Monday
Feb252013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Regrets, apologies but all too late
Feb 25, 2013 Climate: Parliament Douglas Carswell is an influential and forward-thinking Conservative MP for whom I have a high regard. There is however, one enormous and ugly blot in his copybook - his support for the Climate Change Act.
Now, however, with the newspapers full of the prospect of further energy price rises and power cuts to boot, Carswell has issued an apology.
My biggest regret as an MP is that I failed to oppose the 2008 Climate Change Act. It was a mistake. I am sorry...
The Climate Change Act is giving us a low carbon economy the way that pre-industrial Britain had a low carbon economy.
I suppose we should welcome this move, but it does look as though it might be a bit late.
(H/T Fay)
Reader Comments (102)
diogenes on Feb 25, 2013 at 3:17 PM
"I am increasingly baffled by the way that people accept that "energy security" and "food security" are somehow essential to the future of the UK."
When supply does not meet demand, either people go without because of power cuts, causing problems in industry, hospitals, care homes, and homes with no heating or computers and with having a half cooked chickens for dinner, or the price goes up and the 'poor' go without. They will die knowing that they saved the world.
Given that hard choice, I'll go for the latter! What about you?
Or do we do something about energy security?
RC,
"Or do we do something about energy security?"
That's not what they mean when they talk about energy security. It's meant in the sense of National Security. In other words, we can't depend on nasty foreigners to provide our fossil fuels, so we need to build windmills. That's why they talk about energy security. Nothing to do with being secure. Everything to do with being afraid.
Robert Christopher
Even I can be economical with the truth. My MP is his blessed holiness Nick Clegg. At the last election it was my intention to vote for the UKIP candidate by way of a protest. Unfortunately when I got to the polling station the queues were round the block. So poor health is the real reason I did not cast my protest vote.
Not voting is also exercising a democratic right. I would much rather be in a position where there was someone worth voting for but that is not my lot.
@Robert - I agree with J4R.
I do vote, but they are all in-thrall to the Greens who are completely mad.
So voting is pointless really if they are all much the same.
BUT that is one of the big mistake that Cameron has made. He thinks that he has to be like Lab and Lib for people to vote for him. Yes there are those deluded folk who think we can go spending more money than we have for ever, and shout at every "cut" announced.
In reality many people I know who voted Con last time will not do so in 2015 (if it goes that far), because they thought they were getting a grown-up Conservative to help sort the mess out, and they have got a couple of useless idiots instead. At times even more stupid than the last lot. A complete waste of time on the economy or energy and we are facing plunging down a cliff in both cases.
So Carswell will be signing the repeal the CCA petition then? Or doing anything about his epiphany?
...thought not
Just a thought on energy security, after the oil crisis in the early seventies, France decided to be energy independent and started on its Nuclear production strategy, 40 years later it produces at least 77% of it's total electrical power by Nuclear and still manages to export 30% of it's total production, there are windmills here as a sop to the environmentalists who are very anti-fracking but once the French govt. are held to ransom by outside gas suppliers I believe that will change fast enough; looking at their example of strategic thinking, what real hope is there for a short term soloution in the U.K. considering that ( apart from J.E.T. at Culham ) there is no real research into viable alternative energy sources, such as Thorium LFTR's, which India, China and belatedly France are investigating.
Just had my EDF bill.
Origine 2011 de l'électrcité vendue par EDF:
84.7% nuclear
8.3% renewable (of which 4.6% hydro) [so, presumably about 3.7% wind]
2.7% coal
2.7% gas
1.2% oil
0.4% other
We elect politicians to represent us, and that surely requires them to consider issues before voting. Not many of us could escape the consequences of exercising such poor judgement (except, perhaps, those in local government service?) Yes, Douglas Carswell's revelation is welcome, bur "sorry" isn't adequate. Rejoicing in Heaven's all very well, but the residents can probably afford to take a longer view than most of us.
6:36 PM | Robert Christopher
Vote? As others have pointed out we're been subjected to an epic circumvention of the democratic process.
