Sunday
Sep042011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Cameron worried
Sep 4, 2011 Climate: Parliament Conservatives Energy: costs And so he should be.
The Telegraph is apparently going to report tomorrow that fuel bills are going to go up by another £300 and that Cameron is worried.
Let's face it, it's probably too late for the PM already. It's probably too late for the Conservatives as a party.
Who could possibly forgive them for what they are doing to the country?
Reader Comments (70)
If the article is written by their usual idiot - Louise Gray - we will be all expected to give thanks to the trinity of Greenpeace, WWF and Chris Huhne for persuading the government to bankrupt the country with windmills.
But I suppose a few more pensioners dying in fuel poverty will keep the NHS bills down. Mrs Cameron's Papa has to get his FiT money to keep the stately home going.
Bastards, bastards the lot of them.
Of course this is an issue where Labour can't attack him with all guns blazing, as they're both pro-AGW and pro-inflation.
And check out this from Delingpole
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100103077/sir-reginald-sheffield-bt-an-apology/
Perhaps this is the start of a gear change into reverse on fuel policy?
The problem is that Labour and the Tories are exactly the same! There is no differentiating them. You vote one lot of goons out and they get replaced by EXACTLY the same lot of goons...but from a different political party.
Either way, we are all screwed.
Mailman
The Green Deal will be offering home insulation improvements with no upfront costs. You can go out and spend money that you haven't yet earned and the cost will be added to one of your utility bills.
I wonder what the interest rate will be!
re: 'Who could possibly forgive them for what they are doing to the country?'
Presumably you mean for making cuts which are far too feeble to reduce the deficit or the national debt.
Also, you scots have had a large say in running the UK for the last 10 years and scots don't contain many tories.
I have just thought of a possible problem.
I take advantage of the scheme and have £2000.00 worth of insulation work completed. The cost of the work will be paid by me over X number of years through one of my utility suppliers.
However, suppose that I want to sell my house six months after the improvements have been completed.
1)will I be forced to pay whatever is owing on the improvements or
2) Will the new owner be liable to pay off what is owing by way of increased utility bills?
Hmmm
That's the trouble with this government: they think deferred expenses are the cure-all for everything and will even dig them out of a HUGE hole. Be it pensions, or banking, or home insulation, or student fees, or NHS.
Well, it won't.
There will be
No green jobs bonanza.
No possible effect on CO2 induced global waming.
No scientific breakthrough to prove the climate models aren't absolute junk.
No prospect of a warm winter this year.
No prospect of fuel bills coming down.
No prospect of any good news about Chris Huhne.
No support from Australian PM Julia Gillard - she's in it up to her armpits already.
No support from Obama - he seems to be on the verge of seeing the light.
No support from the Chinese - they are rightly concerned about maintaining their growth.
No support from the Eurozone countries - too pre-occupied with bailouts.
No support from Poland - they want to develop shale gas.
And the prospect of the electorate supporting further green initiatives at the next election?
None.
Don't vote for any candidate who is not advocating complete dismantling of the Climate Act and keeping the UK as far away as possible from "ever close union" with the EU.
pesadia
The new owner takes the repayment obligation on.
It's written by Andrew Porter the political editor. No reader comments allowed sadly.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8741032/Environment-policy-reforms-to-add-300-to-energy-bills.html
Strangely enough the Telegraph site was hit tonight by a DNS hack, meaning people couldn't reach this article and others, but it's now here.
Snap, Serge!
Are you sure Richard? I've been browsing the DT on and off pretty much all day and I've had no problems with the site.
I watched a DNS attack unfold tonight. Even The Register's DNS got nabbed. It looked like an ancient exploit, too (2005) so I'm not sure how the hell that came to pass.
> reforms to add £300 to energy bills by end of decade
With wages static and inflation running above 4% due Lib/Lab/Con printing money, surely bills will be (1.04)^9 = 42% higher due to money devaluation alone?
Add the 30% green tax onto this and get £1069 x 1.42 x 1.3 = £2000. So I expect energy bills to double in real terms by the end of the decade.
