obstruction widened an already developing gap, and it led to the rise first of UKIP and then of Reform.
At the same time, illegal immigration became a hot topic. Labour, Conservatives and Liberal shared the same basic approach: tolerate and put the arrivals on welfare either in rented housing or hotels. The impact of this, on the scale that it reached, on the towns and villages where the immigrants have been housed, has widened the gap still further, and given even more impetus to Reform.
The gap is further widened by gender policies. All over the country institutions have been basically implementing self declaration of sex, and banning criticism of it. That is, if you are a man who just says he is a woman many important institutions, such as the National Health Service, will treat you as one, give you access to womens changing rooms etc. They will also discipline or even fire you if you express dissent from this.
The next thing that happens in this is a series of court cases which affirm that in UK law ‘woman’ is a biological category. The reaction of institutions is to continue their previous policies, and the Government reaction is to freeze the process of publishing revised guidance, so a fair summary is that the political class is just ignoring the court decisions. It is not an accident that Reform opposes this situation too.
Finally we have climate and energy. Here the government is claiming that electricity prices will fall, and supply made more robust, due to installing large amounts of wind and solar generation, and that its esssential to move heat to heat pumps and cars to EVs. Trucks too, most recently, have come under review. The practical effect of this has been rising prices and a supply teetering on the edge of blackouts when the weather doesn’t perform. Reform denounces this too. Are you getting a picture?
I won’t go into the craziness about race and decolonization, because there is an important next stage to this. The next stage is elections and the courts. When you have this kind of radical gap between governors and governed, one of the things that is likely to crack is the court system. The Government is thus proposing to abolish trial by jury for many offences on the grounds that it wastes court time. A second problem is elections.
There is no national election till mid 2029, but there are local elections in May, and Reform did very well in the last ones that were held. The Government, rightly fearing a landslide against it in May, has cancelled a big chunk of the local elections, curiously enough mostly places where Reform is polling well.
A third problem is speech. People are used to talking, and in ordinary life in the UK the open expression of dislike or something stronger for both government and Starmer himself is something to hear. But there is a remedy for it. Its the creation of no criminal hate incidents, where the police interview and caution people for having said something legal but politically incorrect. There is hate speech legislation, which criminalizes the expression of truly hateful speech, but has in practice been used to criminalize the merely offensive. Abolishing jury trials will help this process.
The disaster unfolding in the UK is the end of a democracy that has lasted in its present form since 1688. The thing to watch is 2029. It would not be at all surprising if a nationwide blackout in 2028 were to prompt the government to ‘postpone’ the national general elections then. Something which, a few years ago, was inconceivable, but is now becoming a real possibility. Maybe still unlikely, but the trend and destination is clear.
East Germany on the Thames, Coming closer every day to a town hall near you, and in many, already here.
I am not sure the government has the power to close down democracy in any real terms. The USA may have succeeded, but that is a less sophisticated electorate. Mark Carney’s speech at Davos was good – if globalisation is going to be used as a lever to achieve political dominance, then it behoves us medium sized countries to form loose alliances based on mutual gain rather than believe that the rule of law still holds at international level.
Russia, the CCP , the EU, and now the USA have all attempted to build isolated political blocs and acquire territory in a flurry of 19th century Imperialism.
It didn’t work then and it wont work now but every generation has to understand that.
In the UK its very easy to close down democracy and its well underway. There is no written constitution, no special provision for constitutional changes. They can be made by a simple majority vote of the Commons. Yes, there are a couple of sticking points with the Lords and Royal Consent, but they are not going to stop a determined government.
You can see this in action in the various restrictions on speech that have come into law in the last few years. There is no equivalent of a US First Amendment, no restrictions on free speech are subject to judicial review against a constitution.
It has turned out to be possible to ‘suspend’ = cancel local elections without even a vote in the Commons.
The unwritten constitutional conventions operating in the UK since 1688 are in the process of being ignored or abolished in practice, and there is no institutional protection for them. They depended on goodwill and shared values, and both of these have vanished.
Well explained. I’m sure that Nick doesn’t agree.