With entryist activist civil servants like Bryony Worthington, the pathetic calibre of most of her colleagues, , compliant "lobby fodder" MPs sucking up the party line, utter berks like the Milibands in ministerial positions - the conniving, well funded squawking Greenies have had a whale of a time commandeering the lurching rudderless ship of state sending it towards the rocks.
I'll give Douglas Carswell his due - he appears to be in a very small minority of MPs who make the effort to actually do some research and occasionally volunteer his ignorance / acknowledge his mistakes - something truly stupid conceited people feel no need of.
The contrived trajectory of the CAGW panic and associated spin-offs continues apace for the average credulous voter assisted in no small part by the state broadcaster.
Douglas Carswell's language needs to get a whole lot more uncompromising - not just apologetic. A Damascene conversion usually results in a burst of energy - let's see if Dougie has actually changed his mind properly or just sniffed the wind.
The Greenies and their crony subsidy junkies are going to fight like Huhne...
Luke 15:7
James Evans on Feb 25, 2013 at 7:16 PM
"Everything to do with being afraid."
That may be their agenda, but it's not mine!
Improving Energy Security means minimising the risks to supplying enough affordable energy to the nation.
It has nothing to do with windmills, unless we want it to.
It has nothing to do with 'nasty foreigners', unless we want it to.
It has everything to do with using our own resources and managing any that we can buy in, at the right price, which may introduce problems that we cannot control, but that is part of the balance.
The only danger is incompetence, like we see in the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
NTropywins on Feb 25, 2013 at 7:17 PM
I think you are not doing yourself justice.
You made a valiant attempt, and the elements were against you. May you have better luck next time!
retireddave on Feb 25, 2013 at 7:23 PM
I can remember, years ago, when it was considered pointless to vote for the Liberals. How many decades have you been out of power? Gladstone, was it? Yet, they have succeeded, sort of, even if they are not my cup of tea.
Voting for positive reasons is better, if we can afford to, but when political parties rely on it, it becomes a necessity!
Frosty on Feb 25, 2013 at 7:24 PM AND EVERYONE IN THE UK!!!
"So Carswell will be signing the repeal the CCA petition then?"
Write to your MP, if it isn't Douglas Carswell, telling them about Douglas Carswell's change of heart, with a link to his blog:
http://www.talkcarswell.com/home/i-was-wrong-about-the-climate-change-act/2607#disqus_thread
And ask your MP to support Douglas Carswell in repealing the 2008 Climate Change Act.
You can add your own comments, but I think that Douglas Carswell does a pretty good job himself!
Feb 25, 2013 at 7:16 PM | James Evans
For getting windmills you still depend on nasty foreigners, and after 15 years you do it again, and again,....that's where the money goes.
9:35 PM | Heretic
OK... a grudging Hallelujah!
Feb 25, 2013 at 9:24 PM | Martin A
Yeah, so how much was it - per kWh?
If I remember Lilley correctly, he was the only MP to read the White Paper - when he requested a copy in the commons shop he was told that by the staff. Carswell presumably voted on the basis of a Hollywood movie. Now that is an admission!
Seems Mark Duggan did have a gun after all.
Eco Power Cuts and Eco Electricity Taxes the next lot of Croydon Tottenham and Manchester rioters really will have something to riot about.Looting by candle lite.
Power Cuts brought down Ted Heath and Maggie kept the lights on during the miners strikes.
According to ex Eastender Ross Kemp NATO troops are dying in Helmand defending the Helmand River Hydro Electric Dam from the Taliban.The only power station in Afghanistan.
And just as the civil war in Yugoslavia has ended next door in Bankrupt Greece they are now having Austerity power cuts.
And it was daily power cuts that helped drive the insurgency in hot middle eastern Iraq where refrigeration and air conditioning are a necessity not a Luxury .US troops arrived they posted guards at the Oil Ministry but forgot about the museums and the Power stations .Saddam never switched the light off on his own people .Even when Baghdad was being blitzed he wasn't that stupid.
Think Douglas Carswell and the rest of them may of realized they may have to quietly amend the Climate Change act and keep the Coal powered stations burning till they get the new Nuclear stations built and on line
Otherwise social instability causing a threat to the stability of the nation,and not just this nation.