I recall that on the very day that the Global Financial Crisis started, David Cameron went ahead with a conference declaring that his government would be the greenest ever. That told me all I needed to know about Cameron and his party.
Mailman writes:
"The problem is that Labour and the Tories are exactly the same! There is no differentiating them. You vote one lot of goons out and they get replaced by EXACTLY the same lot of goons...but from a different political party."
Has there been talk in Britain that maybe there is a ruling elite that effectively controls all major political parties? There has been in America. Many Americans believe that the ruling elite is out of touch with mainstreet, with the rule of law, with budgets, with national interests however conceived, with the American Dream, with traditional values, with the interests of children, with civic harmony, with ordinary workers, and with just about anything that someone is not presently preparing as a dissertation defense. In opposition to the ruling elite, some Americans have created Tea Parties. You might want to create something like Tea Parties.
Nobody, obviously.
But presumably nobody also has such a short memory as to believe that Labour would be a whit better.
Two options: a) change your political setup radically or; b) emigrate
Some time ago I advised my MP (Hancock, West Suffolk) that the canny politician who bailed out early from the tumbling catastrophe that is the Climate Change Act would reap political rewards -- not least a reputation for far-sightedness on behalf of his constituents. It was an aside in a question about something else, so it's not surprising that I got no comment back. However, I recently asked him to question a Minister about what proportion of my energy bill will be attributable to Government 'green' policies by the time the next election comes round.
Direct request for a question to a Minister: no answer.
Perhaps it was lost in the fuss this summer. Or perhaps they are very aware that this is going to hit the fan just when they stand for re-election and they really, really don't want to have to think about it. Time for another letter....
JF
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate, with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
Come on, Bishop, none of this is new. Over the years, at least since the 60s, we have set up a system where politics is a career option for the likes of grown-up adolescent protesters who never achieved much and amply demonstrated their inability to think things through.
The system is at fault and its politicians and policies are the public face of the fault.
We need to go back to a professionalism. A disinterested neutral expert civil service adequately staffed by experts in this, that and every other thing, that the politicians can, and know it is there duty to trust, used to run the country and should do so again.
I doubt we would then have the emotional daftnesses of the green religion or Iraq if the country was run that way. And we would all be better off and Cameron would not have his present difficulties.
You do not need career politicians to do what is required. Stop paying them. Back to committed politicians, probably short term. Landed property holders, family money spendthrifts, left wing talk-shop intellectuals, union bosses and the like. Brown and Foot and Thatcher could all have afforded a few years doing what they wanted in parliament before they had to get back to earning a crust. And those short years would have been all the country wanted from them.
Pontificating, as usual. How to make it happen?
Ecclesiastical Uncle
I quite agree. The biggest mistake we all made is when we offered the politicians a retirement package.
I also think we should stop paying them salary and expenses as well.
However, as already noted, the masses have a short memory and will continue voting the idiots back in.
Sadly all of our political parties will fall for any sales pitch from vested intreats groups that includes increased revenue for the government regardless of the financial hardship imposed on the people.
Aren't we in the hands of a coalition?
Robinson: The distributed way Domain Name Servers operate it's possible for a DNS attack to affect access to multiple sites for some users and different ones or none for others. I was going on the words of the Telegraph itself on Twitter, not from personal experience yesterday - I only looked when they said the problem had been fixed. As Simon says, it's not good that a hack can have any effect at all in 2011.
Julian Flood:
That's exactly right. It's just possible that Mr Cameron is now tumbling to the tumbling catastrophe:
It just takes one trusted adviser to tell these guys the truth.
Rowing back on green subsidies and all other distortions in the market that feed the wealthy few from the sweat of the poorest - this is one of the most regressive areas of tax that has ever existed - is going to take some doing. But certain electoral oblivion has been known to concentrate the mind wonderfully.
If Huhne goes, will he be replaced by a Lib?
If Cameron is getting worried, probably not.
Therefore potential for coalition to fail, and early election, with no time for Tories to select a new leader.