“When you have this kind of radical gap between governors and governed …” 1776.
“Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Funny how you can look from the other side too and name it trump. Almost like right-wing populism is bad for its citizens or something. I don’t know.
right-wing populism is bad for its citizens
The [un]democratic answer?
Government announces 29 local elections will be scrapped
Saving democracy… from the voting riff raff.
Beware of simple labels. Trump reflects the USA. His progenitors have noted the corruption inherent in the ‘Liberal’ democratic movement in the USA and used that as a means to propel one of the ugliest and least sophisticated arseholes to power, ever,
Some of what he does to dismantle the woke empire of bureaucracy is good, but his foreign policy is a car crash.
The UK is more nuanced. Reform are not a one man band of sociopaths. They are accumulating real talent. All the people in the old UKIP and now Reform movement say the same thing – we are not radical populists, we are small ‘c’ conservatives, who want to concentrate on stuff that works and get rid of ‘moral’ ideology and replace it with conservative pragmatism.
As an independent country Britain would be able to do deals with whomsoever it feels suits its direction, and join (and leave) whichever security, legal and trade associations suit its purpose.
No one, not Russia, not the EU, not America, wants to see that happen. They all want to own Britain. .
But we don’t like being owned, We like to fuck up independently where the perpetrators are local …
…And as far as energy policy goes, it’s already doomed. Miliband is the ‘fool who persisteth in his folly’..although he wont become wise, people are becoming wise to him,…and his policies.
That’s a nice dream, but in the real world Britain alone has not enough power to go against the US, Russia, China or international cooperation.
UK does not have enough power to keep the lights on 24/7/365.
“his foreign policy is a car crash”
So, I see, you don’t agree with his removal of Maduro.
“but his foreign policy is a car crash.”
Trump’s foreign policy couldn’t be better for the United States.
It’s sad that you can’t see that. You seem to have been influenced by Leftwing propaganda. You won’t get the truth about Trump by listening to Leftwing liars.
Personality wise all the nasty things said about Trump are true. He would be the person no one would choose to engage with at a cocktail party. He is not a politician and that is part of why he was chosen. I wish he were more diplomatic but only because it bothers other people, not me, nor many Americans. While Europe, and much of the world for that matter, is slowly being consumed by the Marxists he’s taking care to see we remain true to our country and Constitution. Nothing wrong with that. After all, he’s not President of One World Government.
Most of your post is reasonable with one exception.
“He would be the person no one would choose to engage with at a cocktail party.”
That, in fact, is blatantly false.
Who says USA wants to “own Britain.”
Nothing can be further from the truth.
The vast majority of Americans hate fish and chips, preferring chicken nuggets and fries.
Seems America is exporting that specialized food technology to UK, just to help the Brits become more civilized.
Humor – a difficult concept
— Lt. Saavik
As an American, I can tell you that Trump doesn’t reflect the USA. It is so easy to think of the USA as two blocs of people – the loony left and the ridiculous right. However, there are many of us, who are actually critical thinkers, who reject both extremes. The next 9 months, leading up to the elections, are going to be interesting times.
Oh, and by the way, we do not want to own Britain, or the British Isles, or the UK – we don’t want any responsibility whatsoever for what you are doing to yourselves. And we don’t want Canada (although Alberta might be a nice 51st state!).
Some of us, not enough, vote for people, not political parties.
I wish the House of Representatives went back to representing the people.
Odd how the disaster has its roots in the EU policy not to penalise use of carbon fuel, but to subsidies useless intermittent ‘renewables’. Then made only by Germany and Denmark…
Now China is taking te market, they aren’t shouting so loud
When is Drax freedom day for North American forests? They have suffered enough, along with that wood pellet shadow fleet.
False!
What? North American forests have not suffered enough providing cargo for the wood pellet shadow fleet?
When will we know the forests have suffered enough?
Removing low value wood that can NEVER grow into valuable timber or any other commercial product- ENHANCES the forest for the future. I’ve said that here a zillion times but my 50 years as a working forester doesn’t count, I guess. The forests suffer more when they are not managed correctly. Most have been degraded- where they cut the best and left the rest- now it’s time to reverse that- by REMOVING worthless wood. If it has no other commercial purpose than BURNING it- then fine- with of course the secondary benefit of enhancing the atmosphere with CO2 plant food.