The carbon mania has to be discarded and the legislation put in place to on the back of it has to go. For that attitudes have to change in Westminster, but so much political capital has been invested it's bound to be a difficult process. Don't forget that that this runs beyond Westminster to the EU and the UN and in the UK it's infected, the Met Office, academia, education, local government, the Civil Service and more.
Carswell's mea culpa and acceptance of rationality is greatly to be welcomed.
It may not seem much and way too late, but we always knew that getting the political establishment to repeal the legislation and the taxes was going to be a difficult process.
Bill from mid dec 2012 - mid feb 2013:
5031 kWh
676.78 € total, including standing charge, VAT and other taxes and "contributions".
= 0.135 € / kWh
= 0.116 £ /kWh
Maybe Carlswell is worried about his seat and his continuing cushy number living off the public teat?
We should welcome repentance, not see it as a reason to chuck an extra stone. (Well OK I'm disappointed it took so long!) But he gets good media exposure because they like his unorthodox views on lots of things. And he was the one who first campaigned to remove Michael Martin as Speaker. He's serious about his politics.
That's all very well of Carswell to issue an apology now that the horse has bolted ... more importantly, what is he going to do now to help stable the CAGW horse and put it out of its misery ? That's the million dollar question !
It is a fine point but it should be stated.
Douglas Carswell apologised for "not opposing" the Climate Change Act. He did not apologise for voting for it.
Presumably, it is good politics for Carswell MP to create an impression in the mind of the reader that he merely abstained from the vote or was too sick to go to work that day or simply took a day off for a stroll in the park. If he cast a ballot then he should come forth and say "I'm sorry I voted for it", not "I'm sorry I did not oppose it".
OK I tried to find Carswell's voting record and whether he voted for the Climate Change Act or took a stroll in the park. So far I haven't found any evidence that he actually voted the bill onto law. He must have taken a walk or called in sick.
And, for the record, I discovered this which may interest a few.
Hickman interviewing Carswell:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/nov/30/douglas-carswell-climate-change
Feb 25, 2013 at 12:35 PM | Chris
"This isn't so much due to the Climate Change Act though. It's been crystal clear since 2000 that we'd face the threat of power cuts before 2020, not due to climate but due to the decommission of nuclear, decommission of coal (under LCPD not due to CO2) and the dramatic depletion of North Sea gas."
Why do you think that we didn't develop a strategy in 2000 then? The answer is that the Greens were lobbying heavily against nuclear, the only viable "renewable" energy provider. The Climate Change Act was the ultimate victory for the Greens, they had an English Lit graduate, FoE activist, put together a climate change bill, which committed us to drastic cuts in CO2 output, but which came without a detailed engineering plan as to how this could be achieved. Or at least if there is a concomitant engineering plan with the act DECC have been unable to provide it for me.
Your point about getting on with it now, and replacing/growing our energy supplies with renewables is, well, breathtakingly naive. It's only a guess, but I don't believe you're an engineer, not just an electrical engineer, but an engineer of any sort.
You see engineers always have to produce things, like making planes, building tower blocks, etc. So in that discipline they have to produce a design and a plan, with time and costs. In this case you airily point to renewables filling the gap, but immediately, to my mind at least, the questions of time and cost crop up. are we in a position to provide enough windmills/hydro plants (as the only two renewables worth considering, and in a sane world windmills wouldn't be considered at all) to cover the shortfall in energy suppplies in the timescales available?
And if we are, are we in a position to provide the back up plants for the windfarms (wind tends not to blow when it's very hot, air conditioning, or very cold, heating) and what would be the cost of this lunacy? And if we could build enough back up plants to provide cover for the windmills why don't we just build the back up plants and ditch the windmills saving £bns? Because we're committed to providing renewables by the blameless CCA isn't it?
No Chris we would be best ditching the windmills and going hell for leather for gas while ignoring the EU directives. This should be supplemented by a short term plan to use shale gass once the government allows us to, and a longer term plan to go provide a nuclear flavour to the energy mix. Renewables won't stop the lights going out, but keeping aged coal plants going while building gas fired plants will.