If no election, expect tory backbench rebellion, as they realise they are going to lose their jobs, so they will knive Cameron in the back, much as they did with Thatcher.
Either way, Cameron's future is not looking too rosy, it's Conference season coming up, and all 3 main parties are led by people lacking public confidence.
I see Rivers of Blood running down the corridors of the Houses of Parliament
This is the precise reason I have not voted Tory - or any other major party - since 1997. A plague on all their houses. As I find myself increasingly saying: "Thank God we don't live forever!"
golf charley: One thing you don't mention is that Huhne ran against Clegg for the Lib Dem leadership. Does anyone else sense that the Deputy Prime Minister may not lose too much sleep over the demise of his rival? I don't want to tempt fate but it scarcely seems possible for the coalition to come up with anyone, from either party, worse than Huhne. Especially as it sounds as if Downing Street now has, for the first time, a strong, intelligent, independent voice advising them on energy. Whoever comes in at DECC has to be agreed with Clegg, no doubt. David Laws seems a very sensible Lib Dem to me. A crucial moment, as you say, coming in to party conference season.
Lord Lawson (The Tory grandee, as the Times puts it this morning) is trying to make a stand for what I would regard as the Real Conservative Party and is taking up the UKIP stance on Europe, his position on Climate is well known through the GWPF.
It's make or break for the Conservatives, either they shape up or the defections to UKIP will increase.
Theo Goodwin (above) believes there is a ruling elite behind all political parties - yes, it's called the EU (and their masters the UN) it's unelected elite control us all in the same way that the UN controls the climate, through the UNIPCC and their NGO mates, and they decide what we are allowed to think about it.
They have invented Carbon as a 'currency' by demonizing it and through our utility bills we will get to see the 'exchange rate' they have chosen.
Neat isn't it ?
Don't forget the alternative is Miliband, he of the monumental gaffe when climate change shadow minister "It is incredibly irresponsible for people to question the science of man mande climate change". I claim I paraphrase because I cannot bare to look back for the exact content of his idiotic statement. Anyway what he should have said is it is incredibly irresponsible for scientists to follow the normal scientific method.
Richard Drake
Agreed that Clegg won't miss Huhne, unless his departure involves a by election!. Of the 3 leaders, Clegg may yet have the best job security,.
On AGW, both Ed Milliband and Cameron have nailed their colours to the mast, and have membership that may well decide to change its mind, based on economic arguments, whereas the Libs will be stuck with idealogical dogma
Camp David, if this govt survives the full term, expect David Milliband to lead Labour into the next election. Ed then becomes Labour's AGW scapegoat
There must be a huge number of people in the United Kingdom who are opposed to all the unnecessary increases in fuel prices caused by the Climate Change Act. An epetition calling for the Act's repeal was created last month by Roger Longstaff. So far only 435 names have been added but it will remain open until the middle of August next year. The petition should really have hundreds of thousands of names.
Perhaps Your Eminence could arrange for the epetition to have regular publicity in this blog over the next 11 months to ensure that the government gets to know the strength of feeling on the issue.
Repeal the Climate Change Act
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/2035
Responsible department: Department for Energy and Climate Change
The Climate Change Act will cripple the UK economy (to the tune of hundreds of billions of pounds) by imposing legally binding restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions that are more stringent than those of any other country on Earth. It is based on a totally false premise – the science of anthropogenic global warming was completely discredited by the “climategate” scandal – and the policy is being pursued solely for financial gain by academics (grants), government (“green” taxes) and vested interests such as investors in subsidised “green” technologies and “Enron-like” carbon trading scams. The Act must be repealed before it is too late.
Indeed Bish' who could forgive them indeed!
However, the Axis of Red Tory and yellow peril - are only enacting the completely insane Climate change Act 08 - of Miliband's conception - a vote for any of these AGW lunatics [libdhim/Nu lab/Tory] results in the exact same strategy.
We need a new way, a new politics and a commons full of independent MPs, until then, we are stuck with the EU's diktats and carbon emissions +trading stupidity.
