Friday
May082015
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Give us this day our Davey toast
May 8, 2015 Climate: Parliament So there was an election yesterday, an event that has been occupying other people rather more than it has me. I'm increasingly of the opinion that the government always gets in.
Still, it's worth surveying the results so far as regards prominent parliamentary participants in the climate change debate. The good news is that Ed Davey is history, while prominent questioners of the climate consensus such as Graham Stringer, Peter Lilley, Owen Paterson and Douglas Carswell have all retained their seats. Caroline Lucas remains, as do fellow members of the climate-very-concerned contingent Zac Goldsmith and Barry Gardiner.
Reader Comments (71)
Headline and first para- + !. :)
Next para-re Davey + 10.
Ed Davey, Minister for changing the global climate, less energy, and court jester has lost his seat........YAY!!!!!!!
Dave with a majority will go all out for fracking. Ed Davey gone Ed Balls gone one Ed to go. He will be gone by lunch. no Eds are better, MUCH better.
Ed Balls is out - knocking Labour badly.
It looks like the Scottish Scare did it. All of Scotland went SNP with shouts about the hated English, and England responded by all voting Conservative to shore up their defences. Last time the Scots invaded in 1745 they got as far as Derby...
I have authorised that the crew takes a 5 day furlough on the Pleasure Planet of Gamma Prime to celebrate!
As driver of the climate change act it would be nice to see Milliband given the boot. I'm please to see Galloway getting the boot... nothing to do with climate, he's just an arse.
Interesting times.
With the strong regional split more federal devolution could be in the air.
I suggest that we allow Scotland's energy supply to be run locally. North England could do with more manufacturing industry, and this would be the quickest way to arrange it....
Climate and energy were not the issue in this election.
It was all about the end of the UK.
And both Scotland and England voted in favour of not wanting the other.
Sigh.
Peter Lilley for Energy Minister
The loss of Ed Davey can only be good news. Perhaps the next Minister for Energy may take a more rational approach, although I wouldn't bet on it.
Still reminding him that previous loonies Ed Millibrain, Huhne, Davey have all gone into the political dustbin might help make sanity more popular.
I'm sure the strategy of the new energy minister will be one of greater pragmatism, which is dearly needed, and basically trying to keep the environment off the front pages of the news - ie being pretty quiet about what is actually done.
NEWS...Ed Davey selected for House of Lords ..and will continue as Energy Minister
..... and then you woke up .just a bad dream
I guess Paterson won't be back. Would he want to?
Abc, quite possibly if they've got any brains. The state of our energy system is a bit like Russian roulette, where each government hopes they're not holding it when it explodes. There are now more full chambers in the gun than empty.
Potato Ed has gone. His legacy will remain. But to be fair it's just as much Dim Dave's. And his dim wife's.
Continuing de-industrialisation and economic decline for the next forty years or so with industry (and us) paying two or three times as much for electricity as our competitors overseas.
I have made a light-hearted prediction about the future of DECC under the coming administration "DECC as Parrot" (h/t Jonathan Jones for the title).
his constituency vote stats Owen Paterson 51%, Labour Party20%, UKIP 18%
This is interesting : Matt Ridley's sister, Rose, married Paterson in 1980
The key issue with our energy system is that it is integral to the settlement with the SNP. Recently, Sturgeon demanded preferential access to English markets for Scots' wind power, including subsidised grid connections. SSE has demanded financial help to replace Longannet power station, 60% of Scots' base load power.
Sturgeon wants those earnings to offset the £7.6 billion loss to the Scots' Treasury, However, England cannot accept being a milch cow for the Nats. There has to be someone highly technological who can be at the centre of those negotiations to prevent dumb Cameron being outmanoeuvred by Salmond and Sturgeon under the Green Banner.
The solution is ready for England; mass deployment of domestic CHP whilst gaining 40% fuel savings compared with now for that 10 GW plus about 4 GW close coupled solar. To accept the Scots' wind power can only be done by them investing £60 billion in pump storage, perhaps via the World Bank.
Election results confound political experts.
Earth's climate continues to confound climate experts.