As for Mr. Carswell, we're back to rhoda's thing about what victory looks like for us. Victory, for me at least, is based on two things. One is stopping trying to avoid non-existent catastrophes and returning to planning our energy provision based on our future needs. The second is stopping lobby groups with no electoral support driving government policies. The first is possible because even the politcians might now be grasping that if they continue following these green policies and the lights go out we're likel to finish up with a parliamen where UKIP has a 500 seat majority. I don't expect the second to be easy, unless, of course, we finish up with a parliament where UKIP has a 500 seat majority.
The only downside I can see to UKIP having a 500 seat majority is that apart from Europe and climate change the rest of their policies are likely to be framed from the opinions expressed in the clubhouses of golf clubs.
Sorry, got carried away with the UKIP thing. I am happy Carswell has apologised, and what's done is done, we should welcome apostates back into the common sense church, there is no need to castigate them, or punish them, provided we can roll back the CCA lunacy.
geronimo
You have hit the nail squarely on the head.
For the benefit of all Renewables enthusiasts, on 19 Feb. this year wind output fell to less than 0.1GW, (at 10.28 it was 0.12GW). (templar web site) With some 6.5GW of installed wind generating capacity this represents about 1.5% and this condition existed over most of Northern Europe. UK demand was 47 GW. Nuclear was supplying 8.2 GW with the rest coming almost entirely from coal and gas. Fast forward to the 'more reliance on renewables scenario' and I suggest the enthusiast does the sums about replacing fossil fuels with wind. What fraction of the demand would you meet from the wind farms supplying at 1.5% of their installed capacity?
In their calculations of margin of generation capacity to meet peak demand (about 55GW) National Grid assume a contribution from Wind of about 5% of their installed capacity and even this is generous compared the reality demonstrated by 19 Feb this year.
We elect politicians to represent us, and that surely requires them to consider issues before voting. Not many of us could escape the consequences of exercising such poor judgement (except, perhaps, those in local government service?) ..."
Feb 25, 2013 at 9:25 PM | hohum
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
How many MPs could actually be bothered to attend and debate the Climate Change Act? An Act which is the second most expensive piece of peace time legislation - setting up the NHS and welfare state being the most expensive. As I recall only a handfull of MPs could be so bothered.
Surely this is the clearest and most obvious case of dereliction of public duty? All MPs should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for not scrutinising this plannned piece of liegislation and its true effects in great detail. More to the point, they should be held accountable to the citizens for the consequences of this abdication of duty. There is a case for financial redress to be sought form one and all who did not attend the debate. Any MP who voted against the proposed legislation would not have a case to answer (if I recall that was 3).
Can you imagine a company in the private sector not debating in detail the second most expensive piece of expenditure it was going to embark upon in its history?
It is really a disgraceful example of democracy and a stark reminder of its failings.
As usual there are many insightful comments.
I agree with Feb 26, 2013 at 5:19 AM | geronimo who nails it with his comment:
"why don't we just build the back up plants and ditch the windmills saving £bns?" Since we have to build this back up capacity in any event, and since this back up capacity nullifies any savings in CO2 emissions brought about by energy generation by wind turbines, there would seem no point in further rolling out windfarms.
RonaldoF (Feb 26, 2013 at 6:13 AM |) aptly pointed out "For the benefit of all Renewables enthusiasts, on 19 Feb. this year wind output fell to less than 0.1GW, (at 10.28 it was 0.12GW). (templar web site) With some 6.5GW of installed wind generating capacity this represents about 1.5% and this condition existed over most of Northern Europe. UK demand was 47 GW.."
The experience of the winter of 2010 should have been the final nail in the coffin. During that winter (a 1 hundred year cold winter following on from a 1 in a 30 year winter the year before), the UK had a blocking high which lasted some 4 to 6 weeks. During that time I monitored the contribution form wind on a daily, or almost daily basis. It was generating usuially between 1 and 3% of its nameplate capacity. I recall that on a couple of days it reached the heady heights of 8% but those days were the exception.