End game, Britain will slide into economic decline, resulting in a green 'sunlit Utopia' - of a country wide and massive set of collective farms: the Kolkhoz - but tractor production will rise every year tovarich!
Then we'll need another Watt Tyler.
Julia Gillard may be the first premier to be kicked out of office over AGW.
Expect Cameron to follow, along with Obama and Merkel.
/OT
The DNS attack details here -
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/05/dns_hijack_service_updated/
So, some long range forecasters are predicting another freezing, snowing, paralyzing winter for the Isles while the Greens shut down more power plants, pump up the price of hydrocarbon fuels and try to get those huge propeller blades moving in the blizzard. This pretty much sums up the energy future of the UK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrZkaj37kA0
Thank you, Roy, for raising the issue of the e-petition.
If people genuinely believe that CAGW is a threat to humanity then £300 a year is a small price to pay for saving the planet. If, however, they believe that CAGW is the greatest scientific fraud in history, engineered solely as a trillion dollar money making scam, then please stop moaning about it and do something - sign and advertise the petition:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/2035
Signed
Thanks for the link Roger !
I don't think the Climate Change Act is the right target for an e-petition. It's a legal figment - no government is going to sent to prison for missing the targets. It's PR to convince the green vote to swing behind the politicians who signed it.
What is needed is a petition about increases in fuel bills due to green policies. Are people so convinced of the science that they are willing to take an increase of hundreds of pounds on their fuel bills this year. That is the issue that has traction. Let's rethink the e-petition accordingly.
The key question is how much control the Murdochs have had on policy, and how that has been achieved.
I can't see much changing in the near future. The problem is not caused by the politicians, but by the electorate. The quality of our political landscape is nothing but a mirror of the interests (and apathy) of the people who have created it through the ballot box.
No change will come until this truth dawns on us all (or at least, on a workable majority) and that's not likely to happen until real pain is felt as the consequence of handing power to low-grade careerists with ulterior motives directly at odds with those of the electorate.
When change does come, it is likely to be revolutionary to some degree. As is the cycle. But it will still miss the point of where the blame lies for the sorry state we got ourselves into.
Wait for the £400- £600 Quarterly bills for a family of 4.
That'll wake a few people up.
In the Andrew Porter article, this is interesting and could signal (I'm being cautious here) at least a future slowdown in the construction of offshore wind farms such as the London Array.
Even the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) have, I believe, indicated that they would prefer a shift from offshore to onshore wind, in the short term, due to the costs of offshore. Could it be that we'll even start to see some of the larger offshore wind projects being mothballed?
I've drafted an e-petition as follows:
It says it takes up to seven days to check whether the petition is valid.
Rather than demand no impact at all of green policies by 2020 I thought a 5% increase was more achievable. I'd prefer nothing - but most of all I want a petition with this kind of precision to reach 100,000 thousand signatures and thus trigger a sensible debate.
If you have improvements please say. Producing a petition that gains momentum is the crucial thing here, not my name at the top. But today's leak of the advice to Downing Street seems a very good catalyst, thanks Bishop.
That should be 100,000 - not 100 million signatures!
@ Sep 5, 2011 at 10:04 AM | golf charley,
"Julia Gillard may be the first premier to be kicked out of office over AGW.
Expect Cameron to follow, along with Obama and Merkel."
Bring it on, and on Joooolyah - is she nuts or just thick?
Requiring energy companies to show the cost of government energy policy on fuel bills should be sufficient.
Only the most extreme CAGW zealots could oppose that.
Richard, I think that your e-petition is a good idea - but a word of warning. DECC can reject such a petition if it duplicates one that is already online, therefore you must make some unique request/demand. In this case you could use the 5% limit, which has not been used before (there are many rejected petitions that call for the abolition of green taxes, on the grounds of replication).
Thanks very much Roger, I guessed as much and I felt it unlikely that anyone had asked for a 5% cap. I think it's that kind of pragmatism we need to employ right now. We need 100,000 signatures and thus every MP really put on the spot.