Everyone likes wood products but too many people think wood products come from the hardware store, not from forests.
DRAX is a monument to the stupidity of Climate Alarmists in the UK.
Trump should have commented on DRAX at Davos.
Trump would say, only Stupid People build a coal-fired power plant situated above a working coal mine, and then decide to burn wood pellets, imported from the United States, in it, rather than burn coal.
Yes, it doesn’t get much stupider than that.
Sure, what you describe is stupid- but IF there were no such coal in the UK, then burning wood chips from American WELL MANAGED FORESTS, wouldn’t be such a bad idea. But the purpose, if it was meant to displace fossil fuels- well then that would also be stupid- since there are ff in Europe and the UK that aren’t been dug or drilled or fraxed. Just trying to say that burning wood chips is NOT bad for the forests, in fact, it’s GREAT for the forests. Of course there’s also the issue of the subsidies which I don’t care for- if and when ALL subsidies terminate for ruinables. Then if there’s still a market for wood chips- and there is all across America, then again, wood chips is great way to IMPROVE forests, believe it or not- it’s a fact, when done correctly.
I see Nick knows as much about Brexit as he does about the economics of renewable energy i.e. nothing!
I see people just keep parroting this lost 8% or so of GDP from the UK due to Brexit.
It is actually the must unmitigated pile of rubbish ever stated about this countries economy and emanates from organisations that predicted economic catastrophe if we voted out in the referendum. They are just making it up as they did back then with their forecasts of recessions, emergency measures etc.
Since freeing ourselves from the strictures of the EU on 1/1/2021, from having mediocre growth in the EU, we rose to number one in the G7 in 2021 and 2022 and the first half of 2024.
We are still performing above average in the G7, and have outperformed the EU, specifically its largest economies like Germany, since leaving and are forecast to do so in 2026.
According to the Paris-based OECD, which publishes data regularly on European countries economic performance, the UK economy has grown more in the 10 years since the Brexit referendum than any of the other major EU economies.
We rose to fourth, from eighth, in overall exports and even in just manufactured goods, rose to eighth from ninth.
We have made trade deals with other countries that would have not been possible whilst in the EU, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Iceland, Norway, India, also the Trans Pacific Partnership, covering many countries, including Vietnam, Singapore, Chile etc.
We are in the middle of negotiating agreements with South Korea, Switzerland and Turkey, not to mention the Gulf Cooperation Council, covering such countries as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE etc. and have achieved advantageous tariffs with the worlds biggest economy, as compared to the EU.
Overall exports to the EU are significantly higher than they were in 2019.
We are third globally in inward Foreign Direct Investments.
These statements, about how we have lost X% of growth by leaving, are blatant nonsense. If true, that would have meant we would have gone from being mediocre, not just to being first in the G7 in those years but by an absolutely crushing margin. Also, the UK would have risen to be, by far, the dominant growing economy in the EU.
And how would we have achieved that? By doing nothing, changing nothing, staying just as we were!
Perhaps someone can give a sensible explanation about why that would have happened, figures and stats would be nice.
But the UK’s growth would have been so much greater if it had Remained. It’s sort of lik Weather Attribution. Computer programs can tell you what would have been.
Nick,
I voted remain, but I accept the majority decision.
This economic disaster being forced on us has nothing at all to do with Brexit. You are misinformed.
Oh yes and Brexit totally screwed British expats…most of whom were not consulted.
The “withdrawal agreement” sounds like some sort of rehab clinic, and produced by a liar called Johnson.
What a disaster!
Even now British are sitting on their miserable little island telling everyone how smart they are, – ie. in denial, while claiming life in the EU is some sort of Gulag.
yea yea heard it all before…most of those brexiteers being pathetic little flag wavers and what ozzies call “whinging poms”…
British expats did get a vote. I know because at the time I lived in the EU and I know expats who voted leave while still living there
It’s a bit larger than that Nick and going woke and broke with the EU that’s lost its mojo too won’t really help the malaise-
Konstantin Kisin Reveals What’s Really Happening With Russia, Iran, Israel And Wider Geopolitics
60% of the world’s welfare eh and that wouldn’t include the spend on disastrous fickles.