If during taht winter we had been reliant upon wind for 30% of our electrity generation, it would have been a national disaster resulting in thouasnds 9prbably tens of thousands of deaths). There would have been rolling blackouts of 8 or more hours a day (I say more since hospitals and other essential users may have been given priority). even oil and gas fired central heating does not work when there are power cuts (electrity is used for ignition and to power the circulating pump) so nealry everyone would be without heating for a third and may be possibly up to half a day. In many areas roads were impassable due to poor gritting and lack of snow ploughs and grit. Communities would have been needed to be evacuated to sports halls and the like, but that would not have been easy given the conditions iof the roads. It is easy to imagine the chaos that would have resulted had we been dependent upon wind for 30% of capacity.
The experience of that winter should have acted as a warning. It demonstrated in stark terms the futility and inappropriateness of wind to provide any worthwhile contibution to energy when demand for energy is at its peak.
The greens consider that we can get energy from France when conditions are unfavourable. However, the blocking high was over most of Europe. France does not have the capacity to supply Germany, and the other EU countries to supplement their own inability to cover their own internal demand due to their own ineffective renewable programmes. This may lead to a bidding war and due to the state of the UK economy, you can bet that the UK would not out bid Germany and the Netherlands.
The experience of winter 2010 to any sane person should have written the death knell to wind. It is strange how politicians did not learn from that. When the sh** hits the fan, the experience of that winter will be an uncomfortable reminder to those squealing that they thought that they were doing the right thing, were acting on scientific advice which they could not reasonable suspect was wrong.
NTropywins
Not voting is also exercising a democratic right.
With respect (so you don't take the many 'you' here personally), that's one view. The other view is that if you don't vote, then you disenfranchise yourself from the democratic process. In other words, you have no right to whinge about those who rule over you.
You don't have to vote for any of the candidates. Vote informal if you wish, spoil your ballot. But do go out and vote. That's your civic duty. It is not much to ask citizens to get off their backside once in every three years (5 bloody years in UK!) to go to the polling station and cast a ballot, even if it's for no one.
If you're going to say "I'm a taxpayer. I have a right to whinge about how my tax dollars are spent", sorry, if you don't vote then you have forfeited your right to whinge about how your tax dollars are spent. Those who vote are not necessarily happy with the way tax dollars are spent either, even when their choice of party wins the government but they have at least earned the right to whinge about it because they got off their butts, lined up in the queue and cast a ballot.
If you refuse to vote, then shut up and put up with what's coming at you, year after year, until you re-enfranchise yourself. Until then you're no different than a slave adds value to their master's holdings but have no will of their own.
Voting is about good citizenship and taking part in the democratic process, not just about choosing your next leader. Being disillusioned with the available candidates is no excuse for not casting a ballot. Voting for no one is as good a choice as voting for a particular candidate. What matters is that, come the election day, you go out and vote.
NTropywins
Sorry about the late reply, a spoilt ballot paper (none of the above) says a lot more than not voting; you took the trouble to go and register the fact you were unhappy rather than apathetic.
I lived in Derby South; Mrs M Beckett (one of the it could be too late brigade) never less than 45% of turnout - always voted though.
rhoda 'I think we all ought to visit our own MPs and clue them in. If you write you will surely get an anodyne reply scripted by DECC. If you show up at a surgery with the facts it might have some effect. '
Not where I live in Brighton: Caroline Lucas is my MP.
Energy Security, aren't we secure with so called fossil fuels-
there is lots of coal left we just choose to leave it where it is at the moment
There is lots and lots of shale gas and who knows what else
we haven't even start looking for oil and gas in certain areas of the waters round us.
Geronimo is right why bother with an energy source that requires a backup of the same rating and is only predictable in that it is not available in anti-cyclonic conditions, why bother with an energy source that turns off at night and is reduced by cloud cover, why bother with an energy source that has a 12hr20min cycle? Why put the price of Lapogus' and others wood up by burning it to produce electricity when we're sitting on all those resources?
Truly those whom the gods ....
RichieP
If you don't feel like a visit, which I agree may feel like hitting your head against a brick wall, then write to her. I've had a few conversations with Margaret Beckett that way, you can show their replies to like minded friends when you're down the pub.