Gaia puts a curse on 'Climate Change' ministers.
Ed Miliband - Dead Man Talking
Chris Huhne - Jailed Man Lying
Ed Davey - 'Will you take fries with that'
Don't mess with her!
3 failed Eds, are better than 1
I think you're all being rather unkind to that nice Mr. Davey.
After all, he managed to ensure there was absolutely no global warming during his period of tenure. Quite an achievement, that – controlling the world's climate from an office in Whitehall. If only all government ministers could be as effective.
I understand ed davey is very despondent, and is presently trying to drown himself.
By standing on a wet pavement.
No Ed Davey, No Ed Balls, Ed Milliplonk gone by lunch.
No Eds are better than one, MUCH better.
Presumably Ed Balls is wondering why even his own constituents did not trust him to take control of their credit cards.
Unfortunately we'll probably hear more from Davey now, not less:
Regular columns in The Guardian, a well-thumbed card in the BBC Interviewee Rolodex, juicy mouthpiece roles in a few green blob organizations and, more quietly, a snout in a trough or two as director/advisor to companies scooping up government subsidies for "green" technology. All the time becoming more strident than he would get away with as a minister.
Ed Davey will pop up as director of several renewable energy companies, just before they all fold. Any bets which ones? Ecotricity?
Just goes to show that you can win an election without the green crap, though I see the global warming party retained all their seats at the BBC.
This was a result that got me out of my seat screaming YES!
Couldn't have happened to a more deserving person.
Phillip Bratby, he will probably end up chairing several renewable energy companies, selling non existent power to each other, but highly profitable, through tax payer funded subsidies. He will be hailed as an expert, in making money, for nothing, out of Fresh Air.*
*Freshness of air NOT dependent on CO2 ppm , which may vary up and down, independent of temperature, for reasons no one understands.
I accept that Ed Davey will 'pop up' at some green NGO or in some fat job at a renewable firm, has that is effectively what he has been lining up for some time , so gone but still sucking at the tac payers tit if only on the side.
Huppert's gone too, and that can't be bad.
Davey lamped.
Wayne Rooney will be relieved that no one mistakes him for that idiot off the telly anymore.
[Snip = raise the tone please]
[Snip - ditto]
Thanks to all who voted for the parties not supported by 'not impressed'.
In his resignation speech, Nick Clegg stated that, after his involvement in the coalition, he leaves Britain a 'greener' place....
Er, no, Nick - its just got more bloody windmills and solar farms..
sherlock1, and those windmills and solar farms are not biodegradable, renewable, or reliable. Waste generation is the great green achievement.
Sherlock..
And less coal...
NCC
"SSE has demanded financial help to replace Longannet power station, 60% of Scots' base load power."
In fact SSE reminded us that 150m extra green taxes for Longannet had already been grabbed by the Treasury in addition to the 40m extra grid charges that, mysteriously, the English stations don't get charged. Sturgeon objected to this just like she objected to Osborne's extra offshore taxes that banjaxed the oil industry long before the oil price drop and indeed all other Westminster-Tory taxes that affect Scotland more than anywhere else. And all this to pay for tax cuts to the super-rich in London. Like all little Englanders, facts elude you.
Actually, Dodgy Geezer, I don't see why Cameron should do anything more for Scotland - it isn't as though the SNP can grow any more (they have 56 of 59 Scottish seats) and it seems that the one thing that can get a Conservative majority is the threat of the SNP holding a gun to a Labour government's head.
What robbed Cameron of a majority last time was the Lib Dem vote - if you look at the actual number of votes the only parties to have changed much were the Lib Dems dropping and UKIP going up. Probably not the same people, but the anti-EU conservatives who went UKIP were - effectively - balanced by the centre-right liberals who did not want to have Nicola Sturgeon pulling Ed Milliband's strings.