“They also pay “constraint payments” to switch off wind turbines when it is too windy to operate them.”
Untrue. Consytaint payments apply when the grid cannot deliver generated electricity to an existing customer.
“They also pay “constraint payments” to switch off wind turbines when it is too windy to operate them.”
Which happens when there is more energy being supplied by wind than customers can use. You almost say it, but maybe you don’t understand it. It’s pretty simple. Ever heard of a coal power plant being paid to reduce their power output because customers can’t use all of it? No – they just reduce power, and the grid stays safe and stable.
Hmmmm. Can’t deliver generated electricity. Switch off working turbines generating electricity that can’t be used.
I cannot help but wonder if these two concepts might be related….
Nice try Nit Pick Nick, but this particular nit remains unpicked by Nick.
Paying somebody not to do something for whatever reason is an incredibly stupid thing to do.
In fact about 75% of the money goes to gas generators, not wind farms. The reason is that NESO has an obligation to supply the purchaser.
The game Nick is playing here is the gas generators are being paid to “Turn Up Supply” that is the payment is for actual power consumed that the generator didn’t want to run at for efficiency. It’s the equivalent of driving your car flat out as opposed to cruising it the fuel economy goes thru the floor.
It’s well described by the operator
Types of Payments & Generators
So comments are talking about Turn Down costs and Nick is doing what Nick does trying to muddy the water and dribble crap to confuse.
You really are a troll Nick and you don’t care how you do it lie, deflect or obfuscate.
It’s called farm policy and the ag econ majors can tell you all about it.
most burro-ocracies 🙂
“Consytaint” (sic)?
Is this a new tactic, inventing a word so you can define it any way you like?
Could it be the new word of the year 2026?
No, Nick, both are true.
Its the inevitable results of building generating capacity where there is no demand and no transmission links to demand.
The next step is, you build the links, and charge the operator for using them. At which point the power they generate has to be priced so high no-one can afford it and they object vociferously that their mission for saving the planet and making energy cheap and reliable is being undermined..
So you then redefine building this transmission from the north coast of Scotland to the Midlands as ‘modernizing the grid’, and bill it to taxpayers. Despite the fact that the links are white elephants and have nothing to do with modernizing anything.
One way or another you cannot get around the fact that wind may be free, but using it is ridiculously expensive. All you can do is try and disguise the costs and pass as much as possible on to the taxpayer in smaller chunks under other names.
Same thing with intermittency.
>> Consytaint payments apply when the grid cannot deliver generated electricity to an existing customer. <<
Bullsh*t that is exactly HALF the definition and I am pretty sure you know that and just trolling or are you going to admit you are that stupid?
The other half is when the supply is constrained and they pay FF generation to ramp up.
Both halves are caused because of weakness in Renewable generation
Basically you know Nick is trolling when he wants to define something because he just defines things wrong or weird to cause confusion.
Both are true.
It’s fairly obvious that many ignorant and gullible politicians believe that adding CO2 to air makes thermometers hotter!
Oh well, they are just representing people who are even more ignorant and gullible – otherwise they wouldn’t have voted for them, would they?
I take issue with your statement that, in today’s world, politicians are representing people.
I submit for points of debate that politicians are representing themselves and saying what they think people want to hear to augment reelection prospects.
Politicians are not exactly representing themselves. They are representing their party. That is the price of a party ticket. Obedience. Politicians not representing themselves is the heart of the problem. They can only represent themselves if they are independent and can only represent their constituents if they can represent themselves.
Having political parties form policy to use as electoral campaign Bribes and then expecting good governance and democracy is the height of stupidity. Far better to elect very good independent people and have them form policy as required and deliver it through the Parliamentary democratic process involving all M.P.s.
You are correct. I did not include the goal of one party autocracy.
George Washington warned against political parties. Seems his fears have been or are being realized.