This is a really useful site as it gives details all your Councillors, MP, MEPs, MSPs, or Northern Ireland, Welsh and London AMs. You can draft a general letter (email) to them all and see what responses you get. I used this and got a very detailed and supportive response from my then UKIP MEP something which despite being a Francophile (auld alliance and all that) got me voting UKIP.
http://www.writetothem.com/
Sandy
If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let us do it.
They must really want to keep up the charade that voting makes some difference, registration is now compulsory, with the threat of a £1000 fine for not returning the registration forms. I'm still waiting for my fine and my day in court, more costly than spoiling the ballot, but it has the possibility of being heard.
SHX: If one already feels disenfranchised, how is supporting the system by registering and subsequently spoiling the ballot paper going to overcome that feeling?
With regard to 'energy security' think of it this way:-
Your life depends on forming the best basketball team in the world.
You can either select players from your home nation or from all the world including the home nation.
Not being a fool you avail yourself of what the whole world has to offer.
So it is with supplies of fuel to use in the generation of electricity. Free trade does not equal laying oneself open to boycot. Suppliers around the world do not form a block and each would not lightly choose to spite a good customer. And if one did then others would take their place. Many suppliers, either within of without the country, makes for greater security.
@ retireddave
BUT - at what price will those inter-connectors come. Denmark has connection to Sweden to use nuclear generated power when its windmills don't turn - it still has the most expensive electricity in the world.
Security of penury is what that will bring.
Denmark does get electricity from Sweden but it also has a connection to the Norwegian grid and a lot of the electricity used in Denmark is produced in Norwegian hydroelectric power stations. When the wind is blowing strongly in Denmark then much of the output from the Danish wind farms is exported back to Norway and the flow of water through some of the hydroelectric plants in Norway gets cut back. In that way Norway acts like an enormous pumped storage source of electricity for Denmark.
The system works but, as critics have pointed out, it is very expensive for the Danes. Also there is increasing opposition to wind turbines in Denmark on environmental grounds.
Britain does not have enough hydroelectric generating capacity to make wind power "work" like it does after a fashion in Denmark. Undersea cables from the UK to Norway and Iceland might help to a certain extent (although Britain's population is 10 times that of Denmark's and our energy consumption correspondingly higher).
However, if we were to connect the UK grid to those of Norway and Iceland it would be better to do so for the purpose of diversifying energy supplies and giving us a cushion to avoid power cuts at times of peak demand rather than to create a very expensive method of storing power from wind farms.
geronimo wrote Feb 26, 2013 at 5:19 AM
quote
No Chris we would be best ditching the windmills and going hell for leather for gas while ignoring the EU directives. This should be supplemented by a short term plan to use shale gas once the government allows us to, and a longer term plan to go provide a nuclear flavour to the energy mix. Renewables won't stop the lights going out, but keeping aged coal plants going while building gas fired plants will.
unquote
I suspect that the coal plants will have been run into the ground to use up their last bit of profitable production, so it may not be possible to just keep them running.
You're an engineer: could you check some sums for me?
I've worked out that if we replace the current coal-fired stations with methane burners then we will cut the UK's CO2 emissions (no, I don't think that matters but others do, and if we want to sell them shale gas we've got to put the case in those terms) by 45%. If we additionally replace the nukes with gas then the saving falls to 15% on current production. Did I get that right? (Handwavey ballpark of course.)
This is a green solution, not nuclear, which saves CO2 and keeps our civilisation running: I'm sure that the Greens will find a reason to oppose natural gas power stations (or make up a reason if they can't find one), but they're going to have to stand on their heads to do it.
Looking at the figures from the US, shale can be ramped up very fast. We should be able to match our current total energy requirement in 10 years from a standing start: energy security, balance of payments benefits, jobs in the North East, the Greens will have to stand on _each other's_ heads to oppose all that. Fugitive emissions, methane leaks, water pollution, end of the world, that's what will be said, and their false information must be opposed wherever it is touted. I wonder if the PM's call to arms about planning -- we're on a war footing, turns to camera with a stern Churchillian gaze -- is to prepare the ground for a rapid U-turn and a dash for gas. The BGS report is being sat on for a reason, with my guess being that it will be released to bury the bad news from the by-election.
