Friday, 17 July 2026
A Litany of False Claims
Robert Bradley Jr. has a useful and interesting MasterResource piece on years of broken "clean energy" promises in the US.
False Optimism, Broken Promises of Wind and Solar Advocates
“… I also know this credit won’t go on forever. It was never meant to, and it shouldn’t…. I have expressed support in the past for a responsible, multi-year phase out of the wind tax credit. But…”
– Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), an original author of the 1992 Production Tax Credit (PTC)
Special government favor has propped up solar power since the 1970s and wind power since the early 1990s. One decade turning into the next, the (not-so) “clean energy” lobby has repeatedly made promises that their technologies are, or soon will be, competitive with electricity generated from natural gas, petroleum, or coal.
Documentation of this failure is well reported here at MasterResource and by the Institute for Energy Research. This particular post reproduces in large part a 2015 piece by the American Energy Alliance (IER), “Wind Fail: 20 Quotes for 30 Years of False Hopes.”
A Litany of False Claims
It turns out that wind promoters like Sen. Grassley and AWEA have long made claims that wind would soon be cost competitive and that the PTC would not be needed forever. Here are of some of their claims over the years:
The whole piece is well worth reading as the optimism is just as false, the promises just as broken here in the UK.
Conclusion
The American Wind Energy Association surely knew in 2015 that their claims about wind being cost competitive were untrue. Without the PTC, no one would build wind turbines. As Warren Buffet said, “On wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
Conclusion
The American Wind Energy Association surely knew in 2015 that their claims about wind being cost competitive were untrue. Without the PTC, no one would build wind turbines. As Warren Buffet said, “On wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
The dirty linen is collected and shamefully hurried away
UK's Burnham will pledge to be 'unashamedly Labour' as party leader
Andy Burnham will promise to be “unashamedly Labour” when he officially becomes the party’s leader on Friday before taking over from Keir Starmer as prime minister next week.
He will say in a speech that his government will have the “courage to fix the big things that politics has neglected” and the “conviction to argue for our plans”.
The former Greater Manchester mayor, who returned to Westminster last month as Makerfield member of parliament (MP), will be confirmed as Labour leader in a special conference and then enter No 10 on Monday.
Monday morning is a strenuous but somehow a glad morning in respectable households of regular habits. The clean linen is brought out in lovely white piles from the linen cupboard and distributed over the house, and the dirty linen is collected and shamefully hurried away and catalogued in a place without honour and thrown pell-mell in baskets and despatched, and then everybody has a sweet sense of relief.
Arnold Bennett - Elsie and the Child (1924)
Thursday, 16 July 2026
An idiot’s guide to promoting “public health” policies
An idiot’s guide to promoting “public health” policies
How to make irrational authoritarian moralism sound like urgent common sense
The Health and Care Committee has published a report calling for yet another slew of anti-obesity policies. After taking “evidence” from such experts as the orthorexic children’s entertainer Chris van Tulleken and some “youth activists” from Jamie Oliver’s front group BiteBack, it has called for a ban on fast food outlets opening near schools, a ban on all outdoor advertising of high fat, sugar or salt (HFSS) food, a ban on companies associated with such foods advertising themselves even if they are not advertising an HFSS product, and a ban on companies which “derive more than a certain proportion of sales from less healthy products from any discussions on the formation of policy on food, diet and obesity prevention.”
The whole piece is well worth reading for the way it eviscerates political delusions of grandeur.
Most parliamentarians are powerless pygmies with delusions of grandeur. Having no answers to the big problems facing the country, they indulge themselves in the displacement politics of petty prohibition. They want to be seen as heroic, so be sure to flatter them by portraying the policy you are proposing as “bold” and “brave”. When the Health Committee proposed a sugar tax in 2015, it subtitled its report “Brave and Bold Action”. Jamie Oliver urged ministers to be “big and bold”. This week’s report from the Health and Social Care Committee uses the words “bold” or “bolder” six times. The first line of the press release calls for “a new, bold approach”. The committee’s chair, Layla Moran, said: “We ask this government to be bold, not to fudge and delay food restrictions.”
How to make irrational authoritarian moralism sound like urgent common sense
The Health and Care Committee has published a report calling for yet another slew of anti-obesity policies. After taking “evidence” from such experts as the orthorexic children’s entertainer Chris van Tulleken and some “youth activists” from Jamie Oliver’s front group BiteBack, it has called for a ban on fast food outlets opening near schools, a ban on all outdoor advertising of high fat, sugar or salt (HFSS) food, a ban on companies associated with such foods advertising themselves even if they are not advertising an HFSS product, and a ban on companies which “derive more than a certain proportion of sales from less healthy products from any discussions on the formation of policy on food, diet and obesity prevention.”
The whole piece is well worth reading for the way it eviscerates political delusions of grandeur.
Most parliamentarians are powerless pygmies with delusions of grandeur. Having no answers to the big problems facing the country, they indulge themselves in the displacement politics of petty prohibition. They want to be seen as heroic, so be sure to flatter them by portraying the policy you are proposing as “bold” and “brave”. When the Health Committee proposed a sugar tax in 2015, it subtitled its report “Brave and Bold Action”. Jamie Oliver urged ministers to be “big and bold”. This week’s report from the Health and Social Care Committee uses the words “bold” or “bolder” six times. The first line of the press release calls for “a new, bold approach”. The committee’s chair, Layla Moran, said: “We ask this government to be bold, not to fudge and delay food restrictions.”
Translating BBC Newspeak
New BBC boss pushes for new 'household levy' to replace licence fee: All would have to pay
levy = tax
Director-general Matt Brittin said he was 'open to all options' to fund the broadcasting giant after it was revealed that licence fee income has dropped by more than £1billion in real terms in the last decade.
open = not open
'We need universality, we need sufficiency,' he added.
need = want
A household levy would mean everyone pays a mandatory fee to the BBC regardless of whether people watch or listen to its programmes. The charge could be levied alongside utility bills, proponents of the idea say.
fee = tax
Director-general Matt Brittin said he was 'open to all options' to fund the broadcasting giant after it was revealed that licence fee income has dropped by more than £1billion in real terms in the last decade.
open = not open
'We need universality, we need sufficiency,' he added.
need = want
A household levy would mean everyone pays a mandatory fee to the BBC regardless of whether people watch or listen to its programmes. The charge could be levied alongside utility bills, proponents of the idea say.
fee = tax
Mr Brittin stressed the need for the BBC to reinvent itself.
reinvent = entrench
And so on - BBC Newspeak, a special survival version.
Wednesday, 15 July 2026
He waxes desperate with imagination
Starmer: I’ve left Britain better than I found it
Sir Keir Starmer has claimed he is leaving Britain in a better state than when he became Prime Minister.
During his final Prime Minister’s Questions today, the outgoing Labour leader said his Government had stabilised the economy, strengthened national security and enhanced the country’s global reputation.
Since winning a landslide victory in the 2024 general election, Sir Keir’s premiership has been blighted by a series of policy about-turns and scandals.
A man who is playing a part is always ultra-anxious and he often overdoes it, because he can never quite release himself from the fear that the person to be deluded must somehow notice what he, the deceiver, so plainly sees, i.e., the deceit.
J.M.W. van der Poorten Schwartz – The Black Box Murder (1889)
J.M.W. van der Poorten Schwartz – The Black Box Murder (1889)
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