Also, do people vote for a candidate based on her or his position on just one issue? Are they really that shallow? Proof left to the student as an exercise.
Hint for students – a good working hypothesis is yes and yes, unless proven otherwise.
Wood-burning stove!? Luxury! We ‘ad to get under a threadbare blanket and share body heat with whatever rats and mice we could catch!
Suicide is a terrible thing.
And suicide is painless,
It brings on many changes,
And I can take or leave it if I please.
— M*A*S*H
And then Thatcher sold it all off.
The UK government, under Margaret Thatcher’s conservative party, ended state participation in North Sea oil and gas production during the 1980s. Thatcher started privatising UK state assets in 1982, sold its shares in BNOC and Britoil (subsequently acquired by BP) then privatised British Gas and sold its remaining stake in BP by 1987. That was the end of the UK government’s role as a gas and oil a producer. Thanks, Conservatives!
It isn’t the oil and gas companies that are overtaxing and closing the fields down…
It’s your glorious Labour government. And they’re ramping it up.
I’m not allowed to vote Labour, strat. They don’t stand in my part of the UK
Tough luck, eh. But Ireland is a complete basket case just the same.
Brexit really helped with that. Thanks for that too!
Lucky you.
I feel your pain, as I live in California and as a consequence of our open primary system, I rarely see a Republican on the ballot.
I reflexively want to disagree with you comment, but the comparison of UK management of the North Sea versus Norway is not flattering.
and don’t forget what Bliar and Gordon the moron did to British Nuclear and the gold reserves!
Mr. Nail: Thatcher sold it decades ago, some call it “de-nationalized”, and THEN it became the crown jewel of a privatized economy (not the same as the government) producing energy AND tax revenue. You seem to think that production stopped in 1987, but it didn’t, did it?
Welcome to our nightmare.
My hope is that we have a cleaning of the Augean Stables very soon
Not soon enough.
Not in at least 29 councils, Ben.
Sounds like you guys need your own replay of 1776…….
Or 927AD
In case people do not catch the reference
In 927 AD, King Æthelstan (grandson of Alfred the Great) unified the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by conquering the last Viking-held territory (York/Northumbria) and getting the other British rulers (like the kings of Scotland, Strathclyde, and parts of Wales) to submit to him at Eamont Bridge. This made him the first recognized King of all England — basically the founding moment of England as a single unified kingdom.
What I don’t get is why people across the pond put up with declining living standards year after year. 20 years ago the EU share of global GDP was the same as the USA, both around 25%. The US’s is up a few %points while the EU has dropped to around 17%. We are now something like 40% higher….In 20 years!!!! It almost like your governments are trying to create paupers and dip s**t trolls like Nicky poo just wave their hands, “oooh, look over here while I pull a rabbit out of my hat. Greenland will have to wait, lololol.
You get a vote every 5 years.
The parties control who becomes MPs etc – on message etc
They promise to do things in a manifesto and then do things people never voted on or for, instead.
That’s it… until the next election when it starts all over again.
No recall, no means of enacting the will of the people whatsoever – unless a referendum is granted. I doubt there’ll be another one for a very long time. What most people seem to forget is Parliament is supreme above monarch (fig-leaf) and people. (Copyright 1660, 1688)
Well, it looks like revolution time in the UK when the People are being oppressed by their own government and government system.
Canceling elections is what Totalitarians do.
It’s time for a Big Change in the Uk.
The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Actually, the people control who become M.P.s. That they cede their vote to political parties is an act of stupidity and another matter.
As for referenda. They are an abdication of responsibility by Parliament and the quality of the result can only be mediocre at best. They are a bad idea that deliver bad results.
Well the EUs loss is probably entirely due to the UK leaving it.
Europe is a complicated place with a lot of history.
Whilst we are historically the best at wars there has ever been, we really dislike them.
It is a moot point as to how much the EU has held back growth as promoted it. It is a very traditional organisation based on the USSR and developed by communists. Europeans have tolerated it as long as living standards went up, but now they are not, it and the whole political elite that comprise it are being called into question.