Has the public grown tired of GreenPeace alarmist claptrap? Being cold certainly concentrates the mind and it has been a long, cold winter. The party in power when the lights go out will be out of government for a generation.
JF
I don't understand the idea that our energy supply is insecure if it depends on Gulf countries.
Last time I looked those Gulf countries had no other exports besides oil and gas. Why would they cut off the supply? What would they use for money to buy food?
spoilt ballot paper (none of the above) says a lot more than not voting
But nobody has to give a toss about your spoilt ballot paper. It's a Labour student union win. This week we held the Tories to account over pensions. Last week we held the Tories to account over spin. Next week we're holding them to account over something else.
Meanwhile they ignore you while you applaud yourself.
I would turn out and vote if there were a candidate called "none of the above" and if, should that candidate win, the election had to be rerun with wholly new candidates - meaning none of the same parties could stand again. Needless to say, there's nobody offering this now and we all know why.
it is essential to keep poking at this mantra of "energy security". It is just a away of getting us to accept the rollout of windmills and solar panels.
Given that the UK has am accumulated current account balance of something like 700bn, it is clear that we need clothing security, white goods security etc etc as well as the food and energy security that people suggested earlier. Just think what might happen if China stopped selling toasters and washing-machines to us.
On the other hand, we could always revert to trade as we always have done.
diogenes,
I always thought that when the CAGW scare died down, some reason would to be found to explain the damage done pursuing the craze and justify the scams and taxes and that energy security would fit the bill, allowing the QUANGOs to be renamed and the whole edifice to remain in place with a different justification.
Don't forget that the Large Combustion Plant Directive was originally hatched for the acid rain scare of the 70s. It wasn't repealed and came in handy for the CO2 scare.
@J4R,
I have voted every election, Council, National and European since I became eligible. I regard the vote as something my forebears spilt blood for so it is my duty to vote. As it happens I think that it is also a democratic right not to vote but if you are doing it as a protest then a spoilt paper is better than staying at home with those who don't give a toss, in as much as the politicians watch votes being counted and are ware that the their part of the trough is only available through being voted in.
Do you think a large vote for UKIP or BNP or the Greens doesn't influence the Camerons and Millibands of the world? I'm sure it does they are frightened of change and can see for themselves the Tea Party in America or the effect of Geert Wilders in Holland. The last thing they want is to be out of power with no chance of getting back.
Sandy
A rat overboard will be followed by more in the Conservative Party as behind the scenes Lord Lawson and friends have been softening them up for a long while now.
When the power cuts start all the politicians will face the wrath of the public..
It will have the hilarious consequence of the BBC having to explain to the public that they will have to forego power to save the planet.
When business cannot work on every level as cafes, pubs, builders,factories,offices shut down the media and the politicians will have to face up to what they have done....and blame others.
The BBC et al will feel betrayed by CRU.....and it will be the beginning of the end.
Retirements all round....and a more rational view will come into being.
When perfectly working coal fire power stations are standing idle and we have no power it will be insurrection time.
People fought and died for your RIGHT to vote, which includes your RIGHT to abstain from voting. I would take up arms to protect my right to not vote if a bunch of active citizens decided to make it law that I do.
Spoiling your ballot paper may make you feel as if you're protesting, but if you've ever been at an election count, the person who reads it (flunkey) just drops it in a pile without it registering on them. It's a fantasy that anyone worries about spoilt papers, a delusion to make the disenfranchised feel better.
What they DO worry about is voter turnout. You ballot-spoilers are making them think you've had your say, contributing to the democratic process. Your spoilt paper gets counted in the turnout.
sHx,
"If you refuse to vote, then shut up and put up with what's coming at you, year after year, until you re-enfranchise yourself. Until then you're no different than a slave adds value to their master's holdings but have no will of their own.
Voting is about good citizenship..."
If we had some form of proportional representation then I think you'd have a fair point. (Not that I'm arguing for PR necessarily.)
Am I a good citizen? I neither know nor care. I try to be nice, and to not break the law. I'm better at the latter than the former.