The question will be what about the next election in 5 years time. Will the EU issue lose more conservative voters to UKIP? If so, Cameron might still need the SNP as a bogeyman to keep the middle ground loyal. There really is nothing to be gained by pandering to the SNP (who actually seem rather nasty and bullying, to be honest, and I hope they are not rewarded for this behaviour) and there is little more autonomy he can give them without full independence anyway. I can't see the Conservatives ever giving up on the Union, but neither will they ever win enough seats in Scotland to make up for losses in the rest of the country.
@JamesG: the real argument is different. The transmission charges were set fairly, according to line length. If Scots benefits' seekers who voted SNP to replace N Sea oil by wind power to rip off English benefits' seekers when the real beneficiaries would be the 200 businessmen who bankrolled Salmond, they will rapidly learn the true cost of a National Socialist Party in thrall to Corporate interests.
This is the key to this new politics. The plan for England will be to extricate the population from control by subsidy farmers. Sturgeon's greyhound won't even leave the trap; she's been rumbled. The Scots Power Grid is failing because the Nats have carpeted the Highlands with useless windmills and it's their own fault. Phase switches at the border; soon.
Sorry, but your chip is showing.
Last one out of Scotland, won't need to turn off the lights.
If Scotland can flush the green crap out of Scottish politics, I genuinely wish them well. I understand that the Scots are fed up with Westminster, I think most UK residents are.
The Arab Spring promised so much, because they had freed themselves. It didn't turn out nice.
Churchill delivered an amazing military victory 70 years ago, but the British public voted him out.
I do not know what, if anything, Sturgeon has promised, but expectations and hope are very high, and you can only get away with blaming everybody else, whilst the euphoria lasts. Then the infighting starts, and it gets nasty.
NCC
Well I see how this goes; something is unfair if it benefits Scotland but fair if it disadvantages Scotland. Why of course!
"Scottish generators account for around 12% of the capacity connected to Britain’s high-voltage electricity network, but pay around 35% of the charges". "If Longannet was located in the London area, the station would receive a fee of £4 million per year to stay connected". So the length of the lines is obviously not the only determinant. Notwithstanding that the lines were built long ago and were taxpayer funded in the first place so National Grid got them free. They should effing well be renting them from the taxpayer!
Mike Jackson
Apart from the 2 glaring examples I gave you already, it is blindingly obvious that certain costs are disproportionately greater for a sparsely populated area. eg. If you pay more for fuel then you pay more fuel duty. "In 2011/12, Scotland contributed £56.9 billion in tax revenue to the UK including a geographic share of North Sea oil. This is the equivalent of £10,700 per person and compares to £9,000 per person in the UK as a whole."
ref
http://www.scottishenergynews.com/scottish-energy-minister-seeks-uk-crisis-talks-over-longannet-as-grid-costs-raise-power-black-outs-risk/
https://www.scotreferendum.com/questions/how-much-tax-does-scotland-currently-pay-into-the-uk/
@JamesG: "Well I see how this goes; something is unfair if it benefits Scotland but fair if it disadvantages Scotland. Why of course!"
It's not just a Scotland v England issue. Scotland gets much, much more than its fair share under the Barnett Formula, and it is primarily Wales and Northern Ireland, not England, that are being disadvantaged and suffering as result. As Mike Jackson says "your chip is showing."
Barnett formula actually least generous to England, most generous to N Ireland
2012–13 Total identifiable expenditure on services by country (£/head)
UK av £8,788
England £8,529 (97.1% of av)
Scotland £10,152 (115.5)
Wales £9,709 (110.5)
N Ireland £10,876 (123.8)
Dodgy Geezer:
It looks like the Scottish Scare did it. All of Scotland went SNP with shouts about the hated English, and England responded by all voting Conservative to shore up their defences. Last time the Scots invaded in 1745 they got as far as Derby...
Just wait till Cameroon throws them the right to raise income tax in Scotland and see how quickly 'the Highlanders' will retreat from the SNP (as they did from Derby!), when they discover how expensive it is to have free tuition, old age care, haggises etc. which seemed oh so 'progressive' when paid for by the English ... Just why is spending more and more of other people's money called 'progressive'?
@Pharos,2012–13 "Total identifiable expenditure on services by country 8:14pm: "
Two-year old stats, and the key word is TOTAL.