The EU for example , has no control over NATO – that rests with the individual countries that comprise it. As has been highlighted by the Ukrainian position and the USA’s desertion of its allies and responsibilities.
Europeans don’t want to only have a choice between being enslaved by America, Russia or the EU.
Nor do they want the US choice of economic slavery or poverty. The French ideals is work from 8 till 1pm then lunch till 6pm, then a few drinks at the bar and then home to the hot sex and good cooking French women are famous for. They don’t want 60 hour weeks simply to be able to earn enough to pay their medical bills.
Neither do they want the Russian experience. And increasingly they are not happy with the EU experience.
And that is why slowly European nations are looking for alternatives, Some on the Left, some on the Right.
And what stands in the way of progress is Russia, America and the EU. All of who espouse ‘my way, or the highway’ coercive political stances.
Renewable energy being simply another one of those coercive stances from the EU.
Britain is ultimately struggling to arrive at its independence, and, betrayed by its politicians, about to sack all of them and put a new lot in place. The current idiocy of the Labour party has relegated them to the same desert as now houses the Tory party.
Unlike the USA, it is now seeking to elect a party and leaders that are nothing to do with either of the previous party elites.
This is new territory. And the script has not yet been written.
GDP is not the only mark of a nation’s success.
“and the USA’s desertion of its allies and responsibilities.”
How so? Who has been deserted?
“home to the hot sex and good cooking French women are famous for.”
I dunno where you get your ideas of France from…
You clearly don’t live here.
French women are interested in neither of those things these days judging by the rock bottom birth rates and the ever mushrooming fast food joints+massive obesity problems!
When was the last time you crossed the channel??
60years ago??
Don’t forget the LibDems.
GDP is only one part of quality of life, and above a certain point it diminishes even more.
“GDP is only one part of quality of life”
That is as bogus a statement as CO2 is the climate control knob.
GDP has nothing to do with quality of life. It is a contrived metric on the health of the economy used primarily to establish how risky (or not) the national debt is, among other government “uses.”
Mr. Lamegaslighter: You surprise me! GDP is the average of a bunch of numbers, just like GAT. Don’t you like those anymore??
Is nationwide subsidy for basics like electricity a tradeoff for other basic services like health care or education? That’s after eroding defense budgets and goods making industry.
There is another crusade that we Brits are being screwed over – Water use.
The UK Climate Change Act and it’s effect are well known but most Brits are blissfully unaware that the 2021 Environment Act that mandates our daily water consumption to be a maximum of 110 litres per person by 2050.
As we currently consume around 142 litres per person per day there will be similar hard choices to be made; Flush or wash springs to mind.
The act was, of course, introduced by the last Conservative government. Other legislation ensures that there will be mandatory metering and time of day charging.
The scale of the stitch-up surpasses anything Mad Ed has managed so far yet it seems to have gone largely unnoticed by the public.
Background: https://cw50b.wordpress.com/net-110-2050/
An economic disaster also leads to a security disaster.
Story tip
42 ghost fleet tankers pass through channel since January 11 with no action from the UK
I think Trump is starting a collection of ghost oil tankers. He’s collected seven of them so far.
“One-third of Scots live in energy poverty.”
Wasn’t there a time when the Scots resisted the Anglo Saxons?
Yes. They lost.
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
— Borg
I claim to know almost zero about UK history- but I thought it was a draw- and the Scots almost won. So, even if they were soundly beaten, I thought that the Scots have still resisted English rule psychologically if not militarily – though not of course as vigorously as their fellow Celts over in the Emerald Island (with good reason too).
The insanity will continue until sufficient damage is accrued.
Sparta make visionary comment….
I am honored. 🙂
How can I weep for the British who inflicted this upon themselves?
Sadly, we have the same sort of ‘elites’ here in Canada, who would sacrifice our prosperity at the alter of climate science in order to seek CO2 purity. Among them The Carney, flitting around the world to visit and kowtow.
You’d think they’d take the hint and get it in Canberra now wouldn’t you?
The hidden State Circle cut that changed Canberra’s landscape | Watch
Broken Hill prime seafront RE you say?